ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how John Dewey developed the socially engaged nature of the pragmatist turn to experience and aims to urge present-day philosophers to take more seriously his criticism of a mode of analysis and theory construction. Although Richard Rorty takes "epistemological behaviorism" as the pragmatist or Deweyan version of knowledge, his equation of holism to "the rules of a language-game" muddles the issue since he immediately qualifies this linguistic limitation. This points out that people also acquire extra linguistic understanding from social and biological events of various kinds, such as "the history of the language, the structure of the brain, the evolution of species, and the political or cultural ambiance of the players". Pragmatic philosophers have the necessary tools and the motivation to put them to work, as is evident in Steven Fesmire's linkage of Dewey's direct valuing of empathy with communication and dialogue.
