The Term “Experience” as a Tool of Inquiry

Abstract:My purpose here is to take seriously Dewey’s insistence that the term “experience” be considered from a methodological, rather than a substantive, point of view. To consider its methodological import we must examine the purpose it served in his overall account of inquiry. As a technical term, Dewey considered “experience” to serve an instrumental function of control. By this he meant that the term was to serve a purpose in aiding us in the description of concrete situations, as well as drawing attention to our use of language. Dewey eventually gave up on the term because, although it was useful up to a point, it no longer served the methodological functions for which he originally adopted it. Three issues will be considered. I will discuss the implications of Dewey’s instrumental approach for the status we should award our “conceptual apparatus,” or use of language terms; show why traditional philosophical methods, which make a priori assumptions about the nature of reality, were inadequate for the analysis of the actual conditions of living, or the individual case; and, finally, examine how the term “experience,” if its meaning were refashioned and considered as a methodological term, could do so and in that way served as a means of control within inquiry. A consideration of the third issue will help us see why the term, viewed as a tool, proved expendable.