Deep Pantheism: Toward a New Transcendentalism by Corrington Robert S

Author:Corrington, Robert S. [Corrington, Robert S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2015-12-09T05:00:00+00:00

As he says elsewhere, “experience is in and of nature” and has its habitat in the “mother” that is the container of all (like the Platonic chora ). If Santayana embraces a special form of Platonism in his realm of essences, Dewey is closer to Aristotle on the relationships between matter and form. For Dewey there is no special realm of non-effective and powerless essences entertained by an equally powerless spirit. So-called “essences” are more like recurrent instrumental traits in nature that have power and generic sweep. They are never in an a-temporal world of pure contemplation.

The basic model for Dewey’s interactionalism is that of the organism/environment transaction within nature. Here the organism struggles to stabilize its experiences and actions within an environment that owes it no favors, but is also ripe with possibilities. Experience is alert and vital and is always willing to modify the environment to bring about its own ends:

Experience in the degree in which it is experience is heightened vitality. Instead of signifying being shut up within one’s own private feelings and sensations, it signifies active and alert commerce with the world; at its height it signifies complete interpenetration of self and the world of objects and events. Instead of signifying surrender to caprice and disorder, it affords our sole demonstration of a stability that is not stagnation but is rhythmic and developing. Because experience is the fulfillment of an organism and its struggles and achievements in a world of things, it is art in germ. Even in its rudimentary forms it contains the promise of that delightful perception which is aesthetic experience. (p. 25)

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