Experience and Value

Experience and Value: Essays on John Dewey and Pragmatic Naturalism brings together twelve philosophical essays spanning the career of noted Dewey scholar, S. Morris Eames. The volume includes both critiques and interpretations of important issues in John Dewey’s value theory as well as the application of Eames’s pragmatic naturalism in addressing contemporary problems in social theory, education, and religion.

The collection begins with a discussion of the underlying principles of Dewey’s pragmatic naturalism, including the concepts of nature, experience, and philosophic method. Essays “Experience and Philosophical Method in John Dewey” and “Primary Experience in the Philosophy of John Dewey” develop what Eames believed to be a central theme in Dewey’s thought and provide a theoretical framework for subsequent discussion.

The volume continues with specific applications of this framework in the areas of value theory, moral theory, social philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. Eames’s analysis of value exposes the connection between the immediately felt values of experience and the more sophisticated judgments of value that are the product of reflection. From this basis in moral theory, Eames considers the derivation of judgments of obligation from judgments of fact. This discussion provides a grounding for a consideration of contemporary social issues directed by naturalistic and scientific principles.

In the third section, with regard to educational theory, Eames considers possible resolutions of the current dichotomy between the factual worldview of science and the humanistic worldview of the liberal arts. The comprehensive article, “Dewey’s Views of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness,” connects the essays of the first and second sections and explores the placement of Dewey’s value theory with respect to morals and aesthetics. With “Creativity and Democracy,” in the fourth section, Eames also considers the concept of democracy from the standpoint of current and historical issues faced by society. This article hints at a major project of Eames’s intellectual life—the theory of democracy.

The volume concludes with a discussion of the difficulty of maintaining the values of religious experience in a scientifically and technologically sophisticated world, the very topic that first brought Eames to philosophy—the meaning of religion and the religious life. Suggested solutions are offered in “The Lost Individual and Religious Unity.”

Experience and Value: Essays on John Dewey and Pragmatic Naturalism illuminates Eames’ life of inquiry, a life that included moral, social, aesthetic, and religious dimensions of value—all suffused with the influence of John Dewey.

S. Morris Eames was a longtime professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and an internationally known scholar of American philosophy. Eames authored over one hundred articles, reviews, and poems, and his book Pragmatic Naturalism: An Introduction has been translated into four languages. With Elizabeth R. Eames, he is also the author of Lectures in the Far East, the results of an extended speaking tour in 1972.Elizabeth R. Eames, wife of S. Morris Eames, was a professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University Carbondale from 1963 until her retirement in 1990 when she obtained the title of emeritus professor. She is the author of Bertrand Russell’s Theory of Knowledge and Bertrand Russell’s Dialogue with His Contemporaries. Richard W. Field is an assistant professor in the history, humanities, and philosophy department at Northwest Missouri State University. He received his Ph.D. under the direction of S. Morris Eames in 1987 and has been associated for several years with the work of the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

“As a commentator on the thought of John Dewey, Eames is in the top rank. He cites the most salient criticisms of Dewey’s metaphysics and epistemology and then addresses them directly and wisely. Paradoxically, though written decades ago, the issues raised in these essays are those which are now under consideration. Frankly, I believe that both the criticisms and Eames’s replies are more cogent and helpful than much of contemporary Dewey scholarship. Further, Eames’s moral and aesthetic sensibility is as welcome in his prose as it was in his person for those of us who knew and admired him.”—John J. McDermott, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Texas AM University

“The problem of restoring integration and cooperation between man’s beliefs about the world in which he lives and his beliefs about values and purposes that should direct his conduct is the deepest problem of modern life. It is the problem of any philosophy that is not isolated from that life.”

—John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty

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