傳統的 經驗觀에 대한 Dewey의 批判

J. Dewey's Criticism on the Traditional Views of Experience

The purpose of this paper is to examine John Dewey's criticism on the traditional views of experience and the foundation on development of his new experimental theory, which is a bases for understanding his theory of experimental education. Dewey criticizes the traditional empiricism, that is Greek view of experience and the modern view of British Empiricism. The Greek philosophers exemplified by Plato and Aristotle regarded human being as two substances of Logos and Phisis, or Reason and Experience. And the empirical world was excluded from the object of true knowledge because it was related to the practical living. Dewey criticizes their dualism and the narrow view of experience. But he agrees to their ideas that the nature of experience is not cognitive but primarily practical and actual. On the other hand, British Empiricists who were Locke, Berkeley and Hume denied the innate ideas that had been asserted in rationalism. They considered that experience was the only way of acquiring knowledge and it was formed passively by sensation. Dewey criticizes also their Empiricism because they considered experience as pure cognition, leaving out of account its active and practical element. But he agrees that they treated experience as important. After all, Dewey thought that traditional empiricism had the problem in use of experience. Thus, he claims his new Empiricism in which experience includes active-passive element, doing and knowing, acting and thinking. The nature of experience in Dewey is that it includes an active element of 'trying', 'doing' and a passive element of 'undergoing', 'suffering'. Neither mere activity nor mere passivity does not constitute experience. Experience is generated only when the two elements is combined. He thought that the basic principles of experience are the principle of interaction and continuity. The former means that experience comes from as an individual and his environment transact. The latter means that every experience takes up something from the preceding experience and affects subsequent experiences. But the two principles are not separated from each other. They intercept and unite. Dewey's this new empiricism which is founded on the basis of the nature and the two principles of experience is called 'Experimental or Naturalistic Empiricism'.