Abstract

John Dewey’s Experience and Nature is an attempt to draw the metaphysical consequences of modern developments in the natural sciences, particularly Darwinism. Recently, Richard Rorty has criticized Dewey’s metaphysical stance, which he proposes to replace by a more straightforward compromise with historicism. This paper argues that Rorty misreads the meaning of historicism, and fails to make sense of the naturalistic attitude expressed in Dewey’s metaphysics