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Pragmatism and Activity Theory: Is Dewey's Philosophy A Outlines • No. 2 • 2006 3 Reijo Miettinen Pragmatism and activity theory: IsDewey’sphilosophya philosophy of cultural retooling? Summary philosophy of cultural development or cultural A philosopher of education, Jim Garrison, has sug- retooling. He thinks that Dewey’s philosophy gested that John Dewey’s philosophy is a philosophy owes much to the everyday experience of of cultural retooling and that Dewey adopted both his working, where labor and tools are as impor- conception of work and the idea of tool as “a middle term between subject and object” from Hegel. This tant as language. According to him, Dewey’s interpretation raises the question of what the relation- epistemology or logic of experience “bears a ship of the idea of cultural retooling in Dewey’s work remarkable resemblance to Hegel’s dialectics is to his naturalism and to his allegiance to Darwinian of labour, tools and language” and Dewey’s biological functionalism. To deal with this problem, concept of ends-means dialectics parallels this paper analyzes how the idea of cultural retooling is Hegel’s concept of tool as “a middle term be- elaborated in Dewey’s logic and in his theory of reflec- tween subject and object”(1995, 88). tive thinking and compares it to the concept of retooling in Vygotsky and activity theory. Dewey does recognize Garrison’s reconstruction is interesting in the significance of tools in human practice and the role at least two senses. First, it differs from most of language in the formation of meaning. However, in of the interpretations of Dewey’s naturalism his theory of thinking and problem solving, he primarily and from the accounts of how Hegel influ- resorts to the biological or ecological language of the enced Dewey’s philosophy. Garrison argues organism–environment, in which the concepts of habit in the paper against the interpretation made by and situation play a central role. It is argued that this language does not deal with the functions and relation- Richard Rorty (1982, 1998), who suggests that ships of different kinds of tools and artifacts in changes Dewey was not consequent enough in his uses of activity nor supply satisfactory means of analyzing of Hegel. According to Rorty, Dewey remained the historical, institutionalized and cultural dimensions in his naturalism stuck with the idea of contin- of human activity. uation between lower and higher organisms, and had not managed to appreciate the spe- cifically human experience based on the use of language. In Rorty’s mind, Dewey should Introduction have been Hegelian all along instead of com- In his paper Dewey's Philosophy and the bining his legacy with Darwinian evolutionary Experience of Working: Labour, Tool and thought. Garrison rejects this critique and in- Language, Jim Garrison (1995, 99) suggests terprets Dewey’s philosophy as a philosophy that Dewey’s philosophy of reconstruction is a of cultural development or cultural retooling. Pragmatism and activity theory: Is Dewey's philosophy … • Reijo Miettinen 4 In this paper, I will deal with these two evolved in activity.2 It is, therefore, fruitful to interpretations to discuss the problem of the analyze the two traditions as different but in relationship between biological functionalism many respects complementary, rather than mu- and culture in Dewey’s theory and in the study tually excluding alternative theories of human of human conduct more generally. The debate activity (Miettinen 2006). is a good introduction to the question of what The exclusive focus on the differences kind of concepts and languages are needed to between social ontologies does not stimulate make sense of both the embodied and situ- useful comparisons of nor dialogue between ated (or ecological), and on the other hand, theoretical traditions. It may lead to what Par- the distributed, cultural-historical, semiotic tric Baert (2005,154) recently called an onto- and institutional nature of human activity and logical fallacy, an idea that methodological knowledge. questions can be reduced to ontology. Baert The second issue raised by Garrison’s rightly, in my mind, suggests that methodol- paper is the relationship between Deweyan ogy also depends on the aims and objects of pragmatism and cultural-historical activity research. It is important for researchers to be theory. Similarities and differences between aware of their ontological commitments, but in the two traditions have recently been discussed addition, problem-specific intermediary con- by several authors (Garrison 2001, Glassman cepts and reflection on the unit of analysis as 2001, Miettinen 2001, Prawatt 1999). In his well as on the methods and data of empirical paper published in Mind, Culture and Activity research are needed. They cannot be derived (2001), Garrison suggests that activity theory from the ontological commitments alone.3 is, in making a distinction between internal Several theoretical communalities be- and external, a dualist approach, and suggests tween pragmatism and activity theory (and that Dewey’s concept of transactional func- the Marxist theory of practice behind it) have tional coordination constitutes an alternative been suggested. Both appreciate context over foundation for a theory of human activity.1 In foundation (Gavin 1988). Both recognize the my comment I (Miettinen 2001) disagreed. In primacy of the idea of practical activity and the my understanding, the concept of mediation changing nature of reality instead of trying to activity implies the idea of a transaction or study fixed permanent essences in the world. reciprocal causal interaction: subjects, means And both are committed to the practical trans- and object are interactively constituted or co- formation of the world. As to the last point, William James characterized the pragmatist method “as an indication of the ways of which existing realities can be changed” (1907, 45), 1 In the book collaborated on with Arthur Bentley (1946), Dewey made a distinction between self-action, interac- and Dewey underlined the importance of clari- tion and transaction redefined within the concept of fying the meaning of philosophical concepts organic interaction (organism-environment interaction) as transaction. They defined interaction as something thathappensbetweenentitiesthathaveafixedandin- dependent existence, whereas only transaction is a truly 2 Foractivitytheoryahumansubjectisemergingand relational understanding of reality; entities emerge as relational(anensembleofsocialrelationships,asde- a result of their transactions or are functional units finedbyMarx),andanobjectofactivityisalwaysa thatgaintheircharacterfromtheroletheyplayinthe transitional object. transaction (Dewey & Bentley 1949/1989, 96-130), for 3 Thisproblemcanalsobeformulatedbyaskinghowa ashortaccountseeBernstein 1967,80-86,Garrison transactionist ontology contributes to an experimen- 2001,285-289.Therelationalmaterialismofactornet- tal social method (Dewey 1927/1988, 360) or to the work theory with its principle of generalized symmetry question of practical reformation of social conditions resembles this conception (see Miettinen 1999). (ibid, 367). Outlines • No. 2 • 2006 5 as “programs of behavior for modifying the Rorty’s critique of Dewey existent world” (1916/1985, 312). This gave and Garrison’s counterargument Russell (1951) reason to compare Dewey’s concept of action to Marx’s concept of praxis suggesting that Dewey’s as defined in the 11th Thesis on Feuerbach in philosophy is a philosophy which Marx states that the task of philosophy of cultural retooling is to change the world. In the Vygotskian and the activity theoretical traditions, the idea of Garrison starts his paper by reconstructing advancing individual and social development the critique given in Richard Rorty’s essay on by instruction or by developmental interven- Dewey’s metaphysics (1982). Rorty resorts in tions has been central. his essay to the well-known announcement that Besides such general communalities, Dewey made in 1949. In the new introduction there are also differences between these two to his major metaphysical work Experience theories. Stimulated by Garrison’s paper on and Nature (1925), Dewey said that had he Dewey’s theory of cultural retooling, I will an opportunity “to write or rewrite the book discuss in this paper two of those differences. today” he would have selected the concept of The first is the role of tool and retooling in culture instead of nature (Dewey 1988, 361). Dewey’s theory compared to the concept of Rorty (1982) thinks this is what Dewey should retooling in Vygotsky and activity theory. The have done but did not do in his philosophy of second difference concerns how context is un- experience. Rorty agrees with George Santa- derstood in studying and inducing change in na’s critique of Dewey’s 'empirical naturalistic human activities. metaphysics' in which Dewey suggests that an In what follows, I will first outline an ac- empirical method is needed to transcend sub- count of Garrison’s debate with Rorty and ject-object dualism (Dewey 1925/1988, 19): his interpretation of Dewey’s philosophy as “The empirical method is the only method a philosophy of cultural retooling. Second, which can do justice to this inclusive integri- to discuss the significance of retooling and ty of “experience.” It alone takes this integrat- the nature of context in Dewey, I will exam- ed unity as the starting point for philosophic ine two basic concepts in Dewey’s theory of thought.” Rorty comments (1982, 81): inquiry or reflective thought, namely habit … no
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