In a recent paper regarding WST, Jordan & Vinson (2012) propose that Dewey’s brand of pragmatism represented a rather unique combination of an idealist approach to metaphysics and an epistemic (i.e., pragmatic) approach to science. Specifically, Dewey’s early training as an idealist philosopher led him to reject the objective-subjective, correspondence-driven approach to reality and truth that was prominent in the indirect- and direct-realist versions of naturalism that were emerging during his time. Instead, Dewey believed, as did his idealist, coherentist mentors, that meaning and value were constitutive of reality. In addition, given his coherence- (versus correspondence-) driven metaphysics, Dewey believed that science was a practice that afforded us the opportunity to reveal patterns of contingency within the contexts in which we are embedded. He repeatedly emphasized this epistemic, pragmatic approach to science as a way to challenge the more ontologically minded, metaphysical approach to science that was being espoused by indirect- and direct-realist forms of naturalism:
The search for ‘efficient causes’ instead of for final causes, for extrinsic relations instead of intrinsic forms, constitutes the aim of science. But the search does not signify a quest for reality in contrast with experience of the unreal and phenomenal. It signifies a search for those relations upon which the occurrence of real qualities and values depends, by means of which we can regulate their occurrence. To call existences as they are directly and qualitatively experienced ‘phenomena’ is not to assign to them a metaphysical status. It is to indicate that they set the problem of ascertaining the relations of interaction upon which their occurrence depends. (Dewey 1929, pp. 103-104)
Despite Dewey’s concerns, his unique combination of idealist ontology and scientific pragmatism eventually gave way to what Gardner (2007) refers to as the Hard Naturalism of our time, in which meaning and value are seen as completely unnecessary in a scientific, causal description of reality:
By the time we get to Freud … let alone Quine, naturalism is conceived as resting exclusively on theoretical reason and as immune to non-theoretical attack—it is assumed that nothing could be shown regarding the axiological implications of naturalism that would give us reason to reconsider our commitment to it: we have ceased to think that naturalism is essential for the realization of our interest in value, and do not believe that it would be an option for us to reject naturalism even if it were to prove thoroughly inimical to our value-interests. (p. 24)
Within the contemporary context of Hard Naturalism, pragmatic philosophers such as Richard Shusterman (2008) tend to downplay and even eschew ontology. Specifically, Shusterman asserts that 20th century ontological approaches to the mind and body that were espoused by the likes of William James and Merleau-Ponty actually led us to devalue bodily sensations in the name of developing our rational capacities.
Merleau-Ponty’s commitment to a fixed, universal phenomenological ontology based on primordial perception thus provides further reason for dismissing the value of explicit somatic consciousness. Being more concerned with individual differences and contingencies, with future-looking change and reconstruction, with pluralities of practice that can be used by individuals and groups for improving on primary experience, pragmatism is more receptive to reflective somatic consciousness and its disciplinary uses for philosophy. (Shusterman 2008, p. 66)
Clearly, there are important continuities between the pragmatic philosophies of Dewey and Shusterman (Jordan 2010). Specifically, Shusterman’s focus on practice overlaps with Dewey’s conceptualization of science as a practice as opposed to a tool for metaphysics. In addition, Shusterman’s emphasis on primary experience is consistent with Dewey’s idealist commitment to the reality of experience. The major difference between the two seems to be Shusterman’s lack of interest in, or perhaps outright disdain for metaphysics.
One possible reason for Shusterman’s (2008) lack of interest in metaphysics may be our contemporary commitment to Hard Naturalism. As was stated in the quotation by Gardner (2007), Hard Naturalism seems so implicitly accepted these days, it seems difficult, if even possible, to propose a metaphysics in which value, meaning, and experience are constitutive of reality. Because of its commitment to the reality of experience however, as well as its clear questioning of the indirect- and direct-realism that lie at the core of Hard Naturalism, WST seems perfectly situated to take-up Dewey’s anti-correspondence arguments and place them within a 21st century coherentist framework. Instead of remaining within the centuries-old conceptual framework of mind and body however, as Dewey did, WST takes the philosophical risk of creating a new concept: specifically, embodied context. We say philosophical risk because the notion of embodied context conceptualizes meaning in the exact opposite fashion as Hard Naturalism. Specifically, it renders meaning ubiquitous throughout reality. Given the century of philosophical work that has ultimately led to the Hard Naturalist belief that reality is inherently meaningless, we suspect some might see it as simply silly or heretical to assert that reality is inherently meaningful, through and through. This is why we consider the concept of embodied context risky. Regardless of the risks however, we see WST as a means of getting meaning back into reality. It does so by following the lead of the idealists, particularly Oakeshott (1933), who did not appeal to the a priori, the transcendental, or the absolute, and refused to describe reality in terms of the observer-independent intrinsic properties that ultimately make it difficult, if not logically impossible, for meaning to be constitutive of reality. Within WST’s coherentist perspective, Dewey’s pragmatism is restored as a 21st century framework, and pragmatism, in general, can commit itself to the reality of lived experience in an ontological fashion that does not require justification in relation to Hard Naturalism.
To be sure, there have been those scholars who have attempted to introduce meaning back into Hard Naturalism by referring to it via terms such as emergent and irreducible. Gardner (2007) however, refers to such attempts as Soft Naturalism and states the following:
If, then, it is demonstrated successfully by the soft naturalist that such-and-such a phenomenon is not reducible to the natural facts austerely conceived, this conclusion is not an end of enquiry, but rather a reaffirmation of an explanandum, i.e., a restatement that the phenomenon stands in need of metaphysical explanation. Irreducibility arguments, if successful, yield data that do not interpret or explain themselves, but call for interpretation: the soft naturalist needs to say something on the subject of why there should be, in general, phenomena that have substantial reality, but do not owe it to the hard natural facts. (p. 30)
WST avoids collapsing into Soft Naturalism because it directly challenges the Hard Naturalist assumption of intrinsic, context-independent properties. It does so by asserting that all properties are necessarily context-dependent and thus, inherently meaning-full. In short, meaning is constitutive of reality.