Dewey, Maslow, and Consummatory Experience

Abstract

John Dewey and Abraham Maslow do not hold similar philosophies. Dewey is a thorough-going pragmatist, while Maslow might be described as a naturalistic realist. Both place great reliance and faith in science as it bears on the problems of men and society, and a study of their writing reveals some notable similarities of thought and considerable similarity in outcomes. The most striking of these is their analysis of the best and highest in experience. Dewey's approach is through an examination of experience in general culminating in the aesthetic experience; Maslow's, through a study of human nature and psychology culminating in his examination of the peak experience. One throws light on the other, and both deal similarly with this important phase of human experience. Educators, at least practicing ones, have not been overly concerned with the place of the consummatory in the schools. It is understandable, perhaps, that they are too often bogged down with the everyday, the mundane, the troublesome. But they have exhibited an overriding preoccupation with the cognitive. Schools do not often admit the transcendent, the ineffable. If these aspects of experience are to be admitted, it behooves us first of all to explicate what these mean, to examine their characteristics.