Epistemology of experience in E. Husserl's phenomenology and J. Dewey's instrumentalism

Abstract

The themes present in the philosophy of E. Husserl and J. Dewey could hardly lie outside the interest of considering the major contribution both made to Twentieth–century philosophy and intellectual culture. Comparison of their philosophical positions is carried out, as a rule, on the basis of contrasting transcendentalism and empiricism. Unlike the established tradition, the authors of the article draw attention to the substantial commonality of phenomenology and instrumentalism, thematically conditioned by the founders of these teachings working out the problems of the existential nature of human experience, its horizontal structure and semantic context of the life world. Analysis of the epistemological reflection of the concept of "experience" in the teachings of Husserl and Dewey allowed to show, that their positions do not exclude, but complement each other. The paper is devoted to the 160 th Anniversary of John Dewey's Birth (1859-1952), that would be widely celebrated not only in USA and Europe but in Russia, Japan, China and Latin America.