Pragmatist Methodological Relationalism in Sociological Understanding of Evolving Human Culture

Abstract

Among the most significant intellectual contributions made by the classic of pragmatism John Dewey are his presentation of human culture as evolving organism–environment transactions and the related philosophies of community and education. Dewey’s philosophy and methodology are relational all the way down, and without a doubt he can be seen as an eminent pioneer of relational social science. However, although relationalist social theorists today are to some extent drawing on Dewey’s ideas, all too few contemporary social scientists seem aware of Dewey’s role in paving the way for the Darwinian theory of evolution in social sciences. This may partly be explained by the long-standing mistrust of evolutionary theory among social scientists—due to the notoriety of ‘Social Darwinism’, ‘sociobiology’, and any simplistic version of ‘evolutionary psychology’. But unlike crude applications of evolutionary theory, Dewey’s anti-nativist, anti-individualist naturalism of Darwinian origin opens up interesting viewpoints on social life, especially on cultural learning as a cornerstone of modern humanity. In this chapter, methodological relationalism—as opposed to ontological relationalism—brings forth evolution-historically enlightened conceptual tools for social scientific work. The proposed solution revolves in particular around the evolution-theoretically topical notion of ‘niche construction’—a notion which Dewey’s thinking already anticipated.