What Heidegger and Dewey Could Learn from Each Other

Abstract

A half century ago Martin Heidegger was seen as a representative of a tradition of modern philosophy alien to the spirit of America. Not only was he a spokesman and sometimes agent for a totalitarian political regime, but his philosophical writings seemed to embody the spirit of irrationalism nurtured in the nest of romanticism and existentialism. Partly this way of looking at Heidegger was shaped by untutored readings of those who were meant to have influenced him, such as Hegel and Nietzsche, and partly it was the product of the academic-political schism between so-called Analytic and so-called Continental philosophy. This divide itself was always more rhetoric than reality, not only because no unifying methodology bound together purveyors of either Continental or Analytic philosophy, but also (and this is more important for our interests here) because the distinction leaves no place for the American Pragmatists. Much of this confusion has been cleared up over the past thirty years. We have new, more sensible readings of Hegel and Nietzsche, American Pragmatism is in the midst of a serious revival, and the sometimes siege, sometimes triumphalist mentality of mainstream, Anglo-American philosophy has given way to a more nuanced receptivity to philosophy written in other languages and traditions. Inspired by all these changes, indeed significantly responsible for them, Richard Rorty has sought to bring the readers of Heidegger and the pragmatists (as well as Wittgenstein) together and align them behind a fundamental thesis that he articulates thus: