Title:
“The Greatest (Philosophical) Story E
ver Told”
Abstract:
John Dewey’s E
xperience and Nature (1925) is one of the greatest and most profound p
hilosophical manifestos of all time. Why? Because he provides the most exem
plary model of how philosophy and the sciences can work together collaborat
ively to provide an empirically responsible conception of nature and our hu
man place within it. The result is a naturalistic\, non-reductive\, and plu
ralistic view of mind\, meaning\, thought\, knowledge\, and values that are
compatible with our present state of evolutionary development as well as w
ith our individual development over the course of our lives. Dewey gives us
a this-worldly account of how fallible\, finite human creatures experience
meaning\, inquire intelligently into our problematic lives\, remake our ex
perience for the better\, and find realistic values for the conduct of our
lives.
Bio:
Mark Johnson is the Philip H. Knigh
t Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences\, Emeritus\, in the Department of
Philosophy at the University of Oregon. His research has focused on the phi
losophical implications of the role of human embodiment in meaning\, concep
tualization\, reasoning\, values\, and knowing\, especially from the perspe
ctive of embodied cognition theory and pragmatist philosophy. His recent wo
rk develops a naturalistic account of mind and knowing. He is best known as
co-author\, with George Lakoff\, of Metaphors We Live By (1980) a
nd Philosophy in the Flesh (1999)\, plus nine other books explorin
g the bodily depths of meaning and imagination.