James’s and Dewey’s Radical Rationalism

Abstract James and Dewey are often compared and contrasted as pragmatists. They may also be compared and contrasted as radical empiricists. Dewey adapted James’s radical empiricism in new and interesting ways. Dewey’s so-called immediate empiricism integrated James’s realistic empiricism and Peirce’s empirical realism into his own unique post-Hegelian Chicago-functionalist view of experience. This chapter argues that Dewey also promoted a kind of radical rationalism that rounds out and is even implicit in James’s insights regarding the shortcomings of modern epistemology. James’s radical empiricism is encapsulated in a Postulate-Fact-Conclusion formula that he presented in several venues. This chapter presents a parallel Postulate-Fact-Conclusion encapsulation of radical rationalism.