The sceptical and positivistic results of Dewey's treatment of knowledge are set forth in an article entitled "Some Implications of Anti-Intellectualism," published in the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, in 1910.[225] This was not included in the volume of collected essays published in the same year, but may be regarded as of some importance.
After some comments on current anti-intellectualistic tendencies, Dewey proceeds to distinguish his own anti-intellectualism from that of others. This type "starts from acts, functions, as primary data, functions both biological and social in character; from organic responses, readjustments. It treats the knowledge standpoint, in all its patterns, structures, and purposes, as evolving out of, and operating in the interests of, the guidance and enrichment of these primary functions. The vice of intellectualism from this standpoint is not in making of logical relations and functions in and for knowledge, but in a false abstraction of knowledge (and the logical) from its working context."[226]
The manner in which this exaltation of the "primary" functions at the expense of knowledge affects philosophy is indicated in the following passage: "Philosophy is itself a mode of knowing, and of knowing wherein reflective thinking is much in play.... As a mode of knowledge, it arises, like any intellectual undertaking, out of certain typical perplexities and conflicts of behavior, and its purpose is to help straighten these out. Philosophy may indeed render things more intelligible or give greater insight into existence; but these considerations are subject to the final criterion of what it means to acquire insight and to make things intelligible, i. e., namely, service of special purposes in behavior, and limit by the special problems in which the need of insight arises. This is not to say that instrumentalism is merely a methodology or an epistemology preliminary to more ultimate philosophic or metaphysical inquiries, for it involves the doctrine that the origin, structure, and purpose of knowing are such as to render nugatory any wholesale inquiries into the nature of Being."[227]
In the last analysis, this appears to be a confession, rather than an argument. It is the inevitable outcome of the functional analysis of intelligence. Thought is this organ, with these functions, and is capable of so much and no more. The limit to its capacity is set by the description of its nature. The nature of the functionalistic limitation of thought is well expressed in the words 'special' and 'specific.' Since thought is the servant of the 'primary' modes of experience, it can only deal with the problems set for it by preceding non-reflective processes. These problems are 'specific' because they are concrete problems of action, and are concerned with particular aspects of the environment. Dewey's formidable positivism would vanish at once, however, if his special psychology of the thought-process should be found untenable. Thought is limited, according to Dewey, because it is a very special form of activity, operating occasionally in the interest of the direct modes of experiencing.
Probably every philosopher recognizes that speculation cannot be allowed to run wild. Some problems are worth while, others are artificial and trivial, and some means must be found for separating the sound and substantial from the tawdry and sentimental. The question is, however, whether Dewey's psychology furnishes a ground for such distinctions. Again, it should be noted that, in spite of the limitations placed upon thought by its very nature, as described by Dewey, certain philosophers, by his own confession, are guilty of "wholesale inquiries into the nature of Being." If thought can deal only with specific problems, then there can be no question as to whether philosophy ought to be metaphysical. It is a repetition of the case of psychological versus ethical hedonism.
Modern idealists would resent the imputation that there is any inclination on their part to deny the need for a critical attitude toward the problems and methods of philosophy. Kant's criticism of the 'dogmatists' for their undiscriminating employment of the categories in the interpretation of reality, established an attitude which has been steadily maintained by his philosophical descendants. The idealist, in fact, has accused Dewey of laxity in the criticism of his own methods and presuppositions. The categories of description and natural selection by means of which his functionalism is established, it is argued, are of little service in the sphere of mind. And while Dewey accepts an evolutionary view of reality in general, the idealist has found evolutionism, at least in its biological form, too limited in scope to serve the extensive interests of philosophy. Dewey is right in opposing false problems and fanciful solutions in philosophy; but these evils are to be corrected, not by functional psychology, but by an empirical criticism of each method and each problem as it arises.
It has been seen that, even in these more constructive essays, Dewey's position is largely defined in negatives. What might be expected, then, of the essays which are primarily critical? Perhaps the best answer will be afforded by a close analysis of one or more of them. Idealism, as has been said, receives most of Dewey's attention. There are three essays in The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, which bear directly against idealism. One, "The Intellectualist Criterion of Truth," is directed against Bradley; another, "Experience and Objective Idealism," is a historical discussion of idealistic views. The third, which is broadest in scope, is entitled "Beliefs and Existences." This was originally delivered as the presidential address at the meeting of the American Philosophical Association in December, 1905, and was printed in the Philosophical Review in March, 1906, under the title, "Beliefs and Realities."
Dewey begins with a discussion of the personal and human character of beliefs. "Beliefs," he says, "look both ways, towards persons and towards things.... They form or judge—justify or condemn—the agents who entertain them and who insist upon them.... To believe is to ascribe value, impute meaning, assign import."[228] Beliefs are entertained by persons; by men as individuals and not as professional beings. Because they are essentially human, beliefs issue in action, and have their import in conduct. "That believed better is held to, asserted, affirmed, acted upon.... That believed worse is fled, resisted, transformed into an instrument for the better."[229] Beliefs, then, have a human side; they belong to people, and have a character which is expressed in the conduct to which they lead.
On the other hand, beliefs look towards things. "'Reality' naturally instigates belief. It appraises itself and through this self-appraisal manages its affairs.... It is interpretation; not merely existence aware of itself as fact, but existence discerning, judging itself, approving and disapproving."[230] The vital connection between belief as personal, and as directed upon things, cannot be disregarded. "We cannot keep connection on one side and throw it away on the other. We cannot preserve significance and decline the personal attitude in which it is inscribed and operative...."[231] To take the world as something existing by itself, is to overlook the fact that it is always somebody's world, "and you shall not have completed your metaphysics till you have told whose world is meant and how and what for—in what bias and to what effect."[232]
But philosophers have been guilty of error here. They have thrown aside all consideration of belief as a personal fact in reality, and have taken "an oath of allegiance to Reality, objective, universal, complete; made perhaps of atoms, perhaps of sensations, perhaps of logical meanings."[233] This Reality leaves no place for belief; for belief, as having to do with human adventures, can have no place in a cut and dried cosmos. The search for a world which is eternally fixed in eternal meanings has developed the present wondrous and formidable technique of philosophy.