John Dewey: Was the Inventor of Instrumentalism Himself an Instrumentalist?

Abstract

In discussing instrumentalism in philosophy of science, John Dewey is rarely studied but rather mentioned in passing to credit him for coining the label. His instrumentalism is often interpreted as the view that science is an instrument designed to control the environment and satisfy our practical ends or likened to the Duhemian view that scientific objects are useful fictions for organizing observable phenomena. Dewey was careful to qualify the first view and denied holding the second. Furthermore, the observable-unobservable distinction does not play any significant role in Dewey’s instrumentalism. The question then arises: Was the inventor of instrumentalism himself an instrumentalist? I present the key aspects of Dewey’s instrumentalism and contrast his views with the instrumentalism of Mach, Duhem, and Poincaré. Dewey’s epistemological instrumentalism is global and not local; nevertheless, it is fallibilist and optimistic rather than skeptical and pessimistic. Dewey’s ontological instrumentalism concerns the nature of scientific objects, regardless of whether they are observable or unobservable, and is fully compatible with realism about atoms or electrons. Dewey’s practical instrumentalism holds that because science provides understanding of the workings of nature rather than an exhaustive picture of reality, it is the best instrument we have for the enrichment of experience.