Experience & Nature Centennial

Celebrating 100 Years of Experience & Nature

This year marks the centennial anniversary of the publication of John Dewey’s magisterial work, Experience and Nature. In advance of the upcoming 2025 conference, the Center for Dewey Studies has developed  a helpful reading guide for Experience and Nature aimed at new readers, including those who may be less familiar with Dewey's philosophy, as well as returning readers seeking deeper engagement with the book.

Globally, Dewey remains one of the most well-known American public intellectuals, influential not only in philosophy, but in many other areas, especially in the fields of education and democratic theory. In recent decades, Dewey’s significance within the field of philosophy has been reassessed, with several prominent mainstream philosophers urging the importance of his ideas. Our current context is an important moment for the study and application of Dewey's ideas. 

Experience and Nature is one of the most important of Dewey’s mature works, providing the definitive statement of Dewey’s “empirical naturalism” or “naturalistic empiricism.” Though long an object of study among Dewey scholars, its significance for contemporary philosophy is still under-appreciated. The book focuses on philosophical method, the metaphysics of nature, and the philosophy of mind; it also situates Dewey’s theories of knowledge, meaning, aesthetics, and value within this broader metaphysical naturalist picture. The book has much to offer contemporary discussions in metametaphysics, non-reductive naturalism, epistemology and philosophy of science, and embodied and sociocultural theories of mind and cognition. 

The Center for Dewey Studies will be hosting a conference celebrating this Centennial in October 2025. The goal of the conference is to bring together Dewey scholars, contemporary philosophers explicitly inspired by Dewey, and other philosophers working on topics relevant to the book. We will invite four keynote speakers that cover this range of approaches to explore the interpretation and contemporary relevance of Experience and Nature. This event will be the capstone on a year of efforts by the Center for Dewey Studies in celebration of the Centennial, including the free publication of a guide for reading groups and a series of video lectures on the book.