The Role of Metaphysics in John Dewey's Conception of Philosophy

Towards the end of one of Dewey's famous polemical essays, "The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy," published in 1917 in a cooperative volume entitled Creative Intelligence, there occurs this sentence: "Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men." Twenty-nine years later, towards the end of his life, he published a collection of his essays with the title, Problems of Men. In an essay prepared for that volume he reiterated the theme that philosophers must be concerned with the problems of men, and, again, in the 1948 Introduction to the reprint of Reconstruction in Philosophy he called for a reconstruction of philosophy that it might contribute to the resolution of tensions among men. The theme is a constant one in Dewey's writings on the nature of philosophy, even where the phrase, "problems of men," is not used. Even a cursory reading of the texts in which Dewey refers to the status and nature of philosophy cannot fail to give the impression that Dewey found the estate of philosophy in poor condition, indeed,k and that only a radical revision of its office and methods would save it. Now, one of the most "philosophic" of the problems of philosophers has been the attempt to present a coherent general interpretation of existence, namely, a metaphysics. It would seem, however, that Dewey, in fact, attempted to articulate a metaphysics, especially in his Cerus Lectures, Experience and Nature. If this is so, does it represent a certain reversion to an approach to philosophy he explicitly condemned?...