Abstract

This brief essay examines James A. Good’s argument that the Hegel of the young Dewey was functionalist, historicist, instrumentalist, and practicalist—in short, the Hegel of “centrist” Hegelians such as those then active in St. Louis and of contemporary interpreters such as Good himself and Terry Pinkard. Good’s claims are examined in terms of possible conflicts with what is known of William James’s influence on Dewey, and in the light of recently published correspondence in which Dewey comments on the Hegelian “deposit” in his work.