Poor Devils. José Gaos, John Dewey and Meyaphysics Made in USA

Abstract

The purpose of this work is a reconsideration of one of the most relevant and provocative readings of John Dewey written in the Hispanic World. In the first part I reconstruct the circumstances which surrounded the publicity, interpretation and translation of John Dewey’s works in the Mexico of the middle 1940’s, particularly the reasons why the sociological reading of Dewey that José Medina Echavarría proposed was finally displaced by the metaphysic perspective of José Gaos. In the second part I reconsider Gaos’ own translation and interpretation of Experience and Nature, taking in consideration his comparisons with Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit (which he translated in the same period). Finally I analyze critically Gaos’ view of Dewey as a thinker whose philosophy lacked the “diabolical arrogance” that true great philosophy would seem to require.