Instrumentalism

Instrumentalism is one of a multitude of modern schools of thought created by scientists and philosophers throughout the 20th century. Its premises and practices were most clearly and persuasively stated by two philosophers—John Dewey (1859-1952) and Karl Popper (1902-1994). Independently, they defined the school quite similarly, but their judgments of it were irreconcilable.Dewey was a practitioner of instrumentalism who, while fearing that the name was easily misunderstood, adopted it for his modernization of tools of induction and his denial of reality behind experience. Popper was a critic who judged its insistence on induction and its denial of reality behind experience to be hopelessly flawed. These contrary judgments endowed the school with an enduring legacy of confusion and ambiguity.This article reports the definition of instrumentalism accepted by these two philosophers. It explains the grounds of their irreconcilable judgments, now embedded in popular understanding of the school. And it describes the practice of followers of each philosopher. The practice demonstrates that neither philosopher's judgments have achieved universal assent, leaving the school's meaning and legitimacy in modern scientific inquiry indeterminate.