Marie-Luise Raters

• This article traces the influences which American pragmatist philosophy and Dewey's pragmatist aesthetics in particular received from the various idealist traditions of (a) the English romantic philosopher-poets, (b) Cambridge Hegelians in the vein of Josiah Royce, (c-f) three different generations of Oxford Hegelians, from Bosanquet to Collingwood, and, most directly relevant for Dewey's philosophical development, (g) the late 19th century St. Louis Hegelians William Torrey Harris and George Silvester Morris. Another important influence for Dewey's pragmatism, as well as already for Bosanquet, was Darwinian evolutionary thought with its emphasis on the needs for adaptation. Central points of interest in the development of Dewey's aesthetics which he shared to some degree with the British and American idealists were the concept of aesthetic experience, the cognitive relevance of imaginative experiences and the practical relevance of fine art for developing shared forms of life.