The sentience of animals in John Dewey's organic naturalism.
History and philosophy of the life sciences July 8, 2026 John R Shook
John Dewey's 1925 work 'Experience and Nature' proposed that sentience evolved naturally from biological beginnings, a view he called zoopsychism—affective sentience across the animal world. This naturalistic account has been largely overlooked by philosophy, psychology, and animal research, yet those disciplines may now be converging on minimum expectations for sentient learning and behavior that Dewey already defended. Dewey argued that cognitive conduct cannot be understood through outer behavioral adjustments or inner physiological operations alone; their organized coordination within environing conditions is the minimum situation for scientific investigation. An organism perpetually engages its environs through sensings, doings, and energizations to sustain itself. Hard dilemmas about demoting feeling or banishing experience from nature dissolve when vitality's own qualities are empirically respected.