The Necessity of Experience

Primary experience, gained through the senses, is our most basic way of understanding reality and learning for ourselves. Our culture, however, favors the indirect knowledge gained from secondary experience, in which information is selected, modified, packaged, and presented to us by others. In this controversial book, Edward S. Reed warns that secondhand experience has become so dominant in our technological workplaces, schools, and even homes that primary experience is endangered. Reed calls for a better balance between firsthand and secondhand experience, particularly in our social institutions. He contends that without opportunities to learn directly, we become less likely to think and feel for ourselves.

Since the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, Western epistemological tradition has rejected primary experience in favor of the abstractions of secondhand experience. Building on James Gibson's concept of ecological psychology, Reed offers a spirited defense of the reality and significance of ordinary experience against both modernist and postmodernist critics. He expands on the radical critiques of work, education, and art begun by William Morris and John Dewey, offering an alternative vision of meaningful learning that places greater emphasis on unmediated experience, and he outlines the psychological, cultural, and intellectual conditions that will be needed to foster that crucial change.

Reed (Encountering the World, Oxford Univ., 1996) indicts much of modern thought for ignoring everyday experience. Contrary to what Descartes and his many successors have argued, we are not trapped within our own minds. Quite the contrary, we interact directly with the real world, a vital truth that the pragmatists William James and John Dewey emphasized. In developing his case, Reed makes effective use of the ecological view of perception championed by psychologist James Gibson. For the author, the direct nature of perception is not an arcane issue of epistemology. The position he champions has social implications. In particular, Reed thinks the division of labor cuts workers off from adequate contact with the world. Surprisingly, he does not make use of Dewey's Art as Experience. Nevertheless, this excellent book is highly recommended.
David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., Ohio
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.