Instrumentalism 

Of John Dewey
Dewey joined and gave direction to American pragmatism, which had
been initiated by the logician and philosopher Charles Sanders
Peirce in the mid-19th century and continued into the early 20th
century by William James, among other thinkers. Anticipating Dewey,
James regarded reality as an array of “buzzing” rather than static data,
and he argued that the distinction between mental experience and the
physical world is “messy” rather than pristine. Another theme of early
pragmatism, also adopted by Dewey, was the importance
of experimental inquiry. Peirce, for example, praised the scientific
method’s openness to repeated testing and revision of hypotheses, and
he warned against treating any idea as an infallible reflection of
reality. In general, pragmatists were inspired by the dramatic
advances in science and technology during the 19th century—indeed,
many had formal scientific training and performed experiments in the
natural, physical, or social sciences.