Footnote rdc1

rdc1. John Dewey combined the influences of Hegel and Darwin in his brand of pragmatism, a "practical" philosophy of relative truth.

Hegel’s synthesis of subject and object, matter and spirit, the divine and the human, was, however, no mere intellectual formula; it operated as an immense release, a liberation. Hegel’s treatment of human culture, of institutions and the arts, involved the same dissolution of hard-and-fast dividing walls, and had a special attraction for me.

“From Absolutism to Experimentalism” (1930)
in John Dewey's, The Later Works, 1925–1953, V5 (1981)

To someone raised in the strict, pious individualism of New England Congregationalism, an apparent call to "be human" and not only spiritual would no doubt have had great appeal.

According to David Hildebrand and Edward N. Zalta,

Dewey’s pragmatism . . .  may be understood as a critique and reconstruction of philosophy within the larger ambit of a Darwinian worldview. Following James’ lead, Dewey argued that philosophy had become an overly technical and intellectualistic discipline, divorced from assessing the social conditions and values dominating everyday life . . .  He sought to reconnect philosophy with the mission of education-for-living (philosophy as “the general theory of education”), a form of social criticism at the most general level, or “criticism of criticisms.”

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/dewey/

 

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