Liberalism and Social Action (Great Books in Philosophy)
(In this, one of Dewey's most accessible works, he surveys...)
In this, one of Dewey's most accessible works, he surveys the history of liberal thought from John Locke to John Stuart Mill, in his search to find the core of liberalism for today's world. While liberals of all stripes have held to some very basic values-liberty, individuality, and the critical use of intelligence-earlier forms of liberalism restricted the state function to protecting its citizens while allowing free reign to socioeconomic forces. But, as society matures, so must liberalism as it reaches out to redefine itself in a world where government must play a role in creating an environment in which citizens can achieve their potential. Dewey's advocacy of a positive role for government-a new liberalism-nevertheless finds him rejecting radical Marxists and fascists who would use violence and revolution rather than democratic methods to aid the citizenry.
(John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, Geo...)
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, Georgist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform.
(Experience and Education is the best concise statement on...)
Experience and Education is the best concise statement on education ever published by John Dewey, the man acknowledged to be the pre-eminent educational theorist of the twentieth century. Written more than two decades after Democracy and Education (Dewey's most comprehensive statement of his position in educational philosophy), this book demonstrates how Dewey reformulated his ideas as a result of his intervening experience with the progressive schools and in the light of the criticisms his theories had received.
Analyzing both "traditional" and "progressive" education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is miseducative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey's ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeped and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive "ism" about education, even such an "ism" as "progressivism." His philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, on that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic.
The School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum (Centennial Publications of The University of Chicago Press)
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This edition brings Dewey's educational theory into sha...)
This edition brings Dewey's educational theory into sharp focus, framing his two classic works by frank assessments, past and present, of the practical applications of Dewey's ideas. In addition to a substantial introduction in which Philip W. Jackson explains why more of Dewey's ideas haven't been put into practice, this edition restores a "lost" chapter, dropped from the book by Dewey in 1915.
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the fathers of functional psychology.
Background
Dewey was born on October 20, 1859, in Burlington, Vermont. His father was a local merchant who loved literature. His mother, swayed by revivals to convert to Congregationalism, possessed a stern moral sense. The community, situated at the economic crossroads of the state, was the home of the state university and possessed a cosmopolitan atmosphere unusual for northern New England. Nearby Irish and French-Canadian settlements acquainted John with other cultures. Boyhood jobs delivering newspapers and working at a lumberyard further extended his knowledge.
Education
At the age of 15 Dewey entered the University of Vermont. He found little of interest in academic work; his best grades were in science, and later he would regard science as the highest manifestation of human intellect. Dewey himself attributed his "intellectual awakening" to T. H. Huxley's college textbook on physiology, which shaped his vision of man as entirely the product of natural evolutionary processes. Courses on psychology, religion, ethics, logic, and economics supplanted his earlier training in languages and science.
John's teacher, H. A. P. Torrey, introduced him to Immanuel Kant, but Dewey found it difficult to accept the Kantian idea that there was a realm of knowledge transcending empirical demonstration. The quality of his academic work improved and, at the age of 19, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and second in his class of 18.
At Johns Hopkins in 1882 Dewey studied with George S. Morris, who was on leave as chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Michigan. In 1884 Dewey completed his doctorate.
Dewey hoped to teach high school. After a frustrating summer of job hunting, his cousin, principal of a seminary in Pennsylvania, came to his rescue. For 2 years Dewey taught the classics, algebra, and science, meanwhile reading philosophy. When his cousin resigned, however, Dewey's employment ended. He returned to Vermont to become the sole teacher in a private school in Charlotte, near his alma mater. He renewed acquaintance with Torrey, and the two discussed the fruits of Dewey's reading in ancient and modern philosophy.
Finally, Dewey decided to pursue a career in philosophy and applied for admission to the newly founded Johns Hopkins University, another haven for lay philosophers. In 1884 he, at Morris's invitation, went to teach at Michigan. His interests turned toward problems of education as he traveled about the state to evaluate college preparatory courses. He still taught Sunday school, but he was drifting away from religious orthodoxy.
In 1888 he accepted an appointment at the University of Minnesota, only to return to Michigan a year later to the post left vacant by Morris's death. The next stage in Dewey's intellectual development came with his reading of William James's Principles of Psychology. In 1894 he moved to the University of Chicago as head of a new department of philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. Outside the academic world he became friends with the social reformers at Hull House.
To test his educational theories, he started an experimental school, with his wife as principal. The "Dewey school," however, caused a struggle between its founder and the university's president, William R. Harper. In 1904, when Harper tried to remove his wife, Dewey resigned in protest. An old friend of his engineered an offer from Columbia University, where Dewey spent the rest of his teaching years. Living in New York City placed the Deweys at the center of America's cultural and political life. He also served as a contributing editor of the New Republic magazine and helped found both the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Association of University Professors.
After World War I, reaching the peak of his influence, he became a worldwide traveler, lecturing in Japan at the Imperial Institute and spending 2 years teaching at the Chinese universities of Beijing and Nanking. In 1924 he went to study the schools in Turkey and 2 years later visited the University of Mexico. His praise for the Russian educational system he inspected on a 1928 trip to the Soviet Union earned him much criticism.
Dewey continued to publish works clarifying his philosophy. In 1937 he traveled to Mexico as chairman of the commission to determine the validity of Soviet charges against Trotsky. In the early years of the cold war Dewey's support of American intervention in Korea earned him criticism from the U.S.S.R. newspaper Pravda. He died on June 1, 1952.
Dewey actively supported the Progressive party, and, in 1929, helped organize the League for Independent Political Action to further the cause of a new party.
He was convinced that democracy was the best form of government. He saw contemporary American democracy challenged by the effects of the industrial revolution, which had produced an overconcentration of wealth in the hands of a few men. This threat, he believed, could be met by the right kind of education.
Views
Dewey's concern for social problems was deep, and he adopted a vague brand of socialism, although he was unacquainted with Marxism. He shed Hegelianism in favor of "instrumentalism," a position that holds that thinking is an activity which, at its best, is directed toward resolving problems rather than creating abstract metaphysical systems.
In his philosophy Dewey sought to transcend what he considered the misleading distinctions made by other philosophers. By focusing on experience, he bridged the gulf between the organism and its environment to emphasize their interaction. He rejected the dualism of spirit versus matter, insisting that the mind was a product of evolution, not some infusion from a superior being.
Yet he avoided the materialist conclusion which made thought seem accidental and irrelevant. While he saw most of man's behavior as shaped by habit, he believed that the unceasing processes of change often produced conditions which customary mental activity could not explain. The resulting tension led to creative thinking in which man tried to reestablish control of the unstable environment. Thought was never, for Dewey, merely introspection; rather, it was part of a process whereby man related to his surroundings.
Quotations:
"Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous."
"What Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good."
Personality
Careless about his appearance, Dewey was shy and quiet in manner.
Quotes from others about the person
Hilda Neatby, in 1953, wrote "Dewey has been to our age what Aristotle was to the later Middle Ages, not a philosopher, but the philosopher."
Interests
Philosophers & Thinkers
Dewey admired Auguste Comte and absorbed his emphasis on the disintegrative effects of extreme individualism. He also admired Henry George and his analysis of the problems of poverty.
Connections
Dewey married Alice Chipman in 1886. The two had six children: Frederick Archibald Dewey, Evelyn Riggs Dewey, Morris (who died young), Gordon Chipman Dewey, Lucy Alice Chipman Dewey, and Jane Mary Dewey. Alice Chipman died in 1927 at the age of 68. Dewey later married Estelle Roberta Lowitz Grant. At her behest, the couple adopted two siblings, Lewis (changed to John, Jr. ) and Shirley.