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Classical American Pragmatism
ITS CONTEMPORARY VITALITY
Edited by Sandra B. Rosenthal, Carl R. Hausman, and Douglas R. Anderson
University of Illinois Press, 1999
This collection provides a thorough grounding in the philosophy of American pragmatism by examining the views of four principal thinkers—Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead—on issues of central and enduring importance to life in human society.
Pragmatism emerged as a characteristically American response to an inheritance of British empiricism.
Presenting a radical reconception of the nature of experience, pragmatism represents a belief that ideas are not merely to be contemplated but must be put into action, tested and refined through experience. At the same time, the American pragmatists argued for an emphasis on human community that would offset the deep-seated American bias in favor of individualism. Far from being a relic of the past, pragmatism offers a dynamic and substantive approach to questions of human conduct, social values, scientific inquiry, religious belief, and aesthetic experience that lie at the center of contemporary life. This volume is an invaluable introduction to a school of thought that remains vital, instructive, and provocative.
 
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The Collected Works of John Dewey, Index
1882 - 1953
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 1991

This cumulative index to the thirty-seven volumes of The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953, is an invaluable guide to The Collected Works.

The Collected Works Contents incorporates all the tables of contents of Dewey’s individual volumes, providing a chronological, volume-by-volume overview of every item in The Early Works, The Middle Works, and The Later Works.

The Title Index lists alphabetically by shortened titles and by key words all items in The Collected Works. Articles republished in the collections listed above are also grouped under the titles of those books.

The Subject Index, which includes all information in the original volume indexes, expands that information by adding the authors of introductions to each volume, authors and titles of books Dewey reviewed or introduced, authors of appendix items, and relevant details from the source notes.

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A Companion to John Dewey's "Democracy and Education"
D. C. Phillips
University of Chicago Press, 2016
This year marks the centenary publication of John Dewey’s magnum opus, Democracy and Education. Despite its profound importance as a foundational text in education, it is notoriously difficult and—dare we say it—a little dry. In this charming and often funny companion, noted philosopher of education D. C. Phillips goes chapter by chapter to bring Dewey to a twenty-first-century audience. Drawing on over fifty years of thinking about this book—and on his own experiences as an educator—he lends it renewed clarity and a personal touch that proves its lasting importance.
           
Phillips bridges several critical pitfalls of Democracy and Education that often prevent contemporary readers from fully understanding it. Where Dewey sorely needs a detailed example to illustrate a point—and the times are many—Phillips steps in, presenting cases from his own classroom experiences. Where Dewey casually refers to the works of people like Hegel, Herbart, and Locke—common knowledge, apparently, in 1916—Phillips fills in the necessary background. And where Dewey gets convoluted or is even flat-out wrong, Phillips does what few other scholars would do: he takes Dewey to task. The result is a lively accompaniment that helps us celebrate and be enriched by some of the most important ideas ever offered in education.
 
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The Dewey Experiment in China
Educational Reform and Political Power in the Early Republic
Barry Keenan
Harvard University Press, 1977

After the May Fourth Incident, John Dewey’s followers in China assumed the leadership of an important group of intellectuals who were largely veterans of the New Culture movement. The Chinese Communist movement had its inception in the same two years Dewey lectured in China (1919–1921); Dewey’s followers pitted their “liberalism” against this new radical alternative, in arguments that proved to be harbingers of a thirty-year conflict in Chinese politics.

The Dewey Experiment in China critically analyzes the careers and writings of John Dewey’s followers through the 1920s—particularly Kuo Ping-wen, Chiang Meng-lin, and T’ao Hsing-chih—as they attempted to implement Dewey’s political reform ideas and his progressive educational principles. The “new education” reform movement was spearheaded by Deweyites and directed a national-level educational reform effort for many years following World War I. Many of Dewey’s ideas that seemed most progressive in the United States are shown to be surprisingly conservative for China. The promise of progress implicit in problem-solving based upon conflicts in actual, concrete social conditions, as Dewey formulated it, deluded its proponents with a false hope of efficacy. The issue of political power was not adequately addressed. In education, unspoken assumptions about progressive reform in the United States proved to be absent in China.

The most dedicated Deweyites were forced to “turn Dewey on his head” by the end of the 1920s. What appeared to Dewey to be democracy through interest-group bartering among nations was often understood in “Third World” China as Big Power politics and the exploitation of the weak. The Dewey Experiment in China reflects, therefore, not only upon Dewey’s own thought but upon the fragility of many American ideas assumed to have been applicable again after World War II in China and Southeast Asia.

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Dewey for Artists
Mary Jane Jacob
University of Chicago Press, 2018
John Dewey is known as a pragmatic philosopher and progressive architect of American educational reform, but some of his most important contributions came in his thinking about art.
          Dewey argued that there is strong social value to be found in art, and it is artists who often most challenge our preconceived notions. Dewey for Artists shows us how Dewey advocated for an “art of democracy.” Identifying the audience as co-creator of a work of art by virtue of their experience, he made space for public participation. Moreover, he believed that societies only become—and remain—truly democratic if its citizens embrace democracy itself as a creative act, and in this he advocated for the social participation of artists.
          Throughout the book, Mary Jane Jacob draws on the experiences of contemporary artists who have modeled Dewey’s principles within their practices. We see how their work springs from deeply held values. We see, too, how carefully considered curatorial practice can address the manifold ways in which aesthetic experience happens and, thus, enable viewers to find greater meaning and purpose. And it is this potential of art for self and social realization, Jacob helps us understand, that further ensures Dewey’s legacy—and the culture we live in.
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Dewey, Russell, Whitehead
Philosophers as Educators
Brian Patrick Hendley
Southern Illinois University Press, 1986

In Philosophers as Educators Brian Patrick Hendley argues that philosophers of edu­cation should reject their preoccupation with defining terms and analyzing concepts and embrace the philosophical task of con­structing general theories of education.  Hendley discusses in detail the educational philosophies of John Dewey, Bertrand Rus­sell, and Alfred North Whitehead. He sees in these men excellent role models that contem­porary philosophers might well follow. Hendley believes that, like these men­tors, philosophers should take a more ac­tive, practical role in education. Dewey and Russell ran their own schools, and Whitehead served as a university admin­istrator and as a member of many com­mittees created to study education.

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Dewey's Dream
Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform
Lee Benson
Temple University Press, 2007

This timely, persuasive, and hopeful book reexamines John Dewey's idea of schools, specifically community schools, as the best places to grow a democratic society that is based on racial, social, and economic justice. The authors assert that American colleges and universities bear a responsibility for-and would benefit substantially from-working with schools to develop democratic schools and communities.

Dewey's Dream opens with a reappraisal of Dewey's philosophy and an argument for its continued relevance today. The authors-all well-known in education circles-use illustrations from over 20 years of experience working with public schools in the University of Pennsylvania's local ecological community of West Philadelphia, to demonstrate how their ideas can be put into action. By emphasizing problem-solving as the foundation of education, their work has awakened university students to their social responsibilities. And while the project is still young, it demonstrates that Dewey's "Utopian ends" of creating optimally participatory democratic societies can lead to practical, constructive school, higher education and community change, development, and improvement.

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Dewey's New Logic
A Reply to Russell
Tom Burke
University of Chicago Press, 1994
Although John Dewey is celebrated for his work in the philosophy of education and acknowledged as a leading proponent of American pragmatism, he might also have enjoyed more of a reputation for his philosophy of logic had Bertrand Russell not attacked him so fervently on the subject. In Dewey's New Logic, Tom Burke analyzes the debate between Russell and Dewey that followed the 1938 publication of Dewey's Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. Here, he argues that Russell failed to understand Dewey's logic as Dewey intended, and despite Russell's resistance, Dewey's logic is surprisingly relevant to recent developments in philosophy and cognitive science.

Burke demonstrates that Russell misunderstood crucial aspects of Dewey's theory and contends that logic today has progressed beyond Russell and is approaching Dewey's broader perspective.

"[This] book should be of substantial interest not only to Dewey scholars and other historians of twentieth-century philosophy, but also to devotees of situation theory, formal semantics, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and Artificial Intelligence."—Georges Dicker, Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society

"No scholar, thus far, has offered such a sophisticated and detailed version of central themes and contentions in Dewey's Logic. This is a pathbreaking study."—John J. McDermott, editor of The Philosophy of John Dewey
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The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 1, 1882 - 1898
Early Essays and Leibniz's New Essays, 1882-1888
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Volume 1 of “The Early Works of John Dewey, 1882–1898” is entitled “Early Essays and Leibnizs New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding, 1882–1888.” Included here are all Dewey’s earliest writings, from his first published article through his book on Leibniz.

 

The materials in this volume provide a chronological record of Dewey’s early development—beginning with the article he sent to the Journal of Speculative Philosophy in 1881 while he was a high-school teacher in Oil City, Pennsylvania, and closing with his widely-acclaimed work on Leibniz in the Grigg’s Series of German Philosophical Classics, written when he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. During these years be­tween 1882 and 1888, Dewey’s life course was established: he decided to follow a career in philosophy, completed doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University, became an Instructor at the University of Michigan, was promoted to Assistant Professor, and accepted a position as Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. With the publication of Psychology, he became well known among scholars in this country; a series of articles in the British journal Mind brought him prominence in British philosophical circles. His articles were abstracted in the Revue philosophique.

 

None of the articles collected in this volume was reprinted during the author’s lifetime. For the first time, it is now possible for Dewey scholars to study consecutively in one publication all the essays which originally appeared in many periodicals.

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The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 2, 1882 - 1898
Psychology, 1887
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008
Psychology, John Dewey's first book, is an appropriate choice for volume one in the Southern Illinois University Press series "The Early Works of John Dewey, 1882-1898."  This definitive edition of all Dewey's early writings stems from the complete and comprehensive collection of Dewey materials amassed since 1961 by the Co-operative Research on Dewey Publications Project at Southern Illinois University.  The years covered by these volumes are commonly considered Dewey's formative period, beginning with the philosopher-educator's first published article when he was twenty-two years old and including the longer works written while he was chairman of two departments, Philosophy (which included psychology) and Pedagogy, at the University of Chicago.  In these early years, as throughout his life, Dewey's interests were wide-ranging, but because many of his writings appeared in out-of-the-way journals and have not previously been reprinted, it has been difficult for students of his work to grasp and understand that range.  In addition to illuminating the scope of his interests, the present edition, that offers all his works in approximately chronological order, serves to emphasize the organic quality of Dewey's thought.

With an original publication date of 1887, Psychology us Volume 2 of "The Early Works."  It appears first in the series to introduce scholars and general readers to the use of modern textual criticism in a work outside the literary field.  Designed as a "scholar's reading edition," the volumes presents the text of Dewey's work as the author intended, clear of editorial footnotes.  All apparatus is conveniently arranged in appendix form.  As evidence of its wide adoption and use as a college textbook, Psychology had a publishing history of twenty-six printings.  For two of the reprintings, Dewey made extensive revisions in content to incorporate developments in the field of psychology as well as in his own thinking.  The textual appendices include a thorough tabulation of these changes and detailed evidence for editorial decisions. 

In recognition of the high quality and scholarly standards of the textual editing, this edition of Psychology is the first nonliterary work awarded the Seal of the Modern Language Association Center for Editions of American Authors.  By applying to the work of a philosopher the procedures used in modern textual editions of American writers such as Hawthorne, the Southern Illinois University Dewey edition is establishing a pattern for future collected editions of the writings of American philosophers.

At the time Dewey wrote Psychology, the relation between psychology and philosophy was in dispute, and he attempted to incorporate the new physiological psychology represented by G. Stanley Hall into the philosophical system and ethics of George Sylvester Morris.  He wrote in May, 1886, that he wanted his textbook in psychology to be one "with the greatest possible unity of principle, so that without ceasing to be a psychology, it shall be an introduction to philosophy in general."  His goal, expressed in these terms, foreshadowed the direction of his work in the years that followed, with its continuing emphasis on the interrelations among the various disciplines rather than on separate specializations.  In his long and fruitful professional career, this was to be his only attempt to treat the whole field of psychology systematically.  Although he maintained a lively interest in psychology, that interest was expressed in connection with his writing in other areas such as ethics, education, logic, social philosophy and aesthetics.
 
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The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 3, 1882 - 1898
Essays and Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics, 1889-1892
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

This third volume in the definitive edition of Dewey’s early work opens with his tribute to George Sylvester Morris, the former teacher who had brought Dewey to the University of Michigan. Morris’s death in 1889 left vacant the Department of Philosophy chairmanship and led to Dewey’s returning to fill that post after a year’s stay at Minnesota.

 

Appearing here, among all his writings from 1889 through 1892, are Dewey’s earliest comprehensive statements on logic and his first book on ethics. Dewey’s marked copy of the galley-proof for his important article “The Present Position of Logical Theory,” recently discovered among the papers of the Open Court Publishing Company, is used as the basis for the text, making available for the first time his final changes and corrections.

 

The textual studies that make The Early Works unique among American philosophical editions are reported in detail. One of these, “A Note on Applied Psychology,” documents the fact that Dewey did not co-author this book frequently attributed to him. Six brief unsigned articles written in 1891 for a University of Michigan student publication, the Inlander, have been identified as Dewey’s and are also included in this volume. In both style and content, these articles reflect Dewey’s conviction that philosophy should be used as a means of illuminating the contemporary scene; thus they add a new dimension to present knowledge of his early writing.

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The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 4, 1882 - 1898
Early Essays and The Study of Ethics, A Syllabus, 1893-1894
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Volume 4 of’ “The Early Works” series covers the period of Dewey’s last year and one-half at the University of Michigan and his first half-year at the University of Chicago. In addition to sixteen articles the present volume contains Dewey’s reviews of six books and three articles, verbatim reports of three oral statements made by Dewey, and a full-length book, The Study of Ethics.

 

Like its predecessors in this series, this volume presents a “clear text,” free of interpretive or reference material. Apparatus, including references, corrections, and emendations, is confined to appendix material. Fredson Bowers, the Consulting Textual Editor, has provided an essay on the textual principles and procedures, and Wayne A. R. Leys, Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University, has written an Introduction discussing the relationship between Dewey’s writings of this period and his later work. That Dewey’s scholarship and writing was at an especially high level during 1893 and 1894 may be considered an index to the significance of this two-year period.

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The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 5, 1882 - 1898
Early Essays, 1895-1898
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

This fifth and concluding volume of “The Early Works of John Dewey” is the only one of the series made up entirely of essays. The appear­ance during the four-year period, 1895–98, of thirty-eight items amply indicates that Dewey continued to maintain a high level of published out­put. These were the years of Dewey’s most extensive work and involvement at the University of Chicago.

 

Like its predecessors in this series, this volume presents a “clear text,” free of interpretive or reference material. Apparatus, including references, corrections, and emendations, is confined to appendix material. Fredson Bowers, the Consulting Textual Editor, has provided an essay on the textual principles and procedures, and William P. McKenzie, Professor of Philoso­phy and Education at Southern Illinois University, has written an introduc­tion identifying the thread connecting the apparently diffuse material in the many articles of this volume—Dewey’s attempt to unite philosophy with psychology and sociology and with education.

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The Evolution of Pragmatism in India
Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction
Scott R. Stroud
University of Chicago Press, 2023
"A magnificent study" (New York Review of Books) of how the Indian reformer Bhimrao Ambedkar reimagined John Dewey’s pragmatism.
 
In The Evolution of Pragmatism in India, Scott R. Stroud delivers a comprehensive exploration of the influence of John Dewey’s pragmatism on Bhimrao Ambedkar, architect of the Republic of India’s constitution. Stroud traces Ambedkar’s development in Dewey’s Columbia University classes in 1913–1916 through his final years in 1950s India when he rewrote the story of Buddhism. Stroud examines pragmatism’s influence not only on the philosophical ideas underpinning Ambedkar’s fight against caste oppression but also how his persuasive techniques drew on pragmatism’s commitment to reconstruction and meliorism. At the same time, Stroud is careful to point out the ways that Ambedkar pushed back against Dewey’s paradigm and developed his own approach to challenges in India. The result is a nuanced study of one of the most important figures in Indian history.
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Experience and Value
Essays on John Dewey & Pragmatic Naturalism
S. Morris Eames. Edited by Elizabeth R. Eames and Richard W. Field
Southern Illinois University Press, 2002

Experience and Value: Essays on John Dewey and Pragmatic Naturalism brings together twelve philosophical essays spanning the career of noted Dewey scholar, S. Morris Eames. The volume includes both critiques and interpretations of important issues in John Dewey’s value theory as well as the application of Eames’s pragmatic naturalism in addressing contemporary problems in social theory, education, and religion.

The collection begins with a discussion of the underlying principles of Dewey’s pragmatic naturalism, including the concepts of nature, experience, and philosophic method. Essays “Experience and Philosophical Method in John Dewey” and “Primary Experience in the Philosophy of John Dewey” develop what Eames believed to be a central theme in Dewey’s thought and provide a theoretical framework for subsequent discussion.

The volume continues with specific applications of this framework in the areas of value theory, moral theory, social philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. Eames’s analysis of value exposes the connection between the immediately felt values of experience and the more sophisticated judgments of value that are the product of reflection. From this basis in moral theory, Eames considers the derivation of judgments of obligation from judgments of fact. This discussion provides a grounding for a consideration of contemporary social issues directed by naturalistic and scientific principles.

In the third section, with regard to educational theory, Eames considers possible resolutions of the current dichotomy between the factual worldview of science and the humanistic worldview of the liberal arts. The comprehensive article, “Dewey’s Views of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness,” connects the essays of the first and second sections and explores the placement of Dewey’s value theory with respect to morals and aesthetics. With “Creativity and Democracy,” in the fourth section, Eames also considers the concept of democracy from the standpoint of current and historical issues faced by society. This article hints at a major project of Eames’s intellectual life—the theory of democracy.

The volume concludes with a discussion of the difficulty of maintaining the values of religious experience in a scientifically and technologically sophisticated world, the very topic that first brought Eames to philosophy—the meaning of religion and the religious life. Suggested solutions are offered in “The Lost Individual and Religious Unity.”

Experience and Value: Essays on John Dewey and Pragmatic Naturalism illuminates Eames’ life of inquiry, a life that included moral, social, aesthetic, and religious dimensions of value—all suffused with the influence of John Dewey.

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The Grace and the Severity of the Ideal
John Dewey and the Transcendent
Victor Kestenbaum
University of Chicago Press, 2002
In this highly original book, Victor Kestenbaum calls into question the oft-repeated assumption that John Dewey's pragmatism has no place for the transcendent. Kestenbaum demonstrates that, far from ignoring the transcendent ideal, Dewey's works—on education, ethics, art, and religion—are in fact shaped by the tension between the natural and the transcendent.

Kestenbaum argues that to Dewey, the pragmatic struggle for ideal meaning occurs at the frontier of the visible and the invisible, the tangible and the intangible. Penetrating analyses of Dewey's early and later writings, as well as comparisons with the works of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Michael Oakeshott, and Wallace Stevens, shed new light on why Dewey regarded the human being's relationship to the ideal as "the most far-reaching question" of philosophy. For Dewey, the pragmatic struggle for the good life required a willingness "to surrender the actual experienced good for a possible ideal good." Dewey's pragmatism helps us to understand the place of the transcendent ideal in a world of action and practice.
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In a Shade of Blue
Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America
Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
University of Chicago Press, 2007
In this provocative book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of our nation’s rising young African American intellectuals, makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude’s mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of African American politics.
 
According to Glaude, Dewey’s pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life—or what we often speak of as the blues—can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, In a Shade of Blue seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Glaude argues that only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied, an argument echoed in the recent rhetoric and optimism of the Barack Obama presidential campaign.

 
In a Shade of Blue is a remarkable work of political commentary and to follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their cultural and political history and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first century.
 
“Eddie Glaude is the towering public intellectual of his generation.”—Cornel West
 
“Eddie Glaude is poised to become the leading intellectual voice of our generation, raising questions that make us reexamine the assumptions we hold by expanding our inventory of ideas.”—Tavis Smiley
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Interest and Effort in Education
John Dewey. With a new preface by James E. Wheeler
Southern Illinois University Press, 1975

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John Dewey, America's Peace-Minded Educator
Charles F. Howlett and Audrey Cohan
Southern Illinois University Press, 2016
One of America’s preeminent educational philosophers and public intellectuals, John Dewey is perhaps best known for his interest in the study of pragmatic philosophy and his application of progressive ideas to the field of education. Carrying his ideas and actions beyond the academy, he tied his philosophy to pacifist ideology in America after World War I in order to achieve a democratic world order. Although his work and life have been well documented, his role in the postwar peace movement has been generally overlooked.
 
In John Dewey, America’s Peace-Minded Educator, authors Charles F. Howlett and Audrey Cohan take a close look at John Dewey’s many undertakings on behalf of world peace. This volume covers Dewey’s support of, and subsequent disillusionment with, the First World War as well as his postwar involvement in trying to prevent another world war. Other topics include his interest in peace movements in education, his condemnation of American military intervention in Latin America and of armaments and munitions makers during the Great Depression, his defense of civil liberties during World War II, and his cautions at the start of the atomic age. The concluding epilogue discusses how Dewey fell out of favor with some academics and social critics in the 1950s and explores how Dewey’s ideas can still be useful to peace education today.
 
Exploring Dewey’s use of pragmatic philosophy to build a consensus for world peace, Howlett and Cohan illuminate a previously neglected aspect of his contributions to American political and social thought and remind us of the importance of creating a culture of peace through educational awareness.
 
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John Dewey and Continental Philosophy
Edited by Paul Fairfield
Southern Illinois University Press, 2010

“These essays build a valuable, if virtual, bridge between the thought of John Dewey and that of a host of modern European philosophers. They invite us to entertain a set of imagined conversations among the mighty dead that no doubt would have intrigued Dewey and each of the interlocutors gathered here.”—Robert Westbrook, author of John Dewey and American Democracy and/or Democratic Hope: Pragmatism and the Politics of Truth.

John Dewey and Continental Philosophy provides a rich sampling of exchanges that could have taken place long ago between the traditions of American pragmatism and continental philosophy had the lines of communication been more open between Dewey and his European contemporaries. Since they were not, Paul Fairfield and thirteen of his colleagues seek to remedy the situation by bringing the philosophy of Dewey into conversation with several currents in continental philosophical thought, from post-Kantian idealism and the work of Friedrich Nietzsche to twentieth-century phenomenology, hermeneutics, and poststructuralism.

John Dewey and Continental Philosophy demonstrates some of the many connections and opportunities for cross-traditional thinking that have long existed between Dewey and continental thought, but have been under-explored. The intersection presented here between Dewey’s pragmatism and the European traditions makes a significant contribution to continental and American philosophy and will spur new and important developments in the American philosophical debate.

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John Dewey's Educational Philosophy in International Perspective
A New Democracy for the Twenty-First Century
Edited by Larry A. Hickman and Giuseppe Spadafora
Southern Illinois University Press, 2009

John Dewey’s Educational Philosophy in International Perspective brings together eleven experts from around the globe to examine the international legacy of the famous philosopher. Placing special emphasis on Dewey’s theories of education, Larry A. Hickman and Giuseppe Spadafora have gathered some of the world’s most noted scholars of educational philosophy to present a thorough exploration of Dewey’s enduring relevance and potential as a tool for change in twenty-first-century political and social institutions.

This collection offers close examinations of the global impact of Dewey’s philosophies, both in his time and our own. Included are discussions of his reception as a much-respected yet criticized philosopher among European Catholics both before and after World War I; the utilization of his pragmatic theories in Italian education and the continuing quest to reinterpret them; his emergence as a source of inspiration to new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe; and his recently renewed popularity in the Hispanic world, particularly in South America and Spain. In addition, authors delve into Dewey’s notion of democracy as a personal way of life and his views on the important ties between education and the democratic state.

Also discussed are Dewey’s philosophies regarding school and society, including the understanding of educational trends as reflections of their social context; the contrast between his methods of applying intelligence to ethical problems and the theory of orthodox utilitarianism; responses to criticisms of Dewey’s controversial belief that the sciences can be applied directly to educational practices; and incisive queries into how he would have responded to the crucial role the Internet now plays in primary and secondary education.

This well-rounded volume provides international insight into Dewey’s philosophies and contains a wealth of information never before published in English, resulting in an indispensable resource for anyone interested in John Dewey and his lasting role in education around the world.

Contributors

Viviana Burza

Franco Cambi

Giorgio Chiosso

Jim Garrison

Jaime Nubiola

Hilary Putnam

Ruth Anna Putnam

Giuseppe Spadafora

Emil Višnovský

Leonard J. Waks

Krystyna Wilkoszewska

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John Dewey's Liberalism
Individual, Community, and Self-Development
Daniel Savage
Southern Illinois University Press, 2001

John Dewey's classical pragmatism, Daniel M. Savage asserts, can be used to provide a self-development-based justification of liberal democracy that shows the current debate between liberal individualism and republican communitarianism to be based largely on a set of pseudoproblems.

From Dewey's classical pragmatism, Savage derives a conception of individual autonomy that, while meeting all of the criteria for a conception of autonomy, does not, as the dominant Kantian variant does, require transcendence from any particular language community. The Deweyan conception of autonomy that Savage derived from classical pragmatism, in fact, requires that the individual be situated within a context of cultural beliefs. Savage argues that this particular conception of autonomy is necessary if one wants to conceive of life, as communitarians do, as a quest for the good life within a social context.

Thus, Savage constructs a conception of autonomy that consists of a set of intellectual virtues, each of which can be understood, like Aristotle's moral virtues, as a mean between two extremes (or vices). The virtue of critical reflection is the mean between the vices of dogmatism on the one hand and philosophical skepticism on the other. The virtue of creative individuality is the mean between the opposing vices of conformity and eccentricity. Finally, the virtue of sociability is the mean between the extremes of docility and rebelliousness.

The three virtues together provide a natural method of adapting to change. The method is natural because it is in accord with a continuous cycle of activity—tension/movement/harmony—that is generic to all living things, Dewey's method of adapting to change requires, in both the individual and in the community, the synthesis of integrating and differentiating forces.

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The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 1, 1925 - 1953
1925, Experience and Nature
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

John Dewey’s Experience and Nature has been considered the fullest expression of his mature philosophy since its eagerly awaited publication in 1925.Irwin Edman wrote at that time that “with monumental care, detail and completeness, Professor Dewey has in this volume revealed the metaphysical heart that beats its unvarying alert tempo through all his writings, whatever their explicit themes.” In his introduction to this volume, Sidney Hook points out that “Dewey’s Experience and Nature is both the most suggestive and most difficult of his writings.”

The meticulously edited text published here as the first vol­ume in the series The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925–1953spans that entire period in Dewey’s thought by including two important and previously unpublished documents from the book’s history: Dewey’s unfinished new introduction written between 1947and 1949,edited by the late Joseph Ratner, and Dewey’s unedited final draft of that introduction written the year before his death. In the intervening years Dewey realized the impossibility of making his use of the word “experience” understood. He wrote in his 1951draft for a new introduction: “Were I to write (or rewrite) Experience and Nature today I would entitle the book Culture and Nature and the treatment of specific subject-matters would be correspondingly modified. I would abandon the term ‘experience’ because of my growing realiza­tion that the historical obstacles which prevented understand­ing of my use of ‘experience’ are, for all practical purposes, insurmountable. I would substitute the term ‘culture’ because with its meanings as now firmly established it can fully and freely carry my philosophy of experience.”

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 10, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 10, 1925 - 1953
1934, Art as Experience
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Art as Experience evolved from John Dewey’s Willam James Lectures, delivered at Harvard University from February to May 1931.

In his Introduction, Abraham Kaplan places Dewey’s philosophy of art within the context of his pragmatism. Kaplan demonstrates in Dewey’s esthetic theory his traditional “movement from a dualism to a monism” and discusses whether Dewey’s viewpoint is that of the artist, the respondent, or the critic.

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 11, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 11, 1925 - 1953
Essays, Reviews, Trotsky Inquiry, Miscellany, and Liberalism and Social Action
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

This volume includes ninety-two items from 1935, 1936, and 1937, including Dewey’s 1935 Page-Barbour Lectures at the University of Virginia, published as Liberalism and Social Action.

In essay after essay Dewey analyzed, criticized, and reevaluated liberalism. When his controversial Liberalism and Social Action appeared, asking whether it was still possible to be a liberal, Horace M. Kallen wrote that Dewey “restates in the language and under the conditions of his times what Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence affirmed in the language and under the conditions of his.”

The diverse nature of the writings belies their underlying unity: some are technical philosophy; other philosophical articles shade into social and political themes; social and political issues permeate the educational articles, which in turn involve Dewey’s philosophical ideas.

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 12, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 12, 1925 - 1953
1938, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Heralded as “the crowning work of a great career,” Logic: The Theory of Inquiry was widely reviewed. To Evander Bradley McGilvary, the work assured De­wey “a place among the world’s great logicians.”

 
William Gruen thought “No treatise on logic ever written has had as direct and vital an impact on social life as Dewey’s will have.”

Paul Weiss called it “the source and inspiration of a new and powerful movement.”

Irwin Edman said of it, “Most phi­losophers write postscripts; Dewey has made a program. His Logic is a new charter for liberal intelligence.”

Ernest Nagel called the Logic an im­pressive work. Its unique virtue is to bring fresh illumination to its subject by stressing the roles logical principles and concepts have in achieving the ob­jectives of scientific inquiry.”

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 13, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 13, 1925 - 1953
1938-1939, Experience and Education, Freedom and Culture, Theory of Valuation, and Essays
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

This volume includes all Dewey’s writings for 1938 except for Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (Volume 12 of The Later Works), as well as his 1939 Freedom and Culture, Theory of Valuation, and two items from Intelligence in the Modern World.

Freedom and Culture presents, as Steven M. Cahn points out, “the essence of his philosophical position: a commitment to a free society, critical intelligence, and the education required for their advance.”

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 14, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 14, 1925 - 1953
1939 - 1941, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

This volume republishes forty-four essays, reviews, and miscellaneous pieces from 1939, 1940, and 1941.

In his Introduction, R. W. Sleeper characterizes the contents of this volume as “vintage Dewey. Ranging widely over problems of theory and practice, they reveal him commencing his ninth decade at the peak of his intellectual powers.”

“Nature in Experience,” Dewey’s reply to Morris R. Cohen and William Ernest Hocking, “is a model of clarity and responsiveness,” writes Sleeper, “perhaps his clearest statement of why it is that metaphysics does not play the fundamental role for him that it had regularly played for his predecessors.”

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 15, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 15, 1925 - 1953
1942 - 1948, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

This volume republishes sixty-two of Dewey’s writings from the years 1942 to 1948; four other items are published here for the first time.

A focal point of this volume is Dewey’s introduction to his collective volume Problems of Men. Exchanges in the Journal of Philosophy with Donald C. Mackay, Philip Blair Rice, and with Alexander Meiklejohn in Fortune appear here, along with Dewey’s letters to editors of various publications and his forewords to colleagues’ books. Because 1942 was the centenary of the birth of William James, four articles about James are also included in this volume.

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 16, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 16, 1925 - 1953
1949 - 1952, Essays, Typescripts, and Knowing and the Known
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Typescripts, essays, and an authoritative edition of Knowing and the Known, Dewey’s collaborative work with Arthur F. Bentley.

In an illuminating Introduction T. Z. Lavine defines the collaboration's three goals—the "construction of a new language for behavioral inquiry," "a critique of formal logicians, in defense of Dewey’s Logic," and "a critique of logical positivism." In Dewey’s words: "Largely due to Bentley, I’ve finally got the nerve inside of me to do what I should have done years ago."

"What Is It to Be a Linguistic Sign or Name?" and "Values, Valuations, and Social Facts,’ both written in 1945, are published here for the first time.

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 17, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 17, 1925 - 1953
1885 - 1953, Miscellaneous Writings
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

This is the final textual volume in The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953, published in 3 series comprising 37 volumes: The Early Works, 1882–1898 (5 vols.); The Middle Works, 1899–1924 (15 vols.); The Later Works, 1925–1953 (17 vols.).

Volume 17 contains Dewey’s writings discovered after publication of the appropriate volume of The Collected Works and spans most of Dewey’s publishing life. There are 83 items in this volume, 24 of which have not been previously published.

Among works highlighted in this volume are 10 “Educational Lectures before Brigham Young Academy,” early essays “War’s Social Results” and “The Problem of Secondary Education after the War,” and the previously unpublished “The Russian School System.”

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 2, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 2, 1925 - 1953
1925-1927, Essays, Reviews, Miscellany, and The Public and Its Problems
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

With the exception of Experience and Nature, (Volume 1 of the Later Works), this volume contains all of Dewey’s writ­ings for 1925 and 1926, as well as his 1927 book, The Public and Its Problems. A Modern Language Association’s Com­mittee on Scholarly Editions textual edi­tion.

The first essay in this volume, “The Development of American Pragmatism,” is perhaps Dewey’s best-known article of these years, emphasizing the uniquely American origins of his own philosophi­cal innovations. Other essays focus on Dewey’s continuing investigation of the “nature of intelligent conduct,” as, for example, his debate with David Wight Prall on the underpinnings of value, his study of sense-perception, and his support for outlawing of war. Also appearing here are Dewey’s final articles on the culture of the developing world, written for the New Republic after his travels to China, Turkey, and Mexico.

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 3, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 3, 1925 - 1953
1927-1928, Essays, Reviews, Miscellany, and "Impressions of Soviet Russia"
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

All of Dewey’s writings for 1927 and 1928 with the exception of The Public and Its Problems, which appears in Volume 2, A Modern Language Associ­ation’s Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition.

These essays are, as Sidorsky says in his Introduction, “framed, in great mea­sure, by those two poles of his philo­sophical interest: looking backward, in a sense, to the defense of naturalistic metaphysics and moving forward to the justification and to the implications for practice of an empirical theory.”

Dewey’s five essays on education are evidence of his continued interest in that field. Among them is the frequently quoted “Why I Am a Member of the Teachers Union,” which is still used by the American Federation of Teachers in its recruiting efforts. Other highlights of this volume include the famous ex­change between George Santayana and Dewey on Experience and Nature; an im­passioned condemnation of the mis­carriage of justice Dewey saw in the Sacco-Vanzetti trial; and a series of six articles on the Soviet Union based on Dewey’s trip to that country in 1928.

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 4, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 4, 1925 - 1953
1929: The Quest for Certainty
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008
This volume provides an authoritative edition of Dewey’s The Quest for Cer­tainty: A Study of the Relation Between Knowledge and Action. The book is made up of the Gifford Lectures deliv­ered April–May 1929 at the University of Edinburgh. Writing to Sidney Hook, Dewey described this work as “a criti­cism of philosophy as attempting to at­tain theoretical certainty.” In the Philo­sophical Review Max C. Otto later elaborated: “Mr. Dewey wanted, so far as lay in his power, to crumble into dust, once and for all, ‘the chief fortress of the classic philosophical tradition.”
[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 5, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 5, 1925 - 1953
1929-1930, Essays, The Sources of a Science of Education, Individualism, Old and New, and Construction and Criticism
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

With the exception of The Quest for Cer­tainty (Volume 4) this fifth volume brings together Dewey’s writings for the 1929–1930 period.

During this time Dewey published 4 books and 50 articles on philosophical, educational, political, and social issues. His philosophical essays include “What Humanism Means to Me” and “What I Believe,” both of which express Dewey’s faith in man’s potentialities and intel­ligence, and a lively Journal of Philoso­phy exchange with Ernest Nagel, Wil­liam Ernest Hocking, C. I. Lewis, and F. J. E. Woodbridge. Educational writings include The Sources of a Science of Education. The contents of this volume re­flect Dewey’s increasing involvement in social and political problems.

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 6, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 6, 1925 - 1953
1931-1932, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Except for Dewey’s and James H. Tufts’ 1932 Ethics (Volume 7 of The Later Works), this volume brings together Dewey’s writings for 1931–1932.

The Great Depression presented John Dewey and the American people with a series of economic, political, and social crises in 1931 and 1932 that are reflected in most of the 86 items in this volume, even in philosophical essays such as “Human Nature.” As Sidney Ratner points out in his Introduction, Dewey’s interest in international peace is fea­tured in the writings in this volume.

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 7, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 7, 1925 - 1953
1932, Ethics
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Introduction by Abraham Edel and Elizabeth Flower

This seventh volume provides an au­thoritative edition of Dewey and James H. Tufts’ 1932 Ethics.

Dewey and Tufts state that the book’s aim is: “To induce a habit of thoughtful consideration, of envisaging the full meaning and consequences of individual conduct and social policies,” insisting throughout that ethics must be con­stantly concerned with the changing problems of daily life.

[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 8, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 8, 1925 - 1953
1933, Essays and How We Think, Revised Edition
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008
This volume also includes a collection of essays entitled The Educational Fron­tier, Dewey’s articles on logic, the out­lawry of war, and philosophy for the En­cyclopedia of the Social Sciences, and his reviews of Alfred North Whitehead’s Adventures of Ideas, Martin Schutze’s Academic Illusions in the Field of Let­ters and the Arts, and Rexford G. Tugwell’s Industrial Discipline and the Governmental Arts.
[more]

front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 9, 1925 - 1953
The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 9, 1925 - 1953
1933-1934, Essays, Reviews, Miscellany, and A Common Faith
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

This ninth volume in The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925—1953, brings together sixty items from 1933 and 1934, including Dewey’s Terry Lec­tures at Yale University, published as A Common Faith.

In his introduction, Milton R. Konvitz concludes that A Common Faith remains a provocative book, an intellectual ‘teaser,’ an essay at religious philoso­phy which no philosopher can wholly bypass.”

Dewey concentrated much of his writing in 1933 and 1934 on issues arising from the economic crises of the Great Depression. In the early 1930s Com­munist activity in the New York Teachers Union in­creased. The Report of the Special Grievance Committee of the Teachers Union is published in this volume, as is Dewey’s impromptu address, “On the Grievance Committee’s Report,” made when he presented that report. Rounding out the volume are eighteen arti­cles from the People’s Lobby Bulletin.

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 1, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 1, 1899 - 1924
Journal Articles, Book Reviews, and Miscellany Published in the 1899-1901 Period, and The School and Society, and The Educational Situation
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Includes the complete text of The School and Society and The Educational Situation.

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 10, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 10, 1899 - 1924
Journal Articles, Essays, and Miscellany Published in the 1916-1917 Period
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008
Except for Democracy and Education, the 53 items in Volume 10 include all of Dewey’s writings from 1916–1917, the years when he moved into politics and began to write about topics of general public interest. The best known of Dewey’s writings in this volume is the essay from Creative Intelligence, “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy.” Here Dewey asserts that “Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a de­vice for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method for dealing with the problems of men.” Dewey put that idea into practice, as Lewis E. Hahn points out in his intro­duction. “In 1916–1917 [Dewey] com­mented on quite a range of issues from compulsory universal military training to the Wilson-Hughes presidential cam­paign, from conscription of thought to the future of pacifism, from what Amer­ica will fight for to appropriate peace terms . . . and from American educa­tion and culture to contemporary issues in education, with the war casting a shadow over most of the items.”
[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 11, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 11, 1899 - 1924
Journal Articles, Essays, and Miscellany Published in the 1918-1919 Period
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Volume 11 brings together all of Dewey’s writings for 1918 and 1919. A Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition.

Dewey’s dominant theme in these pages is war and its after­math. In the Introduction, Oscar and Lilian Handlin discuss his philosophy within the historical context: “The First World War slowly ground to its costly conclusion; and the immensely more difficult task of making peace got painfully under way. The armi­stice that some expected would permit a return to normalcy opened instead upon a period of turbulence that agitated fur­ther a society already unsettled by preparations for battle and by debilitating conflict overseas.”

After spending the first half of 1918–19 on sabbatical from Columbia at the University of California, Dewey traveled to Japan and China, where he lectured, toured, and assessed in his essays the relationship between the two nations. From Peking he reported the student revolt known as the May Fourth Move­ment. The forty items in this volume also include an analysis of Thomas Hobbe’s philosophy; an affectionate commemorative tribute to Theodore Roosevelt, “our Teddy”; the syllabus for Dewey’s lectures at the Imperial University in Tokyo, which were later revised and published as Reconstruction in Philosophy; an exchange with former disciple Randolph Bourne about F. Mat­thias Alexander’s Man’sSupreme Inheritance; and, central to Dew­ey’s creed, “Philosophy and Democracy.” His involvement in a study of the Polish-American community in Philadelphia—resulting in an article, two memoranda, and a lengthy report—is discussed in detail in the Introduction and in the Note on the “Confidential Report of Conditions among the Poles in the United States.”

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 12, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 12, 1899 - 1924
Essays, Miscellany, and Reconstruction in Philosophy Published during 1920
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

A collection of all of Dewey’s writings for 1920 with the excep­tion of Letters from China and Japan. A Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition.

The nineteen items collected here, including his major work, Reconstruction in Philosophy, evolved in the main from Dewey’s travel, touring, lecturing, and teaching in Japan and China. Ralph Ross notes in his Introduction to this volume that Recon­struction in Philosophy is “a radical book . . . a pugnacious book by a gentle man.” It is in this book that Dewey summarizes his version of pragmatism, then called Instrumentalism. For Dew­ey, the pragmatist, it was people acting on the strength of in­telligence modeled on science who could find true ideas, ones “we can assimilate, validate, corroborate, and verify.” Optimism pervades Reconstruction of Philosophy; in keeping with Dewey’s world of open possibilities, the book recognizes that the obser­vation and thought of human striving can make the difference between despair and affirmation of life.

The seven essays on Chinese politics and social tradition that Dewey sent back from the Orient exhibit both the liveliness and the sensitive power of an insightful mind. Set against a backdrop of Japanese hegemony in China, the last days of Manchu imperi­alism, Europe’s carving of China into concessions, and China’s subsequent refusal to accept the terms of the Treaty of Ver­sailles, the essays were startlingly relevant in this time of Eastern turbulence and change.

At the National University of Peking, Dewey delivered a se­ries of lectures on “Three Contemporary Philosophers: William James, Henri Bergson, and Bertrand Russell.” The James and Bergson lectures are published for the first time in this volume. Dewey chose these philosophers, according to Ralph Ross, be­cause he was trying to show “his oriental audience what he believed and hoped about man and society and was talking about those fellow philosophers who shared the same beliefs and hopes.”

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 13, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 13, 1899 - 1924
Journal Articles, Essays, and Miscellany Published in the 1921-1922 Period
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Volume 13 in The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899–1924, series brings together Dewey’s writings for 1921 and 1922,with the exception of Human Nature and Conduct. A Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition.

Ralph Ross notes in his Introduction that the 53 items constituting this volume “defend Dewey’s beliefs at 63 and look forward to what he was yet to write.” The essays to which Dewey responded, as well as abstracts of articles that have been published only in Japanese, appear as appendixes.

The article “Valuation and Experimental Knowledge” treats a favorite Dewey theme: “Most of the important crises of life are cases where tastes are the only things worth dis­cussing, and where, if the life of reason is to exist and prevail, judgment must be per­formed with regard for its logical implica­tions.” The philosophical articles stress Dewey’s view that, as Ross remarks, “philosophies are not timeless and universal, but speak to times, places and conditions.”

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 14, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 14, 1899 - 1924
Human Nature and Conduct, 1922
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Volume 14 of The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899–1924, series provides an authoritative edition of Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct. A Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition.

Human Nature and Conduct evolved from the West Memorial Foundation lectures at Stanford University. The lectures were ex­tensively rewritten and expanded into one of Dewey’s best-known works. As Murray G. Murphey says in his Introduction, “It was a work in which Dewey sought to make ex­plicit the social character of his psychology and philosophy—something which had long been evident but never so clearly spelled out.”

Subtitled “An Introduction to Social Psy­chology,” Human Nature and Conduct sets forth Dewey’s view that habits are social functions, and that social phenomena, such as habit and custom and scientific methods of inquiry are moral and natural. Dewey con­cludes, “Within the flickering inconsequen­tial acts of separate selves dwells a sense of the whole which claims and dignifies them. In its presence we put off mortality and live in the universal.”

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 15, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 15, 1899 - 1924
Journal Articles, Essays, and Miscellany Published in the 1923-1924 Period
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Volume 15 in The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899–1924, series brings together Dewey’s writings for the period 1923–1924. A Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition.

Volume 15 completes the republication of Dewey’s extensive writings for the 25-year period included in the Middle Works series. Many facets of Dewey’s interests—politics, philosophy, education, and social con­cerns—are illuminated by the 40 items from 1923 and 1924.

Inspired by his own convictions and those of his friend Salmon O. Levinson, founder of the American Committee for the Outlawry of War, Dewey’s articles became the keystone of the committee’s campaign to outlaw war. His essay, “Logical Method and Law,” is perhaps the most enduring of Dewey’s writings in this volume. Dewey’s philosophical discussions with Daniel Som­mer Robinson, David Wight Prall, Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, and Sterling Power Lamprecht are represented here, as is Dewey’s assessment of the Turkish educa­tional system.

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 2, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 2, 1899 - 1924
Journal Articles, Book Reviews, and Miscellany in the 1902-1903 Period, and Studies in Logical Theory and The Child and the Curriculum
John Dewey
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Includes the complete text of Dewey’s Studies in Logical Theory and The Child and the Curriculum.

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 3, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 3, 1899 - 1924
Journal Articles, Book Reviews, and Miscellany in the 1903-1906 Period
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008
Spanning the crucial years of Dewey’s move from the University of Chicago to Columbia University, Volume 3 col­lects thirty-six essays and reviews pub­lished at the very time Dewey deter­mined that his professional future would lie in the field of philosophy. After resigning from Chicago, Dewey seriously considered a career in univer­sity administration before finally decid­ing to accept a professorship in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia, where he was to remain the rest of his professional life.
[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 4, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 4, 1899 - 1924
Journal Articles and Book Reviews in the 1907-1909 Period, and The Pragmatic Movement of Contemporary Thought and Moral Principles in Education
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008
By 1907, the first of the three years em­braced by Volume 4, Dewey had aban­doned thoughts of a possible career in the administration of higher education and was firmly established as a leading member of the Department of Phi­losophy at Columbia. As Lewis Hahn points out in his Introduction, these were “very productive years for Dewey. In addition to numerous lectures and speaking engagements and participa­tion in professional meetings, he pub­lished fifteen or so substantial articles, almost as many shorter things, a syl­labus on The Pragmatic Movement of Contemporary Thought, a monograph on Moral Principles in Education, and, with J. H. Tufts, the first edition of a very popular textbook, Ethics.
[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 5, 1899-1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 5, 1899-1924
Ethics, 1908
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Thisfifth volume of the Middle Works contains Ethics by John Dewey and his former colleague at the University of Michigan, James H. Tufts, which ap­peared as one of the last in the Holt American Science series of textbooks. Within some six months after publica­tion, Ethics was adopted as a textbook by thirty colleges. The book continued to be extremely popular and widely used, and was reprinted twenty-five times before both authors completely revised their respective parts for the new 1932edition.

Up to the time Ethics was published, Dewey’s approach to ethics was known primarily from two short publications that were developed for use by his classes at the University of Michigan: Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics (1891)and The Study of Ethics: A Syl­labus (1894). Charles Stevenson notes in his Introduction to the present edition that Ethics afforded Dewey an opportu­nity to preserve and enrich the content of those earlier works and at the same time to expound his position in a more systematic manner.

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 6
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 6
Journal Articles, Book Reviews, Miscellany in the 1910-1911 Period, and How We Think
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

William James, remarking in 1909 on the differences among the three leading spokesmen for pragmatism—himself, F. C. S. Schiller, and John Dewey—said that Schiller’s views were essential­ly “psychological,” his own, “epistemo­logical,” whereas Dewey’s “panorama is the widest of the three.”

The two main subjects of Dewey’s essays at this time are also two of the most fundamental and persistent philo­sophical questions: the nature of knowl­edge and the meaning of truth. Dewey’s distinctive analysis is concentrated chiefly in seven essays, in a long, sig­nificant, and previously almost un­known work entitled “The Problem of Truth,” and in his book How We Think. As a whole, the 1910–11 writings il­lustrate especially well that which the Thayers identify in their Introduction as Dewey’s “deepening concentration on questions of logic and epistemology as contrasted with the more pronounced psychological and pedagogical treat­ment in earlier writings.”

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 7, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 7, 1899 - 1924
Essays, Books Reviews, Encyclopedia Articles in the 1912-1914 Period, and Interest and Effort in Education
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

During the three years embraced by Volume 7, Dewey published twenty articles and reviews, one of the articles of monograph-length, “The Psychology of Social Behavior,” one small book, Interest and Effort in Education, and sev­enty encyclopedia articles.

A salient and arresting feature of the essays is the continuing polemic be­tween Dewey and some of his critics. Ralph Ross, whose perceptive Introduc­tion to the volume provides a broad per­spective of the various philosophical controversies in which Dewey was en­gaged, comments that “when Dewey was pitting himself against important adversaries, his talents as a critic were fully evident.”

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 8, 1899 - 1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 8, 1899 - 1924
Essays and Miscellany in the 1915 Period and German Philosophy and Politics and Schools of To-Morrow
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008

Volume 8 comprises all Dewey’s pub­lished writings for the year 1915—and only for 1915, a year of typically ele­vated productivity, which saw publica­tion of fifteen articles and miscellaneous pieces and three books, two of which are reprinted here: German Philosophy and Politics and Schools of Tomorrow.

Professor Hook says that the publica­tions in this volume reveal John Dewey at the height of his philosophical pow­ers. Even though his greatest works were still to come—Democracy and Education, Experience and Nature, The Quest for Certainty, and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry—“the themes elaborated there­in were already sounded and developed with incisive brevity in the articles and books of this banner year.”

[more]

front cover of The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 9, 1899-1924
The Middle Works of John Dewey, Volume 9, 1899-1924
Democracy and Education, 1916
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 2008
John Dewey’s best-known and still-popular classic, Democracy and Educa­tion, is presented here as a new edition in Volume 9 of the Middle Works. Sidney Hook, who wrote the introduction to this volume, describes Democracy and Education: “It illuminates directly or indirectly all the basic issues that are cen­tral today to the concerns of intelligent educators. . . . It throws light on sev­eral obscure corners in Dewey’s general philosophy in a vigorous, simple prose style often absent in his more technical writings. And it is the only work in any field originally published as a textbook that has not merely acquired the status of a classic, but has become the one book that no student concerned with the phi­losophy of education today should leave unread.” Dewey said in 1930 that De­mocracy and Education, “was for many years the one [book] in which my philos­ophy . . . was most fully expounded.”
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Moral Principles
John Dewey. Preface by Sidney Hook
Southern Illinois University Press, 1975

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Naturalizing Philosophy of Education
John Dewey in the Postanalytic Period
Jerome A. Popp
Southern Illinois University Press, 1998

Jerome A. Popp examines the role of Dewey-based pragmatism in the past, present, and future of philosophy of education. He insists that even though Marx-ian utopian thought subjugated Dewey’s ideas during the 1970s, Dewey’s epistemological arguments are directly relevant to contemporary philosophy. He contends that not only are Dewey’s arguments related to how we think about philosophy of education; they actually improve the thinking reflected in the literature. Dewey’s arguments, he demonstrates, provide the basis for both a rejuvenated account of conceptual analysis and a criticism of the utopian relativism currently dominating the literature.

Popp notes that empiricism, manifested in the philosophy of education as analytic philosophy, holds that scientific findings, especially from psychology, have no place in philosophy. But contemporary writers in the philosophy of science contend that to justify the methods of science we must consider what is known about intelligence and cognitive processes. These arguments are relevant to the ways in which we justify claims about proper education.

Naturalizing epistemology (using the results of science in philosophic theories) leads to an enhanced account of Dewey’s instrumental approach to normative inquiry and strengthens attempts to justify educational practices. Dewey’s critique of utopian approaches to social theory is bolstered by contemporary arguments in epistemology and the philosophy of science. These arguments reject the attempt by some in philosophy of education to solve value questions through an appeal to utopian thinking. Popp agrees with Dewey’s view that the proper goals of education cannot be stated in these terms.

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The Necessity of Pragmatism
John Dewey's Conception of Philosophy
R. W. Sleeper
University of Illinois Press, 1986
Hailed as "the most important overall reassessment of Dewey in several decades" (Sidney Ratner, Journal of Speculative Philosophy), The Necessity of Pragmatism investigates the most difficult and neglected aspects of Dewey's thought, his metaphysics and logic. R. W. Sleeper argues for a fundamental unity in Dewey's work, a unity that rests on his philosophy of language, and clarifies Dewey's conception of pragmatism as an action-based philosophy with the power to effect social change through criticism and inquiry.
 
Identifying Dewey's differences with his pragmatist forerunners, Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, Sleeper elucidates Dewey's reshaping of pragmatism and the radical significance of his philosophy of culture. In this first paperback edition, a new introduction by Tom Burke establishes the ongoing importance of Sleeper's analysis of the integrity of Dewey's work and its implications for mathematics, aesthetics, and the cognitive sciences.
 
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On Education
Selected Writing
John Dewey
University of Chicago Press, 1974
In this collection, Reginald D. Archambault has assembled John Dewey's major writings on education. He has also included basic statements of Dewey's philosophic position that are relevant to understanding his educational views. These selections are useful not only for understanding Dewey's pedagogical principles, but for illustrating the important relation between his educational theory and the principles of his general philosophy.
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The Philosophy of John Dewey
Volume 1. The Structure of Experience. Volume 2: The Lived Experience
John Dewey
University of Chicago Press, 1981
John J. McDermott's anthology, The Philosophy of John Dewey, provides the best general selection available of the writings of America's most distinguished philosopher and social critic. This comprehensive collection, ideal for use in the classroom and indispensable for anyone interested in the wide scope of Dewey's thought and works, affords great insight into his role in the history of ideas and the basic integrity of his philosophy.

This edition combines in one book the two volumes previously published separately. Volume 1, "The Structure of Experience," contains essays on metaphysics, the logic of inquiry, the problem of knowledge, and value theory. In volume 2, "The Lived Experience," Dewey's writings on pedagogy, ethics, the aesthetics of the "live creature," politics, and the philosophy of culture are presented. McDermott has prefaced each essay with a helpful explanatory note and has written an excellent general introduction to the anthology.
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The Poems of John Dewey
Edited by Jo Ann Boydston
Southern Illinois University Press, 1977

A literary discovery of considerable magnitude, these 98 previously unpub­lished poems by John Dewey, written principally in the 1910–18 period, illu­minate an emotive aspect in his intel­lectual life often not manifest in the prose works.

Rumors of the existence of the poems have circulated among students of Dewey’s life and writings since 1957,when Mrs. Roberta Dewey gained pos­session of them from the Columbia University Columbiana collection. But except for the few persons who saw copies made by the French scholar Deladelle five years after Dewey’s death, the poems have remained inaccessible until now.

None of the poems has hitherto been published. Mrs. Roberta Dewey and Dewey’s children from his first marriage seem not to have known of Dewey’s experiments in verse during his lifetime. And, as evidence presented here now shows, only two or three acquaintances knew of actual poems written by Dew­ey, one of them the Polish-American novelist Anzia Yezierska, who had a brief emotional involvement with Dewey in the 1917–18 period. The factual, rather than inferential, evi­dence of Dewey’s relationship with Anzia Yezierska appears in the poems, which, taken as a whole, provide reveal­ing insights into Dewey’s feelings and illuminate not only aspects of his emo­tions but of his thought as well.

The fact that Dewey did not publish the poetry himself, together with the circumstances of its discovery and un­usual history, has led to the exception­ally careful editorial treatment of the poems given here. Scholars will find all the evidence for the authorship of the manuscripts clearly presented and all the changes and alterations carefully recorded. This edition has received the Modern Language Association of Amer­ica Center for Editions of American Authors Seal as an “approved text.”

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Pragmatism and Feminism
Reweaving the Social Fabric
Charlene Haddock Seigfried
University of Chicago Press, 1996
Though many pioneering feminists were deeply influenced by American pragmatism, their contemporary followers have generally ignored that tradition because of its marginalization by a philosophical mainstream intent on neutral analyses devoid of subjectivity. In this revealing work, Charlene Haddock Seigfried effectively reunites two major social and philosophical movements, arguing that pragmatism, because of its focus on the emancipatory potential of everyday experiences, offers feminism its most viable and powerful philosophical foundation.

With careful attention to their interwoven histories and contemporary concerns, Pragmatism and Feminism effectively invigorates both traditions, opening them to new interpretations and appropriations and asserting their timely philosophical relevance. This foundational work in feminist theory simultaneously invites and guides future scholarship in an area of rapidly emerging significance.
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Pragmatism and Political Theory
From Dewey to Rorty
Matthew Festenstein
University of Chicago Press, 1997
Pragmatism has enjoyed a considerable revival in the latter part of the twentieth century, but what precisely constitutes pragmatism remains a matter of dispute. In reconstructing the pragmatic tradition in political philosophy, Matthew Festenstein rejects the idea that it is a single, cohesive doctrine. His incisive analysis brings out the commonalities and shared concerns among contemporary pragmatists while making clear their differences in how they would resolve those concerns. His study begins with the work of John Dewey and the moral and psychological conceptions that shaped his philosophy. Here Festenstein lays out the major philosophic issues with which first Dewey, and then his heirs, would grapple.

The book's second part traces how Dewey's approach has been differently developed, especially in the work of three contemporary pragmatic thinkers: Richard Rorty, Jurgen Habermas, and Hilary Putnam. This first full-length critical study of the relationship between the pragmatist tradition and political philosophy fills a significant gap in contemporary thought.
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Pragmatism as a Way of Life
The Lasting Legacy of William James and John Dewey
Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam; edited by David Macarthur
Harvard University Press, 2017

Throughout his diverse and highly influential career, Hilary Putnam was famous for changing his mind. As a pragmatist he treated philosophical “positions” as experiments in deliberate living. His aim was not to fix on one position but to attempt to do justice to the depth and complexity of reality. In this new collection, he and Ruth Anna Putnam argue that key elements of the classical pragmatism of William James and John Dewey provide a framework for the most progressive and forward-looking forms of philosophy in contemporary thought. The Putnams present a compelling defense of the radical originality of the philosophical ideas of James and Dewey and their usefulness in confronting the urgent social, political, and moral problems of the twenty-first century.

Pragmatism as a Way of Life brings together almost all of the Putnams’ pragmatist writings—essays they wrote as individuals and as coauthors. The pragmatism they endorse, though respectful of the sciences, is an open experience-based philosophy of our everyday lives that trenchantly criticizes the fact/value dualism running through contemporary culture. Hilary Putnam argues that all facts are dependent on cognitive values, while Ruth Anna Putnam turns the problem around, illuminating the factual basis of moral principles. Together, they offer a shared vision which, in Hilary’s words, “could serve as a manifesto for what the two of us would like philosophy to look like in the twenty-first century and beyond.”

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The Public and Its Problems
An Essay in Political Inquiry
John Dewey
Ohio University Press, 2016

More than six decades after John Dewey’s death, his political philosophy is undergoing a revival. With renewed interest in pragmatism and its implications for democracy in an age of mass communication, bureaucracy, and ever-increasing social complexities, Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems, first published in 1927, remains vital to any discussion of today’s political issues.

This edition of The Public and Its Problems, meticulously annotated and interpreted with fresh insight by Melvin L. Rogers, radically updates the previous version published by Swallow Press. Rogers’s introduction locates Dewey’s work within its philosophical and historical context and explains its key ideas for a contemporary readership. Biographical information and a detailed bibliography round out this definitive edition, which will be essential to students and scholars both.

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Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism
The Foundational Crisis of the Separation of Church and State
J. Judd Owen
University of Chicago Press, 2001
If liberalism is premised on inclusion, pluralism, and religious neutrality, can the separation of church and state be said to have a unitary and rational foundation? If we accept that there are no self-evident principles of morality or politics, then doesn't any belief in a rational society become a sort of faith? And how can liberalism mediate impartially between various faiths—as it aims to do—if liberalism itself is one of the competing faiths?

J. Judd Owen answers these questions with a remarkable critical analysis of four twentieth-century liberal and postliberal thinkers: John Dewey, John Rawls and, most extensively, Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish. His unique readings of these theorists and their approaches to religion lead him to conclusions that are meticulously constructed and surprising, arguing against the perception of liberalism as simple moral or religious neutrality, calling into question the prevailing justifications for separation of church and state, and challenging the way we think about the very basis of constitutional government.
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The School and Society
John Dewey. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston. Introduction by Joe R. Burnett
Southern Illinois University Press, 1980

First published in 1899,The School and Society describes John Dewey’s experiences with his own famous Laboratory School, started in 1896.

Dewey’s experiments at the Labora­tory School reflected his original social and educational philosophy based on American experience and concepts of democracy, not on European education models then in vogue. This forerunner of the major works shows Dewey’s per­vasive concern with the need for a rich, dynamic, and viable society.

In his introduction to this volume, Joe R. Burnett states Dewey’s theme. Industrialization, urbanization, science, and technology have created a revolution the schools cannot ignore. Dewey carries this theme through eight chapters: The School and Social Progress; The School and the Life of the Child; Waste in Education; Three Years of the University Elementary School; The Psychology of Elementary Education; Froebel’s Educa­tional Principles; The Psychology of Occupations; and the Development of Attention.

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The School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum
John Dewey
University of Chicago Press, 1990
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.
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The School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum
John Dewey
University of Chicago Press, 1990
This is an auto-narrated audiobook version of this book.

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.
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Teachers, Leaders, and Schools
Essays by John Dewey
Edited by Douglas J. Simpson and Sam F. Stack Jr.
Southern Illinois University Press, 2010

John Dewey was one of the most prominent philosophers and educational thinkers of the twentieth century, and his influence on modern education continues today. In Teachers, Leaders, and Schools: Essays by John Dewey, educators Douglas J. Simpson and Sam F. Stack Jr. have gathered some of  Dewey’s most user-friendly and insightful essays concerning education with the purpose of aiding potential and practicing teachers, administrators, and policy makers to prepare students for participation in democratic society.

Selected largely, but not exclusively, for their accessibility, relevance, and breadth of information, these articles are grouped into five parts—The Classroom Teacher, The School Curriculum, The Educational Leader, The Ideal School, and The Democratic Society. Each part includes an introductory essay that connects Dewey’s thoughts not only to each other but also to current educational concerns. The sections build on one another, revealing Dewey’s educational theories and interests and illustrating how his thoughts remain relevant today.

 

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Toward a Pragmatist Sociology
John Dewey and the Legacy of C. Wright Mills
Robert G. Dunn
Temple University Press, 2018

In Toward a Pragmatist Sociology, Robert Dunn explores the relationship between the ideas of philosopher and educator John Dewey and those of sociologist C. Wright Mills in order to provide a philosophical and theoretical foundation for the development of a critical and public sociology. Dunn recovers an intellectual and conceptual framework for transforming sociology into a more substantive, comprehensive, and socially useful discipline. 

Toward a Pragmatist Sociology argues that Dewey and Mills shared a common vision of a relevant, critical, public sociology dedicated to the solution of societal problems. Dunn investigates the past and present state of the discipline, critiquing its dominant tendencies, and offering historical examples of alternatives to conventional sociological approaches.  

By stressing the similar intellectual and moral visions of both men, Toward a Pragmatist Sociology provides an original treatment of two important American thinkers whose work offers a conception and model of a sociology with a sense of moral and political purpose and public relevance. It should liberate future sociologists and others to regard the discipline as not only a science but an intellectual, moral, and political enterprise.

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Translating Modernism
Fitzgerald and Hemingway
Ronald Berman
University of Alabama Press, 2009
In Translating Modernism Ronald Berman continues his career-long study of the ways that intellectual and philosophical ideas informed and transformed the work of America’s major modernist writers.
Here Berman shows how Fitzgerald and Hemingway wrestled with very specific intellectual, artistic, and psychological influences, influences particular to each writer, particular to the time in which they wrote, and which left distinctive marks on their entire oeuvres. Specifically, Berman addresses the idea of "translating" or "translation"—for Fitzgerald the translation of ideas from Freud, Dewey, and James, among others; and for Hemingway the translation of visual modernism and composition, via Cézanne.
Though each writer had distinct interests and different intellectual problems to wrestle with, as Berman demonstrates, both had to wrestle with transmuting some outside influence and making it their own.
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Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy
John Dewey, Edited by Phillip Deen, Foreword by Larry A. Hickman
Southern Illinois University Press, 2012

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In 1947 America’s premier philosopher, educator, and public intellectual John Dewey purportedly lost his last manuscript on modern philosophy in the back of a taxicab. Now, sixty-five years later, Dewey’s fresh and unpretentious take on the history and theory of knowledge is finally available. Editor Phillip Deen has taken on the task of editing Dewey’s unfinished work, carefully compiling the fragments and multiple drafts of each chapter that he discovered in the folders of the Dewey Papers at the Special Collections Research Center at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He has used Dewey’s last known outline for the manuscript, aiming to create a finished product that faithfully represents Dewey’s original intent. An introduction and editor’s notes by Deen and a foreword by Larry A. Hickman, director of the Center for Dewey Studies, frame this previously lost work.

In Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy, Dewey argues that modern philosophy is anything but; instead, it retains the baggage of outdated and misguided philosophical traditions and dualisms carried forward from Greek and medieval traditions. Drawing on cultural anthropology, Dewey moves past the philosophical themes of the past, instead proposing a functional model of humanity as emotional, inquiring, purposive organisms embedded in a natural and cultural environment.

Dewey begins by tracing the problematic history of philosophy, demonstrating how, from the time of the Greeks to the Empiricists and Rationalists, the subject has been mired in the search for immutable absolutes outside human experience and has relied on dualisms between mind and body, theory and practice, and the material and the ideal, ultimately dividing humanity from nature. The result, he posits, is the epistemological problem of how it is possible to have knowledge at all. In the second half of the volume, Dewey roots philosophy in the conflicting beliefs and cultural tensions of the human condition, maintaining that these issues are much more pertinent to philosophy and knowledge than the sharp dichotomies of the past and abstract questions of the body and mind. Ultimately, Dewey argues that the mind is not separate from the world, criticizes the denigration of practice in the name of theory, addresses the dualism between matter and ideals, and questions why the human and the natural were ever separated in philosophy. The result is a deeper understanding of the relationship among the scientific, the moral, and the aesthetic.

More than just historically significant in its rediscovery, Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy provides an intriguing critique of the history of modern thought and a positive account of John Dewey’s naturalized theory of knowing. This volume marks a significant contribution to the history of American thought and finally resolves one of the mysteries of pragmatic philosophy.

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Works about John Dewey, 1886-2012
Compiled and Edited by Barbara Levine
Southern Illinois University Press, 2014

Works of John Dewey, 1886–2012 is an invaluable and meticulously compiled resource for the growing number of scholars and researchers seeking a deeper understanding of the work of the prominent American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer.

Dewey (1859–1952), an influential philosopher credited with the founding of pragmatism and also recognized as a pioneer in functional psychology and the progressive moment in education, was hailed by Life magazine in 1990 as one of the one hundred most important Americans of the twentieth century. This rich and continually expanding compendium of historical and more recent essays, research, and references is a testament to the growing interest in Dewey’s intellectual work and his measurable impact in the United States and throughout the world.

In Works of John Dewey, 1886–2012, some four thousand new entries are presented in ebook format, in addition to those from earlier print and electronic editions dating back to 1995. Copies of most of the works have been obtained and are stored at the Center for Dewey Studies. For the first time, users can access all items from all editions in one user-friendly format. Jump links to alphabetical sections facilitate movement through the vast collection of entries. Users can search by keyword and author.

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The World in Which We Occur
John Dewey, Pragmatist Ecology, and American Ecological Writing in the Twentieth Century
Neil W. Browne
University of Alabama Press, 2007

Understanding our environment

American philosopher John Dewey considered all human endeavors to be continuous with the natural world. In his writings, particularly Art as Experience (1934), Dewey insists on the primacy of the environment in aesthetic experience. Dewey's conception of environment includes both the natural and the man-made. Neil Browne highlights this notion in order to define what he terms "pragmatist ecology," a practice rooted in the interface of the cultural and the natural, which he finds to be a significant feature of some of the most important ecological writing of the last century.

To fully understand human involvement in the natural world, Browne argues, disciplinary boundaries must be opened up. This is primarily important between the arts and science, with profound implications for the practice of democracy. The degradation of the physical environment and democratic decay, for Browne, are rooted in the same problem: our persistent belief that humans are somehow separate from their physical environment.

Browne probes the work of a number of major American writers through the lens of Dewey's philosophy. Among other texts, he examines John Muir’s My First Summer in the Sierra (1911); Sea of Cortez (1941) by John Steinbeck and Edward Ricketts; Rachel Carson's three books about the sea, Under the Sea-Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1951), and The Edge of the Sea (1955); John Haines's The Stars, the Snow, the Fire (1989); Tarry Lopez's Arctic Dreams (1986); and Terry Tempest Williams's Refuge (1991). Together, these texts—with their combinations of scientific observation and personal meditation—challenge the dichotomies to which we've become accustomed and affirm the values of a pragmatist ecology, one in which ecological and democratic
values go hand in hand.


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