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- Dewey quickly saw Morris as the only "real philosopher" and adopted him as mentor. Morris was a fellow Vermonter by birth and had also attended Union Theological Seminary. His interests were clearly aligned with Dewey's interests in metaphysics and theology.
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John Dewey (1859–1952) was one of American pragmatism’s early founders, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, and arguably the most prominent American intellectual for the first half of the twentieth century.
- Overview
- Being, nature, and experience
- Nature and the construction of ends
- The precarious
- Histories
- Ends and goods
John Dewey was an American philosopher and educator who was a founder of the philosophical movement known as pragmatism, a pioneer in functional psychology, and a leader of the progressive movement in education in the United States.
Where was John Dewey educated?
John Dewey graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Vermont in 1879 and received a doctorate in philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1884.
How did John Dewey impact the world?
John Dewey believed that a democratic society of informed and engaged inquirers was the best means of promoting human interests. To argue for this philosophy, Dewey taught at universities and wrote influential books such as Democracy and Education (1916) and Experience and Nature (1925).
John Dewey (born October 20, 1859, Burlington, Vermont, U.S.—died June 1, 1952, New York, New York) American philosopher and educator who was a cofounder of the philosophical movement known as pragmatism, a pioneer in functional psychology, an innovative theorist of democracy, and a leader of the progressive movement in education in the United States.
In order to develop and articulate his philosophical system, Dewey first needed to expose what he regarded as the flaws of the existing tradition. He believed that the distinguishing feature of Western philosophy was its assumption that true being—that which is fully real or fully knowable—is changeless, perfect, and eternal and the source of whatever reality the world of experience may possess. Plato’s forms (abstract entities corresponding to the properties of particular things) and the Christian conception of God were two examples of such a static, pure, and transcendent being, compared with which anything that undergoes change is imperfect and less real. According to one modern version of the assumption, developed by the 17th-century philosopher René Descartes, all experience is subjective, an exclusively mental phenomenon that cannot provide evidence of the existence or the nature of the physical world, the “matter” of which is ultimately nothing more than changeless extension in motion. The Western tradition thus made a radical distinction between true reality on the one hand and the endless varieties and variations of worldly human experience on the other.
Dewey held that this philosophy of nature was drastically impoverished. Rejecting any dualism between being and experience, he proposed that all things are subject to change and do change. There is no static being, and there is no changeless nature. Nor is experience purely subjective, because the human mind is itself part and parcel of nature. Human experiences are the outcomes of a range of interacting processes and are thus worldly events. The challenge to human life, therefore, is to determine how to live well with processes of change, not somehow to transcend them.
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Philosophy 101
Dewey developed a metaphysics that examined characteristics of nature that encompassed human experience but were either ignored by or misrepresented by more traditional philosophers. Three such characteristics—what he called the “precarious,” “histories,” and “ends”—were central to his philosophical project.
For Dewey, a precarious event is one that somehow makes ongoing experience problematic; thus, any obstacle, disruption, danger, or surprise of any kind is precarious. As noted earlier, because humanity is a part of nature, all things that humans encounter in their daily experience, including other humans and the social institutions they inhabit, are natural events. The arbitrary cruelty of a tyrant or the kindness shown by a stranger is as natural and precarious as the destruction wrought by a flood or the vibrant colours of a sunset. Human ideas and moral norms must also be viewed in this way. Human knowledge is wholly intertwined with precarious, constantly changing nature.
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The constancy of change does not imply a complete lack of continuity with the past stages of natural processes. What Dewey meant by a history was a process of change with an identifiable outcome. When the constituent processes of a history are identified, they become subject to modification, and their outcome can be deliberately varied and secured....
Since at least the time of Aristotle (384–322 bce), many Western philosophers have made use of the notion of end, or final cause—i.e., a cause conceived of as a natural purpose or goal (see teleology). In ethics, ends are the natural or consciously determined goals of moral actions; they are moral absolutes, such as happiness or “the good,” that hu...
Acclaimed biographer Jay Martin recaptures the unity of Dewey's life and work, tracing important themes through the philosopher's childhood years, family history, religious experience, and influential friendships.
Aug 9, 2023 · Early Life. Dewey was born on October 20, 1859, to Archibald Dewey and Lucina Artemisia Rich in Burlington, Vermont. He was the third of the couple’s four sons, one of whom died as an infant....
Worried about working for a university dedicated to laissez-faire capitalism, Dewey found himself becoming more of a populist, more of a socialist, more sympathetic to the settlement house pioneered by Jane Addams, and more skeptical of his childhood Christianity. He would conclude that a changing America needed different schools.
Below are two biographical perspectives on Dewey, the first from Max Otto, and the second from Alfred North Whitehead. John Dewey. by Max Otto. John Dewey. Courtesy of the Harvard University Archives. Toward sundown on the first day of June, the thing happened that had to happen sooner or later. The life of John Dewey came to a close.
Jan 23, 2003 · Acclaimed biographer Jay Martin recaptures the unity of Dewey's life and work, tracing important themes through the philosopher's childhood years, family history, religious experience, and...
