Hilary Putnam
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198289647
- eISBN:
- 9780191596698
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198289642.003.0008
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Development, Growth, and Environmental
Putnam engages with moral objectivity and the question of ethical truth in this paper, in which he combats the idea that there is no intellectual structure worth taking seriously to the arguments of ...
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Putnam engages with moral objectivity and the question of ethical truth in this paper, in which he combats the idea that there is no intellectual structure worth taking seriously to the arguments of American pragmatists such as Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. As a countercurrent to contemporary analytic philosophy, Putnam interprets and builds on the work of Dewey so as to yield the conclusion that there can be a rational basis for adopting ethical positions and that democratic processes are necessary constituents of social rationality.Less
Putnam engages with moral objectivity and the question of ethical truth in this paper, in which he combats the idea that there is no intellectual structure worth taking seriously to the arguments of American pragmatists such as Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. As a countercurrent to contemporary analytic philosophy, Putnam interprets and builds on the work of Dewey so as to yield the conclusion that there can be a rational basis for adopting ethical positions and that democratic processes are necessary constituents of social rationality.
Jonathon S. Kahn
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195307894
- eISBN:
- 9780199867516
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195307894.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter defines pragmatism and pragmatic religious naturalism through a reading of pragmatists William James, John Dewey, and George Santayana. It shows how Du Bois constructs crucial notions of ...
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This chapter defines pragmatism and pragmatic religious naturalism through a reading of pragmatists William James, John Dewey, and George Santayana. It shows how Du Bois constructs crucial notions of black identity, double consciousness, and black peoplehood with anti-essentialist pragmatist tools such as James's radical empiricism. It goes on to show how Du Bois's religious voice is fully inhabited by four key characteristics of pragmatic religious naturalisms: 1) skepticism of supernatural revelation; 2) conceiving of religion's powers as coming from finite human trusts; 3) finding religion's genius in its pairing of the real with the ideal; and finally 4) a meliorism in which hopefulness only emerges from a frank confrontation with real struggle and loss.Less
This chapter defines pragmatism and pragmatic religious naturalism through a reading of pragmatists William James, John Dewey, and George Santayana. It shows how Du Bois constructs crucial notions of black identity, double consciousness, and black peoplehood with anti-essentialist pragmatist tools such as James's radical empiricism. It goes on to show how Du Bois's religious voice is fully inhabited by four key characteristics of pragmatic religious naturalisms: 1) skepticism of supernatural revelation; 2) conceiving of religion's powers as coming from finite human trusts; 3) finding religion's genius in its pairing of the real with the ideal; and finally 4) a meliorism in which hopefulness only emerges from a frank confrontation with real struggle and loss.
Alan Ryan
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691148403
- eISBN:
- 9781400841950
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691148403.003.0024
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines John Dewey's liberalism, arguing that his social and political theory expressed the self-understanding of modern society—“modern” being no more precise in its denotation than ...
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This chapter examines John Dewey's liberalism, arguing that his social and political theory expressed the self-understanding of modern society—“modern” being no more precise in its denotation than “postmodernist,” but certainly meaning at different times both the society that lived off and built on the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the society that came into existence with the capitalist Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After expounding on Dewey's views on the demands of modernity, the chapter considers his belief in the need for industrial democracy as a complement to political democracy. It also discusses postmodernist bourgeois liberalism, Dewey's views on idealism and naturalism, his Democracy and Education and its references to freedom and equality, and the impact of World War I on Dewey's poise. Finally, it describes Dewey's non-Marxian radicalism and argues that Dewey was a philosopher rather than a political activist.Less
This chapter examines John Dewey's liberalism, arguing that his social and political theory expressed the self-understanding of modern society—“modern” being no more precise in its denotation than “postmodernist,” but certainly meaning at different times both the society that lived off and built on the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the society that came into existence with the capitalist Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After expounding on Dewey's views on the demands of modernity, the chapter considers his belief in the need for industrial democracy as a complement to political democracy. It also discusses postmodernist bourgeois liberalism, Dewey's views on idealism and naturalism, his Democracy and Education and its references to freedom and equality, and the impact of World War I on Dewey's poise. Finally, it describes Dewey's non-Marxian radicalism and argues that Dewey was a philosopher rather than a political activist.
Antón Donoso
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823233670
- eISBN:
- 9780823241804
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823233670.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
The first half of the twentieth century saw the peak of the worldwide influence of John Dewey (1859–1952), and by midcentury there was a sharp decline in his influence both at home and abroad. ...
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The first half of the twentieth century saw the peak of the worldwide influence of John Dewey (1859–1952), and by midcentury there was a sharp decline in his influence both at home and abroad. However, during the last two decades there has been a renewed interest in pragmatism in general and in Dewey in particular. Although separate studies have been published on Dewey's influence in a number of countries, only passing mention has been made of Spain and Latin America. This chapter is an effort to begin to fill that gap. The first part is a historical survey of Dewey's influence in Spain and in four Spanish American countries (Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Argentina), while the second part consists of observations on why the influence occurred, why it attained the levels it finally did before it declined, and what signs indicate a renewed interest in Dewey's work.Less
The first half of the twentieth century saw the peak of the worldwide influence of John Dewey (1859–1952), and by midcentury there was a sharp decline in his influence both at home and abroad. However, during the last two decades there has been a renewed interest in pragmatism in general and in Dewey in particular. Although separate studies have been published on Dewey's influence in a number of countries, only passing mention has been made of Spain and Latin America. This chapter is an effort to begin to fill that gap. The first part is a historical survey of Dewey's influence in Spain and in four Spanish American countries (Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Argentina), while the second part consists of observations on why the influence occurred, why it attained the levels it finally did before it declined, and what signs indicate a renewed interest in Dewey's work.
Isaac Levi
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199698134
- eISBN:
- 9780191742323
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199698134.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, History of Philosophy
This volume presents a series of chapters which investigate the nature of intellectual inquiry: what its aims are and how it operates. The starting-point is the work of the American Pragmatists C. S. ...
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This volume presents a series of chapters which investigate the nature of intellectual inquiry: what its aims are and how it operates. The starting-point is the work of the American Pragmatists C. S. Peirce and John Dewey. Inquiry according to Peirce is a struggle to replace doubt by true belief. Dewey insisted that the transformation was from an indeterminate situation to a determinate or non-problematic one. This book's subject is changes in doxastic commitments, which may involve changes in attitudes or changes in situations in which attitudes are entangled. The question what justifies modification of doxastic commitments is a normative one, and so may not be understandable in purely naturalistic terms.Less
This volume presents a series of chapters which investigate the nature of intellectual inquiry: what its aims are and how it operates. The starting-point is the work of the American Pragmatists C. S. Peirce and John Dewey. Inquiry according to Peirce is a struggle to replace doubt by true belief. Dewey insisted that the transformation was from an indeterminate situation to a determinate or non-problematic one. This book's subject is changes in doxastic commitments, which may involve changes in attitudes or changes in situations in which attitudes are entangled. The question what justifies modification of doxastic commitments is a normative one, and so may not be understandable in purely naturalistic terms.
Alan Ryan
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691148403
- eISBN:
- 9781400841950
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691148403.003.0026
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines the connection between John Dewey's pragmatism and his ideas about education, and how his conception of philosophy is related to his views about the character of modern society ...
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This chapter examines the connection between John Dewey's pragmatism and his ideas about education, and how his conception of philosophy is related to his views about the character of modern society in general, and modern American society in particular. It first considers the difficulty that many readers have in knowing quite what Dewey wanted to say about philosophy, education, and many other subjects, before expounding on his educational ideas. The focus is on Dewey's early writings—that is, what he wrote during the ten years he was in Chicago and in the years immediately after that. The reason is that on education, these were the years of his greatest inventiveness, and thereafter he mostly defended himself against misunderstanding. On Dewey's politics, the chapter explores his views on American nationalism in the context of World War I.Less
This chapter examines the connection between John Dewey's pragmatism and his ideas about education, and how his conception of philosophy is related to his views about the character of modern society in general, and modern American society in particular. It first considers the difficulty that many readers have in knowing quite what Dewey wanted to say about philosophy, education, and many other subjects, before expounding on his educational ideas. The focus is on Dewey's early writings—that is, what he wrote during the ten years he was in Chicago and in the years immediately after that. The reason is that on education, these were the years of his greatest inventiveness, and thereafter he mostly defended himself against misunderstanding. On Dewey's politics, the chapter explores his views on American nationalism in the context of World War I.
Sami Pihlström
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780823251582
- eISBN:
- 9780823252763
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823251582.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter deals with the socially oriented, pragmatically naturalist conception of religious faith John Dewey developed in A Common Faith (1934) and elsewhere, as well as Dewey’s influence on ...
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This chapter deals with the socially oriented, pragmatically naturalist conception of religious faith John Dewey developed in A Common Faith (1934) and elsewhere, as well as Dewey’s influence on later pragmatist and naturalist currents in the philosophy of religion. In particular, Dewey’s distinction between “the religious”, on the one hand, and actual historical religions, on the other, is explained and discussed. According to Dewey--the most important classical pragmatist following James--the religious aspects of experience can be appreciated without metaphysical commitments to anything supernatural. Dewey’s pragmatism thus seeks to emancipate “the religious” from the dogmatism and supernaturalism typical of traditional religious metaphysics. Dewey’s relation to Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, and the role played by metaphysics and the criticism of metaphysics in both, are also examined.Less
This chapter deals with the socially oriented, pragmatically naturalist conception of religious faith John Dewey developed in A Common Faith (1934) and elsewhere, as well as Dewey’s influence on later pragmatist and naturalist currents in the philosophy of religion. In particular, Dewey’s distinction between “the religious”, on the one hand, and actual historical religions, on the other, is explained and discussed. According to Dewey--the most important classical pragmatist following James--the religious aspects of experience can be appreciated without metaphysical commitments to anything supernatural. Dewey’s pragmatism thus seeks to emancipate “the religious” from the dogmatism and supernaturalism typical of traditional religious metaphysics. Dewey’s relation to Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion, and the role played by metaphysics and the criticism of metaphysics in both, are also examined.
Donald J. Morse
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823234707
- eISBN:
- 9780823240760
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234707.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This book considers John Dewey's early philosophy on its own terms and aims to explicate its key ideas. It does so through the fullest treatment to date of his youthful masterwork, the Psychology. ...
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This book considers John Dewey's early philosophy on its own terms and aims to explicate its key ideas. It does so through the fullest treatment to date of his youthful masterwork, the Psychology. This fuller treatment reveals that the received view, which sees Dewey's early philosophy as unimportant in its own right, is deeply mistaken. In fact, Dewey's early philosophy amounts to an important new form of idealism. More specifically, Dewey's idealism contains a new logic of rupture, which allows us to achieve four things: a focus on discontinuity that challenges all naturalistic views, including Dewey's own later view; a space of critical resistance to events that is at the same time the source of ideals; a faith in the development of ideals that challenges pessimists like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; and a non-traditional reading of Hegel that invites comparison with cutting-edge Continental philosophers, such as Adorno, Derrida, and Zizek, and even goes beyond them in its systematic approach. In making these discoveries, the book forges a new link between American and European philosophy, showing how they share similar insights and concerns. It also provides an original assessment of Dewey's relationship to his teacher, George Sylvester Morris, and to other important thinkers of the day, giving us a fresh picture of John Dewey, the man and the philosopher, in the early years of his career. This book discusses a wide range of topics, from Dewey's early reflections on Kant and Hegel to the nature of beauty, courage, sympathy, hatred, love, and even death and despair.Less
This book considers John Dewey's early philosophy on its own terms and aims to explicate its key ideas. It does so through the fullest treatment to date of his youthful masterwork, the Psychology. This fuller treatment reveals that the received view, which sees Dewey's early philosophy as unimportant in its own right, is deeply mistaken. In fact, Dewey's early philosophy amounts to an important new form of idealism. More specifically, Dewey's idealism contains a new logic of rupture, which allows us to achieve four things: a focus on discontinuity that challenges all naturalistic views, including Dewey's own later view; a space of critical resistance to events that is at the same time the source of ideals; a faith in the development of ideals that challenges pessimists like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; and a non-traditional reading of Hegel that invites comparison with cutting-edge Continental philosophers, such as Adorno, Derrida, and Zizek, and even goes beyond them in its systematic approach. In making these discoveries, the book forges a new link between American and European philosophy, showing how they share similar insights and concerns. It also provides an original assessment of Dewey's relationship to his teacher, George Sylvester Morris, and to other important thinkers of the day, giving us a fresh picture of John Dewey, the man and the philosopher, in the early years of his career. This book discusses a wide range of topics, from Dewey's early reflections on Kant and Hegel to the nature of beauty, courage, sympathy, hatred, love, and even death and despair.
Kerwin Lee IZlein
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520204638
- eISBN:
- 9780520924185
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520204638.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter analyzes the American frontier thesis as part of changing narrative traditions. It discusses the differences between the views of Frederick Jackson Turner, who emplotted the European ...
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This chapter analyzes the American frontier thesis as part of changing narrative traditions. It discusses the differences between the views of Frederick Jackson Turner, who emplotted the European occupation of America as the building of a modern democracy from wild nature, and John Dewey, who blamed many of the nation's social ills on frontier excess. The chapter also considers Merle Curti's frontier history, which epitomized the analytic turns as it carried forward the notion that American democracy was a product of American wilderness.Less
This chapter analyzes the American frontier thesis as part of changing narrative traditions. It discusses the differences between the views of Frederick Jackson Turner, who emplotted the European occupation of America as the building of a modern democracy from wild nature, and John Dewey, who blamed many of the nation's social ills on frontier excess. The chapter also considers Merle Curti's frontier history, which epitomized the analytic turns as it carried forward the notion that American democracy was a product of American wilderness.
Roger A. Ward and Roger A. Ward
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823223138
- eISBN:
- 9780823284740
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823223138.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter follows the structure of the three essays that comprise John Dewey’s A Common Faith. The first section examines Dewey’s notion of the transformation to the religious attitude in ...
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This chapter follows the structure of the three essays that comprise John Dewey’s A Common Faith. The first section examines Dewey’s notion of the transformation to the religious attitude in “Religion versus the Religious.” The second section focuses on the content aspects of “Faith and Its Object” that make this critical advance possible. Dewey wants to stabilize the sources of authority in human practice to enhance the products and consciousness of intelligent control. The third section follows Dewey’s ascending polemic against the supernatural in “The Human Abode of the Religious Function.” Conversion completes Dewey’s thought here in the sense that the religious function is necessary to produce a material effect on practice that manifests intelligent control of the sources of authority in common life.Less
This chapter follows the structure of the three essays that comprise John Dewey’s A Common Faith. The first section examines Dewey’s notion of the transformation to the religious attitude in “Religion versus the Religious.” The second section focuses on the content aspects of “Faith and Its Object” that make this critical advance possible. Dewey wants to stabilize the sources of authority in human practice to enhance the products and consciousness of intelligent control. The third section follows Dewey’s ascending polemic against the supernatural in “The Human Abode of the Religious Function.” Conversion completes Dewey’s thought here in the sense that the religious function is necessary to produce a material effect on practice that manifests intelligent control of the sources of authority in common life.
Stefan Neubert and Kersten Reich
Larry A. Hickman (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230181
- eISBN:
- 9780823235339
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823230181.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
Many contemporary constructivists are particularly attuned to Dewey's penetrating criticism of traditional epistemology, which offers rich alternatives for understanding processes of ...
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Many contemporary constructivists are particularly attuned to Dewey's penetrating criticism of traditional epistemology, which offers rich alternatives for understanding processes of learning and education, knowledge and truth, and experience and culture. This book, the result of cooperation between the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and the Dewey Center at the University of Cologne, provides an excellent example of the international character of pragmatist studies against the backdrop of constructivist concerns. As a part of their exploration of the many points of contact between classical pragmatism and contemporary constructivism, its contributors turn their attention to theories of interaction and transaction, communication and culture, learning and education, community and democracy, theory and practice, and inquiry and methods. Part One is a basic survey of Dewey's pragmatism and its implications for contemporary constructivism. Part Two examines the implications of the connections between Deweyan pragmatism and contemporary constructivism. Part Three presents a lively exchange among the contributors, as they challenge one another and defend their positions and perspectives. As they seek common ground, they articulate concepts such as power, truth, relativism, inquiry, and democracy from pragmatist and interactive constructivist vantage points in ways that are designed to render the preceding essays even more accessible. The concluding discussion demonstrates both the enduring relevance of classical pragmatism and the challenge of its reconstruction from the perspective of the Cologne program of interactive constructivism.Less
Many contemporary constructivists are particularly attuned to Dewey's penetrating criticism of traditional epistemology, which offers rich alternatives for understanding processes of learning and education, knowledge and truth, and experience and culture. This book, the result of cooperation between the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and the Dewey Center at the University of Cologne, provides an excellent example of the international character of pragmatist studies against the backdrop of constructivist concerns. As a part of their exploration of the many points of contact between classical pragmatism and contemporary constructivism, its contributors turn their attention to theories of interaction and transaction, communication and culture, learning and education, community and democracy, theory and practice, and inquiry and methods. Part One is a basic survey of Dewey's pragmatism and its implications for contemporary constructivism. Part Two examines the implications of the connections between Deweyan pragmatism and contemporary constructivism. Part Three presents a lively exchange among the contributors, as they challenge one another and defend their positions and perspectives. As they seek common ground, they articulate concepts such as power, truth, relativism, inquiry, and democracy from pragmatist and interactive constructivist vantage points in ways that are designed to render the preceding essays even more accessible. The concluding discussion demonstrates both the enduring relevance of classical pragmatism and the challenge of its reconstruction from the perspective of the Cologne program of interactive constructivism.
Bruce Kuklick
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199260164
- eISBN:
- 9780191597893
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199260168.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
I have been selective in my emphases rather than encyclopaedic and exhaustive. In focusing on American philosophy, the book makes implicit claims about thought and life related to a peculiar western ...
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I have been selective in my emphases rather than encyclopaedic and exhaustive. In focusing on American philosophy, the book makes implicit claims about thought and life related to a peculiar western polity and the US, by the nineteenth century. The study of the history of philosophy finally requires complex judgements of quality, which are both questionable and necessary. I have depicted student–teacher relations, conventions of argument, and constellations of problems that endure over generations; and the cultural setting and institutional connections that make up an enterprise of philosophy. I have described traditions of thought and the intentions of thinkers within a social matrix. The book divides naturally into three substantive parts: the first covers the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries, and focuses on religious disputation; the second, from 1865–1930 on pragmatism, an influential American contribution to western ideas; the third, from 1910–2000, on professional philosophy in America, more secular and institutionalized. The thinkers covered include Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Bushnell, Charles Peirce, Josiah Royce, William James, John Dewey, C.I. Lewis, Wilfrid Sellars, Thomas Kuhn, Richard Rorty. The most important theme of the book is the long circuitous march from a religious to a secular vision of the universe. A subsidiary theme concerns social and political philosophy, the crux of Ch. 2.Less
I have been selective in my emphases rather than encyclopaedic and exhaustive. In focusing on American philosophy, the book makes implicit claims about thought and life related to a peculiar western polity and the US, by the nineteenth century. The study of the history of philosophy finally requires complex judgements of quality, which are both questionable and necessary. I have depicted student–teacher relations, conventions of argument, and constellations of problems that endure over generations; and the cultural setting and institutional connections that make up an enterprise of philosophy. I have described traditions of thought and the intentions of thinkers within a social matrix. The book divides naturally into three substantive parts: the first covers the eighteenth and most of the nineteenth centuries, and focuses on religious disputation; the second, from 1865–1930 on pragmatism, an influential American contribution to western ideas; the third, from 1910–2000, on professional philosophy in America, more secular and institutionalized. The thinkers covered include Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Bushnell, Charles Peirce, Josiah Royce, William James, John Dewey, C.I. Lewis, Wilfrid Sellars, Thomas Kuhn, Richard Rorty. The most important theme of the book is the long circuitous march from a religious to a secular vision of the universe. A subsidiary theme concerns social and political philosophy, the crux of Ch. 2.
Bruce Kuklick
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199260164
- eISBN:
- 9780191597893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199260168.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Another variant of pragmatism, instrumentalism, flourished under the auspices of John Dewey at the University of Chicago in the 1890s. Instrumentalism was less interested than pragmatism in saving ...
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Another variant of pragmatism, instrumentalism, flourished under the auspices of John Dewey at the University of Chicago in the 1890s. Instrumentalism was less interested than pragmatism in saving religion and more committed to intervention in social life and politics. When Dewey moved to Columbia University in New York City in 1904, he soon commanded intellectual leadership for philosophy in that city and its many institutions of learning and culture. After his retirement in 1929, Columbia ‘Naturalists’ carried on his work and were leading secular liberals in the wider intellectual world.Less
Another variant of pragmatism, instrumentalism, flourished under the auspices of John Dewey at the University of Chicago in the 1890s. Instrumentalism was less interested than pragmatism in saving religion and more committed to intervention in social life and politics. When Dewey moved to Columbia University in New York City in 1904, he soon commanded intellectual leadership for philosophy in that city and its many institutions of learning and culture. After his retirement in 1929, Columbia ‘Naturalists’ carried on his work and were leading secular liberals in the wider intellectual world.
Trevor Pearce
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780226719887
- eISBN:
- 9780226720081
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226720081.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter shows that Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, in the most famous texts associated with classical pragmatism, developed an account of scientific inquiry that was ...
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This chapter shows that Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, in the most famous texts associated with classical pragmatism, developed an account of scientific inquiry that was inspired by evolutionary ideas and by Herbert Spencer’s organism-environment framework. This account was grounded in their psychological and educational research and proceeded hand in hand with their analyses of ethics and social reform. In the 1890s and early 1900s, pragmatism (now finally going by that name) presented a model of inquiry—a logic, in the terminology of the time—that that was both evolutionary and experimental. Despite Peirce’s claims to the contrary, each of the classical pragmatists developed a “natural history” approach to logic and viewed it as fundamentally experimental. Although Dewey and Peirce, unlike James, were sympathetic to the idea of directed variation in evolution, Dewey and his students linked it to individual and social goals whereas Peirce connected it to a broader cosmic destiny.Less
This chapter shows that Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, in the most famous texts associated with classical pragmatism, developed an account of scientific inquiry that was inspired by evolutionary ideas and by Herbert Spencer’s organism-environment framework. This account was grounded in their psychological and educational research and proceeded hand in hand with their analyses of ethics and social reform. In the 1890s and early 1900s, pragmatism (now finally going by that name) presented a model of inquiry—a logic, in the terminology of the time—that that was both evolutionary and experimental. Despite Peirce’s claims to the contrary, each of the classical pragmatists developed a “natural history” approach to logic and viewed it as fundamentally experimental. Although Dewey and Peirce, unlike James, were sympathetic to the idea of directed variation in evolution, Dewey and his students linked it to individual and social goals whereas Peirce connected it to a broader cosmic destiny.
Bruce Kuklick
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199260164
- eISBN:
- 9780191597893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199260168.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
In the new university system of the late nineteenth century, there was a consensus on idealism as the most effective response to the challenge of Charles Darwin. Nine older thinkers typified ...
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In the new university system of the late nineteenth century, there was a consensus on idealism as the most effective response to the challenge of Charles Darwin. Nine older thinkers typified philosophy in the young American university: Borden Parker Bowne; J.E. Creighton, G.S. Fullerton, George Holmes Howison, George Ladd, G. S. Morris, Elisha Mulford, James Seth, and Jacob Gould Sherman. Two younger scholars, Josiah Royce and John Dewey, trained in the leading doctoral programme in the US at Johns Hopkins absorbed these conventional ideas.Less
In the new university system of the late nineteenth century, there was a consensus on idealism as the most effective response to the challenge of Charles Darwin. Nine older thinkers typified philosophy in the young American university: Borden Parker Bowne; J.E. Creighton, G.S. Fullerton, George Holmes Howison, George Ladd, G. S. Morris, Elisha Mulford, James Seth, and Jacob Gould Sherman. Two younger scholars, Josiah Royce and John Dewey, trained in the leading doctoral programme in the US at Johns Hopkins absorbed these conventional ideas.
Philip Kitcher
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199899555
- eISBN:
- 9780199980154
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199899555.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Over the last two decades the author of this book has started to make a serious case for pragmatism as the source of a new life in contemporary philosophy. There are some, like this book's author, ...
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Over the last two decades the author of this book has started to make a serious case for pragmatism as the source of a new life in contemporary philosophy. There are some, like this book's author, who view today's analytic philosophy as mired in narrowly focused, technical disputes of little interest to the wider world. What is the future of philosophy, and what would it look like? While Classical Pragmatism—the American philosophy developed by John Dewey, Charles Peirce, and William James in the nineteenth century—has a mixed reputation today, the author of this book admires the way its core ideas provide a way to prioritize avenues of inquiry. As the book points out, both James and Dewey shared a wish to eliminate “insignificant questions” from philosophy, and both harbored suspicion of “timeless” philosophical problems handed down generation after generation. Rather, they saw philosophy as inherently embedded in its time, grappling with pressing issues in religion, social life, art, politics, and education. The author states that he has become increasingly moved by this reformist approach to philosophy, and the published work included here, alongside a detailed introduction setting out the author's views, provide motivation for his view of the “reconstruction of philosophy.” These chapters try to install the pragmatic spirit into contemporary philosophy, renewing James and Dewey for our own times.Less
Over the last two decades the author of this book has started to make a serious case for pragmatism as the source of a new life in contemporary philosophy. There are some, like this book's author, who view today's analytic philosophy as mired in narrowly focused, technical disputes of little interest to the wider world. What is the future of philosophy, and what would it look like? While Classical Pragmatism—the American philosophy developed by John Dewey, Charles Peirce, and William James in the nineteenth century—has a mixed reputation today, the author of this book admires the way its core ideas provide a way to prioritize avenues of inquiry. As the book points out, both James and Dewey shared a wish to eliminate “insignificant questions” from philosophy, and both harbored suspicion of “timeless” philosophical problems handed down generation after generation. Rather, they saw philosophy as inherently embedded in its time, grappling with pressing issues in religion, social life, art, politics, and education. The author states that he has become increasingly moved by this reformist approach to philosophy, and the published work included here, alongside a detailed introduction setting out the author's views, provide motivation for his view of the “reconstruction of philosophy.” These chapters try to install the pragmatic spirit into contemporary philosophy, renewing James and Dewey for our own times.
David Goodman
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195394085
- eISBN:
- 9780199894383
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394085.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Popular
Democratic radio in the 1930s encompassed far more than Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famed Fireside Chats. Advocates of democratic radio were stimulated by the contemporary ideals of Deweyan ...
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Democratic radio in the 1930s encompassed far more than Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famed Fireside Chats. Advocates of democratic radio were stimulated by the contemporary ideals of Deweyan progressive education to imagine uses of radio that would facilitate development of critical individual opinion. Radio forum programs hoped to create an audience that was rational, discursive, open to persuasion, critical, wedded to the process of truth seeking rather than to any particular beliefs – and above all willing to change its mind. These qualities were to be stimulated by listening to the forum programs, but also by engaging in discussion of them after broadcast, perhaps in an organized radio listening group. The chapter discusses NBC's University of Chicago Round Table and George V. Denny Jr.'s America's Town Meeting of the Air on NBC, with its self-conscious attempt to revive the spirit of the New England town meeting on national radio.Less
Democratic radio in the 1930s encompassed far more than Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famed Fireside Chats. Advocates of democratic radio were stimulated by the contemporary ideals of Deweyan progressive education to imagine uses of radio that would facilitate development of critical individual opinion. Radio forum programs hoped to create an audience that was rational, discursive, open to persuasion, critical, wedded to the process of truth seeking rather than to any particular beliefs – and above all willing to change its mind. These qualities were to be stimulated by listening to the forum programs, but also by engaging in discussion of them after broadcast, perhaps in an organized radio listening group. The chapter discusses NBC's University of Chicago Round Table and George V. Denny Jr.'s America's Town Meeting of the Air on NBC, with its self-conscious attempt to revive the spirit of the New England town meeting on national radio.
John J. McDermott
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226627
- eISBN:
- 9780823235704
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226627.003.0029
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter presents an essay on classical American philosopher John Dewey's pedagogy of experience. It cites Elizabeth Flower's 1977 research article on Dewey where she ...
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This chapter presents an essay on classical American philosopher John Dewey's pedagogy of experience. It cites Elizabeth Flower's 1977 research article on Dewey where she explored the social and educational matrix that is riven throughout all of the philosopher's thought. Dewey's philosophy of education states that education is to be conceived as the process of forming fundamental dispositions, intellectual and emotional, toward nature and fellow men, and that philosophy may even be defined as the general theory of education.Less
This chapter presents an essay on classical American philosopher John Dewey's pedagogy of experience. It cites Elizabeth Flower's 1977 research article on Dewey where she explored the social and educational matrix that is riven throughout all of the philosopher's thought. Dewey's philosophy of education states that education is to be conceived as the process of forming fundamental dispositions, intellectual and emotional, toward nature and fellow men, and that philosophy may even be defined as the general theory of education.
Raymond D. Boisvert
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823211968
- eISBN:
- 9780823284764
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823211968.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter looks at how the beginning of John Dewey’s experimental phase is marked by his first public presentation of a new logical position in Studies in Logical Theory, published in 1903. This ...
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This chapter looks at how the beginning of John Dewey’s experimental phase is marked by his first public presentation of a new logical position in Studies in Logical Theory, published in 1903. This is a logic based on the experimental methodology of the sciences, and as such is fully in line with the emphasis on change which dominates this period of his development. The chapter analyzes the impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution on Dewey, for it was this theory which most influenced his view of change. The latter part of the chapter describes the kind of ontology Dewey developed, in which it seems that he never really altered his original Kantian outlook. Critics of Dewey maintain that he remained an idealist, and explicitly compare him to Immanuel Kant.Less
This chapter looks at how the beginning of John Dewey’s experimental phase is marked by his first public presentation of a new logical position in Studies in Logical Theory, published in 1903. This is a logic based on the experimental methodology of the sciences, and as such is fully in line with the emphasis on change which dominates this period of his development. The chapter analyzes the impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution on Dewey, for it was this theory which most influenced his view of change. The latter part of the chapter describes the kind of ontology Dewey developed, in which it seems that he never really altered his original Kantian outlook. Critics of Dewey maintain that he remained an idealist, and explicitly compare him to Immanuel Kant.
Raymond D. Boisvert
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823211968
- eISBN:
- 9780823284764
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823211968.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter investigates how John Dewey’s naturalistic period is characterized by the substitution of ontological issues for the methodological ones that dominated the experimentalist phase. This ...
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This chapter investigates how John Dewey’s naturalistic period is characterized by the substitution of ontological issues for the methodological ones that dominated the experimentalist phase. This change in emphasis resulted from his continued preoccupation with certain concerns that had marked his idealistic period, two of which are relevant here: the recognition that consciousness must be viewed as active as well as passive; and organicism. From William Morris, Dewey had come to appreciate the active role of intelligence in the acquisition of knowledge; and in G.W.F. Hegel, he had found a well-worked-out expression of organicism, a doctrine that had attracted him since his undergraduate years at the University of Vermont.Less
This chapter investigates how John Dewey’s naturalistic period is characterized by the substitution of ontological issues for the methodological ones that dominated the experimentalist phase. This change in emphasis resulted from his continued preoccupation with certain concerns that had marked his idealistic period, two of which are relevant here: the recognition that consciousness must be viewed as active as well as passive; and organicism. From William Morris, Dewey had come to appreciate the active role of intelligence in the acquisition of knowledge; and in G.W.F. Hegel, he had found a well-worked-out expression of organicism, a doctrine that had attracted him since his undergraduate years at the University of Vermont.
