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Significance of John Dewey’s Philosophy In the Twentieth

Century

BY

Uchenu, Augustine Ekene

DI/359

Being an assignment submitted to the Department of Philosophy, Dominican


Institute of Philosophy and Theology Ibadan in Affiliation with the University of
Ibadan with partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of
Arts Degree (B.A ) In Philosophy

COURSE: 20th Century Philosophy [PHI 305]

LECTURER: Mr. Tade Adegbindin

DATE: May, 2009.


OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION

Part One: John Dewey: Life and Works in the Twentieth Century

. Influences
. Works

Part Two: Significance of John Dewey’s Philosophy in the Twentieth


Century

2.1 Pragmatism and Instrumentalism

2.11 Epistemology

2.12 Aesthetics

2.2 Democracy and Education

2.3 Ethical and Social Theory

Critical Evaluation

Conclusion

Bibliography
INTRODUCTION

According to Betrand Russell, one of the most important and influential later
pragmatisms is John Dewey as far as twentieth century is concern. This statement was
affirmed by Julian Marias-that John Dewey is one of the important pragmatists continuers
of twentieth century1. His intellectual life influenced America, especially in the field of
education. He contributed a lot to the twentieth century epoch especially in America
where he grew up. Stumpf has this to say concerning the twentieth century pragmatism:
John made a startling statement that “truth happens to an idea.” What was so startling
about this statement is that the more traditional theories of truth took virtually the
opposite view, namely that truth is a property or quality of an idea. He is as a pragmatist
but prefers to be called an instrumentalist. Dewey sees things in concrete perspective and
believes that anything that works should be pursued; Dewey emphasizes on the practical
way of doing things , the full description of knowing must include the environmental
origin of the problem or situation…reflective thought should always involved in
transforming a practical situation. To see something is to have an idea of it, man can only
be understood in relation to his environment. His main contributions as one of the
famous twentieth century thinkers are: How we Think, Democracy and Education,
Theory of Inquiry, Social and moral thought as well as Problems of Man and so on.

The main aim of this work is to expound the Dewey’s Philosophy in the twentieth
century period and its significance. In order to achieve this aim, this work is divided into
two parts. First treats John Dewey’s life, influences and works in the twentieth century.
Here we will be treating, the early life of Dewey, philosophical life, what informed his
life, and how he started writing. In the second part, we will expose the works of Dewey,
then discuss with its difference contributions to the twentieth century philosophy. We
will be looking at pragmatism and instrumentalism, epistemology, Aesthetics, democracy
and education, ethical and social theory.

1
Cf. Julian Marias, History of Philosophy (USA: Burns and Oates, 1947), p.397.
PART ONE: Life and Works of Dewey in the Twentieth
Century
John Dewey was born in Burlington and flourished from 1859 to 1952. Born into the
family of Archibald Sprague and Lucina Artemesia of Vermont. He attended public
school and the University of Vermont with his siblings. While at the university of
Vermont, he encountered the teaching of G. H .Perkins and lessons in physiology by T. H
Huxley, and was exposed to evolutionary theory. The theory of natural selection
continued to have a life-long impact upon Dewey’s thought, suggesting the bareness of
static models of nature, and the important of focusing on the interaction between the
human organism and its environment. Dewey also considered questions of psychology
and the theory of knowledge.2 In 1879, Dewey graduated and lectured in high school for
two years, he developed his interest in philosophy. He wrote a philosophical essay, sent
to, then the editor of the Journal of speculative philosophy, W.T Harris and the most
famous of the St. Louis Hegelians. Dewey got inspired when the editor accepted his essay
as a philosopher. Encouraged by this act, he left to Baltimore to enroll as a graduate
student at Johns’ Hopkins University. In this University, Dewey came in contact with two
intellectuals that really influenced his life. George Sylvester Morris, a German Hegelian,
is the one that exposed Dewey to German Idealism. The most American prominent
psychologist at the time, G. Stanley Hall also influenced Dewey. His contact with these
two great minds formed his career in philosophy throughout.

In 1884, Dewey received his Ph.D. in philosophy. For the next ten years, except for one
year when he was at Minnesota, Dewey taught at the University of Chicago where he
gained ground for his pragmatic conception of education. 3 His first two works emerged
while at Michigan: Psychology (1887) and Leibniz’s New Essays Concerning Human
Understanding (1888). These two works explored Dewey’s interest to Hegelian Idealism,
whereas Psychology expounded the synthesis between the idealism and experimental
science. It was also in Michigan that Dewey met one of his philosophical collaborators,
James Hayden Tufts.
2
Cf. Alexander Thomas,(2003), “John Dewey”. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Http://usersdeweeduonline.com/cathen/02178b.htm (12/05/09).
3
Cf. Samuel Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems, (USA:McGraw-Hill,Inc., 1971), p.422.
Later John Dewey joined the Department of philosophy at Columbia University. He
developed close relationships with most thinkers in the school-“with an intellectually
stimulated minds which also influenced and enriched his thought. During his first decade
in Columbia, he wrote many articles on theory of knowledge and metaphysics. These
articles were officially published in his two books: The Influence of Darwin on
Philosophy and other Essays in the Contemporary Thought (1910) and essays In
Experimental Logic (1916). In this school, he showed his interest in educational theory;
this led to the publication of his book on Education and Democracy (1916). In Columbia
Dewey was known as a great mind and philosopher. He later wrote on Reconstruction in
Philosophy (1920), Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Experience and Nature and so
on. He continued writing and reflecting until he died on 2nd June 1952, at 92 years old.

PART TWO: Significance of John Dewey’s Philosophy in Twentieth Century

2.1 Pragmatism and Instrumentalism

Although John Dewey may not have identified himself as a pragmatist ‘per se’- but
chooses most time to refer to himself as an instrumentalist; he is regarded as one of the
central characters in American pragmatism, with Charles Peirce and William James, who
coined and popularized it respectively. Dewey was highly influenced by Hegel unlike
William James, whose lineage was basically British writing from empiricism and
utilitarianism. For Dewey, experimentation (social, cultural, technological, philosophical)
could be adopted as “a relatively hard- and- fast arbiter” of truth. He believed not on
religion but posited that only scientific method could reliably further human good.”4

2.11 Epistemology
4
Andover(2005) , “Dewey’s Instrumentalism” Free Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
http://john_Dewey20ph.htm| (14/05/09).
The true nature and function of knowledge has been mistakenly confused by the earlier
philosophers; for the most part according to Stumpf: Dewey said, “the empiricist had
assured that thinking refers to fixed things in nature that for each idea, there is a
corresponding something in reality. It though knowing is modeled after what is supposed
to happen when we look at something. This he called ‘a spectator of knowledge’ in his
thought.”5 This implies that to see something is to have an idea of it. Affirmed by the
empiricists that to have a clear idea means that it is already in reality and physical.
Dewey considered the mind as an instrument for considering things that are real and fixed
in nature. For Dewey ‘knowing’ is relatively simple activity of looking, as a spectator
does at what is there.

Moreover, Dewey was greatly influenced by Darwin’s theories and conceived man as
biological organism. “As such man can be understood in relation to his environment. As
any other biological organism, man struggle for survival. Although Dewey later gave up
his Hegelian orientation, he still regards man as enmeshed in a dialectic process, not
Hegel’s conflict of ideas, but a conflict in material or natural environment. Dewey’s
grand concept is ‘experience’- this concept he employed for the purpose of connecting
man as a dynamic biological entity with man’s precarious environment.”6 The theory of
instrumentalism is the name given by Dewey to stress that man’s thinking is always
instrumental in solving problems.

2.12 Aesthetics

This work (Aesthetics) was written in 1931, where Dewey shows the importance or
relevant of acknowledging the significance and integrity of all human experiences. In this
way Philosophical Encyclopedia captures his view: Dewey's one significant treatment of
aesthetic theory is offered in Art as Experience, a book that was based on the William
James’ Lectures that he delivered at Harvard University in 1931. The book stands out as a
5
Samuel Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems, (USA:McGraw-Hill,Inc., 1971), p.422.
6
Samuel Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems, (USA:McGraw-Hill,Inc., 1971), p.424.
diversion into uncommon philosophical territory for Dewey, adumbrated only by a
somewhat sketchy and tangential treatment of art in one chapter of Experience and
Nature. The unique status of the work in Dewey's corpus evoked some criticisms from
Dewey's followers, most notably Stephen Pepper, who believed that it marked an
unfortunate departure from the naturalistic standpoint of his instrumentalism, and a return
to the idealistic viewpoints of his youth. On close reading, however, Art as Experience
reveals a considerable continuity of Dewey's views on art with the main themes of his
previous philosophical work, while offering an important and useful extension of those
themes. Dewey had always stressed the importance of recognizing the significance and
integrity of all aspects of human experience. His repeated complaint against the partiality
and bias of the philosophical tradition expresses this theme. Consistent with this theme,
Dewey took account of qualitative immediacy in Experience and Nature, and
incorporated it into his view of the developmental nature of experience, for it is in the
enjoyment of the immediacy of an integration and harmonization of meanings, in the
"consummatory phase" of experience that, in Dewey's view, the fruition of the re-
adaptation of the individual with environment is realized. These central themes are
enriched and deepened in Art as Experience, making it one of Dewey's most significant
works. 7

Furthermore, Dewey argues that the senses play important roles in the artistic work or
creativity and appreciation. He attacks David Hume’s sensational empirical argument,
that sense experience is a mere “traditional codified list of sense qualities, such as color,
odor and so on. Dewey emphasizes that it is not only the sensible qualities in the
physical media that artist uses, but the enriching meaning of these qualities that
constituted the material that is use in the process of artwork.

2.2 Democracy and Education

7
Andover(2005) , “Dewey’s Instrumentalism” Free Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
http://john_Dewey20ph.htm| (14/05/09).
One of the greatest books of Dewey is on democracy and education; here “he draws
varied lines of his philosophy to a point, and centers them all on the task of developing a
better generation. All progressive teachers acknowledge the leadership; and there is
hardly a school in American that has not felt his influence. In this short sentence, Will
Durant presents Dewey’s view on Democracy: “unlike most philosophers, Dewey accepts
democracy, though he recognizes its faults. The aim of political order is to develop
himself completely; and this can come if each shares, up to capacity, in determining the
policy and destiny of his group… Aristocracy and monarchy are more efficient than
democracy, but they are also dangerous”8- but can democracy begotten without
education? For Dewey what education is to life remains ever necessary and must be
applied in democracy to attain its goal.

He employs education to use ideas from democratic society in detecting ideas in


education and apply these ideas to the enterprise of education. In other words, education
is very crucial in remolding a society. According to Stummpf …“if man is a creature of
habit, education should provide the conditions for developing the most useful and
creative habits. Dewey regretted that in the past, progress was achieved only in chaos. He
prefers a more approach controlled to change, and nothing, he thought, provides man
with more power to control than knowledge. Instead of revolution, therefore, change
should be achieved through the skillful alteration of habits through education. The
continuous, graded, economical improvement and social rectification lies in utilizing the
opportunities of educating the young to modify prevailing type of thought and desire.” 9
The spirit of education should be empirical, that is experimental because the problem of
the mind is still unresolved.

2.3 Ethical and Social Theory

8
Will Durant, History of Philosophy (New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc.), p.394.
9
Samuel Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems, (USA:McGraw-Hill,Inc., 1971), p.425.
We may not understand Dewey’s point of inquiry on ethics: morality without relating it
with his thought on the social life. Ethics and social theory should be framework; two in
one since the concept of morality applies in the society. Dewey discussed their values,
and aims of social life.

The Atomistic understanding of the society was rejected by Dewey. In his writing
Experience and Nature, Dewey concluded man to be a social being from the beginning.
Furthered by stressing that human satisfaction and achievements can be realized only
within the context of social habits and the body that promotes it. The conflict that arises
in moral and social lives are regardless of guiding the human action to the achievement of
socially defined ends, that are ready to furnish man with good life in the society. He was
not specific in clarifying what gives satisfaction. For him, good or ends of man can only
be defined in particular socio-political contexts.

Dewey speaks of the end simply, “as the cultivation of interests in the light of calm
reflection. In other works such as Human Nature and Conduct and Art as Experience, he
speaks of: (1) the harmonizing experience (the resolution of conflict of habits and interest
both within the society and individual), (2) the release from tedium in favor of the
enjoyment of variety and creative action, and (3) the expansion of meaning (the
enrichment of individual’s appreciation of his or her circumstances within culture and the
world at large). The attainment of individual efforts to the promotion of these social ends
constitutes, for Dewey, the central issue of ethical concern of the individual; the
collective mean for their realization is the paramount question for political policy.”10
Dewey stresses that the appropriate method for solving ethical, social problems is the
same as method requires in addressing factual matters; in empirical form. Examination of
problems, solutions, gathering relevant facts and determination of conditions for
achieving human goods and critical analysis for original situations.

10
Andover(2005) , “Dewey’s Instrumentalism” Free Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
http://john_Dewey20ph.htm| (14/05/09).
Evaluation and Conclusion

Though some people are satisfied with Dewey’s philosophical framework, but some still
object; there are many who took his philosophy as genuine applying the pragmatic
principles to answer the questions of the twentieth century philosophy. To take one of his
examples,11he suggested that education and democracy would make better a community
if well applied.
Dewey’s view on the object of knowledge attracted some scholars like: Russell, Evander
Bradely and so on. Dewey asserted that things cannot be isolated – humans cannot be
objects of knowledge. Whereas these philosophers (Russell, Bradely, e.t.c) insist that we
should understand that the object of knowledge is exists apart from knowing the subject.
It was not from the nature; the evidence, in Dewey’s view that they posit this. 12 Some
thinkers were clever to respond that his view was clearly misrepresented. Meanwhile
some scholars, insisted that Dewey used confusing terminology in some of his
discussions like , in his discussion on Culture and Experience, the concept like ‘culture,
knowing and known’. Dewey avowed his use of rift philosophical books which he later
reviewed.

Moreover, the social and ethical theory of Dewey attracted some critiques, because he
used dogmatic principles in seeking solutions to the problems of this theory in the
society. These principles are not able to meet the changing requirements of human
events. In the Reconstruction of Philosophy and Quest for Certainty, Dewey also in
human nature and conduct approached ethical enquiry through analysis of human
character like Aristotelian Ethics.

In the end, we may be justified to assume that the aim of this work has been achieved.
For the completion of this work, we started firstly by discussing the life and influence of

11
Cf. Fredrick Copleston, A History of Philosophy Part 1 (USA: Burns and Oates,ltd., 1964),p.101.
12
Robert Caponigri,Western Philosophy Vol. III. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Commpany,1963),p.198.
John Dewey in the twentieth century. In the second part, we departed by exploring the
significance of John Dewey’s philosophy in the twentieth century era. This part is the
primary aim of this work. We expounded Dewey’s thought and its influences in the
twentieth century. We examined the following: Pragmatism and Instrumentalism,
Epistemology, Aesthetics, Democracy and Education, Ethical and Social Theory.

Bibliography
Andover (2005) , “Dewey’s Instrumentalism” Free Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
http://john_Dewey20ph.htm| (14/05/09).

Copleston, Fredrick. A History of Philosophy Part 1. USA: Burns and Oates,ltd., 1964.

Caponigri, Robert ,Western Philosophy Vol. III. Chicago: Henry Regnery


Commpany,1963.

Durant, Will. History of Philosophy. New York: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc. 1974.

Marias, Julian. History of Philosophy. USA: Burns and Oates, 1947.

Paulin, Philosophy (2000); www.plandforth.edu.com/stores/10210423.htm. April 2009.

Stumpf, Samuel. Philosophy: History and Problems. USA:McGraw-Hill,Inc., 1971.

Thomas, Alexander. (2003), “John Dewey”. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,


Http://usersdeweeduonline.com/cathen/02178b.htm (12/05/09).

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