front cover of The Collected Works of John Dewey, Index
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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front cover of The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 1, 1882 - 1898
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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front cover of The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 2, 1882 - 1898
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 the first volume in the Southern Illinois University series “The Early Works of John Dewey, 1882–1898.” With an original publi­cation date of 1887, Psychology is 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 volume 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.

 

In recognition of the high quality and scholarly standards of the textual criticism, 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 project is establishing a pattern for future col­lected writing of philosophers.

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front cover of The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 3, 1882 - 1898
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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front cover of The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 4, 1882 - 1898
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.

[more]

front cover of The Early Works of John Dewey, Volume 5, 1882 - 1898
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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front cover of Experience and Value
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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front cover of John Dewey, America's Peace-Minded Educator
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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front cover of John Dewey and Continental Philosophy
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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front cover of The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 1, 1925 - 1953
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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.”
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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.

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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 Lectures on Ethics, 1900 - 1901
Lectures on Ethics, 1900 - 1901
John Dewey
Donald F. Koch
Southern Illinois University Press, 1991

In Lectures on Ethics, 1900–1901,Donald F. Koch supplies the only extant complete transcription of the annual three-course sequence on ethics John Dewey gave at the University of Chicago.

In his introduction Koch argues that these lectures offer the best systematic, overall introduction to Dewey’s approach to moral philosophy and are the only account showing the unity of his views in nearly all phases of ethical inquiry. These lectures are the only work by Dewey to set forth a complete theory of moral language. They offer a clear illustration of the central methodological questions in the development of a pragmatic instrumentalist ethic and the actual working out of the instrumentalist approach as distinct from simply presenting it as a conclusion.

[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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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.
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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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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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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front cover of The Philosophy of John Dewey
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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front cover of Pragmatism as a Way of Life
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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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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front cover of The World in Which We Occur
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
American philosopher John Dewey considered all human endeavors to be one 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. The World in Which We Occur highlights this notion in order to define “pragmatist ecology,” a practice rooted in the interface of the cultural and the natural. Neil Browne finds this 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 that disciplinary boundaries must be opened, 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 examined are 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); Barry 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 that we have become accustomed and affirm the principles of a pragmatist ecology, one in which ecological and democratic
values go hand in hand.
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