The Essential Dewey, Volume 2

Description

A Choice Outstanding Academic Book of 1999

In addition to being one of the greatest technical philosophers of the twentieth century, John Dewey (1859-1952) was an educational innovator, a Progressive Era reformer, and one of America's last great public intellectuals. Dewey's insights into the problems of public education, immigration, the prospects for democratic government, and the relation of religious faith to science are as fresh today as when they were first published. His penetrating treatments of the nature and function of philosophy, the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of life, and the role of inquiry in human experience are of increasing relevance at the turn of the 21st century.

Based on the award-winning 37-volume critical edition of Dewey's work, The Essential Dewey presents for the first time a collection of Dewey's writings that is both manageable and comprehensive. The volume includes essays and book chapters that exhibit Dewey's intellectual development over time; the selection represents his mature thinking on every major issue to which he turned his attention. Eleven part divisions cover: Dewey in Context; Reconstructing Philosophy; Evolutionary Naturalism; Pragmatic Metaphysics; Habit, Conduct, and Language; Meaning, Truth, and Inquiry; Valuation and Ethics; The Aims of Education; The Individual, the Community, and Democracy; Pragmatism and Culture: Science and Technology, Art and Religion; and Interpretations and Critiques. Taken as a whole, this collection provides unique access to Dewey's understanding of the problems and prospects of human existence and of the philosophical enterprise.

Sujets

• HISTORY
• PHILOSOPHY
• EDUCATION
• Histoire
• General officer
• Politics
• History of the Americas
• General
• United States

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253009005
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE ESSENTIAL
DEWEY
VOLUME 2
Ethics, Logic, Psychology
THE ESSENTIAL
DEWEY
VOLUME 2
Ethics, Logic, Psychology
Edited by Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander
Indiana University Press / Bloomington and Indianapolis
1998 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dewey, John, 1859-1952.
The essential Dewey / edited by Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander.
p. cm.
Includes index.
Contents: v. 1. Pragmatism, education, democracy - v. 2. Ethics, logic, psychology.
ISBN 0-253-33390-3 (cl: v. 1 : alk. paper). - ISBN 0-253-21184-0 (pbk. : v. 1 : alk. paper). - ISBN 0-253-33391-1 (cl : v. 2 alk. paper). - ISBN 0-253-21185-9 (pbk. : v. 2 : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy. I. Hickman, Larry. II. Alexander, Thomas M., date. III. Title.
B 945.D41H53 1998
191-dc21 97-43936
1 2 3 4 5 03 02 01 00 99 98
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION BY LARRY A. HICKMAN AND THOMAS M. ALEXANDER
CHRONOLOGY
PART I: HABIT, CONDUCT, AND LANGUAGE
The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology (1896)
Interpretation of Savage Mind (1902)
Introduction FROM HUMAN NATURE AND CONDUCT (1922)
The Place of Habit in Conduct FROM HUMAN NATURE AND CONDUCT (1922)
Nature, Communication and Meaning FROM EXPERIENCE AND NATURE (1925)
Conduct and Experience (1930)
The Existential Matrix of Inquiry: Cultural FROM LOGIC: THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938)
PART 2: MEANING, TRUTH, AND INQUIRY
The Superstition of Necessity (1893)
The Problem of Truth (1911)
Logical Objects (1916)
Analysis of Reflective Thinking FROM HOW WE THINK (1933)
The Place of Judgment in Reflective Activity FROM HOW WE THINK (1933)
General Propositions, Kinds, and Classes (1936)
The Problem of Logical Subject-Matter FROM LOGIC THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938)
The Pattern of Inquiry FROM LOGIC THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938)
Mathematical Discourse FROM LOGIC: THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938)
The Construction of Judgment FROM LOGIC THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938)
General Theory of Propositions FROM LOGIC THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938)
Propositions, Warranted Assertibility and Truth (1941)
Importance, Significance, and Meaning (1949)
PART 3: VALUATION AND ETHICS
Evolution and Ethics (1898)
The Logic of Judgments of Practice (1915)
Valuation and Experimental Knowledge (1922)
Value, Objective Reference, and Criticism (1925)
The Ethics of Animal Experimentation (1926)
Philosophies of Freedom (1928)
Three Independent Factors in Morals (1930)
The Good of Activity FROM HUMAN NATURE AND CONDUCT (1922)
Moral Judgment and Knowledge FROM ETHICS (1932)
The Moral Self FROM ETHICS (1932)
PART 4: INTERPRETATIONS AND CRITIQUES
Democracy and America F ROM F REEDOM AND CULTURE (1939) ( ON THOMAS JEFFERSON )
Emerson-The Philosopher of Democracy (1903) ( ON RALPH WALDO EMERSON )
Peirce s Theory of Quality (1935) ( ON CHARLES S. PEIRCE )
What Pragmatism Means by Practical (1907) ( ON WILLIAM JAMES )
Voluntarism and the Roycean Philosophy (1916) ( ON JOSIAH ROYCE )
Perception and Organic Action (1912) ( ON HENRI BERGSON )
The Existence of the World as a Logical Problem (1915) ( ON BERTRAND RUSSELL )
Whitehead s Philosophy (1937) ( ON ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD )
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
These volumes were prepared at the Center for Dewey Studies during 1996 and 1997. They were produced from the text of The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953: The Electronic Edition , edited by Larry A. Hickman (Charlottesville, Virginia: InteLex Corporation, 1996), which is in turn based on the critical edition of Dewey s works, The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953 , edited by Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969-1991). All selections are reprinted with the permission of Southern Illinois University Press.
Three members of the Center s staff devoted extensive time and effort toward their timely completion. Diane Meierkort and Barbara Levine exercised care with respect to matters of style and proofreading that has been characteristic of their work during more than twenty years at the Center, and Karen O Brien spent many hours at her computer preparing and checking the copy.
Standard references to John Dewey s work are to the critical edition, The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953 , edited by Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969-1991), and published as The Early Works: 1882-1898 (EW), The Middle Works: 1899-1924 (MW), and The Later Works: 1925-1953 (LW). These designations are followed by volume and page number. For example, page 101 of volume 12 of the Later Works would be cited as LW 12:101. An electronic edition, based on the critical edition, is now available as The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953: The Electronic Edition , edited by Larry A. Hickman (Charlottesville, Virginia: InteLex Corporation, 1996). In order to maintain uniformity of citation, the line and page breaks of the critical edition have been maintained in the electronic edition. Page numbers in the notes refer to the volume of The Collected Works from which the selection is excerpted.
INTRODUCTION
Ethics, Logic, Psychology
In addition to being one of the greatest technical philosophers of the twentieth century, John Dewey (1859-1952) was also an educational innovator, a Progressive Era reformer, and one of his country s last great public intellectuals. In Henry Commager s trenchant appraisal, he was the guide, the mentor, and the conscience of the American people: it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that for a generation no major issue was clarified until Dewey had spoken. The New York Times once hailed Dewey as no less than America s Philosopher.
Many of the issues that engaged Dewey s attention, and about which he wrote with unflagging energy and intelligence, are still with us. Dewey s insights into the problems of public education, immigration, the prospects for democratic government, and the relation of faith to science are as fresh today as when they were first published. His penetrating treatments of the nature and function of philosophy, the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of life, and the role of inquiry in human experience are of increasing relevance to thoughtful people everywhere.
Dewey s massive Collected Works -thirty-seven volumes in all-thus stands ready to help guide our journey into the twenty-first century. But how are we to assess so large a body of work? How are we to find our way about within its complex structure?
The two volumes of The Essential Dewey present for the first time a collection of Dewey s essays and book chapters that is both manageable and comprehensive. The materials selected for these volumes exhibit Dewey s intellectual development over time, but they also represent his mature thinking on every major issue to which he turned his attention. Some of the essays, familiar to several generations of readers, have been in print for almost a century. Others have only recently been published and so have not yet received the attention they deserve. Some were published in journals of opinion. Others were published in books addressed primarily to other technical philosophers. Taken as a whole, The Essential Dewey presents Dewey s unique understanding of the problems and prospects of human existence, and therefore of the philosophical enterprise.
PART I: HABIT, CONDUCT, AND LANGUAGE
The essays in this section locate Dewey s psychology squarely within his philosophy of communication. The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology (1896) is one of Dewey s most famous essays. It signaled the end of introspectionist psychology and the beginning of a new functional, organic, social behaviorism. In 1942, a committee of seventy eminent psychologists polled by the editors of The Psychological Review voted this essay the most important contribution to the journal during its first 49 years of publication. Interpretation of Savage Mind (1902) relates the values exhibited by a culture to its modes of production, including its methods of communication. Dewey also demonstrates the power of his controversial genetic method, which is the view that ideas cannot be fully understood if their historical and social contexts are not taken into account.
Two essays are included from Human Nature and Conduct (1922). The Introduction and The Place of Habit in Conduct exhibit Dewey s naturalistic approach to the human self in its relation to its cultural context. In these essays he emphasizes the plasticity of the human infant and the indispensable sociality of human life. He rejects the idea of a substantive soul or ego, arguing instead that consciousness is a dynamic construction of habitual responses.
Many of Dewey s readers regard chapter five of Experience and Nature (1925), Nature, Communication and Meaning, as one of his most beautifully articulated essays. In it he calls for modes of communication in which ends and means are intimately related, and in which intelligence is able to avoid the temptations of sectarianism, provincialism, and narrow specialization. Far from being established in advance, the meanings of human experience are continually reconstructed as experience is taken into account. It is only by means of communication that meanings, and consequently life itself, can become enriched.