John Dewey and Daoist Thought

Jim Behuniak

Description

In this timely and original work, Dewey's late-period "cultural turn" is recovered and "intra-cultural philosophy" proposed as its next logical step—a step beyond what is commonly known as comparative philosophy. The first of two volumes, John Dewey and Daoist Thought argues that early Chinese thought is poised to join forces with Dewey in meeting our most urgent cultural needs: namely, helping us to correct our outdated Greek-medieval assumptions, especially where these result in pre-Darwinian inferences about the world.

Relying on the latest research in both Chinese and American philosophies, Jim Behuniak establishes "specific philosophical relationships" between Dewey's ideas and early Daoist thought, suggesting how, together, they can assist us in getting our thinking "back in gear" with the world as it is currently known through the biological, physical, and cognitive sciences. Topics covered include the organization of organic form, teleology, cosmology, knowledge, the body, and technolog—thus engaging Dewey with themes generally associated with Daoist thought. Volume one works to establish "Chinese natural philosophy" as an empirical framework in which to consider cultural-level phenomena in volume two.
List of Illustrations

Prelude
Dewey’s Chinese Friendships
Dewey and Chinese Thought

Acknowledgments

Part I.

1. John Dewey and Intra-cultural Philosophy
Philosophy East and West
Comparative Situations
Culture and the Comparative Philosopher
Experiments in Intra-cultural Philosophy
Connecting Strains of Culture

2. Forms and Nature
Philosophy Out of Gear
Mystery and Form
De 德 and Directional Order
Habits and Dao 道-Activity
Form (xing 形) and Environment

3. Orders and Spontaneity
Dewey’s Metaphysics
Embracing the One (baoyi 抱一)
1-2-3 and the Great Continuum
Attaining the One (deyi 得一)
Forms and Types

4. Rhythms and Energies
The Chinese Landscape
Forms, Rhythms, and Qi 氣
Types and Potentials
Nature and Xing 性
Wuwei 無為 and Observing the Small

Part II.

5. Methods and Intelligence
Theory and Ordinary Activity
Method and Dao 道-Practice
The Virtues of Individual Method
Knowledge and Intelligence
The Man from Song

6. Knowledge and Technology
Knowledge Wanders North
The Primitive Mindset
Knowledge and Wholeness
The Tool of Knowing
The Monopoly of Knowledge

7. Bodies and Artifacts
Dewey’s Body-Practice
Animal Bodies and Rival Anthropologies
Language and the Human Difference
Imitation and Human Selfhood
The Great and Venerable Teacher

8. Problems and Inquiry
Autumn Floods
Nature and Valuation
Dismissing Market Daoism
Intelligence and Prognostication
Destiny Unbound

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 24 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438474519
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 14 Mo

Extrait

John Dewey and Daoist Thought
SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

Roger T. Ames, editor
John Dewey and Daoist Thought
Experiments in Intra-cultural Philosophy
Volume One
Jim Behuniak
Front cover: Roofline image taken by John Dewey in China.
Back cover: Image of John Dewey (Peking, July 5, 1921), courtesy of the Morris Library, Special Collections Research Center, Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Behuniak, James, author.
Title: John Dewey and Daoist thought / Jim Behuniak.
Description: Albany : State University of New York, [2019] | Series: Experiments in intra-cultural philosophy ; volume one | Series: SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018033271 | ISBN 9781438474496 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438474502 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438474519 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dewey, John, 1859–1952—Knowledge—Taoist philosophy. | Dewey, John, 1859–1952—Travel—China. | Taoist philosophy. | Philosophy, Chinese. | Philosophy, Comparative. | East and West.
Classification: LCC B945.D44 B393 2019 | DDC 191—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033271
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Anna
Contents
List of Illustrations
Prelude
Dewey’s Chinese Friendships
Dewey and Chinese Thought
Acknowledgments
Part I
1. John Dewey and Intra-cultural Philosophy
Philosophy East and West
Comparative Situations
Culture and the Comparative Philosopher
Experiments in Intra-cultural Philosophy
Connecting Strains of Culture
2. Forms and Nature
Philosophy Out of Gear
Mystery and Form
De 德 and Directional Order
Habits and Dao 道 -Activity
Form ( xing 形 ) and Environment
3. Orders and Spontaneity
Dewey’s Metaphysics
Embracing the One ( baoyi 抱一 )
1-2-3 and the Great Continuum
Attaining the One ( deyi 得一 )
Forms and Types
4. Rhythms and Energies
The Chinese Landscape
Forms, Rhythms, and Qi 氣
Types and Potentials
Nature and Xing 性
Wuwei 無為 and Observing the Small
Part II
5. Methods and Intelligence
Theory and Ordinary Activity
Method and Dao 道 -Practice
The Virtues of Individual Method
Knowledge and Intelligence
The Man from Song
6. Knowledge and Technology
Knowledge Wanders North
The Primitive Mindset
Knowledge and Wholeness
The Tool of Knowing
The Monopoly of Knowledge
7. Bodies and Artifacts
Dewey’s Body-Practice
Animal Bodies and Rival Anthropologies
Language and the Human Difference
Imitation and Human Selfhood
The Great and Venerable Teacher
8. Problems and Inquiry
Autumn Floods
Nature and Valuation
Dismissing Market Daoism
Intelligence and Prognostication
Destiny Unbound
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Illustrations Figure 0.1 John Dewey with Sing-nan Fen, date unknown. Figure 1.1 One of John Dewey’s “Green Ink Pages,” written February 1951 while he was visiting Hawai’i. Figure 2.1 John Dewey with goat in 1946. Figure 4.1 Wang Shimin (1592–1680). Hanging scroll. Mountain with River, Bridge, and Building. Figure 4.2 Pair of traditional landscape scrolls that John Dewey obtained in China. Figures 5.1–5.4 L. J. Bridgman’s original 1888 illustrations for Charles Lamb’s A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig . Top (left to right): “Ye Delightful Pig” and “Bo-Bo Playeth with Fire.” Bottom (left to right): “Ye First Taste” and “Ye Family Rejoiceth.” Figure 7.1 F. Matthias Alexander works on John Dewey’s posture, date unknown.
Prelude
John Dewey retained a keen and personal interest in young Chinese students even after his retirement from Columbia. Consequently, his influence on the Chinese people is deep-rooted because it is two-fold—through his teachings and through his personal contact with hundreds of young Chinese who pride themselves on being his friend.
—Meng Chih 孟治 to William H. Kilpatrick, September 16, 1949
Dewey’s Chinese Friendships
When John Dewey died in 1952 at the age of 92, few people knew that he had adopted a Chinese son. Sing-nan Fen 樊星南 (1916–2011) was born in Suzhou, one of the oldest cities in the Yangzi basin and one known for its lovely flowered gardens, elegant canals, and stone bridges. While a student in China, Fen became a self-taught specialist in American philosophy. He translated Josiah Royce’s The Spirit of Modern Philosophy into Chinese along with several of Dewey’s articles. As Dewey later remarked, “He read some of my philosophical works for translation into Chinese while still in China and all on his own got a much more adequate idea of their purport and tenor than most college students here.” 1 Fen earned a Boxer Indemnity Fellowship in 1946 and came to the United States to study at the University of Chicago. Unhappy with his classes at Chicago, he spent most of his time reading Dewey instead, using hundreds of index cards to organize his notes. Fen wrote to the world-famous philosopher, expressing his admiration and sending him some of his own philosophical essays. Dewey was instantly impressed, and wrote back to Fen encouraging him to transfer to Columbia.
When Dewey learned that his good friend, Joseph Ratner, would be in Chicago, he asked him to pay a visit to Sing-nan Fen. Ratner advised him on transferring to Columbia, which Fen did the following year. Upon his arrival in New York City, Dewey invited the young man to a dinner party at his home. Fen can relate what happened next:
My first visit to Dewey’s apartment was a disaster. The Dewey’s served cocktails before dinner. I was physiologically allergic to hard liquor. To be polite, however, I took all the drinks they offered. Gradually I felt dizzy, sick, ran to bathroom and became unconscious until the next morning on the sofa in the living room. When I woke up, the sweet old man sat beside me and offered me breakfast. I thought that was the end of our beautiful friendship. But that was the beginning of my being adopted to Dewey’s family. 2
The two would remain like father and son for the rest of Dewey’s life. Their surviving letters convey the depth of their communion. Dewey would address Fen as his “Son” and sign his letters, “With Love, Father,” and “Pa Dewey.” Johnny and Adrienne, Dewey’s legally adopted children, took to calling Fen their “Brother.” He became part of the family.
Dewey supported and mentored Sing-nan Fen during his years at Columbia. Fen visited Dewey regularly, went on country outings with the family, visited ice cream parlors with the kids, and vacationed with the family at their Maple Lodge retreat in Pennsylvania. Dewey read and commented on Fen’s PhD dissertation, An Examination of the Socio-Individual Dichotomy as it Relates to Educational Theory , which was submitted to Teacher’s College in March 1949. The work was primarily concerned with restoring continuity between nature and culture—a concern that Dewey shared with Fen. This was the period in which Dewey had come to see “culture” rather than “experience” as the natural context in which human behavior is expressed. Culture, Dewey realized, is nature. As Fen would argue in his dissertation: cultural behaviors are “objectively natural—as a tree grows, as a volcano erupts, as a stone falls, as a dog runs.” 3
Dewey sought out opportunities for Fen, wrote him letters of support for his job applications, and suggested to him topics for papers. “Something about Chinese [philosophy] in relation to Chinese culture would be good,” Dewey proposed, “an article on how American—or more generally Western philosophy strikes a [Chinese student] would hit a popular note.” 4 Fen focused mainly on issues relating to his study of American philosophy, educational psychology, and pragmatic naturalism, and he produced a series of original articles. Alain Locke took notice of the quality of his work and hired Fen to his first teaching job at Howard University in 1950.

Figure 0.1. John Dewey with Sing-nan Fen, date unknown. Courtesy of Ruth Fen.
Sing-nan Fen is one of many Chinese students that Dewey established friendships with over the years, and there are several important figures among them. Dewey directed the dissertations of luminaries such as Hu Shih 胡適 (PhD 1917) and Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (PhD 1923), and several more of his graduate students would rise to become prominent names in the Chinese world. His contact with Chinese students, however, went beyond those whose studies he directed. Chinese students attended Dewey’s classes no matter which department they belonged to. 5 Even before his visit to Asia, the Chinese connection seemed to be there. “Dr. Dewey, you talk like Confucius,” they would tell him. With a bashful smile, the philosopher would reply that he often heard that from his Chinese students. 6
Dewey’s affinity with Chinese students was more than academic. He genuinely enjoyed having Chinese company and