Dewey, John (1859–1952)

Abstract

John Dewey, perhaps the most prominent US public philosopher in the first half of the twentieth century, has cast a large shadow over many fields of sociology: social psychology, urban sociology, the sociology of education, the sociology of culture, political sociology, and public sphere theory, among others. Above all, he helped infuse much of American sociology with a spirit of pragmatism. In addition to his seminal contributions to the study of method and of ethics, his sociological works focus on the active nature of education, democracy as community, and art and experience – and their interrelations. His students and colleagues – George Herbert Mead, W. I. Thomas, Robert Park, and Jane Addams – helped spread his influence almost immediately over sociological research and practice; it is not accidental that the three universities to which he devoted the bulk of his faculty career – Michigan, Chicago, and Columbia – all nurtured elite departments of sociology, and that the New School for Social Research, which he helped found, has continually sharpened the critical‐normative edge of sociology.