John Dewey's Idea of Imagination in Philosophy and Education

Abstract

Despite importance which Dewey attached to the image and to in various discussions on reconstruction of experience, surprisingly little attention has been given to this subject in writings on Dewey. Beginning with his Psychology in 1887, continuing in lectures and writings on educational psychology, philosophy of education, and ethics in 1890s and early years of twentieth century, in 1934 works its way into Dewey's discussion of transformation of material as artistic activity in Art as Experience and in conceiving of self as an ideal in A Common Faith. The aim of present essay is to show that, for Dewey, imagination is not a rare activity engaged in only by so-called creative people. Rather, it is common to us all as a vehicle of learning, by which possibilities we determine to bring new realities into existence. The question is not whether we possess ability to imagine; it is to find ways of enlarging scope in which our imagination plays and works and to make more substantial actualities that our imagination makes possible. In his Psychology, Dewey treats imagination as a stage of knowledge. The following language is characteristic of Dewey while under spell of philosophical Idealism: [imagination] is transition from particular stage to universal.... Imagination deals with universal in its particular manifestation, or with particular as embodying some ideal meaning, some universal element.' By 1896, in a syllabus for a course in educational psychology, language of Idealism is replaced by an interest in characterizing imagination at work in particular situations. Instead of imagination standing as bridge between particular and universal, it is now mean term between ignorance and realization, between alien material and comprehension in self. It is mental machinery.2 Dewey considers imagination to be a power in action, at work in bringing to mind new, or hitherto foreign elements in poetry, art, or science.3 He is no