Dewey's Understanding Research Articles

A Deweyan Approach to Religious and Moral Education

Pragmatizmin öncü filozoflarından olan John Dewey, genel olarak felsefesinde insanın karşılaştığı problemlere çözümler sunmaya çalışmıştır. Bu çözümlerinde onun düalizme karşı olduğu, insanın çevresiyle uyumuna ehemmiyet verdiği ve insan deneyimini merkeze aldığı görülmektedir. Felsefesinin bu temel özellikleri başta eğitim felsefesi olmak üzere onun din ve ahlaka ilişkin fikirlerinde de öne çıkmaktadır. Dewey’in eğitim felsefesi, deneyime dayalı ilerlemeci bir karakter taşımaktadır. Literatürde Dewey’in eğitim felsefesiyle ilgili çok sayıda araştırma olmasına rağmen onun din ve ahlak eğitimine yönelik yaklaşımını ortaya koyan ikincil bir çalışmaya rastlanmamıştır. Bu makalenin amacı, Dewey’in eserlerinden yola çıkarak onun din ve ahlak eğitimine ilişkin yaklaşımını ortaya koymaktır. Bu amaca bağlı olarak bu araştırmanın sorusu şöyle belirlenmiştir: Dewey’e göre din ve ahlak eğitimi nasıl olmalıdır? Dewey’in din anlayışına bakıldığında, onun düşüncesinde din özel doğruluk iddiaları nedeniyle dogmatik bir alan olarak görülebileceği gibi insana sunduğu açıklıklar nedeniyle bir imkânlar alanı olarak da görülebilir. Bu bağlamda Dewey’in, kurumsallaşmış dinleri eleştirmekle birlikte dini insanın doğal bir eğilimi ve mahrem bir alanı olarak gördüğü anlaşılmaktadır. Buna bağlı olarak da onun, dinin, okullarda bilimsel bir anlayışla ve resmi bir şekilde öğretilmesine sıcak bakmadığı söylenebilir. Bunun nedenleri olarak şunlar sıralanabilir: 1. Herhangi bir dini, okullarda kanıta dayalı bilimsel bir yöntemle ele almanın onun doğasına aykırı olması. 2. Çok kültürlü toplumlarda öğretmek için hangi dinin nasıl seçileceği problemi. 3. Okullarda öğretmek için birden fazla din seçilse bile dinlerin kendilerine mahsus doğruluk iddialarının sosyal bütünlüğe zarar verebilme ihtimali. Görüldüğü gibi Dewey, örgün din eğitimine karşı mesafeli bir yaklaşım sergilese de genel olarak çocukların ve gençlerin din eğitimi almalarına karşı değildir. Bu, onun çocukların ve gençlerin gelişimlerine uygun bir din eğitimi almaları için disiplinler arası bir iş birliğine ihtiyaç olduğunu belirtmesinden anlaşılmaktadır. Dewey’in ahlak anlayışı incelendiğinde, onun düşüncesinde ahlaki eyleme yön veren soyut evrensel bir ilkeye yer verilmediği görülmektedir. Ona göre ahlaki eylemin doğasında belirsizlik ve çatışma vardır. Bunun nedeni ise ahlaki bir eylemde bulunurken çok sayıda farklı kaynaktan gelen etkilerin iç içe girmesidir. Kişi ahlaki bir eylem sırasında, bireysel ve sosyal amaçları dikkate alma, hak ve sorumlulukları gözetme, eylemin sonuçlarını hesap etme ve ahlaki ilkeleri deneyimde doğrulamaya tabi tutma gibi birçok hususu göz önünde bulundurmak durumundadır. Bu süreçlerde akıl ve deneyim iş birliği hâlindedir. Aklın aktif olduğu bir deneyim, ahlaki yaşamın bir rehberidir. Dewey’in bu ahlak anlayışı, ahlak eğitimine ilişkin bakışına da yansımaktadır. Ona göre okullarda, insanın doğasını ve deneyimlerini görmezden gelerek ahlaki ilkeleri teorik bir şekilde öğretmeye çalışmak doğru değildir. Zira ahlak bilgisi, insanı iyi ve karakterli yapmaz, insan ancak deneyimleri aracılığıyla iyiliğe ulaşabilir. O hâlde okullarda ahlak eğitimi verilirken, bu eğitimin insanın doğasına, deneyimlerine ve sosyal yaşamına uygun olmasına dikkat edilmelidir. Dewey’in din ve ahlak eğitimine ilişkin yaklaşımı birlikte değerlendirildiğinde kimi noktalarda benzerlik, kimi noktalarda da farklılık arz ettiği görülmektedir. Benzer noktalardan başlamak gerekirse, Dewey’in her iki konuya yaklaşımında da mümkün mertebe düalizmden kaçındığı, insanın bireysel ve sosyal uyumuna ehemmiyet verdiği ve deneyim temelli bir eğitimi savunduğu söylenebilir. Buna ek olarak o, hem din hem de ahlak konusunda teorik bilgileri insanlara öğretmenin onları daha dindar veya daha iyi yapmayacağı kanaatindedir. Bunun yerine Dewey, insanın doğasına ve deneyimlerine uygun bir din ve ahlak eğitimini önermektedir. Farklılıklara gelecek olursak, Dewey’in, insanın doğasını ve deneyimlerini dikkate alan bir ahlak eğitiminin okullarda bütün bir eğitimle birlikte verilmesinden yana olduğu ancak dinin okullarda öğretilmesine sıcak bakmadığı anlaşılmaktadır. Son olarak bu araştırmada, Dewey’in konuyla ilgili yazılı çalışmaları nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden doküman incelemesi yoluyla incelenmiş ve toplanan veriler içerik analizi ile yorumlanmıştır.

Gender and Habit: John Dewey and Iris Marion Young on Embodiment and Transformation

Gender and Habit: John Dewey and Iris Marion Young on Embodiment and Transformation

Is Democracy Therapeutic? A Deweyan Reading of the Institutions of Antipsychiatry.

This article presents a Deweyan reading of the processes of critique, experimentation, and reform that took hold of a minority of psychiatric institutions in Western Europe during the nineteen-sixties and seventies, under the influence of the so-called Italian and British antipsychiatry movements. Framed within a specific understanding of the sixties, the article examines these complex theoretical and institutional operations against the background of John Dewey's idea of democracy, which it interprets, above all else, as the constant provision of material, intellectual, and human resources for the people to directly transform their environment and themselves in increasingly complex and creative ways. After acknowledging the historical and conceptual discontinuities that exist between these two autonomous bodies of knowledge, the first section presents a summary of Dewey's philosophy. Next the article sheds light on Basaglia's and Laing's antipsychiatric projects by interpreting them as a sustained effort to distinguish between schizophrenia as a first and a second disease, an epistemological search in the midst of which each of them ended up creating new institutions that necessarily embarked their inmates on a radical process of Deweyan growth. The key role of the sixties counterculture is emphasized at this point, and examples from Gorizia's and Trieste's asylums, as well as British community households, are read in terms of Basaglia's and Laing's negative and affirmative dialectics, respectively. Finally, in the last two sections, the article argues that antipsychiatry's analysis of psychotic behavior significantly enlarges Dewey's understanding of the circuit of growth and experience, and that Dewey's ideas of growth and experience provided, in turn, a missing criterion for defining mental health and deriving coherent therapeutic and institutional concretions.

La dimensión religiosa de la vida cotidiana desde el proyecto filosófico de John Dewey

El artículo muestra cómo J. Dewey entiende “lo religioso”, no como experiencia sepa-rada, sino como intensidad de cada vivencia que realza y expande su cualidad estética. La vida cotidiana constituye el reino del hombre sobre la naturaleza que exige recobrar la relación originaria con esta y, desde allí, con Dios. Esto implica vivir de primera mano toda experiencia individual, toda vez que conlleva ser interpelado por las si-tuaciones problemáticas. Se explica la forma de dicho movimiento de la experiencia

John Dewey, God, and the religious education of the American public

American philosopher John Dewey (1859–1953) wanted to change the way we understand the world. Born just prior to our Civil War, Dewey is a telling figure as the authority of a premodern day gave way to the progressive promise of modernity. In this regard, Dewey's family, church, college, academic, and peer relationships are considered. The article notes the “new” pedagogy of the Laboratory School (founded by Dewey and his wife at the University of Chicago in 1894), his early Christian years, and attraction to and struggle with evolutionary science's rational approach to experience. That struggle culminated with Dewey's rejection of theistic philosophical arguments and a withdrawal from the institutional church on his family's arrival in Chicago. We see how an administrative argument over the leadership of the Laboratory School took him to New York City and Columbia (1904). By this time he was acknowledged as a founder of the Progressive and Pragmatist movements. A self-described liberal humanist, he continued his involvement with social reform and the national politics of his day. A public argument as to the reality of God led Dewey to repackage religious faith as the possibility of a nation's scientific embrace of thoughtful, well-educated, participatory democracy. His resulting book, A Common Faith (1934), is considered. How his peer, Reinhold Niebuhr, might differ serves here as a contrast to Dewey's understanding.

Sidney Hook's Pragmatic Anti-Communism: Commitment to Democracy as Method

In recent years, opposition to Communism has emerged as Sidney Hook's central philosophical legacy in the eyes of scholars and historians, who tend to ignore all of Hook's pre-Cold War philosophical contributions. Furthermore, critics who treat Hook's anti-Communism often accuse him of abandoning pragmatism for dogmatism in his later career. In this essay, I argue that Hook's long-standing fight against Communism should be understood as an unwavering application of the democratic method in line with his mentor John Dewey's understanding of pragmatism as well as the commitment to scientific empiricism espoused by earlier pragmatists C. S. Peirce and William James.

Opting Out as Democratic Engagement? The Public Dimensions and Challenges of Education Activism

Abstract In recent years, widespread efforts to “opt out” of state tests have pressured school districts, states, and the federal government to reconsider the extent and limits of state assessments. This activism raises a number of questions about the relationship between democratic participation and public institutions. What is the relationship between state authority, expertise, and public opinion? In what ways should citizens be engaged in the public policy process? Are there times in which the state—in subverting the will of citizens—might be reshaped through public activism? We draw on Dewey's concept of “the public” to explore the democratic qualities and consequences of this activism. We highlight two conceptual resources from Dewey's 1927 The Public and its Problems: how publics are formed when they share consequences, and the role of public expertise in addressing social problems. Through these resources, we argue that the opt out movement might be understood as an overlapping set of publics promoting democratic engagement in education. At the same time, Dewey's understanding of the public poses critical questions about the democratic qualities and broader consequences of this emerging movement.

Democracy and Education: Reconstruction of and through Education

AbstractWhile focusing on Democracy and Education, James Campbell attempts in this essay to offer a synthesis of the full range of John Dewey's educational thought. Campbell explores in particular Dewey's understanding of the relationship between democracy and education by considering both his ideas on the reconstruction of education and on the role of education in broader social reconstruction. Throughout his philosophical work, Campbell concludes, Dewey offers us a vision of a society self‐consciously striving to enable its members to live fully educative lives.

Introduction to Section III: Deweyan Growth in Practice

Introduction to Section III: Deweyan Growth in Practice

Interest, not Preference: Dewey and Reframing the Conceptual Vocabulary of School Choice

AbstractSchool choice positions parents as consumers who select schools that maximize their preferences. This account has been shaped by rational choice theory. In this essay, Terri Wilson contrasts a rational choice framework of preferences with John Dewey's understanding of interest. To illustrate this contrast, she draws on an example of one parent's school decision‐making process. Dewey's concept of interest offers an alternative conceptual vocabulary attentive to the complex, value‐laden, and evolving process of choosing a school. Her analysis considers how schools might not just appeal to the preexisting preferences of families, but might instead actively shape those interests to democratic ends.

Lessons from America's Public Philosopher

ABSTRACT This article argues for a definition of public philosophy inspired by John Dewey's understanding of the “supreme intellectual obligation.” The first section examines five strong reasons why more public philosophy is needed and why the growing movement in public philosophy should be encouraged. The second section begins with a review of common understandings of public philosophy as well as some initial challenges that call for widening our conception of the practice. Then, it applies Dewey's argument in “The Supreme Intellectual Obligation” to public philosophy, which must not be seen simply as a one-way street from intellectuals to the masses but, rather, as the task of fostering the scientific attitude and intellectual habits of mind in all citizens.

John Dewey and David Graeber: Elements of Radical Democracy in Pragmatist and Anarchist Thinking

John Dewey's concept of democracy has often been dismissed as liberal and as being unable to account for pluralism (Talisse 2007). I argue that this is a misconception which can be corrected if we analyze Dewey's understanding of democracy in its historical context. Following this approach, we find elements of a democratic conception in Dewey's thought that are profoundly radical and that can be read along the lines of an anarchist account of radical democracy as recently developed by David Graeber (2013).In January 1937 Dewey published a little-known essay with the title Democracy Is Radical. In this article he develops the position that democracy is radical because it puts primary emphasis upon the means by which [...] ends are to be fulfilled (Dewey 1987, 298). Only a few months later Dewey became chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials. His meetings with Trotsky in Mexico lead to a debate between the two thinkers on the role of means and ends for social transformation which seems to be almost forgotten now. Against Trotsky's account of a socialist revolution, Dewey again emphasized how means and ends are always closely connected. For social transformation this means that radical ends can only be reached through radical means: democracy. The paper wants to bring this historical context to attention because this can help us to understand Dewey's concept of radical democracy for what it was: an intervention into the debate on the role of democracy for the left. I will critically discuss and evaluate the radical nature of Dewey's concept of democracy and reconstruct the historical context of its origin. The paper will further develop and defend the thesis that Dewey's concept of democracy is radical insofar as it was intended against an orthodox Marxist understanding of revolution and social transformation. I will conclude by outlining how this rejection of orthodox Marxism brings Dewey close to an anarchist account of radical democracy as it was recently formulated by David Graeber (2013) and by highlighting the parallels between Dewey's and Graeber's concepts of radical democracy when it comes to the priority of means over ends, the role of deliberation and the rejection of dogmatism.

John Dewey and the Artful Life: Pragmatism, Aesthetics, and Morality

John Dewey and the Artful Life: Pragmatism, Aesthetics, and Morality

Reconstructing Deweyan Growth: The Significance of James Baldwin’s Moral Psychology

In this paper I raise and respond to the question: Is John Dewey's un- derstanding of growth sufficiently responsive to problems associated with race and racism? I begin with a discussion of Dewey's essay Racial Prejudice and Friction, and show that Dewey lets a major objection to his response to racism and prejudice stand without comment. By focus- ing on this objection I will show that—by Dewey's own admission—one cannot grow morally without confronting aspects of moral psychology that Dewey downplayed in offering his response to racism. I will then show that James Baldwin's work offers resources that help us confront these aspects of moral psychology, and argue that bringing Dewey in conversation with Baldwin allows us to reconstruct our understanding of growth so that it becomes more responsive to problems associated with race and racism. In this paper I raise and respond to the question, Is John Dewey's understanding of growth sufficiently responsive to problems associated with race and racism? A growing number of scholars have asked similar questions of Dewey's philosophy. 1 These scholars generally start with an expression of disappointment—how could someone so concerned with social issues devote so little attention to the problem of racism—and conclude with some variant of the following: While Dewey's philosophy offers us resources that can help as we construct responses to problems of race and racism, his philosophy needs to be reconstructed (often by placing it in conversation with texts that more explicitly address these problems) in order to do so. 2 This will, in large part, be the approach I take in this paper. I begin with a discussion of Dewey's essay Racial Prejudice and Friction, and show that Dewey lets a major objection to his response to racism and prejudice stand without comment. By focusing on this objection I will show that—by Dewey's own admission—one cannot grow morally without confronting aspects of moral psychology that Dewey downplayed in offering his response to racism. I will then show that James Baldwin's work offers resources that help us confront these

The Moral Ends of Band

This article provides a theoretical framework through which to reimagine and revitalize contemporary music education practices, using the large ensemble paradigm called band as the primary unit of analysis. Literature suggests that band places too much emphasis on teacher control and external measures of validation. Critics propose replacing this historic art form with ones that exist outside of school. It is argued in this article that band's crisis of legitimacy can be resolved by refocusing on student welfare and student well-being. Because band is the only indigenous American art form that exists in and has come into fruition through the public school, band directors are bound by a public trust to put the education of students first. Using Dewey's understanding of the role of public schooling in a democracy, a vision of moral education through music education is advanced. Band is ideally poised to illustrate what moral education can be.

John Atkinson Hobson and the roots of John Dewey's economic thought

American pragmatist John Dewey's economic thought has remained relatively unknown by both philosophers and economists. This article addresses this lack of interest and replies to criticism of pragmatism as the philosophy of ‘corporate liberalism’ by tracing one source of Dewey's economic thought to British New Liberal John Atkinson Hobson. General similarities are discussed first, followed by a presentation of Dewey's use of Hobson's theory of underconsumption during the Great Depression. It concludes by presenting Dewey's understanding of a liberalism that had truly become corporate.

Producing Publics: Dewey, Democratic Experimentalism, and the Idea of Communication

In a volume dedicated to celebrating and interrogating pragmatic - and especially Deweyan - roots of democratic experimentalism, this essay explores some of more elusive aspects of Dewey's ideas of communication. It argues that for Dewey, question of communication was not how speakers should make their interior thoughts and desires transparent and understandable to others but how they could produce shared social contexts - that is, publics - and with them new forms of democratic self-governance. The essay thus suggests that Dewey's understanding of communication diverges from one that is more familiar in popular problem-solving discourses in law. For example, in predominant strands of alternative dispute resolution communication is understood primarily as a neutral technique used to bridge mental properties of individuals whatever their aims, rather than, as Dewey would have described it, a means and end of a good society and thus a deeply normative and political practice. By comparing divergent ideas of communication in law, essay aims to open up for analysis and debate whether and how democratic experimentalists understand communication not like traditional models of popular legal problem solving, but rather like Dewey: as a method of social life that calls publics into being.1. IntroductionIn his article for this volume, William Simon observes foundational overlaps between Deweyan political ideals and contemporary field of legal problem solving often called new governance or democratic experimentalism. Simon argues that many of practical implications of Dewey's ideas have remained elusive. But he also suggests that new institutional innovations in business and policymaking, which he describes under sign of democratic experimentalism, make more concrete the key aims and insights of Dewey's vision.1 In this short essay, I consider one of questions that Simon argues Dewey left unanswered. The question, in Simon's words, is this: How do we organize deliberative engagement to produce productive collaboration among people with diverse interests?2 This is a pressing question for democratic experimentalists who propose to restructure institutions of public governance through communicative acts of bottom-up problem solving and lawmaking.Drawing on analyses of Dewey from within field of communication studies, I explore whether and how democratic experimentalists offer a distinctively Deweyan model of communication. For Dewey, communication was a very particular - and political - social good. It was both a means of producing publics and activity that made those publics meaningful. Or to put point a bit differently, for him, communication was a means of creating social feeling and binding people together that could not be separated from questions of a good society. In this sense, essay argues, Dewey's understanding of communication diverges from an idea of communication that is more familiar in popular problem-solving discourses in law. Rather than a neutral technique used to resolve disputes and join interior thoughts of individuals by generating transparent understandings and agreements, Dewey understood communication as a shared social and political endeavor that creates new possibilities for democratic self-govemance. To illustrate this difference between Deweyan conception and a more familiar legal model, essay briefly compares Dewey's ideas of communication with some of predominant ideas of communication that have developed in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) - an important and perhaps most institutionalized practice of popular problem solving and decision making in law. It does so in order to open up for analysis and debate ways in which democratic experimentalists understand communication not like traditional ADR theory, but rather like Dewey: as a method of social life that calls publics into being.2. Dewey and Democratic ExperimentalismTo begin, let me sketch how scholars of democratic experimentalism build upon Dewey's model of public problem solving through deliberative means. …

Una propuesta pragmatista para la unificación metodológica de la ciencia

In this article, the author shows an aspect of Dewey's understanding shown towards science, specifically its unique method claim. While at first this methodological monism was represented by the action of 'thinking', later was conceptualized with the word 'investigate'. In the first section, the author interprets the first identification of thinking and the only method, then, in a second section to show what Dewey means to investigate the method. In a third section the author faces the positive impact on science taking a unique approach by addressing the confrontational positions proposed different methods to maintain the natural sciences and the sciences.

Pragmatism, inquiry and political liberalism

One of the most powerful but elusive motifs in pragmatist philosophy is the idea that a liberal democracy should be understood as a community of inquirers. This paper offers a critical appraisal of a recent attempt to make sense of this intuition in the context of contemporary political theory, in what may be called pragmatist political liberalism (PPL). Drawing together ideas from Rawlsian political liberalism, epistemic democracy and pragmatism, proponents of PPL argue that the pragmatist conception of inquiry can provide a satisfying interpretation of the idea of justificatory neutrality as it appears in political liberalism. This is contrasted with Dewey's understanding of the epistemic character of democracy, which is viewed as unacceptably sectarian. This paper identifies and criticizes the two principal lines of argument made in support of PPL: the clarification argument and the fixation argument. Neither of these lines of argument, it is argued, passes the test each sets itself. I argue that the latter closes down the epistemic openness in the justification of democracy that is central to pragmatism.

From Judgment to Rationality: Dewey's Epistemology of Practice

In this paper I explore John Dewey's theory of judgment and discuss its expressive dimension. I claim that Dewey's understanding of rationality depends upon a conception of thinking as being expressive, and of expressivity as being composed by logically distinct moments of articulation and transformation. I show that this expressive understanding of rationality provides the central clue for understanding Dewey's conception of inquiry. I then conclude the article by drawing some implications of Dewey's theory of judgment for a broader epistemology based upon the acknowledgment of the primacy of practice.