John Dewey (1859-1952)
John Dewey was, during the first half of the 20th century, America's most prominent philosopher. He was among the last of the great philosophers as public intellectuals. All of his activity was concerned with what he called the "problems of men," not the "problems of philosophers." The narrow specialization of 20th century thought in analytic philosophy, together with the growing prominence of Continental philosophy after the second world war, led to a decline in his influence. Only since the 1970s has his influence begun to have a renaissance. Dewey was what I call a "harlequin" among philosophers, a complete thinker whose formulations touched on every area of importance within philosophy and who was sensitive to contemporary currents in the sciences, the arts, politics, and literature. He is most famous for his influence in altering America's educational system. From the point of view of philosophy as a whole, however, this is but one aspect of his thought, and it has to be considered in conjunction with his explorations in social philosophy, esthetics, reflections on logic, moral philosophy, and even metaphysics. Two points stand out immediately with regard to the aims of his formulations. 1. Philosophy, as concerned with "wisdom" ("philosophy" means literally "love of wisdom') always keeps the issue of "good' front and center. If Dewey's philosophical enterprise is considered an ellipse, then one focus will be occupied by a concern for the good. 2. The most pressing issue that dominated Dewey's life, work, and teaching was the desire to develop a viable democratic community for the present. He was the philosopher of democracy. In the ellipse of Dewey's philosophy, democracy, its understanding, reinforcement and elaboration occupies the other focus.
Several traits stand out as the frame and threads out of which he wove his philosophical grasp of things.
1. Reformation--Dewey was an heir to the Protestant Reformation tradition. With him, this meant that the inheritance of the past, no matter how valuable in certain respects, could always be improved. Change, reform, and the word that came to be associated with him "reconstruction" were constant concerns. He had a keen sense of how precarious were human achievements, and how easily one generation's liberating reforms could be the next generation's limiting conditions.
2. The Social--Although an empiricist, Dewey was not, as was Locke, an atomist in any sense. His most fundamental philosophical category, that which can most securely be applied to the nature of things, was the "social." Dewey had an organic, biological sense about the nature of things. Nothing exists in isolation. Everything is enmeshed in multiple and overlapping interrelations. "Individuality," the unique contributions each of us can make, was a Deweyan ideal as opposed to "individualism," the attempt to define and establish ourselves apart from our connections to others.
3. Growth--because of the great variety of individuals, it is impossible to fix a certain goal as the aim of human life. All experience should be educative, and being educative means getting the most out of the experience of the here and now. This means that education is co-temporal with life-experience itself, formal schooling being only a specialized type of education that creates the conditions for the possibility of what Dewey called "growth," his label for the aim of human life.
4. Democracy--Democracy for Dewey is the optimal mode of associated living. It is not primarily a specific set of political institutions. In the first instance, democracy is a regulative ideal for community life. Its major defining characteristics are as follows: 1. the opportunity for genuine growth is maximized in such communities; 2. the differing groups that make up a society (and a society is always made up of smaller societies, e.g. families, ethnic groups, clubs, work teams, neighborhoods) shall enjoy a free and flexible interchange among themselves. Rigidity, separation, and isolation are the enemies of a genuine democratic community. Because Dewey separates democracy as an ideal from specific institutions, reform is always a possibility. We should never say, in a self-satisfied way, "now we have such and such institutions, e.g. free press, universal suffrage, therefore our democratic society is complete and finished. It is to the ideal that we must look, not just to the specific institutions which attempt to make that ideal a living presence.
For more details on Dewey, the Center for Dewey Studies is a good place to begin. Another good source is the home page of Dewey scholar Craig Cunningham. For those who want an introductory book, might I suggest my own John Dewey: Rethinking our Time, SUNY Press, 1998.
