John Dewey
John Dewey (/ˈduːi/; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.[7][8]
For the structural geologist, see John Frederick Dewey. For the Minnesotan territorial legislator, see John J. Dewey. For the inventor of the Dewey Decimal system of library classification, see Melvil Dewey.
John Dewey
October 20, 1859
June 1, 1952 (aged 92)
6, including Jane and Evelyn Dewey
The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism.[9] As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous."[10] Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—to be major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. He asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts and politicians.
Dewey was one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the founding thinkers of functional psychology. His paper "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology", published in 1896, is regarded as the first major work in the (Chicago) functionalist school of psychology.[11] A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Dewey as the 93rd-most-cited psychologist of the 20th century.[12]
Dewey was also a major educational reformer for the 20th century.[7] A well-known public intellectual, he was a major voice of progressive education and liberalism.[13][14] While a professor at the University of Chicago, he founded the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he was able to apply and test his progressive ideas on pedagogical method.[15][16] Although Dewey is known best for his publications about education, he also wrote about many other topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, logic, social theory, and ethics.
Life[edit]
Early life and education[edit]
John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, to a family of modest means.[17] He was one of four boys born to Archibald Sprague Dewey and Lucina Artemisia Rich Dewey. Their first son was also named John, but he died in an accident on January 17, 1859. The second John Dewey was born October 20, 1859, forty weeks after the death of his older brother. Like his older, surviving brother, Davis Rich Dewey, he attended the University of Vermont, where he was initiated into Delta Psi, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa[18] in 1879.
A significant professor of Dewey's at the University of Vermont was Henry Augustus Pearson Torrey (H. A. P. Torrey), the son-in-law and nephew of former University of Vermont president Joseph Torrey. Dewey studied privately with Torrey between his graduation from Vermont and his enrollment at Johns Hopkins University.[19][20]
Social and political activism[edit]
1894 Pullman Strike[edit]
While Dewey was at the University of Chicago, his letters to his wife Alice and his colleague Jane Addams reveal that he closely followed the 1894 Pullman Strike, in which the employees of the Pullman Palace Car Factory in Chicago decided to go on strike after industrialist George Pullman refused to lower rents in his company town after cutting his workers' wages by nearly 30 percent. On May 11, 1894, the strike became official, later gaining the support of the members of the American Railway Union, whose leader Eugene V. Debs called for a nationwide boycott of all trains including Pullman sleeping cars.[82]
Considering most trains had Pullman cars, the main 24 lines out of Chicago were halted and the mail was stopped as the workers destroyed trains all over the United States. President Grover Cleveland used the mail as a justification to send in the National Guard, and ARU leader Eugene Debs was arrested.[82]
Dewey wrote to Alice: "The only wonder is that when the 'higher classes' – damn them – take such views there aren't more downright socialists. [...] [T]hat a representative journal of the upper classes – damn them again – can take the attitude of that harper's weekly", referring to headlines such as "Monopoly" and "Repress the Rebellion", which claimed, in Dewey's words, to support the sensational belief that Debs was a "criminal" inspiring hate and violence in the equally "criminal" working classes. He concluded: "It shows what it is to be a higher class. And I fear Chicago Univ. is a capitalistic institution – that is, it too belongs to the higher classes".[82]
Pro-war stance in First World War[edit]
Dewey was an advocate of US participation in the First World War. For this he was criticised by Randolph Bourne, a former student whose essay "Twilight of Idols", was published in the literary journal Seven Arts in October 1917. Bourne criticised Dewey's instrumental pragmatist philosophy.[83]
public domain audiobook at LibriVox, An Introduction to Social Psychology (1922) Parts 1–4
Human Nature and Conduct
Besides publishing prolifically himself, Dewey also sat on the boards of scientific publications such as Sociometry (advisory board, 1942) and Journal of Social Psychology (editorial board, 1942), as well as having posts at other publications such as New Leader (contributing editor, 1949).
The following publications by John Dewey are referenced or mentioned in this article. A more complete list of his publications may be found at John Dewey bibliography.
See also
Dewey's Complete Writings is available in four multi-volume sets (38 volumes in all) from Southern Illinois University Press:
The Collected Works of John Dewey: 1882–1953, The Correspondence of John Dewey 1871–1952, and The Lectures of John Dewey are available online via monographic purchase to academic institutions and via subscription to individuals, and also in TEI format for university servers in the Past Masters series. (The CD-ROM has been discontinued.)