Dewey, John, 1859–1952, American philosopher and educator, b. Burlington, Vt., grad. Univ. of Vermont, 1879, Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 1884. He taught at the universities of Minnesota (1888–89), Michigan (1884–88, 1889–94), and Chicago (1894–1904) and at Columbia from 1904 until his retirement in 1930. His foreign consultancies included two stints at the Univ. of Beijing and a report on the reorganization of the schools of Turkey.

Dewey's original philosophy, called instrumentalism, bears a relationship to the utilitarian and pragmatic schools of thought. Instrumentalism holds that the various modes and forms of human activity are instruments developed by human beings to solve multiple individual and social problems. Since the problems are constantly changing, the instruments for dealing with them must also change. Truth, evolutionary in nature, partakes of no transcendental or eternal reality and is based on experience that can be tested and shared by all who investigate. Dewey conceived of democracy as a primary ethical value, and he did much to formulate working principles for a democratic and industrial society.

In education his influence has been a leading factor in the abandonment of authoritarian methods and in the growing emphasis upon learning through experimentation and practice. In revolt against abstract learning, Dewey considered education as a tool that would enable the citizen to integrate culture and vocation effectively and usefully. Dewey actively participated in movements to forward social welfare and woman's suffrage, protect academic freedom, and effect political reform.

Among his writings, which are concerned with almost all philosophical fields except metaphysics, are Psychology (1887), The School and Society (1899; rev. ed. 1915), Ethics (with James H. Tufts, 1908), Democracy and Education (1916), Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920), Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Experience and Nature (1925), The Public and Its Problems (1927), The Quest for Certainty (1929), Philosophy and Civilization (1932), A Common Faith (1934), Art as Experience (1934), Liberalism and Social Action (1935), Experience and Education (1938), Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), Freedom and Culture (1939), and Problems of Men (1946).

Bibliography

See J. A. Boydston and K. Poulos, ed., Checklist of Writings about John Dewey, 1887–1977 (1978) and B. Levine, Works about John Dewey, 1886–1995 (1996); G. Dykhuizen, The Life and Mind of John Dewey (1973); J. J. McDermott, ed., Philosophy of John Dewey (2 vol., 1981); biographies by S. C. Rockefeller (1991), R. B. Westbrook (1991), A. Ryan (1995), and J. Martin (2002); studies by G. R. Geiger (1958, repr. 1974), A. Wirth (1966, repr. 1979), F. F. Cruz (1988), L. A. Hickman (1990), H. Cuffaro (1994), and A. Ryan (1996).

Dewey, John

John Dewey

(credit: EB Inc.)

(born Oct. 20, 1859, Burlington, Vt., U.S.—died June 1, 1952, New York, N.Y.) U.S. philosopher and educator who was one of the founders of pragmatism, a pioneer in functional psychology, and a leader of the Progressive movement in U.S. education. He received a Ph.D. (1884) from Johns Hopkins University and taught 10 years at the University of Michigan before moving to the University of Chicago. Influenced by G. Stanley Hall and William James, he developed an instrumentalist theory of knowledge that conceived of ideas as tools for the solution of problems encountered in the environment. Believing the experimental methods of modern science provided the most promising approach to social and ethical problems, he applied this view to studies of democracy and liberalism. He asserted that democracy provided citizens with the opportunity for maximum experimentation and personal growth. His writings on education, notably The School and Society (1899) and The Child and the Curriculum (1902), emphasized the interests of the child and the use of the classroom to cultivate the interplay between thought and experience. At Chicago he created laboratory schools to test his theories. His work in psychology focused on the total organism in its efforts to adjust to the environment. In 1904 Dewey joined the Columbia University faculty. In 1925 he published his magnum opus, Experience and Nature.

Dewey, John (1859–1952) philosopher, psychologist, educator; born in Burlington, Vt. After graduating from the University of Vermont, he taught high school before taking his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins. He taught philosophy at the Universities of Minnesota and Michigan and gained some reputation for his book Psychology (1887) before going to the University of Chicago (1894–1904) where in 1896 he established a Laboratory School to put his educational theories into practice. His best known innovation was what he called learning by "directed living," with an emphasis on workshop-type projects so that learning was combined with concrete activity and practical relevance. Although not really the first to promote this kind of schooling, he would long be regarded by Americans as the father of progressive education. After a falling-out with the Chicago administration, he went to Columbia University as professor of philosophy (1904–30). He was by this time gaining a reputation as one of the leading exponents of pragmatism, the school of philosophy that stresses the practical application of ideas. At Columbia, he helped move its Teachers College into the forefront of American education by imbuing several generations of educators with his theories of progressive education and pragmatism. When it came to staking out positions on political and international affairs, he did not always make predictable choices, supporting progressive and socialist candidates, then opposing President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal; he was always opposed to Marxism and communism, however, and he never abandoned his faith in the individual and democracy. As an author of numerous books (The School and Society (1899), Experience and Nature (1925), Experience and Education (1938), Freedom and Culture (1939)), as an advisor to various countries' educational systems, as an officer of various professional societies, and as an intellectual consulted and quoted on a wide range of issues, he played a role in public life that few philosophers in American history have known.