1. 1859-1952; born in Vermont; educated at Johns Hopkins; taught at Universities of Michigan, Chicago, and finally at Columbia.

2. Bibliography--Reconstruction in Philosophy 1920, Human Nature and Conduct 1922, Quest for Certainty 1929, Experience and Nature 1929, A Common Faith 1960.

1. From Hegel--the demand for unification, totality and context; disdain for dualism

2. From Plato--not Plato's idealism (i.e., Theory of timeless Forms) but the spirit of continuous inquiry and moral reconstruction

3. Dewey had both a negative and positive purpose:

a. negative--to attack traditional philosophy for not coming to grip with the

ambiguity of human existence

b. positive--a reconstruction of philosophical thinking based upon problem

solving of fundamental human, social issues

A. Social psychology--since people are social, this must be the starting point; this is a "naturalistic humanism"

B. Three features of working out a "naturalistic humanism"

1. The role of Habit--it's the basic way of dealing with the world; learned responses

a. two kinds of habits--intelligence and routine

b. the higher forms of life use intelligence over routine

2. Impulse--habits shape and channel our impulses

3. Intelligence--modeled on experimental science; problem solving; the world is complex and volatile; our habits often fail to improve our lives and intelligence should take over when habits fail;

a. intelligence--"The function of reflective thought is to transform a situation in

which there is experienced obscurity, doubt, conflict, and disturbance of some

sort, into a situation that is clear, settled, harmonious."

b. logic--it's basically a form of inquiry which begins with irritation of doubt and

ends with warranted assertibility

c. inquiry--the transformation of the indeterminate into the determinate

d. the primary aim of living intelligently is social reconstruction

A. Education's main aim--to show there are no final, completely adequate descriptions of the world; there are only more and more adequate instrumentalities for dealing with always changing and growing human situations

B. The good life is a matter of mutual makings or the formation of a liberal democracy in which people are able to make intelligible choices about their destinies

1. Education is necessary for this development, to overcome impulses

2. Education overcomes authoritarianism by developing an enlightened populace committed to social progress

3. The goal of a liberal education--social wholeness

4. The positive consequences:

a. enlightened conscience in morals

b. cultivate taste in aesthetics

c. wise convictions in beliefs

A. All thinking is "interested thinking"

1. Knowledge is always dated contextual experience

a. traditional metaphysics is too abstract and give pseudo-answers

b. rejects "absolutes, eternal essences

c. science is more reliable because based on "interested thinking" on experience

2. The question "what is real" is miss asked; better to ask, "how do I fashion the real"

3. In experience we have events, not substances; cannot bifurcate between persons and nature; intelligence and experience; some events cause us to exercise our intelligence more than others do, they are "objects"

4. Therefore, out thinking is always involved in making the "real" which involves the use of language, the clue to the social nature of knowledge

A. There is no universal religion (no substance called religion)

1. No one religion is the truth of all religions

2. There is a multiple of religions (religions are adjectival)

B. The difference between religion and being religious

1. Religion--a body of beliefs and rituals

2. There is no unique religious experience of a substance

3. The religious quality of an experience is the effect produced, not the cause

4. The religious attitude--a change of will conceived as the organic plenitude of our being, which can come from many sources other than traditional religion