I had never heard of this philosopher before. John Dewey thought philosophy had become disconnected from practical reality. It focused on finding better answers to old questions that he wanted to leave behind so that he could focus on new questions for his time. Thought the American will was captured in the sky scraper and American intellect was in the old southern colonial mansion. He believed philosophy could benefit from the empirical method and that it should be pragmatic and enrich the experience of every day life. His views affected education. For him, experience and culture was key. Dewey saw the great changes in life during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and was one of the most important philosophers to react to them. For Dewey, the final test of any proposed solution is action. Felt education necessary for individuals to participate in a complex society. Goal of education is growth and maturity as well as potential to develop further. The effect of education must take effect in conduct. Education based on dogma is of no worth. Education is moral duty since it is more effective in changing behavior of individuals for the better than law and punishment. One view is guidance and control. Another is freedom and initiative. He wants to abandon the idea that subject matter is fixed but think of the education as a process. Bookishness and meaningless motor activity should give way to a social spirit. When real social concerns (such as on the playground) enter the classroom, there’s a real change in atmosphere. As one enters a busy kitchen in which a group of children are actively engaged in the preparation of food, the psychological difference, the change from more or less passive and inert recipiency and restraint to one of buoyant and outgoing energy, is so obvious as to fairly strike one in the face! Early liberalism focused on the freedom of the individual. Latter liberalism focused more on a form of communal security. These two views should be harmonized as they are inconsistent. Dewey sought to reclaim from religious institutions, the true religious dimension of life. “Any activity pursued on behalf of an ideal end against obstacles and in spite of threats of personal loss because of conviction of its general enduring value is religious in quality. Many a person, enquirer, artist, philanthropist, citizen, men and women in the humblest walks of life have achieved without presumption and without display such unification of themselves and of their relations of conditions to existence. It remains to extend their spirit and inspiration to ever wider numbers. If I have said anything about religions and religion that seems harsh, I have said those things because of a firm belief that the claim on the part of religion to possess a monopoly of ideals and of the supernatural means by which alone it is alleged they can be furthered, stands in the way of the realization of distinctively religious values inherent in natural experience.” Fundamentalists are affected as much by Copernicus and Galileo as by Einstein (anotherwords, not very much). Great improvements can be made by natural means that may have not root in the sprititual or ideal nature. But, development cannot be made in the latter with supernatural window dressing. It has to come from intense realization of values here in connections with one another. Those who point to the ills of society undo their good by pointing away from man for the cures. Dewey also had much to say about art. One major idea was that art can be found in the artistic endeavor of every day activities and creations. youtu.be/3ziMY0XX3Z8?list=PLDLWkEm-ud7SmBOkl8ePB1Jxd3NayXgIc
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:23:29 +0000
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