The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism.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." 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, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt.
Dewey was one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the fathers 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. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Dewey as the 93rd-most-cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Dewey was also a major educational reformer for the 20th century. A well-known public intellectual, he was a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. 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.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.
Brief Studies in Realism I & 2
Read by P. J. Taylor
Running Time:00:49:25 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Brief Studies in Realism is an article from The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Volume 8.
Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
Read by Tim Ferreira, Floyd Wilde, Bill Mosley, Wiley Combs, Jon Miller, Tyran Rexx, Shawn Bayern, Luke Sartor, Susan Nash, Tricia G, Arnie Horton, Raz Mason, Lucretia B., Florance Short
Running Time:16:20:42 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
An important, controversial, and often cited work on public education. Dewey discusses the role of public education in a democracy and the different methods for achieving quality in education. After its initial publication, this book began a revolution in educational thinking; one that emphasized growth, experience, and activity as key elements in promoting democratic qualities in students and educators alike.
0 - Preface
1 - Education as a Necessity of Life
2 - Education as a Social Function
3 - Education as Direction
4 - Education as Growth
5 - Preparation, Unfolding, and Formal Discipline
6 - Education as Conservative and Progressive
7 - The Democratic Conception in Education
8 - Aims in Education
9 - Natural Development and Social Efficiency as Aims
10 - Interest and Discipline
11 - Experience and Thinking
12 - Thinking in Education
13 - The Nature of Method
14 - The Nature of Subject Matter
15 - Play and Work in the Curriculum
16 - The Significance of Geography and History
17 - Science in the Course of Study
18 - Educational Values
19 - Labor and Leisure
20 - Intellectual and Practical Studies
21 - Physical and Social Studies: Naturalism and Humanism
22 - The Individual and the World
23 - Vocational Aspects of Education
24 - Philosophy of Education
25 - Theories of Knowledge
26 - Theories of Morals
Essays in Experimental Logic
Read by P. J. Taylor, Frank Linvios, Anonymous, Matthew Muñoz, Kathleen Moore, Jennifer Henry, Todd H W
Running Time:11:26:29 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
In this early collection of formative essays, acclaimed American philosopher John Dewey argues that the idealistic, realistic, and analytic schools of philosophy fail to take into account the pragmatic and experimental nature of experience - common to science and practical experience, but alien to the abstract theorizing of coherentist and correspondence theories of logic. Here we find the essential groundwork for the mature naturalistic and process-oriented metaphysics that Dewey would elaborate in his later mature works such as Experience and Nature and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. In his long introduction, Dewey provides a summary and precis of his experimental logic, taking specifically pains to contrast his approach with the emerging analytic logic of Russell and Frege. Chapters 3-6 take aim at the idealistic logic dominant in his time by providing a close reading and critique of the German logician Hermann Lotze. Chapters 7-8 argue for the distinction between acquaintance with an external reality and knowledge of that reality. Rather than disembodied and abstract, Dewey describes a logic arising out of the concrete interactions of organisms embedded within a natural environment. Dewey's logic of experience is essential to an understanding of his various projects, from education, to art, politics, pragmatism, and science.
0 - Prefatory Note
1 - I. Introduction (§ I - IV)
2 - I. Introduction (§ V-VII)
3 - II. The Relationship of Thought and Its Subject Matter
4 - III. The Antecedents and Stimuli of Thinking
5 - IV. Data and Meaning
6 - V. The Objects of Thought
7 - VI. Some Stages of Logical Thought
8 - VII. The Logical Character of Ideas
9 - VIII. The Control of Ideas by Facts
10 - IX. Naive Realism Vs. Presentative Realism
11 - X. Epistemological Realism: The Alleged Ubiquity of the Knowledge Relation
12 - XI. The Existence of the World as a Logical Problem
13 - XII. What Pragmatism Means by Practical
14 - XIII. An Added Note as to the 'Practical'
15 - XIV. The Logic of Judgements of Practice - Their Nature
16 - XIV. The Logic of Judgements of Practice - Judgments of Value I and II
17 - XIV. The Logic of Judgements of Practice - Judgments of Value III, IV, V
18 - XIV. The Logic of Judgements of Practice - Sense Perception as Knowledge
19 - XIV. The Logic of Judgements of Practice - Science as a Practical Art
20 - XIV. The Logic of Judgements of Practice - Theory and Practice
How We Think
Read by Linda Andrus
Running Time:08:54:27 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
A book written by an American education philosopher in which he proposed “This scientific attitude of mind might, conceivably, be quite irrelevant to teaching children and youth. But this book also represents the conviction that such is not the case; that the native and unspoiled attitude of childhood, marked by ardent curiosity, fertile imagination, and love of experimental inquiry, is near, very near, to the attitude of the scientific mind. If these pages assist any to appreciate this kinship and to consider seriously how its recognition in educational practice would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste, ...”
Excerpt From: John Dewey. “How We Think.”
0 - PREFACE
1 - I. What is Thought?
2 - II. The Need For Training Thought35:414 03 - III. Natural Resources in the Training of Thought
4 - IV. Social Conditions and the Training of Thought
5 - V. Training: The Psychological and the Logical
6 - VI. The Analysis of a Complete Act of Thought
7 - VII. Systematic Inference: Induction and Deduction
8 - VIII. Judgment: The Interpretation of Facts
9 - IX. Meaning: Or Conceptions and Understanding
10 - X. Concrete and Absract Thinking
11 - XI. Empirical and Scientific Thinking
12 - XII. Activity and the Training of Thought
13 - XIII. Language and the Training of Thought
14 - XIV. Observation and Information in the Training of Mind
15 - XV. The Recitation and the Training of Thought
16 - XVI. Some General Conclusions
Human Nature And Conduct - Part 1, The Place of Habit in Conduct
Read by William Allan Jones
Running Time:02:43:59 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
John Dewey, an early 20th Century American philosopher, psychologist, educational theorist saw Social Psychology as much a physical science (with rules and predictive power) as Biology and Chemistry. This project encompasses Part 1 of 4 of his book Human Nature and Conduct.
Dewey's uses the word "HABIT" as a specialized catch-all word to describe how a person and his/her objective environment interact. This interaction is the basis for moral judgement. Dewey writes: "All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self.” In other places he also asserts that "Habits are Will."
0 - Introduction
1 - Habits as Social Functions
2 - Habits and Will
3 - Character and Conduct
4 - Custom and Habit
5 - Custom and Morality
6 - Habit and Social Psychology
Human Nature and Conduct - Part 2, The Place of Impulse In Conduct
Read by William Allan Jones
Running Time:02:53:43 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Part 2 describes Dewey's concept of IMPULSES. They encompass the interaction of one's self with the environment. When the environment encounters problems with one's HABITS, Impulses are the motivating, innate forces which prompt one to modify habits and/or modify the environment. "Nature vs Nurture" explanations of someone's personality are deceptive and fallacious. This stems from the human inclination to CLASSIFY things - practically everything!
Innate behaviors are a collection of habits which one's culture has solidified as Customs. Most education is not learning but rather training of one's habits to harmonize with local customs. Human nature is plastic, malleable. Customs are, almost by definition, rigid. And, because one's environment is always changing, customs and its supporting habits are continually being tested. Nations disintegrate when their customs grow inflexible.
1 - IMPULSES AND CHANGES OF HABITS: Present interest in instincts, impulses as re-organizing.
2 - PLASTICITY OF IMPULSE: Impulse and education, uprush of impulse, fixed codes
3 - CHANGING HUMAN NATURE: Habits the inert factor, modification of impulses, war a social...
4 - IMPULSE AND CONFLICT OF HABITS: Possibility of social betterment, conservatism.
5 - CLASSIFICATION OF INSTINCTS: False simplifications, self-love, will to power, acquisitive and...
6 - NO SEPARATE INSTINCTS: Uniqueness of acts, possibilities of operation, necessity of play and...
7 - IMPULSE AND THOUGHT
Human Nature and Conduct - Part 3, The Place of Intelligence In Conduct
Read by William Allan Jones
Running Time:03:52:54 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
John Dewey, an early 20th Century American philosopher, psychologist, educational theorist, saw Social Psychology as much a physical science (with rules and predictive power) as Biology and Chemistry. This project encompasses Part 3 of 4 of his book Human Nature and Conduct. An Introduction to Social Psychology, published in 1922. Dewey's uses the words "HABIT" and "Impulse" as a specialized catch-all words to describe how a person and his/her objective environment interact. This interaction is the basis for moral and ethical judgments. Dewey writes: "All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self.” In other places he also asserts that "Habits are Will." In this third part of the book, Dewey describes how we make ethical judgments (Dramatic Rehearsal), the occasions which call upon the exercise of intelligence, and the relationship among aims, goals, means and ends, and emotions.
1 - Ch1. HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE: Habits and intellect; mind, habit and impulse.
2 - Ch2. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THINKING:The trinity of intellect; conscience and its alleged separate...
3 - Ch3. THE NATURE OF DELIBERATION: Deliberation as imaginative rehearsal; preference and choice;...
4 - Ch4. DELIBERATION AND CALCULATION: Error in utilitarian theory; place of the pleasant;...
5 - Ch5. THE UNIQUENESS OF GOOD: Fallacy of a single good; applied to utilitarianism; profit and...
6 - Ch6. THE NATURE OF AIMS:Theory of final ends; aims as directive means; ends as justifying...
7 - Ch7. THE NATURE OF PRINCIPLES: Desire for certainty; morals and probabilities; importance of...
8 - Ch8. DESIRE AND INTELLIGENCE: Object and consequence of desire; desire and quiescence;...
9 - Ch9. THE PRESENT AND FUTURE: Subordination of activity to result; control of future;...
Human Nature and Conduct - Part 4, Conclusion
Read by William Allan Jones
Running Time:01:51:22 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
John Dewey, an early 20th Century American philosopher, psychologist, educational theorist. This project encompasses Part 4 of 4 of his book Human Nature and Conduct, An Introduction to Social Psychology, published in 1922. Dewey's uses the words "HABIT" and "Impulse" as a specialized catch-all words to describe how a person and his/her objective environment interact. This interaction is the basis for moral and ethical judgments. Dewey writes: "All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self.” In other places he also asserts that "Habits are Will." In the third part of the book, Dewey describes how we make ethical judgments (Dramatic Rehearsal) on the occasions which call upon the exercise of intelligence, and the relationship among aims, goals, means and ends, and emotions. In this fourth section he ties together the preceding concepts and conclusions Part 4: Conclusion Section I: The Good of Activity Better and worse; morality a process; evolution and progress; optimism; Epicureanism; making others happy. Section II: Morals are Human Humane morals; natural law and morals; place of science. Section III: What is Freedom? Elements in freedom; capacity in action; novel possibilities; force of desire. Section IV: Morality is Social Conscience and responsibility; social pressure and opportunity; exaggeration of blame; importance of social psychology; category of right; the community of religious symbol. Soloist supplementary note: Very important but sometimes overlooked is his concept in Part 3 of the book of "Dramatic Rehearsal" which to me means: when we are deliberating over a course of action, we don't just tote up an arithmetic series of "if I do THIS, then THIS will happen, and then THIS will happen, etc. and weigh out the pluses and minuses" as a Utilitarian would do. No, what we do, says Dewey, is that at every step of divining what the future will hold, we examine how we FEEL about the situation. For example, if we're planning a chess move, we don't think to ourselves merely "if I make THIS move, I'll weaken my king side, but I'll gain a pawn" No, instead we think "if I make THIS move, I'll weaken my king side {Dang it all to hecky darn! }, but I'll gain a pawn {Yaaaay! hoorah! }". The force of our subjective and emotive intensity sway the final decisions.
1. The Good of Activity
2. Morals are Human
3. What is Freedom?
4. Morality is Social