Reconstruction in Philosophy

Reconstruction in Philosophy

by John Dewey
ISBN-10:
1605203467
ISBN-13:
9781605203461
Pub. Date:
10/31/2008
Publisher:
Cosimo Classics
ISBN-10:
1605203467
ISBN-13:
9781605203461
Pub. Date:
10/31/2008
Publisher:
Cosimo Classics
Reconstruction in Philosophy

Reconstruction in Philosophy

by John Dewey

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Overview

Though best remembered today as a philosopher of early-childhood education through his influential 1899 work The School and Society and the essay “The Child and the Curriculum,” John Dewey also expended considerable thought on the progress of philosophy itself. In this striking book, first published just after the First World War in 1920, Dewey considers how, why, and when human affairs should prompt a new approach to concepts of morality and justice. How should the revelations of science in the 20th century, and its consequential technology, impact human thought? Is seeing knowledge as power philosophical supportable and desirable? Must we redefine what it means to be “idealist”? Where do politics and philosophy intersect? Dewey’s bracing explorations of these questions, and others, continue to enthrall thinking people —and continue to be vitally relevant—nearly a century after they were written. American educator and philosopher JOHN DEWEY (1859–1952) helped found the American Association of University Professors. He served as professor of philosophy at Columbia University from 1904 to 1930 and authored numerous books, including Experience and Nature (1925), Experience and Education (1938), and Freedom and Culture (1939).

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781605203461
Publisher: Cosimo Classics
Publication date: 10/31/2008
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 236
Product dimensions: 5.11(w) x 8.06(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

John Dewey (FAA October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology. He was a major representative of progressive education and liberalism. Although Dewey is known best for his publications concerning education, he also wrote about many other topics, including experience, nature, art, logic, inquiry, democracy, and ethics. In his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—as being major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality.

Table of Contents

IChanging Conceptions of Philosophy1
Origin of philosophy in desire and imagination
Influence of community traditions and authority
Simultaneous development of matter-of-fact knowledge
Incongruity and conflict of the two types
Respective values of each type
Classic philosophies (i) compensatory, (ii) dialectically formal, and (iii) concerned with "superior" Reality
Contemporary thinking accepts primacy of matter-of-fact knowledge and assigns to philosophy a social function rather than that of absolute knowledge
IISome Historical Factors in Philosophical Reconstruction16
Francis Bacon exemplifies the newer spirit
He conceived knowledge as power
As dependent upon organized cooperative research
As tested by promotion of social progress
The new thought reflected actual social changes, industrial, political, religious
The new idealism
IIIThe Scientific Factor in Reconstruction of Philosophy31
Science has revolutionized our conception of Nature
Philosophy has to be transformed because it no longer depends upon a science which accepts a closed, finite world
Or, fixed species
Or, superiority or rest to change and motion
Contrast of feudal with democratic conceptions
Elimination of final causes
Mechanical science and the possibility of control of nature
Respect for matter
New temper of imagination
Influence thus far technical rather than human and moral
IVChanged Conceptions of Experience and Reason44
Traditional conception of nature of experience
Limits of ancient civilization
Effect of classic idea on modern empiricism
Why a different conception is now possible
Psychological change emphasizes vital factor using environment
Effect upon traditional ideas of sensation and knowledge
Factor of organization
Socially, experience is now more inventive and regulative
Corresponding change in idea of Reason
Intelligence is hypothetical and inventive
Weakness of historic Rationalism
Kantianism
Contrast of German and British philosophies
Reconstruction of empirical liberalism
VChanged Conceptions of the Ideal and the Real59
Idealization rooted in aversion to the disagreeable
This fact has affected philosophy
True reality is ideal, and hence changeless, complete
Hence contemplative knowledge is higher than experimental
Contrast with the modern practise of knowledge
Significance of change
The actual or realistic signifies conditions effecting change
Ideals become methods rather than goals
Illustration from elimination of distance
Change in conception of philosophy
The significant problems for philosophy
Social understanding and conciliation
The practical problem of real and ideal
VIThe Significance of Logical Reconstruction76
Present confusion as to logic
Logic is regulative and normative because empirical
Illustration from mathematics
Origin of thinking in conflicts
Confrontation with fact
Response by anticipation or prediction
Importance of hypotheses
Impartial inquiry
Importance of deductive function
Organization and classification
Nature of truth
Truth is adverbial, not a thing
VIIReconstruction in Moral Conceptions92
Common factor in traditional theories
Every moral situation unique
Supremacy of the specific or individualized case
Fallacy of general ends
Worth of generalization of ends and rules is intellectual
Harmfulness of division of goods into intrinsic and instrumental
Into natural and moral
Moral worth of natural science
Importance of discovery in morals
Abolishing Phariseeism
Growth as the end
Optimism and pessimism
Conception of happiness
Criticism of utilitarianism
All life moral in so far as educative
VIIIReconstruction as Affecting Social Philosophy107
Defects of current logic of social thought
Neglect of specific situations
Defects of organic concept of society
Evils of notion of fixed self or individual
Doctrine of interests
Moral and institutional reform
Moral test of social institutions
Social pluralism
Political monism, dogma of National State
Primacy of associations
International humanism
Organization a subordinate conception
Freedom and democracy
Intellectual reconstruction when habitual will affect imagination and hence poetry and religion
Index124
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