John Dewey
Human nature supplies raw materials; customs, education and institutions give them shape.
Life
American philosopher (1859-1952), a leading figure of pragmatism, who taught at Chicago and then Columbia and deeply shaped educational thought. He sees mind, knowledge and morality as tools that living beings forge to solve concrete problems, not as truths fixed in advance. He rejects the quest for absolute certainty and keeps from religion only an attitude toward ideals that can be reached in this world.
Main works
Education is how a democratic society renews itself by enlarging shared experience.
Habits, shaped by the social environment, are the basis of morality.
Knowledge comes from testing ideas in action, not from contemplating fixed truths.
He separates the religious attitude from supernatural belief.
In his own words
« To get a rational basis for moral discussion we must begin with recognizing that functions and habits are ways of using and incorporating the environment in which the latter has its say as surely as the former. »
« We may borrow words from a context less technical than that of biology, and convey the same idea by saying that habits are arts. »
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe rejects the supernatural and keeps only a religious attitude toward ideals that can be pursued in this world.
Dewey, A Common Faith (1934)
He refuses the quarrel between empiricism and rationalism: knowing is inquiry that uses both experience and ideas to solve problems.
Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938)
The search for absolute certainty is a mistake; knowledge is fallible and comes from testing ideas in action.
Dewey, The Quest for Certainty (1929)
Mind is not a separate substance but a way living organisms deal with their environment, a natural part of experience.
Dewey, Experience and Nature (1925)
Good is judged by intelligent inquiry into the situation and its likely effects on lived growth, not by a fixed rule, a fixed duty or a single virtue.
Dewey, Theory of Valuation (1939)
Human nature is plastic: habits shaped by education and institutions can be improved, so people are perfectible.
Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (1922)