John Dewey: a Practical View

I read The Quest for Certainty by John Dewey.

Dewey said that the facts of reality are irrelevant to inanimate matter. Only living things face choice. The higher the organism, the more it will of necessity consider the consequences of choice.

Dewey said that life is uncertain. The best laid plans go astray. The finest arts are plagued with error. Indeed, slaves and servants and other low status perssons engage in material things. The high minded high status person is concerned only with ideas.    On the other hand, religion focused on the Eternal. Philosophers -- especially of the "idealistic" or "rational" schools continued this tradition. It was grammatically impossible to say what is unless what is is eternal, unchanging, perfect and ideal, and therefore not derived from human experience. If it is not eternal then "is" cannot apply to it. Geometry was the exemplar of rationalist truths and science achieved a kind of religiosity when Newtonian mechanics showed that physics has geometric permanence.

In this, Dewey is not advocating, but only describing the state and nature of religion, philosophy and science as they claim permanent, eternal, perfect truths, that are superior to mundane life.

Dewey points out, however, that all ideas come from experience.

Dewey says that It is not tragic that life is probablistic, but only the way life is, and without that, there could never be improvement.

For Dewey science only achieved its present status as science (as apart from being a different expression of religion) with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

Post 1

Friday, August 13, 2010 - 4:42am

It was grammatically impossible to say what is unless what is is eternal, unchanging, perfect and ideal, and therefore not derived from human experience.

Then, I hope nobody ever asked Dewey "What time is it?"

Dewey: "Do you mean now?"

Post 2

Friday, August 13, 2010 - 6:59am

Mike,

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For Dewey science only achieved its present status as science (as apart from being a different expression of religion) with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
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Yes, because as a radical-empiricist, he's a rational-empirical dichotomist (just like radical-rationalists are). Other philosophers may have put huge dents in this dichotomy (e.g., Quine?), but it was Rand who busted it wide open.

Ed

Post 3

Friday, August 13, 2010 - 12:30pm

Fred, Dewey is not advocating, but only describing the state and nature of religion, philosophy and science as they claim permanent, eternal, perfect truths, that are superior to mundane life.

And I am not advocating pragmatism on behalf of John Dewey. I read a book. I found it interesting. In fact, when this came out in 1929, Dewey and pragmatism were well known and established. So, this is sort of a mature lecture, if you want to think of it that way. He was not so much proving his point as elucidating it. IIf you read other works by John Dewey maybe you could explain what he meant better than I did.

Ed, I know what "radical" means and I know what "empiricism" means, but I have no experience with "radical empiricism." Could you point to something radical-empiricist that is not-Dewey and then show me how it is analogously like-Dewey?

Post 4

Friday, August 13, 2010 - 12:56pm

Mike,

In response to Fred you said:

So, this is sort of a mature lecture,

But -- right after that -- in response to me you said:

Could you point to something radical-empiricist that is not-Dewey and then show me how it is analogously like-Dewey?

Now how come I feel short-changed?

:-)

Ed

Post 5

Friday, August 13, 2010 - 1:20pm

Mike,

More maturely now, here is a response to your solicitation regarding instances of non-Dewey radical empiricism, or "NDRE", for short:

Jacques Derrida (b. 1930)
===============
I philosophize only in terror, but in the confessed terror of going mad. � But this crisis in which reason is madder than madness � for reason is non-meaning and oblivion � and in which madness is more rational than reason, for it is closer to the wellspring of sense, however silent and murmuring.�Writing and difference, trans. Alan Bass, 62
===============

... and ...

D. H. Mellor (b. 1938)
===============
Appeals to rationality are mostly bluff. There is no good theory of what it is nor of how to recognize it.��Objective decision making�, Social Theory and Practice (1983), 289
===============

... and ...

Catherine A. MacKinnon (b. 1946)
===============
Since rationality is measured by point-of-viewlessness, what counts as reason is that which corresponds to the way things are. Practical rationality, in this approach, means that which can be done without changing anything.�Toward a feminist theory of the state, 161
===============

--proximate source for the 3 quotes above:
http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Thompson/Low-quality_thinking_on_rationality_A_chronological_index_of_highly-relevant_quotes.shtml

Now, the next requirement for me to continue to play your 'mature' game is to take one or more of the above instances of non-Dewey radical empiricism -- I'm here assuming that you are in agreement with me that these truly are such cases -- and to show you "how it is analogously like-Dewey" (or "A-L-D"). That'll take me more time than I currently have at my fingertips ...

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 8/13, 1:22pm)

Post 6

Friday, August 13, 2010 - 2:22pm

Ed T.,

You sure have a bizarre notion of "radical empiricism." The only well-known philosopher I know of to use that term was William James. (link)

Another group to whom it plausibly applies are some logical positivists, although they didn't use that particular label.

Post 7

Saturday, August 14, 2010 - 7:01am

MEM: Could you point to something radical-empiricist that is not-Dewey and then show me how it is analogously like-Dewey?
ET: Now how come I feel short-changed?

Well, there was a bit of ironic humor there. I was serious in asking. But I phrased it to underscore empiricism: I did not understand the rationalist sorites that strings words together; I need to have experiential knowledge to understand your meaning. And, actually, Merlin provided that.

Merlin, thanks for the link to William James. I did not know that. I agree that Ed confused anti-rationalism with empiricism.

In sociology (and criminology), empiricism and rationalism (what we could call small-o objectivism) are called "positivism" after Comte and it is this that post-modernists oppose. In the words of post-modernists Christopher Williams and Bruce Arrigo (Philosophy, Crime, and Criminology; University of Illinois Press, 2006), positivism promotes

Progress -- the discovery of laws of nature allow us to impose control on nature and society.
Certainty -- science has privileged access to truth.
Facts -- Objective discovery as opposed to subjective experience
Quantification -- size, shape, number, etc., can be objectively measured and known; knowing is measurement.

But, they say, " ... positivism (and empiricism) has been challenged by alternative epistemologies and methodologies, many of which have made their way into criminology."
(ibid, pp 26-27)

I suffered through two books of this stuff in a graduate class in criminology theory. We even got into Lacan's "torus." Besting that, Dragan Milovanovic suggested that crime is a point attractor becoming a destabilized periodic torus and beyond this, a strange attractor. Which, you know, might be interesting to look at, if he actually produced a graphic simulation, but I think he drew the words out of a hat.

Compared to that, Marxism is the voice of reason, which is why physicist Alan Sokal (a Marxist) finally launched his famous hoax.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 8/14, 7:05am)

Post 8

Saturday, August 14, 2010 - 10:15am

Mike,

I agree that Ed confused anti-rationalism with empiricism.

I was talking about radical empiricism, where -- borrowing words from Rand -- where you "cling to reality by abandoning" reason and rationality. So, armed with this new knowledge, why don't you re-read my quotes and tell me if I correctly portrayed this view or not. If we can get into agreement on that, then it'd be potentially beneficial to pursue the point with you. If not, then not.

Ed

Post 9

Friday, November 26, 2010 - 4:36am

have they not been form experince since decadt? if they have not been we coulkd choose some can of eh matrix lifestyle just use lsd and marjuiana since nothing are real anywayy..(maybe they are not thing abut brain chemiacl hedweb.org prozac and redbull and ritalin)
ppl did not need to care abut anything just read stotics or the cynics (maybe budhist and other soul eastern realigon) get ther mony to drugs and write dowen/talk abut ther experince whole day

hige minded hmm what abut psotmodernism ? they are difrent then rational or are they just food for thaugt for the genuis iq 150 + that can explain how they think anyway

best laid palsn hmm so what the other choice bunch of budget guidebook for the city and country you live in so you ahve lots of plan Bs

Post 10

Friday, November 26, 2010 - 7:20pm

piralos,

I rllaey dno't konw waht it is taht you are sniyag, and my gseus is, nehtier deos anoyne esle. Psaels fnid a way to tpye betetr. I tnihk I saepk for msot partispants here wehn I wran you taht I'm prepaired to -- because of the illiteracy -- prepared to start ignoring your posts entirely.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 11/26, 7:21pm)

Post 11

Thursday, December 2, 2010 - 8:25am

POLARIS,

Do not send me any more RoR mails. I did not go to the link you gave in your email and you told me to go to, I just deleted it the whole email. If you continue to RoR mail me, I will not only continue to delete them, I will go an extra mile to "make a fuss" about it.

Ed

Post 12

Thursday, December 2, 2010 - 4:17pm

P,

Please don't harass members in good standing. If you'd like to become a member in good standing, go back to school. Preferably a private one.

Post 13

Sunday, September 11, 2011 - 11:21am

Tangential to Mike�s post, here�s a concrete application of John Dewey�s educational philosophy from a little known book of his written in 1928 and published the following year � the same year as The Quest for Certainty:
Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World

It is amazingly, outrageously bad � something to bring up when next you meet a defender of Dewey�s educational ideas. (To be sure, Michael Marotta isn�t one of them.)

For all Dewey�s "philosophical gobbledygook" � for all his verbiage about "experience" and "uncertainty" � what you get is ...

(Page 14-15)
The sense of a vast human revolution that has brought with it � or rather that consists of � an outburst of vitality, courage, confidence in life has come to the front. ... the outstanding fact in Russia is a revolution, involving a release of human powers on such an unprecedented scale that it is of incalculable significance not only for that country, but for the world.

(Page 57)
... there is an enormous constructive effort taking place in the creation of a new collective mentality; a new morality I should call it, were it not for the aversion of Soviet leaders to all moral terminology; and that this endeavor is actually succeeding to a considerable degree � to just what extent, I cannot, of course, measure.

(Page 61)
... the import of all institutions is educational in the broad sense � that of their effects upon disposition and attitude. Their function is to create habits so that persons will act cooperatively and collectively as readily now in capitalistic countries they act �individualistically.� The same consideration defines the importance and the purpose of the narrower educational agencies, the schools. They represent a direct and concentrated effort to obtain the effect which other institutions develop in a different and roundabout manner. The schools are, in current phrase, the �ideological arm of the Revolution.� In consequence, the activities of the schools dovetail in the most extraordinary way, both in administrative organization and in aim and spirit, into all other social agencies and interests.

(Page 72-73)
... the great task of the school is to counteract and transform those domestic and neighborhood tendencies that are still so strong, even in a nominally collectivistic r�gime. � In order to accomplish this end, the teachers must in the first place know with great detail and accuracy just what the conditions are to which pupils are subject in the home, and thus be able to interpret the habits and acts of the pupil in the school in the light of his environing conditions ...

(Page 68-69 Dewey refers to:)
... the marvelous development of progressive educational ideas and practices under the fostering care of the Bolshevist government � and I am speaking of what I have seen and not just been told about.
　
　

　
　
　
　
　
　

Post 14

Sunday, September 11, 2011 - 2:39pm

One can dichotomize the far left into those who are open in their agenda and therefore easy to identify, versus those who are not, which is the larger number.

Given that most of the collectivists that we deal with spend a great deal of time disguising their goals and hiding their core beliefs, sometimes with outright lies, at other times buried in obtuse academic jargon, it is always good to remember that it is inside their bursts of unbounded affection and their most scathing, hateful attacks that they reveal their core.

Mark's post above is an example of that. The gushing love for raw collectivism in the newly born Soviet Union, back when it was all still just promises (false promises), tells us what we need to know about where Dewey's soul lies.

Post 15

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 - 1:44am