Abstract

In his 1938 essay “Does Human Nature Change?” John Dewey advances the position that human nature both does and does not change.1 This initially perplexing answer to the question that is the subject of his essay reflects a methodological principle that Dewey employs in his argumentation throughout Experience and Education.2 According to the principle articulated in that book, when one is theorizing, one ought not to fall prey to the human tendency “to think in terms of extreme opposites.”3 Doing so can lead one to a mistaken understanding of the matter about which one is theorizing, which can in turn have pernicious practical consequences. Instead, when theorizing, one ought to depart from rigid “either-or” ..