John Dewey is celebrated for his work in the philosophy of education and acknowledged as a leading proponent of American pragmatism. His philosophy of logic, on the other hand, is largely unheard of. In Dewey's New Logic, Burke analyzes portions of the debate between Dewey and Bertrand Russell that followed the 1938 publication of Dewey's Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. Burke shows how Russell failed to understand Dewey, and how Dewey's philosophy of logic is centrally relevant to contemporary developments in (...) philosophy and cognitive science. Burke demonstrates that Russell misunderstood crucial aspects of Dewey's theory and contends that logic today, having progressed well beyond Russell's early views, is approaching Dewey's broader perspective. -/- "[This] book should be of substantial interest not only to Dewey scholars and other historians of twentieth-century philosophy, but also to devotees of situation theory, formal semantics, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and Artificial Intelligence."--Georges Dicker, Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society "No scholar, thus far, has offered such a sophisticated and detailed version of central themes and contentions in Dewey's Logic . This is a pathbreaking study."--John J. McDermott, editor of The Philosophy of John Dewey. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of ?situations? in John Dewey's philosophy of logic. To do this properly it is necessary to contrast Dewey's conception of experience and mentality with views characteristic of modern epistemology. The primary difference is that, rather than treat experience as peripheral and or external to mental functions (reason, etc.), we should treat experience as a field in and as a part of which thinking takes place. Experience in this broad sense subsumes theory and fact, hypothesis and (...) evidence, reason and observation, thought and perception. Logic in this view is a formal study of the generic features of all possible kinds of experience in this broad (thick, deep, wide, multifaceted) sense. The goal of this paper is to explain what Dewey thinks a situation is in the context of this view of experience, and to argue for the fundamental importance of that idea for logic and philosophy in general. (shrink)

Although John Dewey is celebrated for his work in the philosophy of education and acknowledged as a leading proponent of American pragmatism, he might also have enjoyed more of a reputation for his philosophy of logic had Bertrand Russell not attacked him so fervently on the subject. In _Dewey's New Logic_, Tom Burke analyzes the debate between Russell and Dewey that followed the 1938 publication of Dewey's _Logic: The Theory of Inquiry_. Here, he argues that Russell failed to understand Dewey's (...) logic as Dewey intended, and despite Russell's resistance, Dewey's logic is surprisingly relevant to recent developments in philosophy and cognitive science. Burke demonstrates that Russell misunderstood crucial aspects of Dewey's theory and contends that logic today has progressed beyond Russell and is approaching Dewey's broader perspective. "[This] book should be of substantial interest not only to Dewey scholars and other historians of twentieth-century philosophy, but also to devotees of situation theory, formal semantics, philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and Artificial Intelligence."—Georges Dicker, _Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society_ "No scholar, thus far, has offered such a sophisticated and detailed version of central themes and contentions in _Dewey's Logic_. This is a pathbreaking study."—John J. McDermott, editor of _The Philosophy of John Dewey_. (shrink)

This is the first of two papers addressing Browning’s “Designation, Characterization, and Theory in Dewey’s Logic” (2002) where he distinguishes a series of pre-theoretical and theoretical stages for developing a theory of logic. The second of these two papers will recommend a modified version of this scheme of stages of inquiry into inquiry. The present paper recounts Browning’s original version of these stages and the ramifications of not clearly distinguishing them. I respond to Browning’s claim that in Burke 1994 I (...) made two such mistakes of not properly distinguishing theoretical and pre-theoretical stages of inquiry into inquiry. (shrink)

This paper examines the settlement movement (a social reform movement during the Progressive Era, roughly 1890–1920) in order to illustrate what pragmatism is and is not. In 1906, Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch proposed an analysis of settlement house methods. Because of her emphasis on interpretation and action, and because of the nature of the settlement movement as a social reform effort with vitally important consequences for everyone involved, it might be thought that her analysis would be pragmatist in character. This paper (...) shows that her analysis is empiricist, not pragmatist, and offers an alternative pragmatist sketch of settlement house methodology. (shrink)

This paper compares Dewey's and Russell's views of "immediate knowledge." Dewey was perhaps mistaken in attributing to Russell the view that immediate sense data provide incorrigible foundations for knowledge. Russell's characterization of sensing plus attention as the most immediate knowing of which we have experience nevertheless remains a valid target of Dewey's criticisms. These two philosophers developed very different theories of logic and knowledge, language and experience. Given the reconstructed notions of experience and knowledge at the root of Dewey's logical (...) theory, referring to knowledge as immediate or nearly immediate constitutes a serious category mistake. (shrink)

Les questions relatives à l’opposition réalisme/antiréalisme sont abordées à la lumière d’une philosophie pragmatiste de l’esprit. On élabore une philosophie pragmatiste de l’esprit dans les termes d’une théorie ‘externaliste-active’ de l’expérience vue comme double processus. Cette théorie pose en principe deux types d’expérience tels que la ‘mentalité’ (en tant que capacité à penser, émettre des hypothèses, formuler des théories, raisonner, délibérer) constitue l’un des deux types d’expérience. La correspondance formelle de la théorie avec les faits est caractérisée en termes de (...) correspondance fonctionnelle entre ces deux types d’expérience. On discute alors les aspects réalistes et constructivistes de cette conception. L’externalisme-actif garantit une sorte de réalisme écologique, qui permet à la théorie d’éviter le constructivisme radical ou l’irréalisme. (shrink)

Logic for Dewey is a normative inquiry into the nature of inquiry itself. Goodman’s grue example is assessed in light of Dewey's vocabulary for logic as presented in his 1938 Logic.

Offering a new edition of Dewey's 1916 collection of essays This critical edition of John Dewey's 1916 collection of writings on logic, Essays in Experimental Logic—in which Dewey presents his concept of logic as the theory of inquiry and his unique and innovative development of the relationship of inquiry to experience—is the first scholarly reprint of the work in one volume since 1954. Essays in Experimental Logic, edited by D. Micah Hester and Robert B. Talisse, uses the authoritative texts from (...) the Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953 and includes as well articles from leading journals representing various contemporary schools of philosophy that criticized Dewey's experimentalism. Culling materials from six volumes of the chronologically arranged Collected Works, this single-volume edition of Essays marks a crucial point in Dewey's intellectual development: one in which Dewey critically engages idealistic and intuitionist theorists and lays the groundwork for his mature theory of inquiry. The text includes a new introduction by renowned Dewey scholar Tom Burke that places Essays in philosophical and historical context. In addition to the original essays, Essays in Experimental Logic also features five critical essays by Dewey's contemporaries, including Bertrand Russell, Wendell T. Bush, R. F. Alfred Hoernlé, H. T. Costello, and C. S. Peirce. (shrink)

This essay discusses ways in which contemporary mathematical logic may be reconciled with John Dewey’s logical theory. Standard formal techniques drawn from dynamic modal logic, situation theory, generative grammar, generalized quantifier theory, category theory, lambda calculi, game theoretic semantics, network exchange theory, etc., are accommodated within a framework consistent with Dewey’s Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938). This essay outlines some basic features of Dewey’s logical theory, working in a top-down fashion through various technical notions pertaining to existential and ideational (...) aspects of inquiry, from contextual notions of situations and ideologies, to primitive operational and empirical notions of modes of action and particular qualities. The aim here is to display the scope of Dewey’s logical theory and thus establish a framework relative to which details may be explored without losing sight of their larger significance. (shrink)

Les questions relatives à l’opposition réalisme/antiréalisme sont abordées à la lumière d’une philosophie pragmatiste de l’esprit. On élabore une philosophie pragmatiste de l’esprit dans les termes d’une théorie ‘externaliste-active’ de l’expérience vue comme double processus. Cette théorie pose en principe deux types d’expérience tels que la ‘mentalité’ (en tant que capacité à penser, émettre des hypothèses, formuler des théories, raisonner, délibérer) constitue l’un des deux types d’expérience. La correspondance formelle de la théorie avec les faits est caractérisée en termes de (...) correspondance fonctionnelle entre ces deux types d’expérience. On discute alors les aspects réalistes et constructivistes de cette conception. L’externalisme-actif garantit une sorte de réalisme écologique, qui permet à la théorie d’éviter le constructivisme radical ou l’irréalisme. (shrink)

Social cognition is the ability to identify, understand, and interpret mental states and emotions. Psychopathic traits are typically described in two ways; Primary: shallow affect, emotional detachment, and relationship difficulties, and Secondary Psychopathic Traits: antisocial traits, impulsiveness, and emotional dysregulation. People with high psychopathic traits tend to perform lower on measures of social cognition. This study investigated the relationship of social cognition to primary and secondary psychopathic traits in a non-clinical sample, and investigated the psychometric properties of the Reading the (...) Mind in the Eyes Test Short Forms. A community-based male sample was recruited through an online platform. Psychopathic traits were measured using Levenson, Kiehl, and Fitzpatrick's Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, and stratified into Primary and Secondary Psychopathic traits. Secondary validation of the RMET Short Forms was completed investigating scale reliability, and validity. Findings suggest excellent psychometrics in a large community cohort for the RMET Short Forms, with significant negative correlations on social cognitive performance and high self-report psychopathy. The item valence within the social cognitive measure was also examined, and correlated significantly with both Primary and Secondary Psychopathic traits. This study provides further validation of the RMET Short Forms, and adds to the literature on the scale by investigating performance on short-form specific valence. This study further suggests that in a non-clinical community sample of males, that higher psychopathic traits correlated significantly, and negatively, with social cognitive performance. (shrink)

This is the second of two papers addressing Douglas Browning 's "Designation, Characterization, and Theory in Dewey's Logic" where he distinguishes a series of pretheoretical and theoretical stages for developing a theory of logic. The first paper recounts Browning 's original version of these stages and the ramifications of not clearly distinguishing them. I respond to Browning 's claim that in Burke 1994 I made two such mistakes of not properly distinguishing theoretical and pretheoretical stages of inquiry into inquiry. The (...) second paper proposes a modified version of Browning 's stages of developing an inquiry into inquiry, laying out what I take to be the most productive way to clarify and explain Dewey's logical theory. (shrink)

This paper addresses issues regarding human origins, drawing particularly on George Herbert Mead 's account of the emergence of self consciousness as a product of social and physical evolution. Some of John Dewey's ideas on the nature of thought and language are added to that account. The so called "great leap" in human evolution that occurred some 50,000 years ago is attributed not just to the emergence of symbols or language but to the development of fully recursive languages suited for (...) reference to abstract possibilities. An account of the emergence of abstract referential capabilities is the focus of this paper. (shrink)