One of the interesting aspects of Dewey’s early educational thought is his apparent hostility toward children’s imaginative pursuits, yet the question of why this antipathy exists remains unanswered. As will become clear, Dewey’s hostility towards imaginative activities stemmed from a broad variety of concerns. In some of his earliest work, Dewey adopted a set of anti-Romantic criticisms and used these concerns to attack what one might call “runaway” imaginative and emotional tendencies. Then, in his early educational writings, these earlier concerns (...) were augmented by several other factors, including problematic trends in progressive education, new developments in psychology, and Dewey’s own educational aims. This analysis explores the roots of these criticisms, and explains how they culminate in the stance on the imagination that Dewey eventually outlined in the early educational writings. Notably, these findings have some important implications for certain prominent contemporary critics of progressivism. (shrink)

Perhaps one of the most characteristic aspects of Dewey’s career is that the extent and variety of his work, not to mention his own longevity and his restlessly inquisitive personality, pose a problem to any systematic study of his legacy. At the same time, this “problem” represents the hallmark of his work. Furthermore, Dewey’s works and opinions were propagated and spread in many different formats across many different countries, which makes it only more problematic to study his works, their spread (...) and influence. The first part of this article will present a framework for carrying out a contemporary study on the works of John Dewey, with special attention to the current comeback in interest in them in studies on education. The second part of the article will look into the situation of John Dewey’s legacy in Spanish pedagogy at two fundamental moments in history: the first in the context of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, the school that led the attempts to modernize education in Spain in the early 1900s. The second moment will focus on studying how the current renewed interest in Dewey has affected contemporary pedagogy in Spain. The article will end by reflecting on what a more integrated reading of Dewey’s pedagogical and philosophical ideas could bring to the theory of education made in Spain. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the Hegelianism of contemporary neo-pragmatism and the Hegelianism of classical pragmatism as it has been reassessed in contemporary Deweyan scholarship. Drawing on Dewey’s interpretation of Hegel, this paper argues that Hegel’s theory of the spirit is in many aspects more akin to Dewey’s pragmatism than Brandom’s. The first part compares Dewey’s pragmatism with Hegel’s conceptions of experience and the theory/practice relation. The second part compares Dewey’s naturalism with Hegel’s theory of the relation between nature and spirit.

It is simply a fact that it is not in the same intention that Dewey relates to Hegel in a programmatic article such as “The Present position of Logical Theory,” in his Lectures on Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, in his Lectures on the Logic of Hegel, and in the articles collected in The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy. Dewey’s references to Hegel differ in status and functions, and these differences have to be made explicit if one wants to elaborate a (...) consistent account of Dewey’s relation to Hegel. The article proceeds in four steps. It distinguishes between what relates to Dewey’s reading of Hegel, to Dewey’s use of Hegel, and to Dewey’s reconstruction of Hegel. In a last and concluding step, it deals with the methodological originality of Dewey’s project of actualizing Hegel. (shrink)

Ontological perspectives in higher education and particularly in professional education and development have focused attention on the question of the learner’s being and becoming rather than on the epistemological concern of what and how they know. This study considers the formation of the professional self in the light of the requirements for professional practice. It raises the question of agency in relation to this formational process and considers the implications of the autonomy paradox which arises from the simultaneous influence of (...) the sovereign self and the external authority of the profession on the formation of the professional self. This study considers a structural perspective on both of these matters and concludes with implications for professional education and development derived from constructive developmental theory and the notion of subject–object transformation. (shrink)

The task of this article is to interrogate the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) model to develop a more robust understanding of a prominent trend in the charter school movement and education policy more generally. To accomplish this task, this article details the findings of a synthetic analysis that examines the KIPP model as a Hegelian whole concept operative in a specific mode of social reality. The guidance for this analysis is grounded in a rather straightforward research question. Given the (...) prominence that the KIPP model has achieved in the charter school movement in the United States, what can a synthetic analysis tell us about not only KIPP, but also the larger charter school movement? (shrink)

I resolve several pressing and recalcitrant problems in contemporary philosophy of science using resources from John Dewey's philosophy of science. I begin by looking at Dewey's epistemological and logical writings in their historical context, in order to understand better how Dewey's philosophy disappeared from the limelight, and I provide a reconstruction of his views. Then, I use that reconstruction to address problems of evidence, the social dimensions of science, and pluralism. Generally, mainstream philosophers of science with an interest in Dewey (...) pay little attention to the body of scholarship on Dewey and tend to misinterpret or miss important features of his work, while Dewey scholars generally do not connect his work to the nuanced problems of the contemporary scene (with some notable exceptions). My dissertation helps to fill this important gap and correct common interpretive mistakes by reconstructing and clarifying Dewey's philosophy of science and using it to resolve several contemporary problems. Though his is the road less traveled, Dewey's views provide a good starting place for addressing current concerns. He worked towards a model of science that is both fully naturalistic and fundamentally oriented towards human practice, demands that have been strongly argued for but poorly assimilated by most mainstream philosophers of science. He treats scientific practice, and human thinking generally, as not only embodied but also socially and technologically embedded, and thus can be used to open up a dialogue with much of the social studies of science. He has an anti- foundationalist but structured epistemology, and he offers a way to navigate the narrow paths between an immodest and simplistic realism and the pessimistic extremes of anti-realism and social constructivism, a pursuit of interest to many major philosophers of science at present. Philosophy of science took a different path in the twentieth century, beginning with the "received view'' of logical positivism that left many of the nuances of the original movement by the wayside. No aspect of that starting point has avoided disrepute in recent decades. I show that Dewey avoided the wrong turns of mid- century philosophy of science which are now blocking the way forward. (shrink)

In this chapter, the points of intellectual consonance between Jane Addams and John Dewey are explored, specifically their (1) shared belief that philosophy is a method, (2) parallel commitments to philosophical pragmatism and (3) similar convictions that philosophy should serve to address social problems. Also highlighted are points of divergence in their thinking, particularly their positions on U.S. entry into World War I and, more generally, the value of social conflict. Finally, the chapter concludes with what the author believes is (...) Addams's and Dewey's most significant joint contribution to the contemporary philosophical landscape: a vision of practically engaged pragmatism. (shrink)