Dewey, John

From Absolutism to Experimentalism

In his autobiographical essay, aptly titled “From Absolutism to Experimentalism,” Dewey identified four connecting turning points that were to define his philosophical transformation. First was his recognition of the significance of the practice and theory of education in influencing the young, including himself. This point led to his realization that what otherwise might have developed as separate interests in psychology, social institutions, and social life became fused in his own thinking. Dewey noted that a critic had indicated that Dewey's thinking was permeated too much by interest in education. But Dewey expressed doubt that any philosophic critics had ever become acquainted with Democracy and Education, which [Page 287]Dewey regarded as his most fully expounded philosophic work at the time. To Dewey, it was ironic that philosophers in general had not taken education with sufficient seriousness when they themselves are usually teachers. For had they done so, continued Dewey, it might have occurred to them that any rational person would come to regard education as the supreme human interest.

The second turning point in Dewey's philosophical development was his growing concern over the pervading dualism between science and morals, a dualism that he considered nothing short of an intellectual scandal in philosophical thought, for science is based upon the moral principle guiding systematic inquiry to find and act upon the best available evidence. Democracy, contended Dewey, requires that the methods of science or the method of intelligence infuse the U.S. mind through education. He warned that the use of science only for technical and specialized pursuits raises the danger that it will get its best chances in war. To Dewey, this is not science, but the political misuse and abuse of science.

The third turning point, according to Dewey, was the realization of the biological conception of mind as advanced by William James. Although many philosophers had addressed the idea of organism, their approach was mainly structural and static. For James, and later Dewey, we must think of life pragmatically as life in action. Like life, education is defined by growth and renewal. Dewey criticized the mechanistic psychology of the times, and envisioned the linking of philosophy to the significant issues of actual experience, with the methods and findings of psychology as life in action.

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