author : John Dewey

The foundation of these papers on experimental logic is the theory that knowledge about anything implies a judgment, which in turn implies an inquiry or investigation of a sort. The presence of this “inquiry stage” implies that between the external world and knowledge there is an intermediate and mediating stage, which is in turn conditioned by other factors. Expanding upon this basis, these papers consider the relationship of thought and its subject matter, the antecedents and stimuli of thought, data and meanings, the objects of thought, control of ideas by facts and similar topics.

Three papers describe various kinds of philosophical realism, in which the thought of Bertrand Russell’s Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field For Scientific Method is closely examined, while two other papers discuss Pragmatism, differentiating Dewey’s position from that of James and Peirce. These essays present what is probably Dewey’s most easily followed account of his own thought. The section entitled “Stages of Logical Thought” analyzes the role of scientific method in philosophy, while the final essay presents a striking theory of a logic of values.

Analyzing both “traditional” and “progressive” education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is miseducative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey’s ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeper and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive “ism” about education, even such an “ism” as “progressivism.” His philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, one that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic.