Book Description
This article covers Dewey, John (1859-1952): American philosopher, educator, and psychologist who made significant contributions to the establishment of the school of functional psychology.

The article is excerpted fromGale Encyclopedia of Psychology. This single-volume, accessible resource covers the entire spectrum of psychology, including: notable people, theories and terms; landmark case studies and experiments; applications of psychology in advertising, medicine and sports; and career information. More than 650 articles -- 65% of those are entirely new or updated since the last edition. Each article ranges from 25 to 1,500 words, covering the topics researchers want to know about, including:
Abnormal psychology
Bipolar disorder
Dyslexia
Sigmund Freud
Insomnia
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
Unconscious motivation
And hundreds more

In addition to more that 175 photographs, charts and graphs, students will also find a new glossary of over 350 terms, an updated organizations list and an updated and expanded index.

Published/Released: October 2000 ... Read more

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Word count: 7971. ... Read more

Product Description
John Dewey was America’s most influential philosopher. He wanted philosophy to rise above old tired disputes to address new, more vital questions and problems. Dewey’s views are known as "pragmatism," which emphasizes action and results. He believed that knowledge and ethics, as well as art and religion, live only in the daily practice of one’s life. Philosophy isn't a system of beliefs but a practical, empirical method of inquiry. It is one with education, which continually develops and renews the capacity for new habits.

Dewey believed that the scientific method can be extended to human affairs. Properly applied, it enables us to organize society to enhance personal happiness and community cooperation. Democracy, for Dewey, is more a way of life than a form of government; each person should help create and direct the social forces that affect our lives. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A new look at john Dewey is necessary:
Any library with John Dewey on the stacks should consider this contemporary introspection into this Philosopher, Educator and aesthetition of incredible prolifity. A post-modern generation is precisely the audienceaddressed here, and would be frustrated by earlier works seeking to offerguiding light to the unique creative mind of John Dewey, who is no easyread. Though this collection is highly academic, I doubt anyone would gothere without such an inclination to begin with. ... Read more

Book Description

During John Dewey's lifetime (1859-1952), one public opinion poll after another revealed that he was esteemed to be one of the ten most important thinkers in American history. His body of thought, conventionally identified by the shorthand word "Pragmatism," has been the distinctive American philosophy of the last fifty years. His work on education is famous worldwide and is still influential today, anticipating as it did the ascendance in contemporary American pedagogy of multiculturalism and independent thinking. His University of Chicago Laboratory School (founded in 1896) thrives still and is a model for schools worldwide, especially in emerging democracies. But how was this lifetime of thought enmeshed in Dewey's emotional experience, in his joys and sorrows as son and brother, husband and father, and in his political activism and spirituality? Acclaimed biographer Jay Martin recaptures the unity of Dewey's life and work, tracing important themes through the philosopher's childhood years, family history, religious experience, and influential friendships.

Based on original sources, notably the vast collection of unpublished papers in the Center for Dewey Studies, this book tells the full story, for the first time, of the life and times of the eminent American philosopher, pragmatist, education reformer, and man of letters. In particular,The Education of John Dewey highlights the importance of the women in Dewey's life, especially his mother, wife, and daughters, but also others, including the reformer Jane Addams and the novelist Anzia Yezierska. A fitting tribute to a master thinker, Martin has rendered a tour de force portrait of a philosopher and social activist in full, seamlessly reintegrating Dewey's thought into both his personal life and the broader historical themes of his time.

Customer Reviews (4)

Dewey and the Light of Experience
Martin's book has an interesting premise, that the life experience of John Dewey was his education.That makes logical sense.Martin was privy to documents from the Dewey Center that were just made available to the public.The book is full ofthought provaking information. I especially enjoyed the parts about his high school and college teaching styles. However, the author raises several unanswered questons?Why did Dewey teach high school and college classes different? What was his espistemology? Overall, the work is a good read and helped the reader gain insights into a complex philosopher.The book so inspired me that I traveled to Oil City,Pennsylvania to see if they had anything on Dewey. All they had was an historical marker where the school was, which is now a firehouse, and a file at the library. One question lingers, what happened to Dewey's dissertation on Kant? No one knows? The mystery of History.

2 1/2 Stars, Actually
It is heartening to see that this book is NOT subject to the "star inflation" that plagues much of this website![I mean, do you really think a majority of books should receive 4 or 5 stars!]."The Education of John Dewey" is a solid biography of an interesting man who played an important role in American intellectual history.However, the book just didn't grab me.Not like "Lincoln's Virtues:an Ethical Biography" for example.One note about Dewey's philosophy.I don't see what was so new about pragmatism/naturalism/progressivism or whatever you want to call it.Wasn't Dewey's emphasis on the importance of the continuing pursuit of truth just a modern version of the Socratic method????????

A pleasant read, but a substantive disappointment
Martin endeavors to write a psychological portrait of John Dewey, but falls short. Ironically, the least developed aspect of Dewey's life in this volume is that of Dewey, the psychologist. Dewey was an early member (& president) of the American Psychological Assn. His observation of the reflex arc is still a staple of introductory psychology and the social psychological concepts and models he developed with George Herbert Mead and others prefigured much of the contemporary work in social cognition. Important figures in academic clinical psychology such as George Kelly and Seymour Sarason drew heavily on Dewey's work and Sarason has remained an important champion. No mention is made that Dewey's great friend, James McKeen Catell (a recurring, but little described figure in the book), was diametrically opposed to Dewey on many important issues in psychology including the roles of inheritance and environment in the development of intelligence and the conception of intelligence, itself. Dewey's ability to remain close to people whose ideas he vigorously opposed was but one of the inspiring aspects of Dewey's character. The shortcomings of this book made me more aware than ever that a full scale biography of Dewey, the psychologist, is needed rather than another biography of Dewey the philosopher, especially a tepid, uneven one like this.

Martin, a humanities professor and a practicing psychonanalyst with an eclectic background occasionally deals with psychiatric disorder in Dewey's life (and the lives of his family members) and trots out some watered down neo-Freudian interpretations of his family life. Yet much of the time, Dewey, the man, remains elusive. Martin makes a number of preposterous claims about Dewey: he tells us that Dewey was "impoverished" for most of his professional life, although his salary was far in excess of that of an ordinary wage earner of his time and his home had servants. We also are told that Dewey was unique among 20th century leftists in his rejection of Marxism and Communism. In fact, Dewey was one of many American leftists who were opposed to Marx and Communism. American socialism probably owes more to the social gospel and non-Marxist political economists like Veblen than to Marx, Lenin, or Stalin. Martin also ignores the vigorous and polemical support Dewey gave to World War I and the strains it caused between Dewey and friends like Jane Addams. Instead, we are told that Dewey was a consistent pacifist driven by a concern that war would undermine democratic values. Remarks like these demonstrate Martin's ignorance of Dewey's life, as well as an ignorance of the social and political environment in which Dewey lived. Much of the discussion of Dewey, the philosopher, is laden with academic philosophy that is insufficiently explained for the educated layperson. Many well-educated people are not familiar with Hegel or the Vienna Circle or only dimly recall these from an introductory course. Many are drawn to Dewey because of his educational ideas or his importance in 20th century demoratic socialism, hence, it is probably not reasonable to expect that readers will automatically be drawn to the various debates within academic philosophy.

This book is an easier read than the dense, often turgid works of Robert Westbrook or Steven Rockefeller. On the other hand, the book lacks the breezy, often humorous, tone of Alan Ryan's biography. Ryan's book is a much better introduction to Dewey---witty and scholarly, yet extremely readable. Although Ryan also focuses on Dewey the philosopher, he is more knowledgable about many aspects of Dewey's life and environment than Martin. He recognizes, for example, the importance and the the deeply flawed character of G. Stanley Hall, who provided Dewey with an introduction to operationism and to developmental psychology. Ryan also points out the limitations of Dewey's sometimes wooly writing. One of the problems with reading Dewey is that Dewey, the philosopher, often requires an understanding of Dewey, the psychologist, or Dewey, the political activist, to understand many of the basic concepts that guided Dewey decades into his effort to develop a coherent worldview of pragmatism. The same problem occurs when one looks at him as psychologist, as a pedagogue or, as a political commentator/activist. He was all of these things in all his professional identities, to some extent. Despite the recent run of Dewey biographies and the renewed interest in pragmatism, there's still more to learn about Dewey. Unfortunately, only well-read afficionados will get much from Martin's book and many may be distracted by it's shortcomings.

The Education of John Dewey
Jay Martin has accomplished a monumental task in his efforts to uncover the true natures of John Dewey and his colorful life.My interest is in educational psychology and pedagogy.I admit a bit of disappointment in that Dewey's theories - - philosophical, psychological, and pedagogical - - were not explored as much as I had hoped.Nonetheless, I feel that Martin's book is a good primer for anyone who is interested in not only Dewey but, also, names such as Parker, and Tyler.The biography's deep historical basis allows readers of this and closely related materials to have a better contextual grasp how U.S. philosophical, psychological, and pedagogical theories were formulated in the late 18th and early 20th Centuries. ... Read more

Book Description

This text is an intriguing alternative to the steady diet of how to texts that dominate educational readings.
Ranae Stetson, Texas Christian University

At a time when critical-reflective teaching is constantly in jeopardy, John Dewey and the Art of Teaching is very refreshing. Both prospective and experienced teachers should find this work helpful if they are serious about realizing democratic values. Policy makers need to take the time to read this work to be reminded of the core values of democratic education.
John Portelli, University of Toronto, Canada

The authors, by championing the relationship of art to education, offer a much needed counterbalance to our societys over-reliance on standardized testing. I enthusiastically endorse this work and would readily use it in both undergraduate social foundations of education and masters level philosophy of education courses.
Tony Johnson, West Chester University

At last we have a volume that beckons the uninitiated reader into a study of Deweys significant ideas about the art of teaching. The authors demonstrate great intellectual integrity in describing these ideas while expressing them in practical, even elegant prose.
Jackie Blount, Iowa State University

This book translates Deweyan theory and practice into common-sense, readable, and lucid language. It extends and challenges thinking about the work of teaching, the larger contexts in which it occurs, and the many roles of teachers as change agents. It will also promote novel ways of thinking about teaching for those entering the professionand for those who strive to teach more thoughtfully.
Joe DeVitis, University of Louisville

John Dewey and the Art of Teaching: Toward Reflective and Imaginative Practice is an engaging and accessible introduction to the art of teaching as seen through the eyes of John Dewey. Authors Douglas J. Simpson, Michael J. B. Jackson, and Judy C. Aycock provide a lucid interpretation of the complexities and art of teaching in contemporary classrooms. In addition, they discuss, apply, and question the practical implications of Deweys ideas about the art of teaching for beginning and practicing teachers.

Throughout the book, the reader reflects on the role of the teacher as artist, orchestral conductor, lover, wise mother, navigator, gardener, pioneer, social servant, engineer, curriculum builder, group leader, composer, and wise physician. At the heart of the discussion is the desire to support teachers in their pursuit of thoughtful and innovative teaching. In addition, the book encourages policy makers and educational leaders to help create conditions in districts, schools, and classrooms that value reflective and imaginative teachers who are free to think and create as they educate each student in and for democratic communities.

Key Features

• Chapters begin with an epigraph by Dewey, and also include quotes from Dewey and questions for reflection and discussion
Activities include creating a snapshot of a teacher by using the ideas discussed, analyzing ones own strengths and challenges by engaging in an introspective moment, and considering reflective questions about the ideas presented
A series of figures throughout the book summarize, clarify, and illustrate ideas
Readers can record concluding thoughts for each chapter under the heading A Summative Exercise: The Artistic Teacher

John Dewey and the Art of Teaching is perfectly suited as a text for undergraduate and graduate courses such as introduction to teaching, educational foundations, and philosophy of education. Beginning and experienced teachers will also find a wealth of ideas to apply in their classrooms.

Book Description
Tapping archival sources and Dewey's extensive correspondence,Dalton reveals that Dewey had close personal and intellectual ties to scientistsand scholars that were influential in forming the mature expression of histhought. Dalton traces the not-always-smooth pathways that led Dewey to shed hisCalvinist upbringing to transform Hegelian phenomenology into a science of mind,to challenge Freudian psychology, and to articulate the central concerns of naturalism and pragmatism.Dewey's relationships with F. M. Alexander, HenriMatisse, Niels Bohr, Myrtle McGraw, and Lawrence K. Frank, among others, showhow Dewey drew upon these collaborations to disperse pragmatism throughoutAmerican thought and culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

becoming john dewey; not everyman's book
Thomas C. Dalton's book on John Dewey philosophy and its fortunes in American philosophical and scientific circles in the twentieth century is essentially a job in rehabilitation, not scholarship. Dalton is only interested in jousting with various philosophers, active either while Dewey was alive or since his death in 1952; as such it fails as a work of history, for it is advocacy and rehabilitation, at once sentimental and turgid. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Visionary of the Everyday
In the course of a long life beginning before the Civil War and extending to shortly before the election of President Eisenhower, John Dewey (1859-1952) made large contributions to philosophy and to American public life.Dewey wrote extensively for both an academic and a public audience.He developed a philosophy of pragmatism and contributed significantly to American education.He was a socialist and was publically engaged througout his life in addressing the issues of the day.In particular he criticized the President Roosevelt's New Deal for what Dewey thought was an inadequate response to the Depression and a misguided attempt to preserve capitalism.He supported United States participation in WW I but shortly after the end of the War, he became an isolationist.He retained this isolationist stance until Pearl Harbor.

Dewey's thought resists easy summation.His writing style, particularly in his philosophical works, was long, winding, obscure and difficult to follow. As did many thinkers in the 20th Century, Dewey changed and modified his views with some frequency during the course of his life.

Alan Ryan has written an exellent study of John Dewey which explores Dewey's life, the influences upon him, his philosophical writings, his political activism, and the rises and falls in Dewey's reputation after his death.The book is somewhat dense and repetitive, but this too is a characteristic of the writings of its subject.Ryan writes insightfully in trying to place Dewey as philosophically somewhere between the despair of European existentialists such as Heidegger and Sartre and the English-American analytical philosophy of the 20th Century which denied that philosophical thought had a distinctive contribution to make to human intellectual endeavor.

I thought Ryan was good in discussing Dewey's early Congregationalit upbringing and his falling away from Christianity.I also thought Ryan placed good emphasis on the Hegelian idealism which Dewey adopted early in his career.The book could have used a fuller discussion of the nature of Hegelian idealism.As I read Ryan's book, I thought that Dewey retained even more of a Hegelian influence in his later thought than Ryan recognized.Dewey's emphasis on holistic thinking and on the relationship of the community and the individual remains Hegelian -- a naturalized Hegelianism as Ryan points out.

Ryan discussed Dewey's educational work at the University of Chicago.This is the aspect of Dewey's work that is best known.As Ryan points out, Dewey is often criticized for the shortcomings of American education.He is blamed, probably unjustifiably, for a lack of discipline and academic knowledge in too many American students.Ryan does point out, in fairness, that Dewey's actual educational theory was obscure in many points and undeveloped in specifics.It is hard to know just what Dewey had in mind, but it surely was not laxness and a deference to the wishes of young children.

I thought the strongest aspect of Ryan's book was his discussion of Dewey's mature philosophical writings, in particular "Experience and Nature" "A Common Faith" and "Art and Experience."In these works, Dewey tried to develop a philosophical pragmatism which was based on science and secularism.He denied the existence of an objective independent truth which science tries to capture and also denied subjectivism.Dewey recognized that human experience could be viewed from many perspectives and he struggled to explain how many of the goals of the religious and artistic life were consistent with science and secularism.He wanted to show them as perspectives equally important to the scientific perspective and to disclaim a concept of truth as "out there" rather than as sought,developed and made through human social activity.Dewey's position is difficult and, to his credit, Ryan does not simplify it.Ryan's exposition is challenging and made me want to read some of Dewey for myself.

A great deal of Ryan's book is devoted to Dewey's career as a public intellectual commenting on the issues of the day, as he saw them.Dewey travelled to Russia and China, investigated the Russian show trials of Trotsky and others, supported American participation in WW I, and advocated social liberalism.Ryan discusses Dewey's positions fully and intelligently and explores how Dewey's issues remain alive in the late 20th (and early 21st)century.The discussion of American political life and of the role of ideas is fascinating even though I frequently did not agree either with Dewey or with Ryan.

Ryan recognizes the paradoxical nature of the work of this American thinker. Dewey was a philosopher who critized sharply thought and reflection separate from action.He was a secularist who saw the importance of religion.He recognized the nature of industrial society but stressed the importance of art and culture.Dewey was, as Ryan points out in his conclusion
something of a visionary of the everyday.Ryan writes (page 269):"It was his ability to infuse the here and now with a kind of transcendent glow that overcame the denseness and awkwardness of his prose and the vagueness of his message and secured such widespread conviction. .... He will remain for the forseeable future a rich source of intellectual nourishment for anyone not absolutely locked within the anxieties of his or her own heart and not absolutely despondent about the prospects of the modern world."

The life of Dewey and 100 years of American thought
Ryan, from a British perspective, offers a detailed biography of Dewey the philosopher while enveloping the reader in the context of Dewey's varied and shifting America.Ryan also wrestles with the issues America wrestled with and continues to struggle with today.The work blends nicely the intricacies of Dewey's tremendous ideas with detailed and insightful references to Bertrand Russell and contemporary Democratic politics in America.The greatest contribution Ryan has made is detailing the arguments, philosophy, and problems Dewey felt significant without epitomizing and reducing Dewey as many have done since Dewey rose to prominance at the turn of the century at the Chicago Univeristy Lab School.

Educators, graduate students in education and philosophy, politicians, and anyone genuinely interested in American thought will be inpsired by Ryan to dig further--to read more by Dewey, to read more of the history of American ideas not just events in America ... Read more

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A comprehensive look at how John Dewey's ethics can inform environmental issues. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a glimpse into the philosopher's personal struggle
Prof. Jackson takes up the evolution of John Dewey's philosophy by focusing on the shifts in perspective and the shift in terminology in successive rewrites Dewey produced for his work "Experience and Nature."

The voice Prof. Jackson uses is that of a friend. Someone who has taken up philosophy as a profession, and who reflects on the fruitfulness of the endeavor.

Dewey scholars will find much new and interesting to contemplate. And I came away with a fresh sense of compassion for John Dewey, the human person struggling to understand.

More than this, however, is Prof. Jackson's personal and personable thoughts about his own experience with this work. What happens here is, in effect, a glimpse into the mind of a philosopher who struggles to get a glimpse into the mind of a philosopher. With both efforts directed towards an understanding of the profession of philosophy.

And where we end up is with a good insight into the very human and very well-intended process of DOING philosophy humanely.

Thank-you, Prof. Jackson. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
This is the first collection of essays to evaluate John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy from a feminist perspective. The variety of feminist interpretations offered here ranges from Jane Addams's praise for his collegial efforts to resolve the problems of the inner city to contemporary comparisons of his approach with Addams's own critique of capitalism as patriarchal. In between are essays assessing Dewey's contributions to feminist theory and practice both in his lifetime and in regard to contemporary feminist approaches to education, subjectivity, objectivity and truth, and social and political philosophy.

At a time when feminists are questioning and developing alternatives to the scientistic value-free inquiry advocated by logical positivism, the myth of detached observation informing the epistemological turn, rationalistic ethics, and the model of an unattached, nonrelational subject, this book reminds us of Dewey's early and passionate opposition to the same assumptions and his reconstruction of philosophy as a "method of moral and political diagnoses and prognosis." It has often been remarked that Dewey's pragmatism provides a genuine alternative to the usual masculinist biases of Western philosophy, and the various essays in this book develop this claim more extensively.

Contributors, besides the editor, are Jane Addams, Ana M. Martínez Alemán, Paula Droege, Marilyn Fischer, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Judith Green, Lisa Heldke, Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, Erin McKenna, Marjorie Miller, Elizabeth Karmarck Minnich, and Shannon Sullivan. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Book
I don't think there is a better introduction to John Dewey available. This great booktraces the intellectual development of every major aspect of Dewey's thought in thoughtful detail - his metaphysics, his psychology, his thought on education and democracy, his aesthetic theory. It gives a reader a full overview of Dewey's thought in their historical and intellectual context and leaves him with a sense of the greatness (and present relevance) of Dewey as a thinker. Ive gone on to read several of Dewey's works since because of the interest stirred by this book. I would get a copy soon before it goes out of print

Much more than a biography
Robert Westbrook's intellectual biography is one of the very best studies on Dewey's life and work. In my view, it's more balanced and carefully researched than Alan Ryan's "John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism", the most obvious competing book. What Westbrook achieves is a happy combination of historical research and insightful theoretical analysis. And that's what any intellectual biography is all about, right? In a nutshell: this book is definitely worth buying if you are interested in expanding your knowledge on Dewey. ... Read more

Book Description
Provides a central role for Dewey's talk of education and how it fits into his overall philosophy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

one of the classics on pragmatism
This is rigorous, tightly argued book that explores pragmatism (especially Dewey and the relation of his thought to that of C.S. Peirce), the relation between a pragmatic theory of experience and a pragmatic theory or logic of inquiry, and the meaning of intelligence.An earlier reviewer is right to point out that this is a book that assumes substantial knowledge of pragmatism.If you have not read big chunks of Peirce, James, and Dewey, and if you do not know your way around philosophy a bit, this book will be too advanced.It is not, for all that, barren or irrelevant.Indeed, the practical implications of this book--at least for persons with sufficient background to grasp them--are large and important.Sleeper's account of pragmatism and its conception of philosophy is challenging and effectively argued.Persons who have been getting their pragmatism through the works of thinkers like Rorty or Putnam or Cavell or McDowell would do well to redirect themselves to, and through this book.After reading this book, it is not hard to see why experts in the field--for instance scholars associated with the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy--consider it a classic.This re-issue will insure that new readers have access to it.An absolutely key book in the contemporary study and forward direction of pragmatism

unreadable
This book can be read only by academic philosophers. Unfortunately it is not an exposition for the general public of the important and relevant ideas of Dewey. It is a book filled by "isms"; it assumes that the reader already knows not only Dewey's philosophy but also that he is an expert on most other philosophers also. Really quite unreadable. Here are a few typical sentences from the book: "Dewey is challenging both Venn's account of experience as divisible into perception and conception and the analytic-synthetic distinction presupposed in both empirical logic after Hume and the transcendental logic of neo-Kantians and objective idealists." Or: "For, once it is accepted that the true subject-matter of Dewey's metaphysics is experience itself, which allows Dewey's project to be assimilated to Kant's in the Critique of Pure Reason, it becomes almost impossible not to agree with Santayana's accusation that Dewey is half-hearted in his naturalism". Or: "Generic traits are expressed as the terms of the conclusions drawn, in propositions that have projectibility, but in practice they have both extensional and intentional meaning: the are the temporal and existential evidence of valid inference." I think that philosophical books written in a language that only other philosophers understand are meaningless. Philosophy has meaning only as far as it is relevant to peoples' lives. This book only demonstrates how barren philosophy can become when it creates its own artificial code of communication, in a way that is completely detached from the need for understanding of people in general. I am sure that Dewey's ideas can be discussed quite clearly in a more accessible language, focusing more on the ideas themselves and less on the discord between philosophers. ... Read more

Book Description
In Dewey in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Dewey's life and ideas, and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Dewey's work; a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to push further; and chronologies that place Dewey within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy. ... Read more