Our Unmodern Minds
The manuscript of John Dewey's "Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy" had been lost for some sixty years until researchers discovered it in the Dewey archives at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. Though unfinished, the existing manuscript, at around 350 pages, conveys the gist of Dewey's thesis that modern philosophy is in fact shot through with pre-modern ideas.
Dewey argues that most of the dualisms that prevail in both philosophical and common sense thinking - body and mind, material and ideal, practical and theoretical, subjective and objective, things and persons - are false dichotomies. When western philosophy began in Ancient Greece 2500 years ago, the philosophers were of the aristocratic class, conservative and unburdened by the need to engage in manual labor.
Analogizing from the specific socioeconomic situation of Ancient Greece, the Greek philosophers saw the labor of the mind as fundamentally distinct - and better - than the labor of the hands. The objects of the mind were conceived as eternal, immutable, and possessed of greater dignity than the objects of the senses, which were degenerate and susceptible to corruption.
Medieval Church philosophers expounded upon this distinction. Whereas the Greeks had seen these dichotomies as part of Nature, a reflection of Nature's dual character, the Churchmen further separated them by declaring mind, idea, soul (the sine qua non of persons) and reason to be our inheritance from God.
Descartes, the father of rationalism, accepted this abrupt division when he declared that only humans were endowed with reason, all other animals being mere automata. Similarly Locke, the father of empiricism, believed that the human intellect was capable of discerning simple ideas - from which all other ideas could be built up - by virtue of the Reason given to it by God.
Dewey argues that modern philosophy has never been truly modern in that it has never fully shaken off the vestiges of Greek-Medieval thinking. A modern philosophy would recognize that what constitutes a "fact" cannot be divorced from the socio-cultural context in which it is acknowledged and acted upon as such; what constitutes a "mind" cannot be divorced from the environment that places particular demands on its attention and interaction.
The pre-modern view, with its false dichotomies, offers a take-it-or-leave-it ontology and a take-it-or-leave-it ethics. Because objects and their moral qualities are antecedently given, they are not analyzable nor are they justifiable. But this puts the cart before the horse. Actions are not moral in themselves, nor are beings in themselves entitled to moral consideration. Rather, "it is in and because of interplay among expectations, demands, fulfillments and evasions, with accompanying praise and blame, reward and penalty, approval and disapproval, that modes of behavior take on acknowledged social importance and become representative of social values; that is, of activities which are taken by the group to be important for group welfare and perpetuation. Human beings as the bearers of these representative functions, or offices, come into possession of the properties that describe a personal being."
By contrast, a modern view would see knowledge and ethics as the products of an ongoing evolutionary process, capable of improvement but never completion.
Dewey argues that most of the dualisms that prevail in both philosophical and common sense thinking - body and mind, material and ideal, practical and theoretical, subjective and objective, things and persons - are false dichotomies. When western philosophy began in Ancient Greece 2500 years ago, the philosophers were of the aristocratic class, conservative and unburdened by the need to engage in manual labor.
Analogizing from the specific socioeconomic situation of Ancient Greece, the Greek philosophers saw the labor of the mind as fundamentally distinct - and better - than the labor of the hands. The objects of the mind were conceived as eternal, immutable, and possessed of greater dignity than the objects of the senses, which were degenerate and susceptible to corruption.
Medieval Church philosophers expounded upon this distinction. Whereas the Greeks had seen these dichotomies as part of Nature, a reflection of Nature's dual character, the Churchmen further separated them by declaring mind, idea, soul (the sine qua non of persons) and reason to be our inheritance from God.
Descartes, the father of rationalism, accepted this abrupt division when he declared that only humans were endowed with reason, all other animals being mere automata. Similarly Locke, the father of empiricism, believed that the human intellect was capable of discerning simple ideas - from which all other ideas could be built up - by virtue of the Reason given to it by God.
Dewey argues that modern philosophy has never been truly modern in that it has never fully shaken off the vestiges of Greek-Medieval thinking. A modern philosophy would recognize that what constitutes a "fact" cannot be divorced from the socio-cultural context in which it is acknowledged and acted upon as such; what constitutes a "mind" cannot be divorced from the environment that places particular demands on its attention and interaction.
The pre-modern view, with its false dichotomies, offers a take-it-or-leave-it ontology and a take-it-or-leave-it ethics. Because objects and their moral qualities are antecedently given, they are not analyzable nor are they justifiable. But this puts the cart before the horse. Actions are not moral in themselves, nor are beings in themselves entitled to moral consideration. Rather, "it is in and because of interplay among expectations, demands, fulfillments and evasions, with accompanying praise and blame, reward and penalty, approval and disapproval, that modes of behavior take on acknowledged social importance and become representative of social values; that is, of activities which are taken by the group to be important for group welfare and perpetuation. Human beings as the bearers of these representative functions, or offices, come into possession of the properties that describe a personal being."
By contrast, a modern view would see knowledge and ethics as the products of an ongoing evolutionary process, capable of improvement but never completion.
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