Dewey: A Beginner's Guide

Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Publications)

by David L. Hildebrand

A ground-breaking introduction to one of America's most prominent philosophers

An icon of philosophy and psychology during the first half of the 20th century, Dewey is known as the father of Functional Psychology and a pivotal figure of the Pragmatist movement as well as the progressive movement in education.

This concise and critical look at Dewey’s work examines his unique take on morality, art, and religion, his naturalistic approach to science and psychology, and his contribution to political thought. The author of over forty books across a range of topic, Dewey’s legacy remains not only through the works he left us, but also through the institutions he founded, which include The New School for Social Research in New York City and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Hildebrand’s biography brilliantly interweaves the different strands of Dewey's thought, and examines the legacy he left behind.

Genres: Philosophy

247 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2008

Reviews

[Tom Pepper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a particularly good introduction. Hildebrand mentions that there has been a revival of interest in Dewey in recent years, but doesn’t give a very good sense of what the discussion is about. Mostly a brief account of his own take on Dewey’s thought, much of which makes Dewey sound particularly uninteresting.

I’ve read a few of Dewey’s books, and one feature of his writing that is particularly exasperating is his tendency to talk in vague abstractions while insisting on the importance of beginning from concrete experience. Dewey tends to discuss other thinkers in the way they are discussed in an undergraduate survey book (or worse, a Wikipedia article), and never really get into any careful reading of texts. He also limits his examples, most of the time, to the vague and general. Hidlebrand seems to follow Dewey’s lead on this. As a result, Dewey comes off seeming rather anodyne and traditional, despite Hildebrand’s frequent claims that Dewey’s thought is challenging and radically overturns every tradition.
For instance, the discussion of aesthetics is particularly lacking in concrete examples. Hildebrand claims that Dewey “challenges and transcends many traditional philosophical assumptions” about aesthetic theory, but his account gives us a very traditional Romantic theory of art. For instance, when he does try to give a concrete example of an aesthetic experience, he describes a woman observing Michelangelo’s David. The account, though, is no more that a vague account of noticing the amazing skill of the artist, followed by this: “there is a consummataory ahh of aesthetic experience.” The great power of art to change the world, it seems, is not much more than an inarticulate orgasmic fulfillment. The example is particularly telling, given Dewey’s interest in expanding the notion of “aesthetic” beyond the works curated in a museum. But setting that aside, there is also no discussion of what function this inarticulate feeling might serve in the world—which, it seems to me, is the part that really interests Dewey.

There are other problems, I think. In the chapter on politics, Hildebrand presents Dewey as arguing that the state’s “raison d’etre is to enable the infinitely various private projects of the citizens to flourish.” Apparently, Dewey was a neoliberal. A reading that isn’t too hard to get from some of Dewey’s texts, I’m sure—he was concerned to remain a public intellectual, and shied away from overt criticism of capitalism, limiting his critique to vague claims like this one Hildebrand quotes: “The most marked trait of present life is insecurity...[which] cuts deeper and extends more widely than bare unemployment.” We can surely read that in any number of ways—Hildebrand takes the conventional liberal approach.

Hildebrand’s reading of Dewey is, for me, made most explicit in the chapter on religion, when he is discussing the fundamental uncertainty of life, to which religion is supposedly a functional response: “Even today, for Westerners ensconced within a manifold of technological security, hurricanes happen. So do cancer and disastrous economic cascades.” The telling point here is putting the economic crises produced by capitalist economies in the same category as hurricanes—both are natural disasters. On my reading, one of the most interesting things about Dewey in a book like The Quest for Certainty, is that he tries to separate out these two kinds of things, and recognize that there are problems caused by nature, which we address one way, and problems caused by our own social systems, which we should address differently. Hildebrand wants a more safely capitalist, neoliberal, domesticated Dewey. Unfortunately, given Dewey’s tendency to be vague and indirect, it’s not difficult to produce one from his many texts.

Overall, I would suggest that reading this book will just confirm what most people already think about Dewey from the brief mention he gets in undergraduate textbooks in philosophy , education, and psychology. He comes off as yet another half-bright conservative American, claiming to offer something radically new but really just offering the hegemonic ideology and calling it philosophy. Sort of a precursor to Sam Harris. I’m not sure if that’s really all there is to Dewey, though.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I'd give the book a 4 stars rating.
While being a good overall introduction to the lay of the land concerning the philosophy of John Dewey, the book does more or less justice to regions and features of this landscape, in some degree because of the inevitable biases and partisanship that authors bring to their works.

For me it helped to complement this book with additional reading to get a wider view over the landscape and it's contested regions (and yes I know I'm using a metaphor in a book review).

Complementary readings I advise:
Steven Fesmire (2015) Dewey (the Routledge Philosophers series)
Steven Fesmire (2020) The Oxford Handbook of John Dewey
Larry Hickman (ed) (2008) Reading John Dewey

Concerning Dewey's ethics I can advise the following books as secondary literature:
Steven Fesmire (2003) John Dewey & Moral Imagination
Gregory F. Pappas (2008) John Dewey's Ethics
Mark Johnson (2014) Morality for Humans
and to a lesser extent:
Philip Kitcher (2004) The Ethical Project
Abraham Edel (2001) Ethical Theory & Social Change

Obviously, I recommend engaging directly with Dewey's own writings through the Complete Works (best option) or any reprints that are out there for his more famous books like 'Art as Experience' or 'Experience and Nature' or 'The Public and Its Problems'.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Dewey has been interested in almost everything. This books covers a fair amount of his interests. There are chapters on Politics, education, aesthetics, inquiry and more, which can be read in any way you want.

It's not a beginner's guide on philosophy but rather a beginner's guide on Dewey's thought, so there is minimum context provided. A central theme on Dewey's philosophy is the idea of growth which is competently established here. Dewey was not fond of monocausal explanations also. He thought that things are a little bit more complicated but rather than staying neutral his positions are quite refreshing. You can clearly see that based on the way he differentiates from Kant on inquiry, or on his stand between progressive (for lack of a betterm term) and traditionalist education.

I was fascinated when I read the chapter on politics. John Dewey is the epitomy of liberal thought. Rather than dismissing classical liberalism he wants to revise its main ideas to be on par with current conditions.
He can be quite radical and emphasizes on community, dismissing hyper-individuality which can be quite hurtful towards the individual.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm writing the review of this book for the Foucault Studies journal. Woah.