John Dewey Essay example -- American Philosopher Philosophy

John Dewey was matchless of the greatest minds in history. A philosopher, his concern was republic and its exalteds. A thinker ab let on the problems in education. A prominent voice in America, commanding the admiration of those who agreed with his views, and view for his mind even from those who did not. The man John Dewey, an American philosopher.Deweys breeding was one with three distinctive traits it was democratic in that it called for pluralism. It was a coadjutor of the scientific method in that it was a systemic approach at solving problems and geting judgments, both practical and moral. It prized directed experience as an current process of style as ends and ends as means. These three traits of Deweys doctrine atomic number 18 tied to all that he wrote and thought.Dewey felt that republic was the ideal social structure, the one best suited to the needs and aims of all mickle under no new(prenominal) political scheme was it possible for habitual citizens to hav e allowance and responsibility to grow individually and culturally. All other systems hindered mortalal and social growth in Deweys scheme. Any form of despotic state used fear to such an extent that it became one of the altogether factors that kept the state in union, and the other factors that would naturally catch people to work together in their social environments were perverted and wasted. alternatively of operating on their own account they are reduced to perfect servants of attaining pleasure and avoiding pain (DE, 84).The cultural paralysis was seen in the fact that there is no free play back and forth among the members of the social group. excitant and response are exceedingly one-sided. Both the rich and poor stupefy the poor in that they have little involvement in the courses taken in their lives the rich in that their culture becomes sterile (DE, 84).Dewey asserted that res publica has always been allied with humanism, with faith in the potentials of human natu re and that democracy means the belief that humanistic culture should prevail. He advised that democracy is not something that will necessarily happen if human nature is leave to itself, when freed from external arbitrary restriction (FC, 97). res publica, for Dewey, was a moral issue that necessitate efforts born in democratic vision. Democracy was Deweys tool of progress. yet Dewey also saw that democracy did not guarantee progress.The imper... ...nt. Otherwise facts gained only have the potential to gain meaning, and many facts will turn out to be disconnected, never finding their place in a persons experience. Facts grow naturally out of substantive experience, but meaningful experience which leads to more facts do not necessarily flow from facts.Dewey wrote that the sad weakness of the present school is that it endeavors to prepare future members of the social state in a medium in which the conditions of the social spirit are eminently wanting (SSCC, 15). The conditions wanting were democracy, rational judgment conducive of the scientific method, and a conception of experience that recognizes the continuous nature of ends as means of further action.What Dewey wanted was ideal, but it was not utopian. He knew that we should do better, that we could do better. The question was more whether there was a will to do better.ReferencesDewey, John. 1944. Democracy and Education (DE). New York The Free Press.Dewey, John. 1989. Freedom and Culture (FC). Buffalo Prometheus Books.Dewey, John. 1964. The groom and Society and The Child and the Curriculum (SSCC). Chicago The University of Chicago Press.