Table Of ContentTHE
ESSENTIAL
D E W E Y
VOLUME 2
Ethics, Logic, Psychology
Edited by Larry A. Hichman
alld Tho as M. Alexallder
III
THE ESSENTIAL
DEWEY
VOLUME 2
Ethics, Logic, Psychology
THE ESSENTIAL
VOLUME 2
Ethics, Logic, Psychology
Edited by Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander
Indiana University Press / Bloomington and Indianapolis
©1998 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or
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without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association
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tutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum require
ments of American National Standard for Information Sciences
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-
1984.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dewey, John, 1859-1952.
The essential Dewey / edited by Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M.
Alexander.
p ..c m.
Includes index.
Contents: v. 1. Pragmatism, education, democracy - v. 2. Ethics,
logic, psychology.
ISBN 0-253-33390-3 (cl: v. 1 : alk. paper). - ISBN 0-253-21184-0
(pbk. : v. 1 : alk. paper). - ISBN 0-253-33391-1 (cl : v. 2 alk.
paper). - ISBN 0-253-21185-9 (pbk.: v. 2 : alk. paper)
1. Philosophy. 1. Hickman, Larry. II. Alexander, Thomas M.,
date. Ill. Title.
B 945.D4IH53 1998
191-dc21 97-43936
1 2 3 4 5 03 02 01 00 99 98
c o s
N T E N T
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii
INTRODUCTION BY LARRY A. HICKMAN AND THOMAS M. ALEXANDER ix
CHRONOLOGY xiii
PART I: HABIT, CONDUCT, AND Analysis of Reflective Thinking
LANGUAGE 1 FROM HOW WE THINK (1933) 137
The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology
The Place of Judgment in
(1896) 3
Reflective Activity
FROM HOW WE THINK (1933) 145
Interpretation of Savage Mind (1902) 11
General Propositions, Kinds,
Introduction
and Classes (1936) 151
FROM HUMAN NATURE AND CONDUCT (1922) 19
The Problem of Logical Subject-Matter
The Place of Habit in Conduct
FROM HUMAN NATURE AND CONDUCT (1922) 24 FROM LOGIC: THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938) 157
The Pattern of Inquiry
Nature, Communication and Meaning
FROM EXPERIENCE AND NATURE (1925) 50 FROM LOGIC: THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938) 169
Conduct and Experience (1930) 67 Mathematical Discourse
FROM LOGIC: THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938) 180
The Existential Matrix of Inquiry:
Cultural The Construction of Judgment
FROM LOGIC: THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938) 78 FROM LOGIC: THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938) 194
General Theory of Propositions
PART 2: MEANING, TRUTH, AND
FROM LOGIC: THE THEORY OF INQUIRY (1938) 197
INQUIRY 89
The Superstition of Necessity (1893) 91 Propositions, Warranted Assertibility,
and Truth (1941) 201
The Problem of Truth (1911) 101
Importance, Significance, and Meaning
Logical Objects (1916) 131 (1949) 213
PART 3:VALUATION PART 4: INTERPRETATIONS AND
AND ETHICS 223 CRITIQUES 355
Evolution and Ethics (1898) 225 Democracy and America
FROM FREEDOM AND CULTURE (1939)
The Logic of Judgments (ON THOMAS JEFFERSON) 357
of Practice (1915) 236
Emerson-The Philosopher
Valuation and Experimental of Democracy (1903)
Knowledge (1922) 272 (ON RALPH WALDO EMERSON) 366
Value, Objective Reference, and Peirce's Theory of Quality (1935)
Criticism (1925) 287 (ON CHARLES S. PEIRCE) 371
The Ethics of Animal Experimentation What Pragmatism Means by "Practical"
(1926) 298 (1907)
(ON WILLIAM JAMES) 377
Philosophies of Freedom (1928) 302
Voluntarism and the Roycean Philosophy
Three Independent Factors in (1916)
Morals (1930) 315 (ON JOSIAH ROYCE) 387
The Good of Activity Perception and Organic Action (1912)
FROM HUMAN NATURE AND (ON HENRI BERGSON) 393
CONDUCT (1922) 321
The Existence of the World as a Logical
Moral Judgment and Knowledge Problem (1915)
FROM ETHICS (1932) 328 (ON BERTRAND RUSSELL) 408
The Moral Self Whitehead's Philosophy (1937)
FROM ETHICS (1932) 341 (ON ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD) 416
INDEX 421
vi Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
These volumes were prepared at the Center for Dewey Studies during 1996 and 1997. They were
produced from the text of The Collected Works ofJohn Dewey, 1882-1953: The Electronic Edition,
edited by Larry A. Hickman (Charlottesville, Virginia: InteLex Corporation, 1996), which is in
turn based on the critical edition of Dewey's works, The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-
1953, edited by Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1969-1991). All selections are reprinted with the permission of Southern Illinois Univer
sity Press.
Three members of the Center's staff devoted extensive time and effort toward their timely
completion. Diane Meierkort and Barbara Levine exercised care with respect to matters of style
and proofreading that has been characteristic of their work during more than twenty years at the
Center, and Karen O'Brien spent many hours at her computer preparing and checking the copy.
Standard references to John Deweys work are to the critical edition, The Collected Works ofJ ohn
Dewey, 1882-1953, edited by Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1969-1991), and published as The Early Works: 1882-1898 (EW), The Middle
Works: 1899-1924 (MW), and The Later Works: 1925-1953 (LW). These designations are
followed by volume and page number. For example, page 101 of volume 12 of the Later Works
would be cited as "LW 12:10l." An electronic edition, based on the critical edition, is now
available as The Collected Works ofJohn Dewey, 1882-1953: The Electronic Edition, edited by Larry
A. Hickman (Charlottesville, Virginia: InteLex Corporation, 1996). In order to maintain unifor
mity of citation, the line and page breaks of the critical edition have been maintained in the
electronic edition. Page numbers in the notes refer to the volume of The Collected Works from
which the selection is excerpted.
o u c o
I N T R D T I N
Ethics, Logic, Psychology
In addition to being one of the greatest techni able and comprehensive. The materials se
cal philosophers of the twentieth century,lohn lected for these volumes exhibit Dewey's intel
Dewey (1859-1952) was also an educational lectual development over time, but they also
innovator, a Progressive Era reformer, and one represent his mature thinking on every major
of his country's last great public intellectuals. issue to which he turned his attention. Some of
In Henry Commager's trenchant appraisal, he the essays, familiar to several generations of
was "the guide, the mentor, and the conscience readers, have been in print for almost a cen
of the American people: it is scarcely an exag tury. Others have only recently been published
geration to say that for a generation no major and so have not yet received the attention they
issue was clarified until Dewey had spoken." deserve. Some were published in journals of
The New York Times once hailed Dewey as no opinion. Others were published in books ad
less than "America's Philosopher." dressed primarily to other technical philoso
Many of the issues that engaged Dewey's phers. Taken as a whole, The Essential Dewey
attention, and about which he wrote with presents Dewey's unique understanding of the
unflagging energy and intelligence, are still problems and prospects of human existence,
with us. Dewey's insights into the problems of and therefore of the philosophical enterprise.
public education, immigration, the prospects
for democratic government, and the relation of
PART I: HABIT, CONDUCT,
faith to science are as fresh today as when they
AND LANGUAGE
were first published. His penetrating treat
ments of the nature and function of philoso The essays in this section locate Dewey's psy
phy, the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of chology squarely within his philosophy of com
life, and the role of inquiry in human experi munication. "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psy
ence are of increasing relevance to thoughtful chology" (1896) is one of Dewey's most famous
people everywhere. essays. It signaled the end of introspectionist
Dewey'S massive Collected Works-thirty psychology and the beginning of a new func
seven volumes in all-thus stands ready to tional, organic, social behaviorism. In 1942, a
help guide our journey into the twenty-first committee of seventy eminent psychologists
century. But how are we to assess so large a polled by the editors of The Psychological Re
body of work? How are we to find our way view voted this essay the most important con
about within its complex structure? tribution to the journal during its first 49 years
The two volumes of The Essential Dewey of publication. "Interpretation of Savage Mind"
present for the first time a collection of Dewey's (1902) relates the values exhibited by a culture
essays and book chapters that is both manage- to its modes of production, including its meth-
