John Dewey
(1859-1952)
John Dewey was a major intellectual of the early twentieth century in the United States, playing a role in philosophy, politics, and education.
In philosophy, he extended the theory of
pragmatism developed in the nineteenth century by
Charles Sanders Peirce and
William James.
Beyond truth by consistency, by coherence, or by correspondence, Dewey viewed ideas and truths as "instruments." His
Instrumentalism is a philosophical view that ideas, concepts, and scientific theories are not exact descriptions of an objective reality. Instead, they are practical tools or instruments. Their value depends on how well they work to solve problems, make predictions, and guide human action.
In the philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea is based on how effective it is in explaining and predicting natural phenomena. According to instrumentalists, a successful scientific theory reveals nothing known either true or false about nature's unobservable objects, properties or processes.
In politics, Dewey championed
democracy.
In education, Dewey founded the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, which became a testing ground for the pedagogical theories in his 1899 book
The School and Society. The Chicago Lab Schools became a major center for educational research in the United States.
Francis Parker joined Dewey and built the Francis W. Parker school in Chicago. Dewey called Parker the "father of progressive education" in America.
Dewey studied psychology with the first American Ph.D in psychology, G.Stanley Hall (William James was Hall's Harvard adviser). Hall founded the
American Journal of Psychology in 1887 and was elected the first president of the new
American Psychological Association in 1892.
After studies with Hall and Peirce, Dewey earned his Ph.D from Johns Hopkins and taught at the University of Michigan from 1884 until 1894, when he joined the faculty of the new University of Chicago.
Dewey left Chicago in 1904 to become professor of philosophy at Columbia University's new Teachers College. His 1904 essay
The Relation between Theory and Practice criticized the boring "drills and skills" used teaching children to read in the early grades and he became a supporter of the "
word method" championed in the nineteenth century since
Horace Mann's severe criticism of phonics in the 1840s.
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