TWENTIETH CENTURY
PHILOSOPHY:
Intellectual Heroes and Key Themes
LECTURES
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
The limits of language.
Death and authenticity.
The great society.
Making differences.
Social hope.
Communicative rationality.
THE GREAT SOCIETY
1.REASON AND EXPERIMENT
What is pragmatism?
2.SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND AESTHETIC
EXPERIENCE
How to conceive science and art?
3. CITIZENSHIP EDUACTION
To what extent are pedagogical ideas and
democratic practices related to each other?
1.
REASON AND EXPERIMENT
JOHN DEWEY
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA:
 1859: Born October 20, in Burlington (Vermont).
 1879: Graduated at the University of Vermont.
 1879-1881: Teacher at a secondary school in Oil City
(Pennsylvania) and Charlotte (Vermont).
 1882-1884: Graduate student at the Johns Hopkins
University.
 1884: Graduated with a dissertation on the psychology of
Kant at the Johns Hopkins University.
 1884 – 1894: Professor at the University of Michigan.
 1894 - 1904: Professor at the University of Chicago.
 1996-1904: Test of pedagogical ideas in the ‘Laboratory
School’.
 1905 – 1930: Professor at Colombia University.
 1918: Visit to Japan and China.
 1924: Visit to Turkey.
 1926: Visit to Mexico.
 1928: Visit to the USSR.
 1952: Died June 1, in New York.
MAJOR WORKS
The School and Society (1900).
Democracy and Education (1916).
Experience and Nature (1925).
The Public and its Problems (1927).
The Quest for Certainty (1929).
Art as Experience (1934).
Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938).
Freedom and Culture (1939).
Problems of Men (1946).
THE PRAGMATIC TURN
 Pragmatism > philosophical movement originated in the
United States around 1870.
 Most important representatives:
- Charles Sanders Pierce (1839 - 1914).
- William James (1842 - 1910).
- John Dewey (1859 - 1952).
- George Herbert Mead (1865 – 1931).
 Central ideas:
- clarify concepts, hypotheses and theories by tracing
their practical consequences.
- fallibilism > look for the rejection of concepts,
hypotheses, and theories.
 Neo-pragmatism: Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam and
Robert Brandom.
IDEALISM AND REALISM
 Before Dewey became a pragmatist he was very much
influenced by idealist philosophy (George S. Morris and
T.H. Green) and the so-called new liberalism (L.T.
Hobhouse).
 Both they criticize the conception of the individual
underlying classical liberalism.
 The individual is always socially embedded.
 According to Dewey “men are not isolated non-social
atoms, but are men only when in intrinsic relations.’
 Freedom is not only a question of being free from external
constraints (as classical liberalism states), but also a
question of being free to do something.
INSTRUMENTALISM
 Because of the differences between Peirce, James, Mead
and Dewey it’s misleading to talk in terms of the school
of pragmatism.
 Dewey calls his version of pragmatism ‘instrumentalism’
that conceives “of both knowledge and practice as means
of making goods (…) secure in experienced existence.”
 Knowledge should be seen as a tool.
 Mental activities are a function of the adaptation to the
social and natural environment.
 Philosophy should lead to “conclusions which, when they
are refereed back to ordinary life-experiences and their
predicaments, render them more fruitful.”
PHILOSOPHY AS CRITICISM
Philosophy should not deliver the means of
access to a reality lying behind the everyday
life.
Philosophy should serve human interests, i.e. it
must recover “itself when it ceases to be a
device for dealing with the problems of
philosophers and becomes a method,
cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with
the problems of men”.
Philosophy is criticism pursued at a high level
of self-consciousness and generality.
HEURISTIC VALUE
 Social psychology (George-Herbert Mead amongst
others).
 Philosophical pedagogy (Martha Nussbaum amongst
others).
 Fine Arts (Robert Motherwell amongst others).
 Neo-pragmatism (Richard Rorty amongst others).
 Social work (Donald Alan Schön amongst others).
 Political philosophy (Philipp Dorstewitz amongst others ).
 Aesthetics (Nelson Goodman amongst others).
 Sociology (Hans Joas amongst others).
2.
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND
AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE
OVERCOMING THE DESIRE FOR
CERTAINTY
 Epistemology > looking for certain knowledge.
 It doesn’t make sense to look for a priori knowledge of
reality, i.e. knowledge that is cut off from practice.
 There is not a dichotomy between theoretical judgments
and practical judgments.
 Concepts, hypotheses and theories function as
instruments.
 Inquiry is an activity.
 Methodology > the normative standards that govern any
inquiry, i.e. show how one should proceed.
EXPERIMENT
 Philosophy and science should give weight to the needs of
practice.
 The experiment is the method of science.
 Concepts, hypotheses and theories should be subject to
experiments.
 Philosophers and scientists are not spectators, but agents
who are involved in different practices.
 Inquiry begins with a problem.
 All inquiry is the practical concern with the transformation
and evaluation of problematic situations.
 Inquiry aims for “the controlled or directed transformation
of an indeterminate situation into one that is so
determinate in its constituent distinctions and relations as
to convert the elements of the original situation into a
unified whole”.
ART AND LIFE
The philosophy of art that Dewey presents in
‘The Art as Experience’ is anti-idealist and
anti-metaphysical.
This was attractive for American artists who
wanted to get rid of the ‘European’ gap
between high and low culture.
Artists have to build bridges between the world
of art and ordinary life.
Dewey inspired many American artists who
wanted to establish a new artistic identity.
For instance Robert Motherwell.
DIFFERENT EXPERIENCES
A classical distinction:
1. Common experience.
2. Aesthetic experience.
The aesthetic experience should not be
privileged, because the roots of it lie in the
common experience.
The creative work of an artist is not unique.
Different is the evocation of immediate
enjoyment via the creation of complex objects
that directly appeal to the senses.
AESTEHTIC EXPERIENCE
 Dewey argues that the aesthetic experience is mainly a
feeling of relief.
 Good art transcends the conflicts in everyday life; it
evokes a sense of harmony.
 Recipients of art have often the longing to establish the
harmony they experience in a context full of conflicts.
 Artists transform the tensions of everyday life into
harmony.
 Example: Henri Matisse.
 Beauty is according to Dewey the experience of a
harmony that is the result of a struggle with tensions.
THE CRITICAL FUNCTION OF ART
The art product consist not only of sensible qualities
inherent to an object, but also of the meaning that is
given to these qualities.
Dewey deconstructs two dichotomies:
1. Matter and form.
2. The artist as active creator and the audience as
passive recipient of art.
As a product of culture art expresses the hopes and
ideals of people.
Insofar as these hopes and ideals cannot be satisfied
in ordinary life, art has a critical function.
3.
CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION
PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL CHANGE
Dewey didn’t plea for a revolution > no revolution,
but “intelligent action”, i.e. looking for scientific
solutions to social problems.
The foundation of a Laboratory School in Chicago
was an experiment to solve social problems.
Three elements of democracy:
1. Democracy as social inquiry.
2. Democracy as the protection of popular
interests.
3. Democracy as the expression of individuality.
DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION
Dewey argues that one cannot have a fullfledged democracy without a certain school
system.
He underlines the importance of two
elements of democracy:
1. Schools > educating reasonable citizens.
2. Civil society > the public use of reason.
LEARNING BY DOING
Dewey distinguishes between an experimental
attitude versus a dogmatic attitude.
The school is not the place where children learn
the unquestioned knowledge that should be
memorized.
As an extension of the civil society, the school is
the place where children discover their interests
and explore the world by doing things.
Schools give children the opportunity to develop
the knowledge and skills they need to become
responsible citizens.
A SO-CALLED PHANTOM
Walter Lippmann: ‘Phantom Public’ (1927).
He argues that the presupposition of the
classical ideal of the public is not correct.
Citizens are not able to understand the
complex political world.
Thomas Jefferson embodies the classical
ideal > every farmer should be able to
become president of the United States.
Lippmann states that only an elite is able to
govern the country.
CONTRA AN ELITIST VIEW
Dewey criticizes in ‘The Public and its
Problems’ the elitist view of Lippmann.
Public spheres are the result of active citizens
who give expression to a common interest.
In the complex Great Society the democratic
process isn’t anymore embodied in the local
community.
Mass media have the responsibility to create a
Great Society.
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC
 Underlying problem > expertocracy versus democracy.
 The public > all those who are (in)directly affected by the
consequences of actions.
 Layman and experts can communicate with each other in
order to judge the consequences of actions and have a
common interest.
 The study of the relation between facts and values is
important.
 The mediated public can help to bridge the gap between
the face-face-associations of communities and the Great
Society.
RECOMMENDED
1. John Dewey, The Public and its Problems
[translations in several languages].
2. John Dewey, Democracy and Education
[translations in several languages].
3. Robert. B. Westbrook, John Dewey and
American Democracy.