Essays in Experimental Logic

John Dewey

Oct 2012 · Courier Corporation

About this ebook

The scope of John Dewey's writings — ranging from aesthetics and education to legal and political theory — and his role in the development of twentieth-century philosophy have helped make him a continuing influence on contemporary thought. One of his most significant contributions to the theory of knowledge lay in his application of the principles of instrumentalism to traditional approaches to logical theory. Essays in Experimental Logic contains 14 of Dewey's most profound papers on many different aspects of knowledge, reality, and epistemology.
These papers on experimental logic are based on the theory that possession of knowledge implies a judgment, resulting from an inquiry or investigation. The presence of this "inquiry stage" suggests an intermediate and mediating phase between the external world and knowledge, an area conditioned by other factors. Expanding upon this foundation, these papers consider the relationship of thought and its subject matter; the antecedents and stimuli of thought, data, and meanings; the objects of thought; control of ideas by facts; and similar topics.
Three papers describe the various kinds of philosophical realism. The first closely examines Bertrand Russell's dictum concerning "our knowledge of the external world as a field for scientific method"; the other two discuss pragmatism, differentiating Dewey's position from those of James and Peirce. These essays present their author's most easily followed account of his own philosophy. The section entitled "Stage of Logical Thought" analyzes the role of scientific method in philosophy, and the final essay presents a striking theory of a logic of values.

About the author

John Dewey was born in 1859 in Burlington, Vermont. He founded the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago in 1896 to apply his original theories of learning based on pragmatism and "directed living." This combination of learning with concrete activities and practical experience helped earn him the title, "father of progressive education." After leaving Chicago he went to Columbia University as a professor of philosophy from 1904 to 1930, bringing his educational philosophy to the Teachers College there. Dewey was known and consulted internationally for his opinions on a wide variety of social, educational and political issues. His many books on these topics began with Psychology (1887), and include The School and Society (1899), Experience and Nature (1925), and Freedom and Culture (1939).Dewey died of pneumonia in 1952.