The Metaphysics of Pragmatism

Sidney Hook

dhj 2008 · Cosimo, Inc.

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Considered by some the most controversial American philosopher of contemporary times, SIDNEY HOOK (1902-1989) was infamous for the wild swing in his political thought over the course of his career, starting out as a young Marxist before the Great Depression and ending up a vehement anti-Communist in his later years. The Metaphysics of Pragmatism-Hook's first work, originally published in 1927-is something of a malicious joke on the philosopher's part, one he readily acknowledges in his introduction, a bringing together of one discipline, that of metaphysics, with the one generally regarded as its polar opposite, that of pragmatism, for the purposes of rescuing the second. Though not a political work at all-except, possibly, one of academic politics-this is nevertheless a fascinating introduction to this notorious figure. In its expression of the author's "passionate moral interest in the creative power... of human thinking," it may, perhaps, begin to lend some understanding to the shifts in his own thinking that characterized his work.

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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.