Editing John Dewey (section)

== Life ==

=== Early life and education ===
John Dewey was born in [[Burlington, Vermont]], to a family of modest means.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gutek |first=Gerald L. |title=Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education: A Biographical Introduction. |publisher=Pearson Education Inc. |location=Upper Saddle River, NJ |isbn=978-0-13-113809-4 |page=338|year=2005 }}</ref> He was one of four boys born to Archibald Sprague Dewey and Lucina Artemisia Rich Dewey. Their first son was [[Necronym|also named John]], but he died in an accident on January 17, 1859. The second John Dewey was born October 20, 1859, forty weeks after the death of his older brother. Like his older, surviving brother, [[Davis Rich Dewey]], he attended the [[University of Vermont]], where he was initiated into [[Delta Psi (University of Vermont)|Delta Psi]], and graduated [[Phi Beta Kappa]]<ref>[http://www.pbk.org/infoview/PBK_InfoView.aspx?t=&id=59 Who Belongs To Phi Beta Kappa] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120103230618/http://www.pbk.org/infoview/PBK_InfoView.aspx?t=&id=59 |date=2012-01-03 }}, Phi Beta Kappa website, accessed Oct 4, 2009</ref> in 1879.

A significant professor of Dewey's at the University of Vermont was [[Henry Augustus Pearson Torrey]] (H.A.P. Torrey), the son-in-law and nephew of former University of Vermont president [[Joseph Torrey (academic)|Joseph Torrey]]. Dewey studied privately with Torrey between his graduation from Vermont and his enrollment at [[Johns Hopkins University]].<ref>[http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/dewey/dewey.html bio of Dewey from ''Bowling Green State University''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110102195748/http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/dewey/dewey.html |date=2011-01-02 }}</ref><ref>[[Louis Menand]], ''The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in the United States''. New York: Farrar, Staus and Giroux, 2002.</ref>

=== Career ===
[[File:John Dewey in 1902.jpg|thumb|upright|John Dewey at the [[University of Chicago]] in 1902]]
After two years as a high-school teacher in [[Oil City, Pennsylvania]], and one year as an elementary school teacher in the small town of [[Charlotte, Vermont]], Dewey decided that he was unsuited for teaching primary or secondary school. After studying with [[George Sylvester Morris]], [[Charles Sanders Peirce]], [[Herbert Baxter Adams]], and [[G. Stanley Hall]], Dewey received his [[Ph.D.]] from the School of Arts & Sciences at [[Johns Hopkins University]] in 1884. His unpublished and now lost dissertation (criticizing [[Immanuel Kant]] from an [[idealist]] position) was titled "The Psychology of Kant". In the same year, he accepted a faculty position at the [[University of Michigan]] (1884–88 and 1889–94) with the help of George Sylvester Morris.

In 1894, Dewey joined the newly founded [[University of Chicago]] (1894–1904) where he developed his belief in Rational [[Empiricism]], becoming associated with the newly emerging Pragmatic philosophy. His time at the University of Chicago resulted in four essays collectively entitled ''Thought and its Subject-Matter'', which was published with collected works from his colleagues at Chicago under the collective title ''Studies in Logical Theory'' (1904).

During that time, Dewey also initiated the [[University of Chicago Laboratory Schools]], where he was able to actualize the pedagogical beliefs that provided material for his first major work on education, ''[[The School and Society]]'' (1899). Disagreements with the administration ultimately caused his resignation from the university, and soon thereafter he relocated near the East Coast. In 1899, Dewey was elected president of the [[American Psychological Association]] (A.P.A.). From 1904 until his retirement in 1930 he was professor of philosophy at [[Teachers College]] at Columbia University and influenced [[Carl Rogers]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://blog.library.tc.columbia.edu/b/24244-Today-In-History-John-Dewey-Was-Born | title=Today in History: John Dewey Was Born – Jennifer Govan  – EdLab | date=20 October 2021 | access-date=April 26, 2022 | archive-date=January 23, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220123030744/https://blog.library.tc.columbia.edu/b/24244-Today-In-History-John-Dewey-Was-Born | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kirschenbaum |first=Howard |date=Winter 2004 |title=Carl Rogers's Life and Work: An Assessment on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/219027027 |journal=Journal of Counseling and Development |volume=82 |issue=1 |pages=116–124 |doi=10.1002/j.1556-6678.2004.tb00293.x |id={{ProQuest|219027027}}  |access-date=December 4, 2022 |archive-date=October 6, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231006222255/https://www.proquest.com/docview/219027027 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1905, he became president of the [[American Philosophical Association]]. He was a longtime member of the [[American Federation of Teachers]]. Along with the historians [[Charles A. Beard]] and [[James Harvey Robinson]], and the economist [[Thorstein Veblen]], Dewey is one of the founders of [[The New School]].

Dewey published more than 700 articles in 140 journals and approximately 40 books. His most significant writings were "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896), a critique of a standard psychological concept and the basis of all his further work; ''[[Democracy and Education]]'' (1916), his celebrated work on progressive education; ''Human Nature and Conduct'' (1922), a study of the function of habit in human behavior;<ref>{{cite book |author=John Dewey|title= Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology |publisher=Henry Holt & Company |url= https://archive.org/details/humannatureandco011182mbp|year=1922 |access-date= February 2, 2018 |via= Internet Archive}}</ref> ''[[The Public and its Problems]]'' (1927), a defense of democracy written in response to [[Walter Lippmann]]'s ''[[The Phantom Public]]'' (1925); ''[[Experience and Nature]]'' (1925), Dewey's most "metaphysical" statement; ''Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World'' (1929), a glowing travelogue from the nascent [[USSR]].<ref>John Dewey (1929), [http://ariwatch.com/VS/JD/ImpressionsOfSovietRussia.htm ''Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World''] {{Webarchive|url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20160523160815/http://ariwatch.com/VS/JD/ImpressionsOfSovietRussia.htm |date=May 23, 2016 }}, ''The New Republic''. Also at [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.169066 Internet Archive]</ref>

''[[Art as Experience]]'' (1934), was Dewey's major work on aesthetics; ''[[A Common Faith]]'' (1934), a humanistic study of religion originally delivered as the [[Dwight H. Terry Lectureship]] at Yale; ''Logic: The Theory of Inquiry'' (1938), a statement of Dewey's unusual conception of logic; ''[[Freedom and Culture]]'' (1939), a political work examining the roots of fascism; and ''[[Knowing and the Known]]'' (1949), a book written in conjunction with [[Arthur F. Bentley]] that systematically outlines the concept of trans-action, which is central to his other works (see [[Transactionalism]]).

While each of these works focuses on one particular philosophical theme, Dewey included his major themes in ''Experience and Nature''. However, dissatisfied with the response to the first (1925) edition, for the second (1929) edition he rewrote the first chapter and added a Preface in which he stated that the book presented what was later called a new (Kuhnian) paradigm:&nbsp;''<nowiki/>'I have not striven in this volume for a reconciliation between the new and the old' [E&N:4]'' <ref>This refers to the Boydston edition</ref>''.'' and he asserts Kuhnian incommensurability:

''<nowiki/>'To many the associating of the two words ['experience' and 'nature'] will seem like talking of a round square' but 'I know of no route by which dialectical argument can answer such objections. They arise from association with words and cannot be dealt with argumentatively'.'' The following can be interpreted now as describing a Kuhnian conversion process: ''<nowiki/>'One can only hope in the course of the whole discussion to disclose the [new] meanings which are attached to "experience" and "nature," and thus insensibly produce, if one is fortunate, a change in the significations previously attached to them' [all E&N:10].''<ref>Barry E. Duff, "Dewey's 'Experience And Nature' – A Tale Of Two Paradigms" ''Pragmatism Today'' 7.1 (2016): 70.&nbsp;Dewey was never at peace with ''Experience and Nature'' and in 1949 attempted a new introduction for a new edition (E&N: Appendix 1, 329f) but did not complete it. In 1951 he returned to it saying "Were I to write (or rewrite) ''Experience and Nature'' today I would entitle the book ''Culture and Nature" (E&N:361)''. However, in the following paragraphs he criticises this idea.</ref>

Reflecting his immense influence on 20th-century thought, [[Hilda Neatby]] wrote "Dewey has been to our age what [[Aristotle]] was to the [[Late Middle Ages|later Middle Ages]], not a philosopher, but ''the'' philosopher."<ref>Hilda M. Neatby, ''So Little for the Mind'' (Toronto: Clarke Irwin & Co. Ltd., 1953), pp. 22–23.</ref>

=== Visits to China and Japan ===
[[File:Hu Shih and John Dewey.jpg|thumb|upright|John Dewey and Hu Shih, {{Circa|1938}}–1942]]
In 1919, Dewey and his wife traveled to Japan on [[Sabbatical|sabbatical leave]]. Though Dewey and his wife were well received by the people of Japan during this trip, Dewey was also critical of the nation's governing system and claimed that the nation's path towards democracy was "ambitious but weak in many respects in which her competitors are strong".<ref name="japangrant">{{Cite web |title=The Trans-Pacific Experience of John Dewey |url=http://www.jaas.gr.jp/jjas/PDF/2007/No.18-107.pdf  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123213951/http://www.jaas.gr.jp/jjas/PDF/2007/No.18-107.pdf |archive-date=November 23, 2021 |access-date=December 9, 2018}}</ref> He also warned that "the real test has not yet come. But if the nominally democratic world should go back on the professions so profusely uttered during war days, the shock will be enormous, and bureaucracy and militarism might come back."<ref name="japangrant" />

During his trip to Japan, Dewey was invited by [[Peking University]] to visit China, probably at the behest of his former students, [[Hu Shih]] and [[Chiang Monlin]]. Dewey and his wife Alice arrived in Shanghai on April 30, 1919,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/31043/31043-h/31043-h.htm |title=Letters from China and Japan by Harriet Alice Chipman Dewey and John Dewey |access-date=May 3, 2016 |archive-date=March 9, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309022732/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31043/31043-h/31043-h.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> just days before student demonstrators took to the streets of Peking to protest the decision of the Allies in Paris to cede the German-held territories in [[Shandong]] province to Japan. Their [[May Fourth Movement|demonstrations on May Fourth]] excited and energized Dewey, and he ended up staying in China for two years, leaving in July 1921.<ref>Jessica Ching-Sze Wang. ''John Dewey in China: To Teach and to Learn''. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. {{ISBN|9780791472033}} pp. 3–5.</ref>

[[File:张謇与杜威等人的合影.jpg|thumb|John Dewey in China in 1920]]
In these two years, Dewey gave nearly 200 lectures to Chinese audiences and wrote nearly monthly articles for Americans in ''[[The New Republic]]'' and other magazines. Well aware of both Japanese expansionism into China and the attraction of [[Bolshevism]] to some Chinese, Dewey advocated that Americans support China's transformation and that Chinese base this transformation in education and social reforms, not revolution. Hundreds and sometimes thousands of people attended the lectures, which were interpreted by Hu Shih. For these audiences, Dewey represented "Mr. Democracy" and "Mr. Science," the two personifications which they thought of representing modern values and hailed him as "the American Confucius".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shekitka |first=John Patrick |date=2022-12-20 |title=What Knowledge is of Most Worth? Considering the Neo-Confucians in the Contemporary Debate Between Moral and Intellectual Learning |journal=ECNU Review of Education |volume=7 |language=en |page=209653112211454 |doi=10.1177/20965311221145446 |s2cid=255038008 |issn=2096-5311|doi-access=free }}</ref> His lectures were lost at the time but have been rediscovered and were published in 2015.<ref>Roberto Frega, "John Dewey's Social and Political Philosophy in the China Lectures: Introduction." ''Transaction of the Charles S. Peirce Society'' 53.1 (2017): 3–6 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.53.1.01 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210308193258/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.53.1.01 |date=March 8, 2021 }}.</ref> Dewey's lecture on "Three Contemporary Philosophers: Bertrand Russell, Henri Bergson and William James" at Peking University in 1919 was attended by a young [[Mao Zedong]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Niu |first1=Xiaodong |title=Mao Zedong and John Dewey: A Comparison of Educational Thought |journal=The Journal of Educational Thought |date=August 1995 |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=129–147 |doi=10.55016/ojs/jet.v29i2.52386 |jstor=23767673 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23767673 |access-date=13 October 2024}}</ref>

Zhixin Su states:
:Dewey was, for those Chinese educators who had studied under him, the great apostle of philosophic liberalism and experimental methodology, the advocate of complete freedom of thought, and the man who, above all other teachers, equated education to the practical problems of civic cooperation and useful living.<ref>Zhixin Su, "A critical evaluation of John Dewey's influence on Chinese education." ''American Journal of Education'' 103.3 (1995): 302–325 [305] [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1085533 online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210420101912/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1085533 |date=April 20, 2021 }}.</ref>

Dewey urged the Chinese to not import any Western educational model. He recommended to educators such as [[Tao Xingzhi]], that they use pragmatism to devise their own model school system at the national level. However, the national government was weak, and the provinces largely controlled by warlords, so his suggestions were praised at the national level but not implemented. However, there were a few implementations locally.<ref>Jeffer B. Daykin, "The Glocalization of John Dewey's Educational Philosophy in Republican-Era China." ''American Journal of Chinese Studies'' (2014): 31–43. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/44288434 Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310001355/https://www.jstor.org/stable/44288434 |date=March 10, 2021 }}</ref> Dewey's ideas did have influence in Hong Kong, and in Taiwan after the nationalist government fled there. In most of China, Confucian scholars controlled the local educational system before 1949 and they simply ignored Dewey and Western ideas. In Marxist and Maoist China, Dewey's ideas were systematically denounced.<ref>Su, "A critical evaluation of John Dewey's influence on Chinese education". pp. 308–309.</ref>

=== Visit to Southern Africa ===
Dewey and his daughter Jane went to [[South Africa]] in July 1934, at the invitation of the World Conference of New Education Fellowship in [[Cape Town]] and [[Johannesburg]], where he delivered several talks. The conference was opened by the South African Minister of Education [[Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (1894-1948)|Jan Hofmeyr]], and Deputy Prime Minister [[Jan Smuts]]. Other speakers at the conference included [[Max Eiselen]] and [[Hendrik Verwoerd]], who later became prime minister of the [[National Party (South Africa)|Nationalist]] government that introduced [[apartheid]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kraak |first1=Andre |title=Education in Retrospect: Policy and Implementation since 1990 |last2=Young |first2=Michael |date=2001 |publisher=Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria |isbn=978-0-7969-1988-5}}</ref>

Dewey's expenses were paid by the [[Carnegie Corporation of New York|Carnegie Foundation]]. He also traveled to [[Durban]], [[Pretoria]] and [[Victoria Falls]] in what was then [[Southern Rhodesia]] (now [[Zimbabwe]]) and looked at schools, talked to pupils, and gave lectures to the administrators and teachers. In August 1934, Dewey accepted an honorary degree from the [[University of the Witwatersrand]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Martin |first1=Jay |url=https://archive.org/details/educationofjohnd00mart/page/406 |title=The Education of John Dewey |date=2002 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-11676-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/educationofjohnd00mart/page/406 406] |url-access=registration}}</ref> The white-only governments rejected Dewey's ideas as too secular. However black people and their white supporters were more receptive.<ref>Paulus J. Mentz, "The Influence of John Dewey on Curriculum Development in South Africa" (ERIC Number: ED349654 1992) [https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED349654.pdf online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201023003536/https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED349654.pdf |date=October 23, 2020 }}.</ref>

=== Personal life ===
Dewey married [[Alice Chipman Dewey|Alice Chipman]] in 1886 shortly after Chipman graduated with her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. The two had six children: Frederick Archibald Dewey, [[Evelyn Dewey|Evelyn Riggs Dewey]], Morris (who died young), Gordon Chipman Dewey, Lucy Alice Chipman Dewey, and [[Jane Dewey|Jane Mary Dewey]].<ref>[http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/dewey.htm Biography at Muskingum College] {{webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090331093737/http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/dewey.htm |date=2009-03-31 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/dewey-alice-chipman-1858-1927 |title=from The Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages |access-date=January 5, 2018 |archive-date=January 6, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180106072750/http://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/dewey-alice-chipman-1858-1927 |url-status=live }}</ref> Alice Chipman died in 1927 at the age of 68; weakened by a case of malaria contracted during a trip to Turkey in 1924 and a heart attack during a trip to Mexico City in 1926, she died from cerebral thrombosis on July 13, 1927.<ref name="Simpson">{{cite journal|url= https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=eandc|first1= Douglas J.|last1= Simpson|first2= Kathleen C.|last2= Foley|title= John Dewey and Hubbards, Nova Scotia|journal= Education and Culture|volume= 20|number= 2|date= 2004|pages= 43–44|access-date= January 5, 2018|archive-date= December 3, 2017|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171203150115/http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=eandc|url-status= live}}</ref> Dewey married Estelle Roberta Lowitz Grant, "a longtime friend and companion for several years before their marriage" on December 11, 1946.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=eandc |title=Douglas J. Simpson and Kathleen C. Foley, "John Dewey and Hubbards, Nova Scotia," ''Education and Culture'' 20(2) (2004): 42, 52 |access-date=January 5, 2018 |archive-date=December 3, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171203150115/http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=eandc |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nlx.com/titles/titldewc.htm |title=InteLex Past Masters - John Dewey: Correspondence |access-date=2006-01-21  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051231124645/http://www.nlx.com/titles/titldewc.htm |archive-date=2005-12-31 }}</ref> At Roberta's behest, the couple adopted two siblings, Lewis (changed to John Jr.) and Shirley.<ref>{{cite journal|url = https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=eandc|first1 = Douglas J.|last1 = Simpson|first2 = Kathleen C.|last2 = Foley|title = John Dewey and Hubbards, Nova Scotia|journal = Education and Culture|volume = 20|issue = 2|date = 2004|pages = 55–56|access-date = January 5, 2018|archive-date = December 3, 2017|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20171203150115/http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=eandc|url-status = live}}</ref>

Dewey's interests and writings included many topics, and according to the [[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]], "a substantial part of his published output consisted of commentary on current domestic and international politics, and public statements on behalf of many causes. (He is probably the only philosopher in this encyclopedia to have published both on the [[Treaty of Versailles]] and on the value of displaying art in post offices.)"<ref>{{Cite web |title="Dewey's Political Philosophy" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/archives/sum2005/entries/dewey-political/  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514094942/http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/archives/sum2005/entries/dewey-political/ |archive-date=2011-05-14 |access-date=2008-08-27}}</ref>

In 1917, Dewey met [[F. Matthias Alexander|F.M. Alexander]] in New York City and later wrote introductions to Alexander's ''Man's Supreme Inheritance'' (1918), ''Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual'' (1923) and ''The Use of the Self'' (1932). Alexander's influence is referenced in "Human Nature and Conduct" and "Experience and Nature."<ref>F.M. Alexander ''Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual'', E.P. Dutton & Co., 1923 {{ISBN|0-913111-11-2}}</ref> As well as his contacts with people mentioned elsewhere in the article, he also maintained correspondence with [[Henri Bergson]], [[William M. Brown (Pennsylvania politician)|William M. Brown]], [[Martin Buber]], [[George Counts|George S. Counts]], [[William Rainey Harper]], [[Sidney Hook]], and [[George Santayana]].

=== Death ===
John Dewey died of [[pneumonia]] on June 1, 1952, at his home in New York City after years of ill-health<ref>{{cite news|title=Dr. John Dewey Dead at 92; Philosopher a Noted Liberal – The Father of Progressive Education Succumbs in Home to Pneumonia|url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1020.html|access-date=February 2, 2018|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=June 2, 1952|page=1|archive-date=November 10, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171110062047/http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1020.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=eandc |title=Douglas J. Simpson and Kathleen C. Foley, "John Dewey and Hubbards, Nova Scotia", ''Education and Culture'' 20(2) (2004): 58–59 |access-date=January 5, 2018 |archive-date=December 3, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171203150115/http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=eandc |url-status=live }}</ref> and was cremated the next day.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20030608113016/http://www.siu.edu/%7Edeweyctr/CHRONO.pdf "John Dewey Chronology" 1952.06.02]</ref>