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John Dewey (1859–1952) was a leading American psychologist, philosopher, educator, and political activist. The central focus of his work is epistemology, or the “theory of knowledge.” His seminal contributions in this area provide the inspiration for numerous movements in social and philosophical thought, including functionalist and behavior list psychology, empiricism, naturalism, pragmatism, and humanism.

Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, on October 20, 1859. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Vermont in 1879 and received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1884, under George S. Morris, an adherent to the ideas of German philosopher Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel. Dewey started his career as an instructor in the philosophy department at the University of Michigan in 1884, where he joined Morris. During his nine years at Michigan (1884–1888, 1889–1894), Dewey expressed his commitment to Hegelian idealism while beginning to explore a synthesis between Hegel’s idealism and experimental science.

These philosophical explorations appeared in his first two books, Psychology (1887), and Leibniz’s New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding (1888). While at Michigan, Dewey also formed important professional relationships with James Hayden Tufts, with whom he would later publish Ethics in 1908 (revised in 1932), and a promising young scholar named George Herbert Mead.

In 1894, Dewey moved to the University of Chicago to head the department of philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. During these years, Dewey’s idealism fully gave way to an empirically based epistemology that developed in concert with a new school of thought, known as pragmatism. This shift coalesced in a collaborative work, entitled Studies in Logical Theory (1903). During this period, Dewey also founded the University Laboratory School in 1896, now famously known as the “Dewey School,” which was meant to serve as a place for the development, testing, and refinement of educational theories and practices. His experience with the lab school provided the material for his first major work on education, entitled The School and Society (1899).

In 1904, following a controversy over the administration of the lab school, Dewey resigned from his post at Chicago and joined the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, where he would remain for the rest of his professional career. While at Columbia, Dewey developed his theory of knowledge further, publishing important works such as Pragmatism (1907), The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought (1910), and Essays in Experimental Logic (1916). At this point in his career, Dewey openly challenged traditional epistemologies, specifically modern rationalism, for drawing too stark a distinction between thought, the domain of knowledge, and the practical world. He argued instead for a theory of knowledge that begins with a consideration of knowledge as an adaptive human response to environmental conditions. This new approach radically challenged epistemological orthodoxy by positing thought as the product of interaction between an organism and its environment, where knowledge has a practical “instrumental value” in guiding the interaction.

In 1916, Dewey published arguably his most famous work, Democracy and Education. Here, Dewey applied his theory of knowledge to education by positing schooling as an extension of civil society. Based on his theory of knowledge, Dewey argued that institutions for democratic governance are not sufficient for the creation and sustainability of democratic society. Rather, for Dewey, democracy flows from the inculcation of democratic habits within the populace. Schooling, then, has an integral role to play in the formation of these habits, preparing students and children for the demands of responsible membership within the democratic community.

In addition to his enormous influence on philosophy and social science theorizing, Dewey maintained an ongoing political activism throughout his life, including involvement in women’s suffrage and the unionization of teachers. From 1919 to 1921, he lectured throughout Japan and China and made numerous educational reports in Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, and Russia.

In 1937, he presided over the Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials. Following his retirement from active teaching in 1930, he continued to work and publish vigorously until his death.

Bibliography:

Boisvert, Raymond. John Dewey: Rethinking Our Time. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1998.
Field, Richard. “John Dewey (1859–1952).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, July 14, 2005, www.iep.utm.edu/d/dewey.htm.
Sleeper, Ralph. The Necessity of Pragmatism: John Dewey’s Conception of Philosophy. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1986.
Tiles, J. E., ed. John Dewey: Critical Assessments. New York: Routledge, 1992.