John Dewey, Inquiry, & Progressive Education (Part 2)

This is the second half of a two-part lecture on the thought of John Dewey as it relates to education. This talk is designed for student-teachers who are taking a Philosophy of Education course in pursuit of their BEd studies.

[@norly4God4People]

thanks for turning our gaze to the world of meaning and being.

[@terisuehughes]

Excellent presentation of Dewey. Thank you.

[@Ivantheterrible666]

Sean Steel Hi Sean! Thank you for uploading these videos. My name is Bryan, and I am a 24 year old community college student who is studying philosophy. I have just finished reading Democracy and Education (for leisure), and seem to have taken away a different interpretation of some of the so perceived "negative elements" of Dewey's line of thought. You seem to be very educated and informed on this topic, so I'd like to ask you what your thoughts are on one or two things. This is all very complicated stuff, so I'll try my best to ask the right questions.
From the few discussions I have had with people about Dewey (fortunately, my own father was an educator for 17 years and knows his way around these discussions) I have gathered that Dewey is really thought more of in the vein of education and psychology than that of philosophy, which I believe is slightly unfair. Much of what Dewey writes resonates with me in a general philosophical sense apart from schools and institutionalized learning.
"Mind is always associated with doing or acting upon the world in order to produce results and in order to cultivate the foresight that will assist us in the achievement in our diverse aims and objectives for growth." This quote stood out to me.
In this sense, I get a feeling that Dewey is a materialist and perhaps a closet/proto or pseudo-existentialist. His aversion to using words like truth (as you say) as well as his seeming obsession with scientific rationalism seem to support this. If one were to (as Dewey suggests in Democracy and Education) critically evaluate the bases of the pure rational idealism of past philosophers such as (I think) Plato, Descartes, Aristotle, and Hegel in favor of action based system of pragmatism, wouldn't one ultimately come to Dewey's conclusions about meaning and perhaps atheism? As a materialist myself, I think that Dewey makes good sense in this. If we could, for arguments sake, presuppose that God is not real and that atheism is a good thing (as some do believe), then couldn't Dewey's notions also be good or correct? Basically, is Dewey a materialist, and if materialism were "true," then wouldn't he be right? Some quotes from Sartre seem to help me clear up the idea of the "hypnotic daze" as being a situation (as I believe Dewey believed it to be) a situation one endures and must make meaning from via action (reflected in Sartre's ideas) as well as the seemingly too-human suffering that humans experience in reference to you speak of. Can there not still be meaning, even if it has to be made BY us, in life without purpose or metaphysical forces or direction?
- "God is absence. God is the solitude of man."
-"That God does not exist, I cannot deny. That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget."
If I am being too simple or are simply wrong about this, then I still get a sense that perhaps some existentialist or post-modern thinkers might still find problems with your critique of Dewey's interpretation of truth and experience, or as you say "deeper experience," which I gather to be of the metaphysical sense. Would you be able to state the argument more clearly from the other side? I would appreciate it greatly if you could take time for a stranger. If you have any resources or must-read materials, then I'd appreciate knowing of them so that I can learn more about this. I hope that you can interpret this enormous message as a sign of respect rather than a challenge or atheist "God debate" or anything, as I am only trying to learn as much as possible so that I too can become the best possible kind of teacher. Thank you for your time and thoughts or for at least entertaining my silliness. : )

[@seansteel8128]

Ivantheterrible666 Hi Bryan. Thanks for writing to me. I hope your studies in Philosophy are going well, and that you're enjoying yourself. Are you planning on becoming a teacher like your dad? It is a great career, and it needs thoughtful people such as yourself.
I've read your post a couple of times through, and I'm not sure exactly how to respond to it, but I'll start with the quote that "stood out for you" -- the one about how mind is always associated with doing or acting upon the world to produce results. That is very Deweyan. It's also very modern. My point in discussing that/focusing upon that element in Dewey is that it is a reduction of what we are as human beings, and of what our minds are, too, I think. Here, I think Dewey's feud with the ancients and the medieval writers is most pronounced, too. Because they saw a kind of passive aspect to the mind and to knowing that Dewey rejects. If the mind is all about being "active" and going out there and making stuff happen/changing the environment, then there are whole aspects of knowing that kind of get kicked to the curb, don't they?
In your philosophy classes, did they ever ask you to read Martin Buber's I and Thou? I think you might like that book. What counts as knowing for Dewey is I-It experience, that knowing-as-object stuff we do every day... or when we pick a thing apart in order to know it, or when we master nature through technology... all that stuff is I-It knowing. And there sure is a lot we can learn about the world and ourselves that way, right?
But is that the ONLY way we learn?
Hence, Buber's discussion of "I-Thou" relational knowing. That's what you do when you don't encounter the world, yourself, or others as objects or "Its," but when you meet them as persons. You know them by loving them, eh? And yup, there's an active component to loving. But there's also a passive aspect, no? That's why love is a "passion." That's why we talk about "falling" in love. Moreover, it's really the foundational bit about knowledge and coming to know. Because Yeah, we love (active), but we wouldn't ever start loving if it weren't for our being affected (passive) by the beautiful, eh? Our very ability to act is premised upon the action of the beautiful upon us. That sort of idea is implicit in Plato's image of the sun and its rays as they shine down upon us. We gaze upward; we suffer love passively (in Greek the word PASCHO means both "to suffer" and "to experience") in the light of the Beautiful, and then we respond to its attractions. Same goes for Aristotle, really, where he talks about the Unmoved Mover in his Metaphysics, and how it is kind of like a big magnet that pulls us. Same goes for Christian notions of Grace, or if you look at Shin Buddhism and their talk about self vs. other power, and the need for the nembutsu.
That's getting a bit side-tracked with examples maybe you're not familiar with... so don't worry too much about them. Honestly, I'd say the best way to approach Dewey is always to measure what he says against your own experiences. Same goes for online TH-cam lectures. For ME, the problem I have with Dewey is that I have all kinds of things that I've experienced -- elements of me, the world, and other folks who I love -- who simply are NOT addressed or acknowledged by Dewey's thought. There are entire vistas of my being, of your being, or the world, that Dewey would have us dismiss. I'm uncomfortable with that. I'd never ask my own students to shut down to such things, and I don't like that Dewey would encourage such a reduction. If you want to see/hear in some more depth about my thoughts on this, I have a book on the subject called "The Pursuit of Wisdom and Happiness in Education" (SUNY Press, 2014). I've also discussed Dewey with a bit more depth in another TH-cam lecture in my series on "Modern Views of Wisdom" (th-cam.com/video/HROxtloYx2g/w-d-xo.html). You'll find the Dewey stuff starting around 58 mins.
I don't mean to denigrate any of your thoughts/feelings about "materialism," Bryan. Very likely, something in your own experiences of the world and of yourself has made this understanding most enticing for you. Something about that conception of things satisfies you, eh? What is it? Are there aspects of that account of the world that seem a bit "off" to you? What might those be?
Sometimes when you're reading your philosophy books, I bet you find that an author seems not to speak to you in a way that resonates deeply with your own experiences, eh? Sometimes it's quite the opposite, of course... and sometimes, a book will articulate something/help to unfold something inside of you that maybe you've experienced, but only in a dim way... maybe because you never really had the words to think about it and so hold the thing in front of your eyes before. That -- I bet! -- is one of the allures of philosophy for you? If you're going to be a teacher, you'll find that your students may also be excited by such a prospect for learning. Philosophizing with your students can be really rewarding.
Good luck!
Sean

[@jqb18]

Hello! So just for my own understanding scholia means leisure and this is what school was meant to be in the olden days. Currently, school is only work because of all the useless testing and busy work teachers distribute?

[@seansteel8128]

jqb18 Something like that. Schole is a very old word that denotes a very special activity of human beings. Classically, it was understood as the highest form of human activity that we might engage in when we put all else aside -- all our practical concerns and wants and worries and ambitions and whatnot... Aristotle calls it the highest activity of the best part of the soul in relation to its most perfect/sublime object. YOU engage in schole whenever your mind/heart hits upon something beautiful, and you want to know more about it... you want to know ALL about it... you love that beauty so much you seek out its "ground," see? That's schole. That's contemplation. That's philosophy. And I'd say that's what you're doing whenever you are a lover of beauty, or a philokalos, as Socrates calls such a person in the Phaedrus.
And yes... our modern-day ideas of "schooling" are not really attuned to that. But if YOU are studying to be a teacher, you can try your very best to cultivate that "leisurizing" sort of environment in your own classroom, right? Good luck!

[@jqb18]

Ok. Thank you.