The "permanent deposit" of hegelian thought in dewey's theory of inquiry

Educational Theory

Volumn 56, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 1-37

  Garrison, Jim ^a  

^a VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 65249114858     PISSN: 00132004     EISSN: 17415446     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2006.00001.x     Document Type: Article

References (114)

1. For instance, see Andrew J. Reck, "The Influence of William James on John Dewey in Psychology," Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 20, no. 2 (1984): 87-117;
2. and D.C. Phillips, "James, Dewey, and the Reflex Arc," Journal of the History of Ideas 32, no. 4 (1971): 555-568.
3. For instance, see Richard S. Prawat, "The Nominalism Versus Realism Debate: Toward a Philosophical Rather Than a Political Resolution," Educational Theory 53, no. 3 (2003): 275-311.
4. John R. Shook, Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2000);
5. and Thomas C. Dalton, Becoming John Dewey: Dilemmas of a Philosopher and Naturalist (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002). Shook explicitly mentions Andrew Reck and D.C. Phillips as stalwarts of the standard interpretation he wishes to oppose (see Dewey's Empirical Theory, n283). For a review of Dalton's book that both praises the high quality scholarship and bemoans the philosophical weaknesses, see Jim Garrison, "Becoming John Dewey, by Thomas C. Dalton," Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 39, no. 3 (2003): 520-524.
6. Reading James A. Good's book-length manuscript, A Search for Unity in Diversity: Dewey's "Permanent Hegelian Deposit" (currently under contract), also influenced the writing of my essay. When this manuscript is published, I believe it will transform Deweyan scholarship. I would like to thank Jim for sharing his manuscript with me.
7. G.H. Mead, "The Philosophy of John Dewey," International Journal of Ethics 46, no. 1 (1935): 69.
8. Menand argues that Dewey's reflex arc paper "is the key to his thought" while insisting that it is just "biologized Hegel." I agree on both counts.
9. See Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001) 328, 329.
10. John Dewey, "From Absolutism to Experimentalism" (1929), in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, vol. 5, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 154. Nowhere in my paper has emphasis been added to citations.
11. Good identifies many more similarities between Hegel and Dewey, including support for humanistic religion emphasizing moral commitment to civic community, positive freedom, rejection of values as ends in themselves, philosophy as immanent cultural criticism, and the educational concept of bildung, among many other commonalities;
12. see Good, A Search for Unity in Diversity (unpublished manuscript). I endorse Good's claims. Dewey also shared Hegel's critique of the atomistic, asocial, historically decontextualized, innately free, and rational liberal individual of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant, which is why Dewey's view of the individual and society, including his ideas about democracy, remains poorly understood.
13. While Enlightenment philosophers such as Kant, whom we will discuss later, considered rationality an a historical, innate given, Hegel thought it a cultural and historical creation. Since, on this view, rationality (science, or inquiry) is itself a creation, constrained by ethical considerations, Hegel, along with those whose philosophy he helped shape (such as Dewey), rejected the dualistic separation of art, science, and ethics. Dewey, like Hegel, believed that separating thought from feeling and action was an untenable dualism. See John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (1922), in John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol. 14, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), 136-137. The crucial idea here is that of Hegelian unity in diversity (or identity-in-difference), which Dewey naturalized as functional coordination by relying on biological insights.
14. John Dewey, Experience and Nature (1925), in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, vol. 1, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), 283.
15. Ibid., 269.
16. See Jane Dewey, Biography of John Dewey (1939), in The Philosophy of John Dewey, ed. Paul A. Schilpp (Chicago: Open Court, 1989), 18. Though Jane Dewey prepared this biographical statement, she placed these passages in quotes and attributed them to John Dewey. Here, Dewey also acknowledged Hegel's influence on his theory of the social construction of the mind and self, or what he called "social psychology."
17. Ibid.
18. John Dewey, "Hegel's Logic" (1896 lecture notes), Joseph Ratner Papers and Collection of John Dewey, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, 10. Cited in Thomas C. Dalton, "Dewey's Hegelianism Reconsidered: Reclaiming the Lost Soul of Psychology," New Ideas in Psychology 15, no. 1 (1997): 8.
19. Ibid., 11.
20. At this juncture, Dewey used these observations to reconstruct Hegel's notion of Being, Non-being, and Becoming in terms of selective attention, inattention, and reflection. He concluded that "you get something determinate and limited [for example, a thing or a resolved problem] only when you interrupt that process to reflect [that is, inquire] upon it" (p. 12).
21. John Dewey, "Kant and Philosophic Method" (1884), in John Dewey: The Early Works, 1882-1898, vol. 1, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967), 42.
22. Ibid., 45.
23. Ibid., 47.
24. Mead, "The Philosophy of John Dewey," 69.
25. John Dewey, Psychology (1887), in John Dewey: The Early Works, 1882-1898, vol. 2, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967), 177.
26. He added that "Meaning is always universal." This work will be cited as DP in the text for all subsequent references.
27. John Dewey, "How Do Concepts Arise from Percepts?" (1891), in John Dewey: The Early Works, 1882-1898, vol. 3, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969), 143-144.
28. Ibid., 143.
29. This paper appeared in a pedagogical journal, and Dewey interrupted his exposition to assert that the example proves the impossibility of "external or mechanical instruction" (144). Today, we would call this constructivism.
30. Shook, Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality, 169.
31. In the pages that follow, I will identify in Dewey a logical sense of knowledge as the completely definite and distinct end of inquiry that is compatible with an interpretation of Hegel's Absolute and that does not associate it with the metaphysical end of history.
32. According to Dewey, induction and deduction are just phases of a single method; hence, they "will be called one or the other from the aspect that predominates" at any moment in the inquiry (DP, 198).
33. See, for example, Jon Stewart, ed., The Hegel Myths and Legends (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1996).
34. I would like to thank Jim Good for helping work out connections between Hegel's Absolute and Dewey's notion of distinct and definite knowledge as the ultimate goal of inquiry, as well as many other topics. Jim is not responsible for any of my lingering confusions.
35. Tom Burke, Dewey's New Logic: A Reply to Russell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 229.
36. I borrow the title of this section from chapter 1 of Robert B. Westbrook's John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).
37. Shook, Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality, 215. My own sense is that Dewey separated himself more from the neo-Hegelian Absolute of his contemporaries than from Hegel's notion of the Absolute as definite and distinct knowledge.
38. Ibid., chap. 3. In his manuscript, Jim Good makes much of the fact that Hegel abandoned faculty psychology and argued that the mind emerges through interaction with the environment. Good argues, convincingly I think, that this insight led Hegel to a rudimentary functional psychology that Dewey emulated from the beginning.
39. See Stephen Priest, ed., Hegel's Critique of Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
40. See Antje Gimmler, "Pragmatic Aspects of Hegel's Thought," in The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004), 47-66.
41. Hegel developed speculative reason to reconcile the opposites found in Kant's antinomies of pure reason, especially the third antinomy. In his foreword to Phenomenology of Spirit, J.N. Findlay writes that Hegel's "concern is always with the Begriff or universal notional shapes that are evinced in fact and history.a single all-inclusive universal or concept." See G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans.A.V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), vii.
42. John Dewey, "From Absolutism to Experimentalism," 153.
43. See G.E. Mueller, "The Hegel Legend of 'Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis' " (1958), in The Hegel Myths and Legends, ed. Jon Stewart (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 301-305.
44. So well known is this fact among Hegel scholars that Chalybäus is even mentioned in the entry for "Hegel" in The Cambridge Dictionary Of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 315.
45. Allen Wood has observed that "The use of Chalybäus's terminology to expound the Hegelian dialectic is nearly always an unwitting confession that the expositor has little or no firsthand knowledge of Hegel." See Allen W. Wood, Hegel's Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 4.
46. See G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel's Science of Logic, trans. A.V. Miller (1812; repr. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press International, 1969), 775-823.
47. In the translator's preface, Miller mentions that he always translates Hegel's "Begriff" as "Notion." This work will be cited as HSL in the text for all subsequent references.
48. For more on analytic cognition, including empirical science, see 786-793.
49. According to Hegel, even in empirical science, the problem remains the fact that "every determination and connexion is something external" (HSL, 790).
50. Dewey, Experience and Nature, 201.
51. John Dewey, "Contributions to Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology" (1902), in John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol. 2, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), 225. This work will be cited as DPP in the text for all subsequent references.
52. Dewey referred readers to the dictionary entry under " pragmatic" at the start of his exposition of this position.
53. Anyone who reads Hegel's chapter on "Teleology" in the Science of Logic and recognizes its crucial role in the architectonic of that work will realize that converting identity-in-difference into the mean sends function is not that difficult.
54. John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, vol. 12, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986), 17. This work will be cited as LTI in the text for all subsequent references.
55. Charles Sanders Peirce, The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, vol. 1, eds. Nathan Houser and Christian Kloesel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 87.
56. Nathan Houser's introduction to The Essential Peirce, vol.1, is preoccupied with the tensions between Peirce's realism and idealism, but leaves it to the reader to resolve the conflict.
57. Charles Sanders Peirce, The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 1, eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931), 45.
58. See Larry A. Hickman, John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 129.
59. See William James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1 (1890; repr. New York: Dover, 1950), 473.
60. John Dewey, "What Are Universals?" (1938), in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, vol. 11, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), 112. This work will be cited as WAU in the text for all subsequent references.
61. Larry A. Hickman and Thomas M. Alexander, "Introduction," in The Essential Dewey: Pragmatism, Education, Democracy, vol. 1 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), xi.
62. See Ralph Sleeper, The Necessity of Pragmatism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986).
63. By contrast, the thesis that Dewey was a Scotistic realist has been advanced by Prawat in "The Nominalism Versus Realism Debate."
64. John Dewey, Art as Experience (1934), in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, vol. 10, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989), 338.
65. John Dewey, How We Think (1910), in John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol. 6, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 242. This work will be cited as HWT in the text for all subsequent references.
66. Hickman, John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology, 116.
67. Ibid., 116.
68. John Dewey, "Introduction to Essays in Experimental Logic" (1916), in John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol. 10, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 242.
69. John Dewey, "Characteristics and Characters: Kinds and Classes" (1938), in John Dewey: The Later Works, vol. 11, ed. Boydston, 97.
70. Recall that Hegel considered experimental variation a part of analysis.
71. In Logic, Dewey stated that data "is taken rather than given" (LTI, 127).
72. Dewey, "Introduction to Essays in Experimental Logic," 345.
73. John Dewey, "Contributions to A Cyclopedia of Education, vols. 1 and 2" (1911), in John Dewey: The Middle Works, vol. 6, ed. Boydston, 371.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid., 372.
76. Many of the revisions in the later version of How We Think seem designed to allay the false impression of linear steps or a predetermined, fixed method of any kind. The formation of every individual judgment is unique, and we can only know the precise method after the fact.
77. John Dewey, "An Analysis of Reflective Thought" (1922), in John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol. 13, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), 62 and 63.
78. Ibid., 62.
79. Ibid., 63.
80. Dewey, "Characteristics and Characters: Kinds and Classes," 101.
81. Ibid., 99.
82. For Dewey's distinction between concrete, particular existential inference and abstract, universal logical implication, see LTI, 60.
83. Dewey, "Characteristics and Characters: Kinds and Classes," 102 and 103.
84. Dewey, Experience and Nature, 34.
85. This late statement is compatible with the instrumentalism Dewey first formulated fully in 1903.
86. John Dewey, "Qualitative Thought" (1930), in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, vol. 5, ed. Boydston, 255.
87. Dewey provided an aesthetic definition of inquiry that understands the conclusion of inquiry as a beautiful form expressing unity in diversity (of constituent distinctions).
88. In a footnote Dewey did mention the "operations of experimental analysis which determine qualities as traits of a definitive kind" and that the "point has important bearings upon the theory of induction, as pointed out later" (see LTI, chap. 21.) Chapter 21 is the chapter on induction and deduction that we have been discussing.
89. John Dewey, Experience and Education (1938), in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, vol. 13, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), 56-57.
90. Charles Sanders Peirce, The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 6, eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935), 35-65.
91. John Dewey, "The Superstition of Necessity" (1893), in John Dewey: The Early Works, 1882-1898, vol. 4, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971), 29. This work will be cited as SN in the text for all subsequent references.
92. Elsewhere in the paper, he made the now familiar observation that "objects, as known, are not independent of the process of knowing, but are the content of our judgments" (SN, 21).
93. Hegel, Hegel's Science of Logic, 751-752.
94. See Shook, Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality, chap. 3.
95. See Peirce's book review and his letters to Dewey in Charles Sanders Peirce, The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 8, ed. Arthur W. Burks (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958), 188-190 and 239-244, respectively.
96. Charles Sanders Peirce, The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 5, eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935), 555.
97. John Dewey, "An Added Note as to the 'Practical' in Essays in Experimental Logic" (1916), in John Dewey: The Middle Works, vol. 10, ed. Boydston, 368-369. Notice that this is a constructivist account of knowing.
98. Peirce, The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vol. 8, ed. Burks, 123-143.
99. Burke, Dewey's New Logic.
100. John Dewey, "The Logic of Judgments of Practice" (1915), in John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol. 8, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979), 37.
101. See also LTI.
102. Peirce, The Essential Peirce, vol. 2, eds. Houser and Kloesel, 345.
103. Peirce, The Essential Peirce, vol. 1, eds. Houser and Kloesel, 139.
104. John Dewey, "The Inclusive Philosophic Idea" (1928), in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, vol. 3, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 41-54.
105. Just as Jim Good helped me see how likely it is that Hegel was not telling an end of history story, conversations with Vincent Colapietro helped me see that Peirce was probably not telling an end of history story either. As with Jim, Vincent is not responsible for any of my lingering confusions.
106. John Dewey, "The Reflex Arc Concept" (1896), in John Dewey: The Early Works, 1882-1898, vol. 5, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972), 96-109.
107. I urge those interested in the details to consult Buxton, and Backe along with the work of Shook and Dalton. See Michael Buxton, "The Influence of William James on John Dewey's Early Work," Journal of the History of Ideas 45, no. 3 (1984): 451-463;
108. Andrew Backe, "Dewey and the Reflex Arc: The Limits of James' Influence," Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 35, no. 2 (1999): 312-326;
109. and Andrew Backe, "John Dewey and Early Chicago Functionalism," History of Psychology 4, no. 4 (2001): 323-340.
110. See also Shook, Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality, and Dalton, Becoming John Dewey.
111. Personally, I do think reading Peirce even before 1915 was useful for Dewey, although not quite for the reasons Prawat provides or to the extent that he proclaims.
112. Prawat, "The Nominalism Versus Realism Debate," 298. It seems that Prawat mistakenly attributes this passage to Dewey, when in fact it is a reference to a paper written by Hugo Mü nsterberg. Dewey actually rejected Mü nsterberg's methodology;
113. see John Dewey, Ethics (1908), in John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol. 3, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977),145-150.
114. Further, a CD-ROM search of the critical edition of Dewey's Collected Works using the intersection of "synthesis," "analysis," and "James" yielded no hits. I also tried "James's" along with other combinations. I found nothing to indicate that Dewey even once referred directly to James's discussion of analysis and synthesis, though there are some references to analysis. On the other hand, there were multiple hits at the intersection of "synthesis," "analysis," and "Hegel."