John Dewey

Lore & Background

Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, to a family of modest means. He was one of four boys born to Archibald Sprague Dewey and Lucina Artemisia Rich Dewey. He attended the University of Vermont, where he was initiated into Delta Psi, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1879. After two years as a high-school teacher in Oil City, Pennsylvania, and one year as an elementary school teacher in Charlotte, Vermont, he decided he was unsuited for teaching primary or secondary school.

He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1884. His unpublished and now lost dissertation was titled 'The Psychology of Kant'. He accepted a faculty position at the University of Michigan (1884–88 and 1889–94). In 1894, he joined the University of Chicago (1894–1904) where he developed his belief in Rational Empiricism, becoming associated with the newly emerging Pragmatic philosophy.

He founded the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he was able to apply and test his progressive ideas on pedagogical method. Disagreements with the administration caused his resignation. From 1904 until his retirement in 1930 he was professor of philosophy at Teachers College, Columbia University. In 1899, he was elected president of the American Psychological Association.

In 1905, he became president of the American Philosophical Association. He was a longtime member of the American Federation of Teachers. Along with Charles A. Beard, James Harvey Robinson, and Thorstein Veblen, he is one of the founders of The New School. He published more than 700 articles and approximately 40 books.

Reader's Guide

The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy. He considered schools and civil society to be major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. He asserted that complete democracy required not just extending voting rights but also a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts, and politicians. Dewey was one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the founding thinkers of functional psychology.

His paper 'The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology' (1896) is regarded as the first major work in the functionalist school of psychology. He was a major educational reformer and a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. He wrote about epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, logic, social theory, and ethics.