Reconstruction in Philosophy - Softcover

Dewey, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486434389 ISBN 13: 9780486434384

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2004

Synopsis

"A modern classic. Dewey's lectures have lost none of their vigor ... The historical approach, which underlay the central argument, is beautifully exemplified in his treatments of the origin of philosophy." — Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
"It was with this book that Dewey fully launched his campaign for experimental philosophy." — The New Republic.
Written shortly after the shattering effects of World War I, John Dewey's Reconstruction in Philosophy offers an insightful introduction to the concept of pragmatic humanism. The eminent philosopher presents persuasive arguments against traditional philosophical constructs, suggesting their basis in self-justification; instead, he proposes an examination of core values in terms of their ultimate effects on the self and others. Dewey's experimental philosophy represented a significant departure from its predecessor, utilitarianism, and it was received with both outrage and acclaim for daring to mingle ethics and science.
Delivered in 1919 as a series of lectures at Tokyo's Imperial University of Japan, Dewey's landmark work appears here in an enlarged edition that features an informative introduction by the author, written more than 25 years after the book's initial publication.

About this title

Review:

For those of us trying to make sense of the world and the institutions we devise to cope with it, John Dewey's Reconstruction in Philosophy offers tremendous insight. Writing a few years after World War I, the highly regarded American philosopher chose to embrace the modern sense of scientific optimism and apply it to the search for truth. He argued forcefully that our philosophical constructions are not based in reason, but only use higher thinking to justify themselves, and that we might find better ways of living if we examine our deepest beliefs and feelings with an eye toward their ultimate effects on us and others. This experimental philosophy, pragmatism, took several steps beyond the previous century's utilitarianism and was both hailed and reviled as a subsumption of philosophy and ethics into science.

Written as lectures, Reconstruction in Philosophy is marginally less dry than other philosophical tracts, but for readers new to the jargon, some sections can be slow-going. The pleasure of Dewey's works, though, comes from the intellectual stimulation of following a brilliant mind into then-uncharted epistemological territory. The last chapter, "Reconstruction As Affecting Social Philosophy," foreshadows so much 20th-century political thinking--from across the spectrum--that it ought to be required reading in high school civics classes. Did pragmatism change our lives for the better? The very fact that we can ask such a question is Dewey's legacy; the answer must remain an open question. --Rob Lightner

From the Back Cover:

The basic postulate of the text: namely, that the distinctive office, problems and subjectmatter of philosophy grow out of stresses and strains in the community life in which a given form of philosophy arises, and that its specific problems vary with the changes in human life that are always going on.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0486434389
• ISBN 13: 9780486434384
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176