The scope of John Dewey's writings — ranging from aesthetics and education to legal and political theory — and his role in the development of twentieth-century philosophy have helped make him a continuing influence on contemporary thought. One of his most significant contributions to the theory of knowledge lay in his application of the principles of instrumentalism to traditional approaches to logical theory. Essays in Experimental Logic contains 14 of Dewey's most profound papers on many different aspects of knowledge, reality, and epistemology.
These papers on experimental logic are based on the theory that possession of knowledge implies a judgment, resulting from an inquiry or investigation. The presence of this "inquiry stage" suggests an intermediate and mediating phase between the external world and knowledge, an area conditioned by other factors. Expanding upon this foundation, these papers consider the relationship of thought and its subject matter; the antecedents and stimuli of thought, data, and meanings; the objects of thought; control of ideas by facts; and similar topics.
Three papers describe the various kinds of philosophical realism. The first closely examines Bertrand Russell's dictum concerning "our knowledge of the external world as a field for scientific method"; the other two discuss pragmatism, differentiating Dewey's position from those of James and Peirce. These essays present their author's most easily followed account of his own philosophy. The section entitled "Stage of Logical Thought" analyzes the role of scientific method in philosophy, and the final essay presents a striking theory of a logic of values.
John Dewey(1859 1952) was anAmerican philosopher, psychologistandeducational reformerwhose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy ofpragmatismand one of the founders offunctional psychology. He was a major representative ofprogressive educationandliberalism.In 1894 Dewey joined the newly foundedUniversity of Chicago(1894 1904) where he developed his belief in an empirically based theory of knowledge, becoming associated with the newly emerging Pragmatic philosophy. His time at the University of Chicago resulted in four essays collectively entitledThought and its Subject-Matter, which was published with collected works from his colleagues at Chicago under the collective titleStudies in Logical Theory(1903). During that time Dewey also initiated theUniversity of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he was able to actualize the pedagogical beliefs that provided material for his first major work on education, The School and Social Progress(1899).In 1899, Dewey was elected president of theAmerican Psychological Association. From 1904 until his retirement in 1930 he was professor of philosophy at both Columbia Universityand Columbia University'sTeachers College.In 1905 he became president of theAmerican Philosophical Association. He was a longtime member of theAmerican Federation of Teachers.
