Democracy as experimentalism and experimentalism as anti-dogmatism: John Dewey and the Theory of Education today

Juan Saharrea; Fabio  Campeotto; Claudio Marcelo Viale

doi:10.23925/2316-5278.2022v23i1:e58434

Authors

Juan Saharrea Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba/CONICET https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4149-5428
Fabio Campeotto Catholic University of Córdoba, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Córdoba https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7590-7027
Claudio Marcelo Viale Catholic University of Córdoba, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Córdoba https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3968-1646

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23925/2316-5278.2022v23i1:e58434

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to reconstruct Dewey’s conception of experimentalism, mainly through his pedagogical writings, on the one hand; and to show the relevance of this reconstruction to current reassessments of Dewey’s political thought, on the other. The grounds for our perspective have a double character too. Firstly, we reconstruct the links between experimentalism and education on the basis of the first edition of How We Think (1910, MW 6), perhaps one of Dewey’s most noteworthy pedagogical texts. Secondly, we critically address three different reassessments of Dewey’s experimentalism in contemporary political thought, namely: 1) Pappas’s defense of Dewey’s substantive idea of democracy; 2) Forstenzer’s proposal of Deweyan experimentalism as an appropriate methodology for political philosophy; and 3) Anderson’s vindication of Deweyan experimental democracy in the context of social epistemology. It is sustained that in HWT Dewey places experimentalism as a kind of antidote against dogmatism and unreflective ways of reasoning. Thus, he links experimentalism with anti-dogmatism placing a special role in schooling for at least two reasons: 1) it is in the schooling phase that children are still sensitive to the development of certain habits; 2) dogmatism seems inevitable in any society but the educational phase is a key instance to try to avoid it. Neither (1) nor (2) are present in contemporary reassessments of Deweyan experimentalism.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

References

ANDERSON, Elizabeth. The Epistemology of Democracy. Episteme: A Journal of Social Episte- mology, v. 3, n. 1-2, p. 8-22, 2006. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/epi.2006.3.1-2.8

BEATTY, Barbara. John Dewey’s High Hope for Play: Democracy and Education and Progres- sive Era Controversies over Play in Kindergarten and Preschool Education. The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, v. 16, n. 4, p. 424-437, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/ S1537781417000317

CAMPEOTTO, Fabio; SAHARREA, Juan; VIALE, Claudio M. Art as Occupations: Two Neglect- ed Roots of John Dewey’s Aesthetics. The Pluralist, 2022. (in press).

CAMPEOTTO, Fabio; VIALE, Claudio M. Arte como experiencia: Pasado y presente. Ideas y va- lores, v. 70, n. 175, p. 117-138, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15446/ideasyvalores.v70n175.66898

CRICK, Nathan. Dewey for a New Age of Fascism: Teaching Democratic Habits. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019.

CRICK, Nathan. Fascism and the American Way of Life. Dewey Studies, v. 4, n.1, p. 35-40, 2020. COWLES, Harry M. The Scientific Method: An Evolution of Thinking from Darwin to Dewey.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020.

DEWEY, John. Contributions to A Cyclopedia of Education: Volumes 3,4 and 5. 1912-14. In: BOYDSTON, J. A. (ed.). The Middle Works of John Dewey, v. 7. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1912-14] 1978. p. 209-366.

DEWEY, John. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. In: BOYDSTON, J. A. (ed.). The Middle Works of John Dewey, v. 9. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1916a] 1980.

DEWEY, John. Essays in Experimental Logic. In: BOYDSTON, J. A. (ed.). The Middle Works of John Dewey, v. 10. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1916b] 1980. p. 319-395.

DEWEY, John. How We Think. In: BOYDSTON, J. A. (ed.). The Middle Works of John Dewey, v. 6. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1910] 1978. p. 177-356.

DEWEY, John. Liberalism and Social Action. In: BOYDSTON, J. A. (ed.), The Later Works of John Dewey, v. 11. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1935] 1987. p. 2-69.

DEWEY, John. Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. In: BOYDSTON, J.A. (ed.). The Later Works of John Dewey, v. 12. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1938] 1987.

DEWEY, John. Studies in Logical Theory. In: BOYDSTON, J. A. (ed.). The Middle Works of John Dewey, v. 2. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1903] 1976. p. 294-383.

DEWEY, John. The Bearings of Pragmatism Upon Education. In: BOYDSTON, J. A. (ed.). The Middle Works of John Dewey, v. 4. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1908-09] 1977. p. 179-192.

DEWEY, John. The Quest for Certainty. In: BOYDSTON, J. A. (ed.), The Later Works of John Dewey, v. 4. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1929] 1984. p. 3-259.

DEWEY, John. The School and Society. In: BOYDSTON, J. A. (ed.). The Middle Works of John Dewey, v. 1. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, [1899] 1976. p. 1-110.

DOOLEY, Patrick K. Correct Habits and Moral Character: John Dewey and Traditional Education. Journal of Thought, v. 26, n. 3, p. 31-45, 1991.

FALLACE, T. John Dewey and the savage mind: uniting anthropological, psychological, and pe- dagogical thought, 1894–1902. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, v. 44, n. 3, p. 335–349, 2008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.20328

FORSTENZER, Joshua. Deweyan Experimentalism and the Problem of Method in Political Philos- ophy. New York: Routledge, 2020.

GROSS, Karl. The Play of Animals. Baldwin, E. L. (trans.). New York: Appleton, 1898.

GROSS, Karl. The Play of Men. Baldwin, E. L. (trans.). New York: Appleton, 1901.

HICKMAN, Larry A. Socialization, Social Efficiency, and Social Control: Putting Pragmatism to Work. In: HANSEN, D. T. (ed.). John Dewey and Our Educational Prospect: A Critical Engage- ment with Dewey’s Democracy and Education. Albany: SUNY Press, 2006. p. 67-80.

HILDEBRAND, David. Dewey. Oxford: OneWorld, 2008.

HOBHOUSE, Leonard T. Mind in Evolution. New York and London: Macmillan, 1901. HONNETH, Axel. Die Idee des Sozialismus: Versuch einer Aktualisierung. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2015.

JAMES, William. Talks to Teachers in Psychology: New Edition with an Introduction by John Dewey and William H. Kilpatrick. New York: Henry Holt and Company, [1899] 1939.

JOHNSTON, James S. Authority, Social Change and Education. A Response to Dewey’s Critics. Education & Culture, v. 17, n. 2, p. 1-10, 2001.

JOHNSTON, James S. The Logic of Democracy and Education. Education Sciences, v. 7, n. 42, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci7020042

KNOLL, Michael. Laboratory School - The University of Chicago. In: PHILLIPS, D. C. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy, v. 2. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2014. p. 455-458.

KOTZEE, Ben. “Introduction”. In: KOTZEE B. Education and the Growth of Knowledge: Per- spectives from Social and Virtue Epistemology. Chichester (West Sussex) Blackwell, 2014. p. 1-13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118721254

LEKAN, Todd. The Mask as Metaphor: Deweyan Reflections in Time of a Pandemic. Dewey Stud- ies, V. 4, n 1, pp. 96-101, 2020.

MARTIN, Jay. The Education of John Dewey. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

PAPPAS, Gregory F. What Would John Dewey Say About Deliberative Democracy and Dem- ocratic Experimentalism?. Contemporary Pragmatism, v. 9, n. 2, p. 57-74, 2012. https://doi. org/10.1163/18758185-90000230

POINT, Cristophe; VUILLEROD, Jean-Baptiste. Thinking the Problem: From Dewey to He- gel. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, v. 55, n. 4, p. 408-428, 2019. DOI: https://doi. org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.55.4.03

PUTNAM, Hilary. Renewing Philosophy. Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992. RORTY, R. Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays: 1972-1980. Minneapolis: University of Minne-

sota Press, 1982.

SAHARREA, J. M.; CAMPEOTTO, F.; VIALE, C. M. Una introducción a Las implicancias del pragmatismo para la educación. Tópicos: Revista de filosofía de Santa Fe, v. 43, p. 306-331, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14409/topicos.v0i43.11898

SAHARREA, Juan; VIALE, Claudio, M. Pragmatismo, método y educación: Dewey y Rorty acer- ca de How We Think. Análisis Filosófico, v. 41, n. 2, p. 198-229, 2021. https://doi.org/10.36446/ af.2021.435

SCHMIDT, Margaret; ALLSUP, Randall E. John Dewey and Teacher Education. In: LAMPERT, J. (ed.). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

TALISSE, Robert. Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in its Place. New York: Ox- ford University Press, 2019.

TANNER, Laurel N. Dewey’s Laboratory School: Lessons for Today. New York: Teachers College Press, 1997.

THOMAS, William I. The Gaming Instinct. American Journal of Sociology, v. 6, p. 750-763, 1901. https://doi.org/10.1086/211017

WAKS, Leonard. Post-experimentalist pragmatism. Studies in Philosophy and Education, v. 17, p. 17-29, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004937320174

WESTBROOK, Robert B. Schools for Industrial Democrats: The Social Origins of John Dewey’s Philosophy of Education. American Journal of Education, v. 100, n. 4, p. 401-419, 1992. https:// doi.org/10.1086/444023