In this Book
- Becoming John Dewey: Dilemmas of a Philosopher and Naturalist
- Book
- 2002
- Published by: Indiana University Press
As one of America's "public intellectuals," John Dewey was engaged in a lifelong struggle to understand the human mind and the nature of human inquiry. According to Thomas C. Dalton, the successful pursuit of this mission demanded that Dewey become more than just a philosopher; it compelled him to become thoroughly familiar with the theories and methods of physics, psychology, and neurosciences, as well as become engaged in educational and social reform. Tapping archival sources and Dewey's extensive correspondence, Dalton reveals that Dewey had close personal and intellectual ties to scientists and scholars who helped form the mature expression of his thought. Dewey's relationships with F. M. Alexander, Henri Matisse, Niels Bohr, Myrtle McGraw, and Lawrence K. Frank, among others, show how Dewey dispersed pragmatism throughout American thought and culture.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- pp. ix-xi
- Part One: Sublime Reason and the Comforts of Doubt
- One: From Calvinism to Evolutionism
- pp. 23-40
- Two: Healing an “Inward Laceration”
- pp. 41-61
- Three: Experimentalist in the Making
- pp. 62-82
- Part Two: Rendezvous with the New York Avant-Garde
- Five: Cultural Disillusionment
- pp. 104-124
- Six: The Evolution of Mind in Nature
- pp. 125-146
- Part Three: The Transformational Potential of Consciousness in Art, Politics, and Science
- Nine: The Function of Judgment in Inquiry
- pp. 199-229
- Ten: Locomotion as a Metaphor for Mind
- pp. 230-251
- Part Four: Naturalism Lost and Found
- Bibliography
- pp. 345-364