In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

SECTION VI The Standard 1. The Standard as an Ideal with Worth Lecture XXIV. November 22,1900 THE NATURE OF the standard has already been discussed in speaking of the ideal. It is only necessary to call attention to a certain phase of the ideal and [we] get a preliminary definition of the nature of the standard. We have been insisting on the fact that an ideal, to be valid, must act as a principle of interpretation on the psychological side and as a method of control or direction on the practical side. The valid ideal, or the ideal which has been consciously conceived as ideal with reference to its capacity to perform these functions, is the standard. The difference between the ideal and the standard is not a difference in subject matter or content but simply a difference of the degree of consciousness in use. If we form ideals and utilize them without any critical consciousness of what we are doing, we have no standard in the conscious sense ofa standard. But the moment we look at our ideal critically and see how far it does fulfil the two functions, and come to the conclusion that it does have worth because it does relatively fulfil those needs, we have a standard. Mental content as a projection of a harmonized unity with reference to the existing situation is an ideal. But when we have fairly worked out our projection and then bring that projected scheme to bear upon a given situation and [then] attempt to measure and interpret more thoroughly the existing situation in the light ofthat ideal, it begins to lose its significance as an ideal and gain one as standard, or criterion, or norm. It is the retrospective use which gives us the standard. In logical terms it is precisely the relation which exists between induction and deduction, or between the hypothesis when our chief interest is still in forming a hypothesis and we are still involved with 69 70 John Dewey the mental task of finding a hypothesis which we are willing to accept even as a hypothesis; and deduction, or what takes place in so far as, for the time being at least, we accept our tentative hypothesis as a working one and begin to apply it to the interpretation offacts and the performance of experimentation. In induction the logical emphasis is clearly forward. We are occupied with building up a thought. We do it simply because we expect that the thought will be valid. But we have not yet reached the point oftesting its validity. We have to clear up our mental images and conceptions as images,l and so far as our interest is in getting an idea which we are willing to accept just as an idea, we are in the negative stage which corresponds to the formation of an ideal. Of course, at every marked point in the rhythm of forming an ideal we utilize the ideal. We build it up only by a series of applications. So far as our interest is in the application ofthe ideal and we utilize it for interpreting the existing situation to see whether the ideal will work or not, we are within the sphere of the standard. The point is that the difference is one of function rather than of content. The difference in attitude necessitates a difference in content, but it is not that which makes the difference between the ideal and the standard. It is perhaps a fairly common conception that the good, the ideal, is one thing. And the moral law, the standard, is something else. The logic of asceticism, of self-sacrifice, rests on exactly this assumption: That man's good is something which is morally evil and therefore he must turn away from it and thwart the flesh in all possible forms, and make himself as miserable as possible. Because only in that way can he fulfil the requirements ofthe moral criterion or law. A difference is assumed between [moral] practice and interest. [First,] it would be clear, ofcourse, that it is in a logical rather than a temporal sense that the standard comes after the ideal. They would psychologically and historically occur together because we continually form and re-form our ideals only by applying them. In a logical sense, however, the standard may be said to represent a later state ofdevelopment because it involves a more critical view of the ideal, making conscious what is involved in the...

Share