John Dewey, Confucius, and Global Philosophy (review)

to many dimensions of Whitehead's thought in their present and continu- 7° ing significance. In short, it is a major contribution to Whitehead studies. . Nancy K. Frankenberry ¡~* Department of Religious Studies such works as Experience and Nature, Reconstruction in Philosophy, The Public and Its Problems, and Art as Experience. He does not cite A Common Faith, which retrenched the religious individualism of Emerson and William James, though it runs as an undercurrent in Grange's elaboration, submerging Con- ^ fucius's far more transcendent religiosity in its undertow. The reader may ask here whether this is an accurate rendering of Confucius or an anachronistic "mis-reading" in the fashionable postmodern style. The problem is a pervasive one insofar as Grange declares himself committed to a recent transliteration of Confucian terms which breaks away from over two millennia of interpretation of Confucian and Neo-Confucian teachings in the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean traditions, as well as from the standard translations of contemporary East Asian scholarship. 2 A sign of such a revisionist reading occurs in this work's reference to Confucius' concept of Heaven (tian) as the transcendent basis of the moral order. This concept of Heaven has been standard for interpretation of the works of Confucius and Mencius, and foundational as well for an ensuing twenty-five hundred year history of orthodox transmission of the pristine teachings. It is counterintuitive to think that the concept can now be "secularized " to accord with Dewey's A Common Faith. Grange tucks this crucial issue away in a footnote in reference to an ongoing debate within comparative philosophy—in effect, as an intramural issue "that needs further debate if global philosophy is to become a truly planetary integrative force" (p. 117, fn. I6).3 The putative debate, however, is truer to Dewey than to Confucius. Dewey's pragmatism is front and center in regarding ancient philosophies as having provided past answers to past problems that are now obsolete. Even the more recent Western philosophies appeared to Dewey to have left a tangle of dualisms to be overcome by a more contemporary set of resolutions. Dewey famously exemplifies a modern historical consciousness whose evolutionary focus called for "the reconstruction of philosophy today." He envisioned post-Darwinian philosophy to serve as a "criticism of criticisms" functioning as fresh point of departure into the brave new open-ended future. His concept of the progressive curriculum with its cooperative learning and constructivist learning models were keynoted to "growth for growth's sake." None of this even remotely sounds like Confucius. For his part, Confucius sought to reinvigorate the mythic models of high antiquity. He philosophized in a culture which had strong ties to its mythic past and which reverenced its legendary sage kings as efficacious paradigms for all times. His full gamut of ritual enactments (//) presupposed such a perennial "eternal present."Thus he "studied the old to know the new." And he drew a sharp line between the exemplary Confucian gentleman (junzt) and the ' inferior types of persons" (hsiao ren), the partisan types who are always in the majority in the private and public spheres of life. Grange s book, then, has to prove its point. Like much of Dewey's writors ings, it is in fact oriented to a "social studies" approach as distinguished m in from serious historical understanding. An example of this is that it does not 7° inform the reader of the historical facts connected with Dewey's almost ., two-year sojourn in China. AU we learn from this book is that Dewey picked up the title of "Second Confucius" in receiving an honorary degree at the National University of China (no date is given). The reader is entitled here to have Grange set the record straight of Dewey's activities and lectures in China, as well as providing an assessment of the net pragmatic effect of his presence and teaching in China, Japan, and other countties he visited as a quasi-ambassador of "American" values. These pertinent historical details are elided, when the prevailing testimony of the historians is to the effect that Dewey—and such prominent followers as Dr. Hu Shih (who interpreted for Dewey in China, lectured in the U...