John Dewey: The Reconstruction of the Democratic Life

141 Pages·1951·21.421 MB·English

by  Jerome Nathanson

John Dewey
TWENTIETH CENTURY LIBRARY
HIRAM HAYDN, editor
Published:
JOHN DEWEY by Jerome Nathanson
SIGMUND FREUD by Gregory Zilboorg
JAMES JOYCE by W. Y. Tindall
CHARLES DARWIN by Paul B. Sears
ALBERT EINSTEIN by Leopold Infeld
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW by Edmund Fuller
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY by Rene FueIoe”-Miller
WILLIAM JAMES by Lloyd Morris
★
In Preparation:
KARL MARX by Max Lerner
FRANZ BOAS by Melville J. Herskovits
OSWALD SPENGLER by H. Stuart Hughes
ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD by Stanley Newburger
MOHANDAS K. GANDHI by Haridas T. Muzumdar
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE by James Gutmann
THORSTEIN VEBLEN by David Riesman
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES by Seymour Harris
RAYMOND POINCARE by Tobias Dantzig
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
JEROME NATHANSON
John Dewey
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE
DEMOCRATIC LIFE
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, LTD., LONDON
1951
Copyright, 1951, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any form without
the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons
A
To
Rosam

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DESPITE the myth of objectivity, everyone’s interpretation
of another person is peculiarly his own. I am altogether
mindful of this fact in the present interpretation of John
DeweJ. While this is “my” Dewey, I am hopeful that it will prove
to be the Dewey of others as well—not simply because there is
ample warrant in the texts for my interpretation, but because
it seems to me so deeply relevant to the present condition of
mankind.
My chief indebtedness in this work is to Dewey himself. His
writings have been part of me since I first reached intellectual
awareness. In subsequent years, my opportunities for face-to-face
relations with him have been a privilege beyond acknowledgment.
As for the manuscript itself, I have special thanks for the
criticisms and suggestions of Professor Justus Buchler of Co­
lumbia University and Professor Evelyn Urban Shirk of Hofstra
College. If I have not always heeded them, I have neverthe­
less profited greatly from the comments of Professor Joseph L.
Blau of Columbia University, Mr. Gideon Chagy, editor of The
Standard, Mr. Lawrence K. Frank, Dr. Milton R. Sapirstein, and
Dr. V. T. Thayer. The response of Mr. Charles Scribner, Jr., has
meant a great deal to me. Many friends and acquaintances were
kind enough to give me their appraisals of Dewey’s influence in
the fields of their specialization. Mrs. Beverly Gerber has been of
help in many ways other than in the typing of the manuscript.
Only I can be fully aware of my immeasurable debt to Hiram
Haydn, but I hope he has some sense of my feeling about it. And
if it were not for my wife, I am sure I could not fulfill all of my
regular professional obligations, to say nothing of writing books—
her skill as an editor being just another bonanza.

CONTENTS
Chapter I. PHILOSOPHY AND
HUMAN PROBLEMS 1
Chapter n. THE WORLD WE LIVE IN 24
Chapter m. THE POSSIBILITIES OF
HUMAN NATURE 49
Chapter IV. DEMOCRACY AS A WAY OF LIFE 82
Chapter V. ON FIRST AND LAST THINGS 103
APPENDIX
CHRONOLOGY 121
BIBLIOGRAPHY 123
SELECTIVE INDEX 125