Dewey and the Ancients: Essays on Hellenic and Hellenistic Themes in the Philosophy of John Dewey 9781472510556, 9781472594228, 9781472509451

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Note on Conventions
Dewey and the Ancients: Editor’s Introduction
Notes
References
Part I: Dewey and the Greek Tradition
1 Dewey and Ancient Philosophies: The Unfinished Cultural Project
Dewey and ancient philosophies
Dewey and Plato
Dewey and Aristotle
Pedagogy and the professionalism of philosophy
Dewey’s view of philosophy
Human nature
The unfinished project
Conclusion
Notes
References
2 Potentiality and Naturalism: Dewey’s Metaphysical Metamorphosis
Dewey’s metamorphosis
Dewey’s analysis of the crisis of Western philosophy
Dewey’s reintroduction of potentiality into nature
Notes
References
3 Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy
The organic spirit of Greek philosophy
Organicism and the development of Dewey’s naturalism
Knowledge as “doing”
The “instrumental” features of knowledge
The non-propositional elements of knowledge
Knowledge, praxis, cosmos—habit and growth
Transaction and non-linear growth
Notes
References
Part II: Dewey and Plato
4 Let Education in the Cave: Reclaiming a Progressive Political Role for the Individual in a Modern Democracy
Reflections on Plato’s views on education, individuality and democracy
Dewey on the role of the individual in a modern democracy
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
5 The Dialogues as Dramatic Rehearsal: Plato’s Republic and the Moral Accounting Metaphor
Notes
References
6 Justice in Society and the Individual: A Comparison of Plato’s Republic and Dewey’s Great Community
Notes
References
Part III: Dewey and Aristotle
7 Dewey, Aristotle and the Spectator Theory of Knowledge
The Problem of Knowledge
Dewey’s uncharitable reading
Shifting the paradigm
Notes
References
8 Beyond Fixed Ends and Limited Moral Community: Aristotle, Dewey, and Contemporary Applications in Ethics
Habit and character in Aristotle’s ethics
Beyond fixed ends: Dewey’s social ethics
Aristotle and Dewey after Darwin
Virtue, care, and expanding moral relationships: Contemporary applications in ethics
Notes
References
9 How to Make Our Passions Clear: How Aristotle’s Understanding of the Passions Enriches Dewey’s Conception of Changing Human Nature
Dewey, Aristotle, and human nature: The line in the sand
Aristotle on the nature of the passions
Towards understanding the passions
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part IV: Dewey and Hellenistic Thought
10 Epicurean Pragmatism
Notes
References
11 The Peace of the Sword: Dewey and Pyrrhonian Skepticism
The new peace
Ancient skepticism
Experience, doubt, and inquiry
The quest for certainty
The moral dimension
Precarious truth
References
Index

Citation preview

Dewey and the Ancients

Bloomsbury Studies in American Philosophy Bloomsbury Studies in American Philosophy presents cutting-edge scholarship in both the history of and contemporary movements in American philosophy. The wholly original arguments, perspectives and research findings in titles in this series make it an important and stimulating resource for students and academics from across the field. America’s First Women Philosophers, Dorothy G. Rogers Feminist Epistemology and American Pragmatism, Alexandra L. Shuford John Searle and the Construction of Social Reality, Joshua Rust The Legacy of John Rawls, edited by Thom Brooks and Fabian Freyenhagen Nozick, Autonomy and Compensation, Dale F. Murray Peirce, James, and a Pragmatic Philosophy of Religion, John W. Woell Peirce’s Philosophy of Communication, Mats Bergman Peirce’s Pragmatic Theory of Inquiry, Elizabeth Cooke Philosophy of History After Hayden White, edited by Robert Doran Pragmatist Metaphysics, Sami Pihlström Quine on Meaning, Eve Gaudet Quine’s Naturalism, Paul A. Gregory Reality and Its Appearance, Nicholas Rescher Relativism in Contemporary American Philosophy, Timothy M. Mosteller Richard Rorty’s New Pragmatism, Edward J. Grippe Richard Rorty: From Pragmatist Philosophy to Cultural Politics, edited by Alexander Gröschner, Colin Koopman and Mike Sandbothe Thomas Kuhn’s Revolution, James A. Marcum Varieties of Pragmatism, Douglas McDermid Virtue Ethics: Dewey and MacIntyre, Stephen Carden

Dewey and the Ancients Essays on Hellenic and Hellenistic Themes in the Philosophy of John Dewey Edited by Christopher C. Kirby

Bloomsbury Studies in American Philosophy

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 © Christopher C. Kirby and Contributors, 2014 Paperback edition first published 2015 Christopher C. Kirby and Contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.



ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-1055-6 PB: 978-1-4742-4210-3 ePDF: 978-1-4725-0945-1 ePub: 978-1-4725-0965-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dewey and the ancients : essays on Hellenic and Hellenistic themes in the philosophy of John Dewey / edited by Christopher C. Kirby. pages cm. – (Bloomsbury studies in American philosophy) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4725-1055-6 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-4725-0965-9 (epub) – ISBN 978-1-4725-0945-1 (epdf) 1. Dewey, John, 1859–1952. 2. Philosophy, Ancient. I. Kirby, Christopher C., editor of compilation. B945.D44D493 2014 191–dc23 2013047465 Typeset by Fakenham Prepress Solutions, Fakenham, Norfolk NR21 8NN Printed and bound in Great Britain

Contents List of Contributors Acknowledgments Note on Conventions Dewey and the Ancients: Editor’s Introduction, Christopher C. Kirby Part I  Dewey and the Greek Tradition 1 Dewey and Ancient Philosophies: The Unfinished Cultural Project  John P. Anton 2 Potentiality and Naturalism: Dewey’s Metaphysical Metamorphosis  Thomas M. Alexander 3 Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy  Christopher C. Kirby Part II  Dewey and Plato 4 Let Education in the Cave: Reclaiming a Progressive Political Role for the Individual in a Modern Democracy  Vasiliki Karavakou 5 The Dialogues as Dramatic Rehearsal: Plato’s Republic and the Moral Accounting Metaphor  Albert R. Spencer 6 Justice in Society and the Individual: A Comparison of Plato’s Republic and Dewey’s Great Community  Philip Schuyler Bishop Part III  Dewey and Aristotle 7 Dewey, Aristotle and the Spectator Theory of Knowledge  Kevin S. Decker 8 Beyond Fixed Ends and Limited Moral Community: Aristotle, Dewey, and Contemporary Applications in Ethics  Heather E. Keith 9 How to Make Our Passions Clear: How Aristotle’s Understanding of the Passions Enriches Dewey’s Conception of Changing Human Nature  Brent Lamons

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3 19 47

79 101 111

129 151

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Part IV  Dewey and Hellenistic Thought 10 Epicurean Pragmatism  Charles A. Hobbs 11 The Peace of the Sword: Dewey and Pyrrhonian Skepticism  Joel Amnott Index

183 195 207

List of Contributors Thomas M. Alexander (Ph.D., Emory University) is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University. He is the author of John Dewey’s Theory of Art, Experience and Nature: The Horizons of Feeling, co-editor of The Essential Dewey, and has written articles on a wide range of topics in Greek thought and American philosophy. Joel Amnott (ABD, Southern Illinois University) is a Ph.D. candidate at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His primary research interests involve intersections among American Pragmatism, Feminism, and American Anthropology, especially in the areas of language, gender, and citizenship. He is currently pursuing a dissertation grounded in John Dewey’s explorations of language and community. John P. Anton (Ph.D., Columbia University) is Distinguished Professor of Greek Philosophy and Culture at the University of South Florida and the author of many books on Greek philosophy, including American Naturalism and Greek Philosophy, Categories and Experience: Essays on Aristotelian Themes and Aristotle’s Theory of Contrariety. Philip Schuyler Bishop (Ph.D., University of South Florida) is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Honors College at the University of South Florida. His interests include the philosophy of education, Greek philosophy, and classical American thought. He has published articles on various aspects of pragmatism, Ancient philosophy, and political theory. Kevin S. Decker (Ph.D., Saint Louis University) is Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Washington University. His research on pragmatism has been published in the Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and the Inter-American Journal of Philosophy. His current work focuses on practices and norms in art and crafts. Charles A. Hobbs (Ph.D., Southern Illinois University) is a Lecturer in Philosophy at Gonzaga University. His research areas include the history of

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American philosophy, ethics, and ancient philosophy. He is the author of several articles on pragmatism and Ancient thought. Vasiliki Karavakou (Ph.D., University of London) is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy of Education, Department of Educational and Social Policy at the University of Macedonia, Greece. She is the author of Hegel’s Theory of Individual Freedom and Essays on Hegelian Philosophy of Education, as well as numerous articles on Greek philosophy. Heather Keith (Ph.D., Southern Illinois University) is Associate Professor of Philosophy and at Green Mountain College. Her research areas include the history of moral theory, gender theory, and American philosophy. She has published numerous articles on ancient philosophy, pragmatism, and feminism. Christopher C. Kirby (Ph.D., University of South Florida) is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Washington University. His primary areas of research are in the history of ideas and comparative philosophy. Specifically, his work focuses on intersections between ancient Greek, Chinese, and American traditions. Brent Lamons (Ph.D., University of South Florida) is Director of Advising in the College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources at the University of Tennessee. He holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction and his research addresses John Dewey’s philosophy of education in connection with ancient Greek philosophy. Albert R. Spencer (Ph.D., Baylor University) is Senior Instructor of Philosophy at Portland State University. His research focuses on classical American pragmatism, especially Dewey’s aesthetics, pedagogy, and environmental philosophy. He has authored papers on pragmatist and existentialist themes.

Acknowledgments For suggestions and editorial assistance in preparing this volume, special thanks are due to Ricardo Davila and April Ridgeway. I am especially grateful to Rachel Eisenhauer and the staff at Bloomsbury for their continued patience and cooperation. Parts of John P. Anton’s essay previously appeared in Dewey’s Enduring Impact: Essays on America’s Philosopher, John R. Shook and Paul Kurtz (eds). Many thanks go to Prometheus Books for permission to reprint these pages. Albert R. Spencer’s essay has recently appeared in Pluralist and I am grateful to University of Illinois Press for granting permission to reprint it in its entirety. I would also like to thank my friends and colleagues at Eastern Washington University, Mimi Marinucci, Terrance MacMullan, Kevin Decker, Gary Krug, Dana Elder, and Justin Young for their guidance and friendship. Lastly, I am most grateful to my editor-in-chief, inspiration, and partner, Sarah Joy Dilworth. Without her love and support as sustenance, none of this would have been possible. Christopher C. Kirby, 2014 The editor and contributors would also like to acknowledge the life and work of John Peter Anton. He was a scholar, teacher, mentor, and inspiration to countless students and colleagues. Indeed, John was the most excellent sort of friend. He will be missed. Christopher C. Kirby, 2015

Note on Conventions Works by John Dewey Southern Illinois University Press publishes a collection of John Dewey’s complete works in 37 volumes. They are separated into three sections: The Early Works, The Middle Works, and The Later Works. In order to facilitate comparison between the chapters, all in-text references will be to these volumes according to page number. However, in order to maintain the sense of historical progression that a study such as this one values, the original publication dates have been maintained throughout.

Works by Plato and Aristotle Where possible, the Stephanus and Bekker paginations have been included in references to Plato and to Aristotle, respectively.

Dewey and the Ancients: Editor’s Introduction Christopher C. Kirby

You are right in affirming that the finest spirits among the philosophers are of no service to the multitude. But bid him blame for this uselessness, not the finer spirits, but those who do not know how to make use of them. Plato, 489b On June 2, 1952, the New York Times featured an entry of more than 3000 words in its obituary section with the headline, “Dr. John Dewey Dead at 92; Philosopher a Noted Liberal.” It began: Dr. John Dewey, the philosopher from whose teachings has grown the school of progressive education and “learning by doing,” died of pneumonia in his home, 1158 Fifth Avenue, at 7 o’clock last night. He was 92 years old. (Nytimes.com, 2013)

That the death of an academic, who had been retired for over 20 years, garnered such a lengthy tribute is clearly a consequence of Dewey’s notoriety. But notoriety can sometimes be a double edged sword, simultaneously keeping a figure’s thoughts relevant while obscuring subtleties under a public gloss. While Dewey’s death certainly captivated professional philosophers, as it symbolized for many the end of the pragmatic era in American philosophy, it held great public significance as well. 1 The write up in the Times not only praised his work in educational reform, but also recounted his political progressivism, lecture tours of the Orient, administration of the 1937 Trotsky trials in Mexico, and his warning about Japan and Germany before World War II. It also addressed his activities with the Teachers Guild and opposition to teacher loyalty oaths under McCarthyism. That so much of this piece focused on Dewey’s public life, whereas only a scant few lines referenced his weighty philosophical contributions, suggests those outside of the profession remembered Dewey for his deeds, rather than his ideas. Of course, Dewey always advocated living one’s philosophy, and he was committed to his role as a public intellectual, but he

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also was fond of saying, “I’m just a philosopher; I’m just trying to think; that’s all I’m doing” (Lamont, 1959, p. 126). Despite the Socratic admonition found in the Republic, Dewey seems to be one of those finer spirits that was of great use to the multitude—something that has been both a boon and a challenge for scholars interested in examining his work. In the six decades since his death, Dewey’s work has inspired a staggering amount of research and secondary literature on various aspects of his philosophy. Yet, in all of that effort, one could nearly count on one hand the number of philosophical investigations made into Dewey’s interest in ancient thought, despite the fact that his writings contain numerous instances of admiration and criticism of figures such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. This lack of scholarly interest in Dewey’s connection with ancient philosophy is particularly odd when compared with statements made by his friends and colleagues in the few years surrounding his death. For instance, Alvin Johnson, President Emeritus of the New School for Social Research, on the occasion of Dewey’s ninetieth birthday hailed him as the “latest of the Greek philosophers.” This statement was read again in its entirety ten years later by Corliss Lamont, before a small gathering of Dewey’s closest associates. Those in attendance seemed to agree with Johnson’s sentiment, which continued: But have you not been fighting the Greek philosophers? So you have: Greek philosopher has fought Greek philosopher since before Thales and Heraclitus the Obscure. But in one thing you, John Dewey, and the Greeks are one. You have all fought Fear … You, John Dewey and your fellow Greek philosophers are the supreme exorcists of fear. One who has sat at your Greek feet fears not the lurking demon, the malevolent spirit of the men of other ideas, the alleged corruption of morals, the vast bogeys of ideologies. Your followers accept with gratitude the green earth under the wide blue sky, fearing nothing, least of all death, the one opiate of the people.2 (Lamont, 1959, pp. 139–40)

As a trained classicist, it is perhaps not surprising that Johnson should see Greek themes in Dewey’s work, but he also had first-hand evidence for drawing such a comparison. One such instance occurred in 1934 when Dewey submitted his general definition of philosophy for an article in Johnson’s The Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (Dewey, 1934). He wrote, “In Greek philosophy the problems of Western philosophy are either formulated or adumbrated. … For Greece was a ground for exhibiting and proving most of the difficulties that arise in the collective relation of man to nature and fellow man” (Dewey, 1934, p. 19). On the surface, such a statement seems



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fairly innocuous. Granted, every rudimentary definition of philosophy begins with the Greeks; however, those familiar to Dewey’s way of thought will notice two important implications underlying his typically prosaic style. First, by casting the perennial problems of philosophy as “difficulties” within a “collective relation,” Dewey reveals his commitment to a general study of human experience, an issue which undergirded his experimental, instrumental, and naturalist proclivities. Dewey believed experience consisted of alleviating “problematic situations” arising in the precarious, “aleatory world” of nature. A prominent, if not the outstanding, concern of his 68-year career was aimed at working out the “generic traits” of the organic nexus in which intelligence is connected to its environing conditions, both natural and cultural. In works like The Quest for Certainty (1929) and Knowing and the Known (co-authored with Arthur Bentley in 1949), Dewey went to great lengths to dissolve the longstanding picture in Western epistemology of an outer world, antecedent to and given over by experience to some inner, mental realm in which knowledge was thought to be held. Elsewhere, he maintained that experience is not separate from nature, but is both in and of nature and that whatever something is, is just what it is experienced as. Unfortunately, such claims may be helpful only after one has felt the dissolution of such dualisms, and those who failed to do so often criticized Dewey’s efforts as just one more example of subjectivity gone awry in empiricism, à la George Berkeley. As such, many have called this aspect of Dewey’s thought his “metaphysics of experience.”3 Yet, while Dewey’s account of experience could be characterized as systematic, he is probably not a metaphysician in the sense that commentators often portray him. In his Transforming Experience (1998), Michael Eldridge wrote that such a reading, “still seems infected by the psychic interpretation—experience is a person’s thinking-feeling reaction to events” (Eldridge, 1998, p. 14). Yet, whether or not Dewey’s intent was metaphysical in any sense, there is no disputing that the explication of his view of experience, and its various modes, was certainly one of the overarching goals of his philosophical corpus.4 Also obscured behind Dewey’s ostensibly benign statement about the Greeks is a theme which scholars often call his therapeutic, or reconstructive, project. Dewey viewed the abstract, theoretical “problems of Western philosophy” as the central obstacle to working out the more practical “problems of men.” Yet, by referring to the philosophical problems of the Greeks as difficulties, instead of dilemmas (or, perhaps worse, antinomies), Dewey’s optimism and commitment to amelioration becomes clear and one finds, in a single statement, a direct line drawn from the “problems of men” to the “problems of philosophy.” This jibes

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nicely with the complaints Dewey made in Human Nature and Conduct (1922) and Experience and Nature (1925) about what he termed “the philosophic fallacy” of assuming “whatever is found true under certain conditions may forthwith be asserted universally or without limits and conditions” (Dewey, 1922, p. 175). What he sought to undermine was not philosophic practice, per se, but rather the type of “selective emphasis” which abstracted from, and never rejoined, the concrete life of experience. Of course, the obvious question is whether or not Dewey himself fell prey to this mistake. After all, how does one espouse a “general theory of experience” while advocating a tentative, experimental practical program? At first blush, it would seem the ongoing challenge for Dewey scholars would always be the reconciliation of these two strands of thought. Indeed, some have even argued one must be ignored if the other is to be taken seriously. As Richard Rorty put it, Throughout his life, [Dewey] wavered between a therapeutic stance toward philosophy and another, quite different, stance—one in which philosophy was to become “scientific” and “empirical” and to do something serious, systematic, important, and constructive. Dewey sometimes described philosophy as the criticism of culture, but he was never quite content to think of himself as a kibitzer or a therapist or an intellectual historian. He wanted to have things both ways. (Rorty, 1982, p. 73)

It certainly is true that Dewey often spoke about philosophy in various senses, which lent a peculiar sort of ambiguity to his writing, especially when his attention turned toward the history of philosophy. Nonetheless, the essays in this volume will attempt to clarify both aspects of Dewey’s thought—his captivation with experience and his therapeutic aims—as essential to understanding his take on ancient philosophy. Unfortunately, the general weight of scholarly opinion has conceded that Dewey only returned to Greek philosophy from time to time in order to problematize it; that is, to move past it in favor of philosophical reconstruction. However, while Dewey’s treatment of the Greeks was often critical, it is not clear his motivations were strictly polemical. Nor is it obvious Dewey invoked the Greeks merely for their historical significance. As he asserted in that 1934 Encyclopedia entry, reference to the Greeks is not “a mere matter of chronological priority,” but rather “an essential part of a definition of philosophy,” because of the “extraordinary capacity of the Greek mind for observation,” as well as “the traits of Greek culture,” which formed “the very stuff out of which philosophy is made” (Dewey, 1934, p. 19). Of course, one could dismiss this



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tribute as mere literary flourish, or just a symptom of what happened whenever Dewey turned away from reconstruction, and dismissals such as these might point to why only a handful of scholars, since his death in 1952, have mentioned the influence of Greek thought on his development. However, there are a number of curiosities surrounding Dewey’s relationship with the Greeks which might preclude such a hasty brushing aside. In general terms, it could be argued Dewey’s view of the aims and purpose of philosophy seems to fall right in line with those of the ancients. Even though Dewey was at times sharply critical of the Greeks, especially with regard to what he called “the spectator theory” of knowledge critiqued in The Quest for Certainty, he seemed to identify strongly with the spirit of their approach to philosophy. By Dewey’s estimation, a philosopher has a responsibility to be just as concerned with public issues as esoteric ones. Like Socrates before him, Dewey aimed at being a cultural gadfly and midwife to the future. In fact, Dewey so regularly commented on public issues that by the end of his career a controversy was widely considered unsettled until Dewey had weighed in on it. More specific corollaries can also be drawn from some of Dewey’s own comments. As he put it in an auto-biographical essay written near the end of his career, “nothing could be more helpful to present philosophizing than a ‘Back to Plato movement’ ” (Dewey, 1930b, p. 154). Of course, the Plato which he had in mind in this prescription was not, for Dewey, the author of an “all-comprehensive and overriding system,” which he suspected was largely a fabrication that “later interpretation has … conferred upon him as a dubious boon” (1930b, p. 154). Rather, despite the anti-democratic themes of the Republic, Dewey seems to have admired Plato for his dialectical style as well as his practical and social aims. It is somehow fitting that the man who, on his ninetieth birthday, said: “Democracy begins in conversation,” should admit he had always hoped philosophy would return to the “inquiring Plato of the Dialogues,” not the “artificial” Plato who is viewed by professional philosophers as “the original university professor” (1930, p. 154). Such comments hardly sound like those written by someone seeking to move beyond Greek thought, but rather one who is looking to employ it towards a richer vision of the future. Dewey’s interest in the Greeks did not stop with Plato, though. Many of Dewey’s former students at Columbia have made explicit reference to Aristotle’s influence on his naturalism. As John Herman Randall, Jr. put it, when considering Dewey’s functionalism alongside his social and ethical concepts, Dewey could be seen as “an Aristotelian more Aristotelian than Aristotle himself ” (Schilpp, 1939, p. 102). And, according to Herbert Schneider, “Dewey was

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studying Aristotle’s Ethics intensively while he was writing his Human Nature and Conduct” (Anton, 2005, p. 200). In more recent studies Dewey’s Aristotelian sympathies largely have been understated, perhaps due in part to the popularity of Rorty’s neo-pragmatic interpretation. Equally relevant to this trend might be the fact that most of Dewey’s early exposure to Aristotelianism came through a Hegelian lens. It was not until later in his career, through the influence of his Columbia colleague F. J. E. Woodbridge, that he developed a robust understanding of Aristotle. Reconnecting Dewey to Greek thinkers may also go a long way toward answering those questions regarding his status as a “metaphysician” (a term Rorty liked to use with an air of derision). As Raymond Boisvert argues in a monograph on Dewey’s Metaphysics (1988), Dewey aligned with Aristotle insofar as he saw metaphysics as the study of existence qua existence, and Boisvert offers an account of Dewey’s metaphysics which could more fittingly be called “ontology,” because Dewey used the terms interchangeably in his writings (Boisvert, 1988, p. 3). Likewise, as R. W. Sleeper has suggested, “It would be better to say that Dewey’s metaphysics of experience is not a metaphysics of experience at all than to risk assuming that it is just another species of the kind of metaphysics embodied in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason” (Sleeper, 1986, p. 7). Interestingly, such statements square nicely with the vow Dewey made on that eve of his ninetieth birthday to never again use the word metaphysics with regard to his own position, because of its association with the Modern tradition. Clearly, there’s still work to be done regarding Dewey’s treatment of the history of philosophy. Even now, there remains a formidable number of unpublished writings in the Dewey corpus. To wit, Southern Illinois University Press has recently issued a manuscript under the title Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy (Deen, 2012) that was long thought to be lost from Dewey’s collected works. Interestingly, Dewey’s first “new” volume in over 60 years underscores how requisite Dewey’s take on the ancients is to understanding his view regarding philosophy. As the compiler of the text, Philip Deen, explains, Dewey takes great care in “[t]racing the course running from the sophists, through Socrates and Plato and ending in Aristotle” in order to tell the story of the discovery of rational discourse. (Deen, 2012, p. xxi). In Dewey’s own words, “The implications of the Socratic position developed by Plato form the basis of the classic tradition in European philosophy” (Deen, 2012, p. 39). Perhaps the recovery of Unmodern Philosophy will usher in a new chapter in Dewey studies, one in which ancient thought is reintegrated into the whole of his philosophy. For, it seems wherever Dewey’s ideas converge



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on the Greeks, one finds rich prescriptions for the problems of our world, and wherever he takes on a more polemical tone, one finds rewarding critiques. The net result of this type of study is not only an opportunity to learn something new about Dewey’s own views, and perhaps those of the ancients, but also an insight into how the Greek tradition was received in the United States during Dewey’s lengthy career. Before turning to a synopsis of the chapters in this collection, it may be useful to offer some prefatory remarks concerning the extant scholarship on Dewey’s connection with ancient philosophy. Any comprehensive study should likely begin with J. H. Randall’s chapter, “Dewey’s Interpretation of the History of Philosophy,” in the Library of Living Philosophers volume (Schilpp, 1939). There, Randall gives a first-hand account of the Greek themes underlying his teacher’s views. Other relevant articles from that time period are Randall’s lecture, “The Future of John Dewey’s Philosophy” (1959), given on the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Dewey’s birth as well as John MacPartland’s brief commentary on “Aristotle and the Spectator Theory of Knowledge” (1945), both published by the Journal of Philosophy. John P. Anton’s 1965 essay, “John Dewey and Ancient Philosophies” (first appearing in The Journal of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research) is also essential insofar as it catalogs three vital aspects of Dewey’s Greek connection and paves a way for later scholars to identify a general pattern underlying Dewey’s scattered references to the Greeks. Building on Anton’s work, F. M. Anderson does just this in his 1967 article, “Dewey’s Experiment with Greek Philosophy.” These articles are seminal and will be referenced heavily by the authors of this volume. Also worth noting is Walter Veazie’s 1961 recollection of Dewey as a teacher, published in University of Colorado Studies Series in Philosophy under the title “John Dewey and the Revival of Greek Philosophy,” wherein he recalls Dewey telling a class of Columbia graduate students to place his thought “with the revival of Greek philosophy.” Veazie also offers an interesting biographical account of Dewey’s path towards appreciation for the ancients. Lastly, Joseph Betz’ “Dewey and Socrates” (appearing in a 1980 issue of Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society), J. J. Chambliss’ The Influence of Plato and Aristotle on John Dewey’s Philosophy (1990), and Gregory M. Fahy’s “The Idea of the Good in John Dewey and Aristotle” (Essays in Philosophy, 2002) represent more recent, albeit derivative, efforts on the subject. The ensuing chapters offer a tapestry of comparative approaches with special attention paid to Dewey’s contributions in epistemology, ethics, ontology, politics, and pedagogy. Such diversity is not only appropriate by the nature

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of Dewey’s commentary on the Greek tradition—which is found scattered throughout his writings—but it also fits his own view that “significant history lives in the imagination of man, and philosophy is a further excursion of the imagination into its own prior achievements” (Dewey, 1931, 3). The essays will be presented in four sections. Part I, “Dewey and the Greek Tradition” (Chapters 1–3), begins by exploring Dewey’s connection to the legacy of Greek philosophy in general. The first chapter, “Dewey and Ancient Philosophies: The Unfinished Cultural Project,” features an addendum to John Anton’s 1965 article on Dewey and Greek philosophies. Nearly 50 years after he first drew attention to the many ways in which the Greeks held sway over Dewey’s thinking, Anton revisits the Deweyan project of connecting culture to education and explains how Dewey himself failed to fully appreciate the Greek roots of this project. Anton identifies a tension between the programs of pedagogy and dynamic social change, one which highlights why Dewey’s project remains unfinished, and which he argues can be addressed only once Dewey’s relationship to Greek ideas has been taken seriously. Chapter 2, “Potentiality and Naturalism: Dewey’s Metaphysical Metamorphosis,” written by the well-known Dewey scholar Thomas Alexander, outlines Dewey’s encounter with Greek thought with regard to his metaphysical views on nature and experience. According to Alexander, while Dewey rejected the hierarchy of Aristotle’s metaphysics (and physics), he articulated “a naturalistic metaphysics that relied quite fundamentally on the reintroduction of the idea of potentiality into nature.” In Chapter 3, “Dewey and ‘the Greeks:’ Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy,” Christopher C. Kirby explores the organic elements of Dewey’s notion of inquiry. Kirby finds in Dewey’s view a heuristic that sheds new light on how Dewey recaptured, often unwittingly, something of the “spirit” of Greek thought, especially with regard to how it problematized human relationships with the natural world. The lesson gleaned, Kirby argues, might serve as a leaping off point for deeper understanding of Dewey’s notions of “social intelligence” and “creative democracy.” Part II, “Dewey and Plato” (Chapters 4–6), consists of scholarly efforts to tie Dewey’s philosophy of education to the educational and ethical themes found in Plato’s dialogues, particularly those derived from the Republic. In Chapter 4, “Let Education in the Cave: Reclaiming a Progressive Political Role for the Individual in a Modern Democracy,” Vasiliki Karavakou argues that Dewey’s embrace of the individual and his dismissal of the explicit educational elitism detected in the Republic betrays much more his desire to serve the ideals of modern progressivism and pragmatism, rather than an attempt to scorn exhaustively—with a rather polemic spirit—the ideals of a past culture.



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In Chapter 5, “The Dialogues as Dramatic Rehearsal: Plato’s Republic and the Moral Accounting Metaphor,” Albert Spencer follows the scholarship of John Herman Randall and Henry Wolz to reveal Plato as a moral artist engaged in a project of social reconstruction who wrote the dialogues as dramatic rehearsals of particular historical and cultural problems. From this perspective, Spencer argues, Book I of the Republic dramatizes the inadequacy of the moral accounting metaphor and experiments with metaphors sympathetic to notions of moral imagination. In order to arrive at an example of Plato’s theory of human nature, Philip Bishop’s “Justice in Society and the Individual: A Comparison of Plato’s Republic and Dewey’s Great Community” (Chapter 6) examines Plato’s depiction of justice in Socrates’ metaphorical city of pigs and compares it with the decision of Odysseus in the myth of Er. Bishop compares this with the six conditions Dewey set forth for his concept of the “Great Community,” the goal of which is the ever-expanding growth of the fund of social experiences. Bishop concludes that if education is ever going to produce the kind of individuals for which both Plato and Dewey hoped, these conditions will have to be met. Part III, “Dewey and Aristotle” (Chapters 7–9), will compare Aristotelian conceptions of knowledge, habit, passions, and character with Dewey’s views on growth and human nature, with special application toward feminist care ethics and aesthetic education. Chapter 7, written by Kevin S. Decker, explores what Dewey called Aristotle’s “spectator theory of knowledge.” Decker argues that Dewey sees two problems in Aristotle: 1) reification of the object of knowledge, and 2) a general misunderstanding of the process of inquiry. In his reading, Dewey’s argument with Aristotle is a methodological one and he states that although “it is important to point out the ways in which Dewey misreads Aristotle, it is even more crucial to indicate the role that such a misreading plays in Dewey’s own projects of reconciling theory and practice and of reintegrating mind and nature.” In Chapter 8, “Beyond Fixed Ends and Limited Moral Community: Aristotle, Dewey, and Contemporary Applications in Ethics,” Heather Keith explores common ideas in ethics from the perspectives of Aristotle and John Dewey, and how those shape contemporary moral views such as feminist accounts of care. She examines habit and character as the foundation of moral psychology in Aristotle and Dewey, as well as concepts like the social self and the importance of relational growth (including friendship and community) as essential to cultivating social and moral character. Brent Lamons argues in Chapter 9, “How to Make Our Passions Clear: How Aristotle’s Understanding of the Passions Enriches Dewey’s Notion of Growth,” that what teachers and learners are “trying to direct, structure, ignite, know,

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often overcome, and clarify” are passions. In Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct (1922), he stated that the passionate phase of action should expand to include, “more passions, not fewer.” According to Lamons, to have more passions is fine, but not to have those additional passions in control can quickly become detrimental to self and social welfare. He shows how a deeper understanding and critical awareness of the passions is essential in the development of rational self-correction and how such control dovetails into Dewey’s position on growth. The fourth and final part, “Dewey and Hellenistic Thought” (Chapters 10–11), features essays on Dewey’s use of philosophies from the Hellenistic period. In Chapter 10 “Epicurean Pragmatism,” written by Charles A. Hobbs, Dewey’s pragmatism is considered alongside the upshots of Epicurean moral philosophy. Hobbs demonstrates how Dewey finds in that ethical tradition the historical precursor to pragmatism’s—and certainly Dewey’s—emphasis on the primacy of the present, an emphasis quite unlike, for example, utilitarian subordinations of present to future. In Chapter 11, “The Peace of the Sword: Dewey and Pyrrhonian Skepticism,” Joel Amnott compares the skeptical elements of Dewey’s epistemological work, as found in volumes like How We Think (1910) and The Quest for Certainty with the classical skepticism of Pyrrho. As Amnott argues, while it appears natural to draw comparisons between the Greek skeptical tradition and a thinker who made a career explicating inquiry, the Pyrrhonian movement from suspension of belief (epoche) to tranquility (ataraxia), “flies in the face of Dewey’s cultural project and directly contradicts his movement to situate processes of knowing in a moral framework.” It is our hope that the essays in this volume will open up new crossroads between contemporary American thought and the conceptual foundations of western civilization—a philosophical task the contributors believe Dewey would himself endorse. Christopher C. Kirby Eastern Washington University Cheney, Washington

Notes 1 As Morris Dickstein (1998) has written, “By the middle of the twentieth century, pragmatism was considered a naively optimistic residue of an earlier liberalism,



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discredited by the Depression and the horrors of the war, and virtually driven from philosophy departments by the reigning school of analytic philosophy,” p. 1. 2 Also in attendance were James T. Farrell, James Gutmann, Horace Kallen, Harry W. Laidler, Ernest Nagel, J. H. Randall, Jr., Herbert Schneider, Harold Taylor, and Milton Halsey Thomas. 3 Although the phrase “metaphysics of experience” was used infrequently by Dewey, it has become a mainstay in Dewey studies, most notably in the work of Richard Bernstein and Richard Rorty. See Bernstein’s “John Dewey’s Metaphysics of Experience” (Journal of Philosophy), and Rorty’s “Dewey’s Metaphysics,” reprinted in Consequences of Pragmatism (1982). For an excellent account of the different uses to which this phrase has been put, see Chapter 3 of Thomas Alexander’s John Dewey’s Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature: The Horizons of Feeling (1987). 4 It could be said Dewey approached this theme from a variety of philosophical aspects: logical (Studies in Logical Theory, 1903 and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, 1938); metaphysical (Experience and Nature, 1925); aesthetic (Art as Experience, 1934); religious (A Common Faith, 1934) and political (Democracy and Education, 1916 and The Public and its Problems, 1927).

References Alexander, T. (1987), John Dewey’s Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Anderson, F. M. (1967), “Dewey’s Experiment with Greek Philosophy,” International Philosophical Quarterly, 7, 86–100. Anton, J. (2005), American Naturalism and Greek Philosophy. Amherst, MA: Humanity Books. Bernstein, R. (1961), “John Dewey’s Metaphysics of Experience,” The Journal of Philosophy, 58 (1), 5−14. Betz, J. (1980), “Dewey and Socrates,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 16, 329–56. Boisvert. R. (1988), Dewey’s Metaphysics. New York: Fordham University Press. Chambliss, J. J. (1990), The Influence of Plato and Aristotle on John Dewey’s Philosophy. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Deen, P. (ed.) (2012), Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy. Carbondale, I: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. (1903), “Studies in Logical Theory,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1910), “How We Think,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 6. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

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—(1916), Democracy and Education. New York: The Free Press. —(1922), “Human Nature and Conduct,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 14. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1927), “The Public and its Problems,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1930), “From Absolutism to Experimentalism,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1931), “Philosophy and Civilization,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1934), “Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 8. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1938), “Logic: The Theory of Inquiry,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. and Bentley, A. (1949), Knowing and the Known. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Dickstein, M. (1998), The Revival of Pragmatism. Durham, NM: Duke University Press. Eldridge, M. (1998), Transforming Experience. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Fahy, G. (2002), “The Idea of the Good in John Dewey and Aristotle,” Essays in Philosophy, 3, Article 10. Lamont, C. (ed.) (1959), Dialogue on Dewey. New York: Horizon Press. MacPartland, J. (1945), “Aristotle and the Spectator Theory of Knowledge,” The Journal of Philosophy and Phenomelogical Research, 42 (11), 291–93. Nytimes.com, (2013), “Dr. John Dewey Dead at 92; Philosopher a Noted Liberal” [online]. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/ bday/1020.html [accessed: May 29, 2013]. Rorty, R. (1982), Consequences of Pragmatism. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Schilpp, P. (ed.) (1939), The Philosophy of John Dewey. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Sleeper, R. W. (1986), The Necessity of Pragmatism: John Dewey’s Conception of Philosophy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Veazie, W. (1961), “John Dewey and the Revival of Greek Philosophy,” University of Colorado Studies Series in Philosophy, (2), 1–10.

Part I

Dewey and the Greek Tradition

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Dewey and Ancient Philosophies: The Unfinished Cultural Project1 John P. Anton

Dewey and ancient philosophies I am both pleased and surprised by the renewed concentration on Dewey’s relationship with Greek thought that this volume represents. Nearly 50 years ago, I published an article which attempted to “offer some suggestions that might assist in assessing Dewey’s insights as a critic of the past as well as establish more firmly his place in the philosophical traditions with which his work is continuous” (Anton, 1965, p. 477). However, as interest in American pragmatism waned in the latter half of the twentieth century, I became convinced that the Dewey–Greek connection had been all but forgotten. In that article, which has since been reprinted with revisions and additions in American Naturalism and Greek Philosophy (2005), I identified three aspects to Dewey’s relationship with Greek thought: 1) the polemical aspect, which refers to his criticisms of what he suspected was a deep-seated dualism within ancient traditions; 2) the historico-contextual aspect, which relates to how he employed his social contextualism to assess the broad movements within the history of philosophy; and 3) the cumulative aspect, which highlights a few of the problems and concerns Dewey shared with classical thought and extended significantly (1965, p. 477). Rather than rehash each of those points, I should like to focus here on that third aspect. Its extension involves what I shall call “Dewey’s unfinished cultural project,” which includes what happened to the good old philosophy of the Greeks, what transformations it underwent, and how Dewey essayed to relate it to his conception of culture as paideia. When reading Dewey’s works, one cannot help but notice his frequent mention of “the Greeks,” by which he almost always meant Plato and Aristotle. He often wrote

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with admiration and appreciation about the “funded capital of civilization” provided by classical thought in general (Dewey, 1897, p. 84). However, when it comes to his affection for particular classical thinkers, it is much easier to find evidence with regard to Plato. This is where I shall begin.

Dewey and Plato2 As a graduate student at Columbia University I had the pleasure of attending John Herman Randall Jr.’s stirring lectures on the history of philosophy held during the academic year 1949–50 (Anton, 1967, pp. 8–34; Anton, 2005, pp. 163–96). I still remember the nine o’clock morning lecture in which Professor Randall turned to Plato and first expounded on a particularly important notion. He said: Plato has no closed system, no definitive doctrine. He has no passion for literal truth. What concerns him most is not the mere understanding of facts but their imaginative ideal possibilities and implications for the life of theoria. Plato brings forth the fruits of philosophy rather than systematic reflection of philosophy itself. (Anton, 1967, p. 8)

Randall was warning us against the constant lure of turning Plato’s philosophical writing into its own sort of Platonism—sage advice handed down to him from his teachers, Dewey and Woodbridge. Randall was in a unique position, close enough to learn from these two brilliant men, yet far enough to turn a critical eye on his mentors’ understanding and use of the Greek tradition. In his words: Dewey was not, like Woodbridge, inside the classic tradition looking out. He stood outside it, looking in. That is why the two perspectives could sound very different, and at the same time be very similar—they had the same ingredients … I think that Dewey’s enduring contribution to philosophy is not to be found in those places where he exhibits himself primarily as the critic of a too narrow tradition … But [rather] is to be found where he extends and broadens the classic tradition, by setting it in the context of the wider experience of modern knowledge. (Randall, 1953, pp. 7–8)

Randall noticed that Dewey’s affection for Plato was not without certain restrictions which originated in his commitment to social reform and the reconstruction of cultural habits. Such passion for what he called experiential “growth,” though it involved a naturalization of intelligence more akin to the ancient tradition than the modern one, often left Dewey impatient as a critic.



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Yet, if one considers Dewey’s 1934 article “Philosophy” in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, where he takes philosophy from “the point of view of its historical role in human culture,” it becomes apparent how Dewey married his appreciation with his critical stance. He writes: … From Greek thought comes the explicit consciousness denoted by the term … In Greek philosophy the problems of Western philosophy are either formulated or adumbrated … In spite of the limitations of the Greek world in space and time, Greek traits form the very stuff out of which philosophy is made. (Dewey, 1934, p. 19)

Dewey strongly approves of the “Socratic” aspects of Plato’s dialogues and pays tribute to his moral, educational, and social interests. He describes him as a “revolutionary,” whereas Aristotle is described as “conserving.” He continues, “To Plato it still seemed possible, at least as an intellectual and moral aspiration, to reform and preserve the city state” (1934, p. 23). In this regard, Dewey saw Plato as a fellow reformer, one who utilized the constructive method of Socrates and had confidence in the power of practical intelligence as the best conduit for education. By the time Dewey, the pragmatist, had arrived at Columbia, he had already decided that “Philosophy should terminate in an art of social control” (Dewey, 1925a, p. 104). In order to do so, philosophy would have to hone its tools in a laboratory of experience he called “a way of life.” This was Dewey’s democratic ethos and he hoped it could be instilled in every citizen, present and future, through an education that aimed at something equivalent to the Platonic αἵρεσις βίου: a style of life freely and intelligently chosen. This is summed up nicely in a passage in Dewey’s recently recovered manuscript, Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy: Plato defined a slave as a person who carried out the orders of another person. The evident alternative is an active sharing in forming the orders, the ends and regulations to be executed. In idea, the freedom for which democracy stands is freedom of the mind, that is, of examination, criticism, involved in discussion, taking an active part in conference, communication, and decisions that determine general social policies and the ways and means of their execution. (Deen, 2012, p. 257)

With something like this in mind, it should be noted that Dewey read the Republic not as an enemy to the “open society,” as Karl Popper did, but rather as a guide to political experimentation which sought improved institutions that

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fostered cooperative inquiry. Dewey, like Plato, was an adept diagnostician into the social obstacles which impeded the achievement of ameliorative statesmanship and he came close to seeing Plato’s insights about the art of politics as it relates to the productive arts within a healthy city. For instance, Dewey recognized that Plato’s call for censorship in Republic, Book X, is not the censorship of the Christian scriptures, but rather a result of Plato’s sensitivity to their significance and social power. In that vein, Plato would have agreed with the sentiment of Dewey’s statement that “there is a social pathology which works powerfully against effective inquiry into social institutions and conditions” (1927b, p. 341). Where the true value of Dewey’s thinking about Plato is to be found is in what he regarded as the “effect” of Platonism: a trust in intelligence as a method rather than a collection of finished outcomes. Again, this can be seen in Unmodern Philosophy: The implied corollary [to Socrates unsuccessful interrogations of the poets, craftsmen, and politicians], is the need of an art which will combine the insight into ends or goods which the poets have in an intuitive, inspired way with the kind of knowledge of materials and techniques involved in their realization that artisans have in lesser matters, which is then brought to bear on the conduct and organization of the city state… Plato’s conviction that knowledge and action are one does not fail him at any point in the scale of insight. (Deen, 2012, p. 42)

Dewey could afford to downplay the fact “[t]hat Plato instituted a world of reality beyond and above Nature as Nature had been conceived of up to his day,” as well as the fact that the philosophic objects of Socrates, which enlivened and sustained the dialogues, “were extended to include the ultimate and stable reality and goal of knowledge in all matters,” always under the auspices of the vision of the Good (Deen, 2012, p. 41). But Dewey, the bright, sophisticated humanistic naturalist that he was, chose to love Plato mainly for what Plato could do for the mounting movement of experimental pragmatism and its social undertakings. In my view, if Plato were alive today he would propose the attainment of aretē as the condition that best compares with Dewey’s proposal of “democracy as a way of life.” Be that as it may, we still have to consider what Plato writes in Republic, Book 8, concerning the demise of constitutions. Democracy there replaces oligarchy only to succumb soon to the assent of tyranny. Is this an unconditional condemnation of democracy? The answer should be no, and here is why. The failure of oligarchy necessitated the unavoidable transition



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to another constitution, presumably one that was at least potentially a “just” politeia. But after replacing oligarchy, the deterioration of democracy again becomes inevitable. The crucial question is why? The diagnosis Plato advances, as I see it, is not the failure of this constitution as such, but to the conduct of the citizens who were not prepared to live “democratically” due to the fact that they lacked the proper preparation while living under the conditions of oligarchy. The main issue here is that the citizens in the newly instituted democracy were without preparation, without the requisite aretē, or excellence of character. They had inherited  faulty educational institutions and therefore lacked the knowledge and determination to introduce at once the educational reforms to mold accordingly the formation of character in the democratic environment. As a result, the political failure was inevitable. The next phase in the course of political life was the collapsing of the state into the worst possible government: tyranny. Such is my view of Plato’s position, one that has wrongly been seen as the uncritical condemnation of democracy and, as I will argue below, a main source of Dewey’s polemical stance towards Aristotle.

Dewey and Aristotle3 While still in graduate school, I came across Randall’s perceptive essay in the Schilpp volume The Philosophy of John Dewey (1951) where I read the following: … [I]n his thoroughgoing functionalism, his Aristotelian translation of all the problems of matter and form into a functional context—to say nothing of his basic social and ethical concepts—in countless vital matters he is nearer to the Stagerite than to any other philosopher. … It was not difficult to exhibit Dewey as an Aristotelian more Aristotelian than Aristotle himself. (p. 102)

That was fine as far as it went and with all due respect to Dewey’s own best student and heir. But what had puzzled me then and continues to this very day is the shifting of the meaning of philosophy, its nature and its functions in modern times, and especially what it came to mean in Dewey’s own functional naturalism. Since my purpose here is to throw some light on this unfinished cultural project and explain why it remains so, I must first state why the unfinished problem of culture remains an open one for Dewey. Specifically, cultural change, and with it the precarious elements of educational programs on which we depend for the formation of patterns of conduct, remain fluid despite their temporary

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efficacy. Therefore, pedagogy, while socially and individually indispensable, is destined to remain open, unfinished, if it is to respond to the constancy of social change. But I find it difficult to look into this problem without first raising the issue of Dewey’s Aristotelianism, especially in view of his divergence from the classical meaning of philosophy. To begin with, the doctrinal element that makes the cultural project unfinished is Dewey’s insistence on the instrumental role of reason that kept him so distant from Aristotle’s principle of noēsis noēseōs, intelligence understanding itself. Dewey, as I hope to show, could not accept Aristotle’s position of noūs as being both a means and an end, in fact a supreme end. I will return to this difference. As a key to this issue I quote his view of what philosophy is as stated in Dewey’s 1934 article in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences: The conception of philosophy reached from a cultural point of view may be summed up by a definition of philosophy as a critique of basic and widely shared belief. For belief, as distinct from special scientific knowledge, always involves valuation, preferential attachment to special types of objects and courses of action. … Thus philosophies are generated and are particularly active in periods of marked social change. … The chief role of philosophy is to bring to consciousness, in an intellectualized form, or in the form of problems, the most important shocks and inherent troubles of complex and changing societies, since these have to do with conflicts of value. (pp. 29–30)

The issue I am raising is simple enough. How Aristotelian is this approach to the tasks of philosophy? Dewey’s assessment of Greek thought often fell victim to his inconsistent way of treating the “funded” experience of the past. Specifically, he didn’t always practice what he stated in theory. When it came to the ancients, he failed to apply the kind of situational and contextual analysis he so frequently called for elsewhere in his writing. The result often ended in a blatant form of anachronism in which classical notions were brought to bear on modern problems. No doubt, part of Dewey’s difficulty was his lack of training in ancient Greek, but above and beyond this general obstacle was the specific way Dewey had received Aristotle from early mentors like G. S. Morris: as a thinker whose philosophy was best represented by book lambda of the Metaphysics. Morris’ Aristotle was the Aristotle of Thomism, married to an Americanized Hegelianism. Because of this early association, Dewey the naturalist had difficulty separating Aristotle from the view that “human nature has to be referred to the super-natural, and to it as taught and enforced by a particular historic institution claiming



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supernatural origin and authority to justify its title to decent and fair regard and treatment” (Deen, 2012, p. 72). It may seem odd that such a suspicious critic could be called more Aristotelian than Aristotle. What must be stressed here is the debt Dewey owed to his association with Woodbridge. Yet, even after joining the faculty at Columbia, Dewey did not revise his sweeping criticisms of Aristotle’s thought. Instead, he began to treat it as a model for working out particular problems of a given cultural setting, but not one which could be applied to new problems and contexts. As he states with regard to Aristotelian logic in his Logic: The Theory of Inquiry: It would be completely erroneous to regard the foregoing [namely that it is historical in import] as a criticism of the Aristotelian logic in its original formulation in connection with Greek culture. As a historic document it deserves the admiration it has received. As a comprehensive, penetrating and thoroughgoing intellectual transcript of discourse in isolation from the operations in which discourse takes effect, it is above need for praise.… The attempt to retain Aristotelian logical forms after their existential foundations have been repudiated is the main source of existing confusion in logical theory.… The Aristotelian logic as far as its spirit, instead of its letter, is concerned, is nevertheless both generically and specifically significant for what needs to be done in logic in the contemporary situation. Generically, the need is for logic to do for the present science and culture what Aristotle did for the science and culture of his time. Specifically, his logic is significant for present logic in that it included in a single unified scheme the contents of both the common sense and the science of his day. (Dewey, 1938a, pp. 98–100)

Ostensibly, Dewey intended his Logic to fill the need for an adaptive method. Even in his more “Aristotelian” tracts, such as Human Nature and Conduct (1922) or Experience and Nature (1925a), Dewey retains his polemical tone, identifying Aristotle as an enemy to his own theory of ends-in-view. As he put it in Human Nature, the moral philosophy of fixed ends, “consistent and systematic, was foisted by Aristotle upon Western culture and endured for two thousand years“ (Dewey, 1922, pp. 154–5). He expounds on the charge in Experience and Nature: Aristotle acknowledges contingency, but he never surrenders his bias in favor of the fixed, certain and finished. His whole theory of forms and ends is a theory of the superiority in Being of rounded- out fixities. … With slight exaggeration, it may be said that the thoroughgoing way in which Aristotle defined, distinguished and classified rest and movement, the finished and the incomplete,

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Dewey and the Ancients the actual and potential, did more to fix tradition, the genteel tradition one is tempted to add, which identifies the fixed and regular with reality of Being and the changing and hazardous with deficiency of Being than ever was accomplished by those who took the shorter path of asserting that change is illusory. (Dewey, 1925a, pp. 48–9)

And he repeated this critique in his Gifford lectures, published in 1930 under the title The Quest for Certainty, this time in protest to what he called “the spectator theory of knowledge.” An essential part of Dewey’s suspicion of Aristotelian epistemology was his assertion that the Greek emphasis on the cognitive mode of experience was somehow rooted in a leisure class politic, which no doubt came to Dewey from Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class (1934) wherein Aristotle’s conception of the gentleman was compared to a Southern plantation owner, a special target for caustic remarks. Dewey’s kinship with Aristotle comes not in what he said about him but what is revealed in his own work: a suspicion of dualisms and an instrumental conception of logic, couched in the biological terms of human experience. In this regard, it is surprising that Dewey did not “reconstruct” his own way of reading Aristotle. Had he done so, perhaps the unfinished cultural project would have taken a decisive step towards recovering “classical naturalism” in a reconstruction of the political good.

Pedagogy and the professionalism of philosophy More than 150 years have passed since Dewey’s birth. In view of the multiple changes that have taken place in our lives, we are entitled to ask how relevant is his philosophy today and whether it can affect the formation of cultural habits of individuals, given what has happened to the directions education has taken. The issue is “the pedagogy of ēthos.” Let me go back to certain passages from two of his works. He wrote in his 1946 “Introduction” to his Problems of Men: We have moved away from downright slavery and from feudal serfdom. But the conditions of present life still perpetuate a division between activities which are relatively base and menial and those which are free and ideal. Some educators suppose they are rendering a service by insisting upon an inherent difference between studies they call liberal and others they call mechanical and utilitarian. Economic theories of great influence have developed out of and are used to



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justify the isolation of economic, commercial, and financial affairs from the political and moral. Philosophy relevant to present conditions has a hard task to perform in purging itself of doctrines which seem to justify this separation and which certainly obstruct the formation of measures and policies by means of which science and technology … would perform a more humane and liberal office than they now do. (Dewey, p. 164)

And in the last chapter of his 1931 Philosophy and Civilization, “Science and Society,” he wrote: It is not necessary for me to invade the territory of economics and politics. The essential fact is that if both democracy and capitalism are on trial, it is in reality our collective intelligence which is on trial. We have displayed enough intelligence in the physical field to create the new and powerful instrument of science and technology. We have not as yet had enough intelligence to use this instrument deliberately and systematically to control its social operations and consequences. (Dewey, p. 60)

One of the most serious trends in our time is the continuing professionalization of education as it aims primarily to supply our technocratic states with plenitude of labor skills and a mentality bent to carrying on profitable research (Anton, 2012). On the face of it, this prevailing trend seems to continue with noted indifference to democracy as political individualism and the quest for cooperative values in social life. As such it runs against the humanist tradition of the classical views of human nature. Such is the outcome of the prevailing view of homo technicus and economicus, whereby the development of the human potential, our entelecheia, as Aristotle would put it, takes a back seat to the technical advancement and labor security. One of the ideological forces that granted this trend a notable priority was the use of social Darwinism to establish the hidden dominance of perennial change in social affairs. From his early writings on logic and method in his 1903 Studies in Logical Theory to the 1920 Reconstruction in Philosophy, and then the 1931 Philosophy and Civilization, Dewey has set the stage in his effort to formulate a final position of his understanding what philosophy should have been doing in modern times and needs to do in the future. In so doing he walked inside and outside the perimeter of the Aristotelian position. That is why I couldn’t quite understand Randall’s insistence on the “more than” praise of Dewey’s creative extending of Aristotle. In the rest of my paper I will try to justify my reservations, but more than that use this background to explain what I mean by the unfinished cultural project.

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Viewed in a different way, my paper is a brief comment on what Dewey meant by “philosophy” by taking into consideration his complaint in 1927 that American philosophy is but an empty and impotent striving, if by “American” we mean something final, complete, and finished. Dewey had already called for “a sincere outgrowth and expression of our civilization,” one that “speaks the authentic idiom of an enduring and dominating corporate experience” (1927c, p. 10). Dewey has placed philosophy squarely within the framework of cultural change: nothing perennial about it except for “the humble function of the selfconsciousness of our civilization” (1927c, p. 10). Nevertheless, he concluded that such a philosophy is sincere philosophizing since it “confers upon scientific knowledge an incalculably important office” (Dewey, 1927c, p. 9). Buried here is one aspect of the “unfinished cultural project.” What is the other? we may ask. The emerging problem is that of education, what the Greeks, in their special sagacity called “paideia.” His numerous writings have shown clearly how Dewey, the educator, stressed the educational role of his Pragmatism and instrumental experimentalism by placing special emphasis on the education of the individual, but an individual that was no longer conceived along the lines of the speculative products of the modern European culture “fixed in isolation and set up for himself ” (Dewey, 1927a, p. 20). Here again, Dewey, even if he does not acknowledge the model, is trying to re-capture the Greek view of the education of the politēs, the social being of the modern individual.

Dewey’s view of philosophy This issue brings me directly to Dewey’s view of philosophy. His altering the meaning of the ancient conception of wisdom, sophia, calls for an explanation. Part of the issue is the parallel changing of the meaning of philia tēs sophias, philosophia, what the Greeks called the love of wisdom. The meaning has shifted to the activity “philosophers” as skillful articulators of theoretical outlooks brought about through persistent reflection on determinate sets of logical and epistemological questions, mainly related to the problems of scientific truth. That the ancient sophia was relativized to stay in line with the steady rise of individualism is another issue, but what concerns my theme is the distribution of the initial classical task of philosophy to disciplines as they were gradually morphed into distinct pursuits as “philosophy of …,” leaving hardly any room for philosophia other than what is done in introductory courses. When Dewey turned critical and castigated this trend, he also recommended reforming the pursuit



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of philosophy along the lines of his Pragmatic naturalism; he went back to the Greeks at one point to consider the return to Plato’s Socrates and the classical dialectic (Dewey, 1925b). However, he stopped there for fear he might repeat the fatal error of the ancients: the spectator theory of knowledge. Be that as it may, Dewey rejected all the rationalist philosophies that claimed to be complete embodiments of wisdom. Philosophy for him became intelligence at work, a way of responding to cultural change through the scientific study of the social conditions that engender values and patterns of conduct as they initiate desirable changes in institutions and effect the inculcation of better and more efficient ways of solving persisting problems. In this regard, Dewey is not a “Greek philosopher” if by this we mean a spectator and theoretician of knowledge. His view of philosophy assumes a special theory of human nature, quite different from that of Aristotle and yet quite close to it. On the one hand, he subscribed to a position that asserted human nature, excluding thus the absoluteness of change and asserting permanent features, however malleable, while, on the other, he embraced cultural evolution or rather change primarily in the areas of conduct and social conditions. Again, he came close to the Greeks, especially Aristotle, but the similarities did not go very far. What Dewey had stubbornly excluded was the native property that determines human entelecheia. As a result he left out the possibility of permanent values, except for the ones he introduced through the back door, as a special type of consummate qualitative experiences. To support my point I need to refer to his 1938 brief article, “Does Human Nature Change?” (Dewey, 1938b)

Human nature Dewey’s theory of human nature is too broad a subject to deal with in a brief chapter. I will limit myself to few basic principles if only to show how close he managed to get to Aristotle’s own. Both share the view concerning certain changeless elements of human nature, but where Aristotle spoke of permanent dynameis, Dewey talked about innate needs, by which he meant “the inherent demands that men make because of the constitution” (1938b, p. 286). There is no entelecheia here, only needs such as food, drink, moving about, companionship, exhibiting energy, bringing one’s powers to bear upon surrounding conditions, also “cooperation with and emulation of one’s fellows for mutual aid and combat alike, the need for some sort of aesthetic appreciation and satisfaction, the need to lead and follow” (Dewey, 1938b, p. 286), to which he adds fear, pity, and sympathy. Then he moves to the required habits, “influenced by

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the physical environment and social custom” (Dewey, 1938b, p. 287). What he means by habits is acquired ways of responding to special conditions; that is, acquired ways, not native elements. Human nature is such that while needs are permanent and native, social customs are not. Hence it is wrong to read back into nature cultural changes, reforms, improvements, or delusions. The issue that emerges clearly here is that he says little about the sources of success and failure regarding the impact of habits, except that they remain contextual. Still, he insists that “civilization itself is the product of altered human nature” (Dewey, 1938b, p. 291). The point is a difficult one to understand and may be hiding a contradiction. Of greater interest is his position on habits, which are not part of the original human nature, but they are morphed ways of responding to needs. After condemning the view which held human nature as unchangeable, he concludes: When our sciences of human nature and human relations are anything like as developed as are our sciences of physical nature, their chief concern will be with the problem of how human nature is effectively modified. The question will not be whether it is capable of change, but of how it is to be changed under given conditions. This problem is ultimately that of education in its widest sense. (Dewey, 1938b, p. 293)

Hence the unsolved cultural problem emerges again. We have to wait until the sciences of human nature sufficiently mature to decide on the most appropriate educational program for the individuals to grow and attain their democratic way of life. What should we do in the meanwhile? What happened to the old dependence on political wisdom? Philosophy now, if that is what is at stake, can only engage as its main mission the pursuit of criticism of criticisms, recommending ameliorative habits without any prospect of formulating permanent values.

The unfinished project In order to discuss the unfinished cultural project we can do no better than revisit Dewey’s theory of human nature and ask why he insisted on leaving out any response or even trace of human entelecheia. This lacuna, if that is actually the case, helps us understand three issues, all left unresolved: 1) the unanswered question of permanent values, as both diachronic and trans-cultural; 2) the unavoidable relativism of the socio-cultural contexts, which in turn assigns to philosophy a peculiarly limited mission restricted to the critical explication of



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the current patterns of institutions as they call for the adaptation of paideia to recommend such habits as they will enable the individuals to attain the highest possible level of immediate qualitative experiences; and 3) the open and unfinished cultural present, itself to be seen as changeable and malleable, but not as the carrier of absolute values, even at the highest level of qualitative immediacy as in art or religion. The unfinished project thus turns out to demand the casting of the reforms for educational institutions mainly as programs capable of inculcating relevant habits for adjusting conduct as successfully as circumstances allow to the best of each individual’s participation in community affairs. Since there are no best (as highest and permanent) values, especially in view of Dewey’s cultural and social “Darwinism,” now without Hegelian overtones, we are left with political fluidity and a constant demand for philosophical diagnosis of problems and discrepancies in the prevailing cultural ēthos. But what does the practice of philosophy amount to other than identifying problematic situations, generated in the activities of given cultures and recommending reconstructions and adjustments? To put it again in Dewey’s way, philosophy becomes the never-ending functioning pursuit as critique of criticisms. The remainder of this outlook demands that the philosopher must know how to assess the cultural practices by accepting as his subject matter the set of institutional issues that call for critical investigation. But what stays out of range in this case, is not the nature of human nature but the morphed habits that have acquired institutional acceptance as modal responses to needs, whether flexible or not.

Conclusion What is also missing in Dewey’s account of cultural ēthos at its best, in his notion of “democracy as a way of life,” is what may be called the stating of a position regarding political ethos to correspond to what the Greeks called excellence, aretē. For Plato, as we saw above, this was a matter of failure in moral education. In this way, the Ethics and the Politics could be seen as Aristotle’s fuller diagnosis of the many problems facing a democratic constitution. The Latin derived “virtue,” with which Dewey was left to operate, is hardly sufficient to cover the same ground. Furthermore, Dewey, on account of his cultural Darwinism, was led to adopt a contextual theory of virtue, or, if one prefers, one of accommodating habits as culturally efficient to respond constructively to the social, economic, political, and other problems. There are, therefore,

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no permanent virtues, good for all cultures and all times. The permanence of aretē, whether in the singular or plural, has no place in the constantly changing cultural affairs in the diverse human communities, the insistence on its adherence notwithstanding, that is what Dewey called cultural ideology and dogma. This was one of the weaknesses Dewey found in the Greek way of life, namely their insistence on having discovered and practiced, within certain limits, virtue (aretē) absolute, especially as regards the aretē of phronēsis and theoria, the practical and theoretical excellences. Dewey’s theory of human nature shows clearly why the plasticity of intelligence as a tool does not establish or even lead to the excellence of reason as a permanent and highest value on the same qualitative level as art and religion. For Aristotle, who assigned special significance to the permanent value of rational excellence as a supreme human attainment and with roots in the original structure of human nature, even the practical virtues are dependent upon the consummate development of human noēsis. It is a position founded on the principle of human entelecheia, as stated in the De Anima, where the initial endowment of the soul, the noūs, sets the foundations for the full theory of human nature. The statement “all human beings by nature desire to know,” implies that knowing (eidenai) functions as a naturally urgent dynamis from the beginning of each human life. As a process it effects the constant coordination of desiring as the mover already implanted in the cognizing power. As such then this native potentiality has its own end, or rather is its own end as “first entelechy.” As such, it serves the human being both as means, directing action and selecting from the available goods to satisfy our needs, as well as being its own end. Intelligence, as the power that distinguishes humanity from other living entities, emerges as the ultimate end of our natural entelecheia, regardless of social conditions or distinct cultural configurations. But not for Dewey; perhaps he suspected that this part of Aristotle might lead to a new type of Cartesian rationalism. Still, both Aristotle and Dewey recognize the central place of political conduct in human life, although for Aristotle this type of conduct emerges as the highest form of group life. In fact it is indispensable for the completion of human fulfillment, eudaimonia, and this despite the crises due to frequent deviations from constitutional normalcy. It is the prospect of excellence, its attainment and continuous exercise that secures freedom and justice. Just the same, political normalcy and personal fulfillment cannot be had apart from the parallel development of intelligence as both means and end. Such then is the basis for social and political criticism in the case of Aristotle. That the “second philosophies,” our special sciences, cooperate with first philosophy in refining



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the conduct of life, is a principle of inquiry Dewey adopted but with a different relevance to philosophy, as I have already stated. If I were to re-state the question about Dewey’s Aristotelianism, to decipher Randall’s dictum, I would have to emphasize, as I did, the difference between their corresponding versions of human nature. That both are naturalists, each in his special way, does not eliminate the basic difference that distinguishes their approaches to the role of philosophy. But to say that Dewey extended Aristotle’s view as being more Aristotelian than Aristotle is not an accurate characterization of Dewey’s approach to philosophy. Whatever else the difference may be, the residual problem that Dewey left unanswered remains: the unfinished project of culture, one that came with the acceptance of incessant change and the reformulation of the classical position regarding human nature. To be sure, by not including reason in the set of ultimate needs, Dewey saddled philosophy with a role limiting its scope to criticism of criticisms while at the same time eliminating the possibility of seeing reason as an ultimate end. If Dewey can be shown to be right we have no choice but to conclude that Pragmatic naturalism has advanced the case of philosophical thought beyond the point that the thinkers of Greece had achieved. It may be so, but it remains to be seen whether such indeed is the case. Another open problem? Yes.

Notes 1 Parts of this chapter have previously appeared in Dewey’s Enduring Impact: Essays on America’s Philosopher, John R. Shook and Paul Kurtz (eds) (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2011), pp. 149−57. Copyright © 2011 by John Shook and Paul Kurtz. All rights reserved. Used with permission of the publisher: www. prometheusbooks.com 2 This section summarizes arguments I have made elsewhere (Anton, 1965, p. 486–91; Anton, 2005, pp. 142–6 and 293–5). 3 Compare with Anton, 1965, pp. 495–8; Anton, 2005, pp. 153–9.

References Anton, J. (1965), “John Dewey and ancient philosophies,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 25 (4), 477–99. —(1967), Naturalism and Historical Understanding. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. —(2005), American Naturalism and Greek Philosophy. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books.

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—(2012), “Technocracy and the Challenge of Humanism,” The Human Prospect, 2 (2), 12–19. Aristotle (1985), “Metaphysics,” in J. Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cooper, J. (ed.) (1997), Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Deen, P. (ed.) (2012), Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. (1897), “My Pedagogic Creed,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1903), “Studies in Logical Theory,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1920), “Reconstruction in Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1922), “Human Nature and Conduct,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 14. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1925a), “Experience and Nature,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1925b), “The Socratic Dialogues of Plato,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1927a), “The Development of American Pragmatism,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1927b), “The Public and its Problems,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1927c), “Philosophy and Civilization,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1929), “The Quest for Certainty,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press. —(1930), “Philosophy and Civilization,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1934), “Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 8. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1938a), “Logic: the Theory of Inquiry,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1938b), “Does Human Nature Change?,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 13. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1946), “Problems of Men,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 15. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Randall, J. (1953), “John Dewey, 1859–1952,” The Journal of Philosophy, 50, (1), 5–13. Schilpp, P. (1951), The Philosophy of John Dewey. New York: Tudor Publishing. Veblen, T. and Chase, S. (1934), The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Modern Library.

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Potentiality and Naturalism: Dewey’s Metaphysical Metamorphosis Thomas M. Alexander

In his intellectual autobiography, From Absolutism to Experimentalism (1930), after dwelling on his earliest years, Dewey vaguely refers to 15 years of “drifting” away from Hegelianism after his graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University.1 Scholars debate when and to what degree—and if!— Dewey made this break. I think we can determine not only that he made it but when: it comes with Dewey’s move to Columbia in 1905 and the fresh influences there, not least being that of the Aristotelian inspired naturalism of F. J. E. Woodbridge and of Santayana’s The Life of Reason (1905).2 There was also the stimulation of William James’s recent articles on radical empiricism and the vigorous realist debate. But I think it was a reconsideration of Aristotle’s idea of potentiality that opened for Dewey the possibility of a non-reductive naturalism and set him on the way to developing his own “cultural naturalism” (Dewey’s own eventual name for his position) that came to blossom 20 years later in Experience and Nature (1925a).3 Although he retains sharp criticisms of Aristotle’s world of hierarchical causes and fixed ends, Dewey came to believe that the modern period had erred in dismissing his thought altogether. Indeed, particularly because of the loss of the idea of potentiality, Dewey came to see that modern philosophy was fatefully bound to the fruitless and unnecessary problems that fueled “the epistemology industry” and that had come to define philosophy itself.4 Telling this story came to occupy Dewey’s advanced years in two uncompleted massive projects, a reintroduction for Experience and Nature and a book, Dewey’s “lost work,” the newly discovered drafts of which have been published under the title Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy (Deen, 2012).5 Dewey came to see his philosophy as correcting this 400 year mistake that

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prevented philosophy from its true cultural function as the love of wisdom, i.e. searching for the possibilities of intelligent conduct in living. In this essay I will do three things. First, I chart Dewey’s gradual “drifting” away from Hegelianism in the 1890s which shows that his increasing frustrations with idealism come to a head in his defense of the adequacy of finite experience to generate ideals without having to posit their ultimate grounding in a perfected, realized self-conscious absolute. This focus on finite or “fragmentary” experience leads to his first formulations of what will become his instrumental view of inquiry in which knowing is an intermediary process with a job to do, not some ubiquitous, unsleeping spectral power of “knowing.” This in turn leads Dewey, just as he moves to Columbia in 1905, to his really revolutionary insight: we must reject the 2,500 year old assumption in Western philosophy that reality was ultimately and truly revealed in the act of knowing. Reality was “revealed” in all sorts of experiences that had nothing to do with knowing. Dewey sought to articulate a metaphysics in which the practical was a genuine mode of metaphysical insight. In doing this, Dewey saw that he needed to recognize potentiality as a genuine aspect of nature. In his initial effort to legitimize the finite, Dewey was led to a new sort of naturalistic metaphysics that embraced possibility, potentiality, emergence, and creativity. Before seeing how potentiality plays a crucial role in Dewey’s mature metaphysics, I will examine how Dewey used this insight to realize that he had come to a sweeping interpretation of the development and crisis of Western philosophy in which the best of Plato and Aristotle had been lost, the worst kept, and modernity had been beguiled by a mathematical physics to adopt the ruinous mind–body, subject–object dichotomies as philosophical fundamentals, diverting philosophy from its search for wisdom into the barren wastes of epistemology. In examining Dewey’s appropriation and modification of the idea of potentiality in his mature metaphysics, the focus will be upon Experience and Nature. This idea is crucial for several definitive arguments of the work: 1) the existence of quality as a feature of nature and not as “subjective consciousness”; 2) the reintroduction of the idea of ends as outcomes of processes which may become genuinely teleological when intelligence is present; 3) the role of potentiality as creative possibility which links the process of individuation with the nature of time itself and underscores the centrality of individuality as a creative response to existence; and 4) the reintegration of practical and theoretical intelligence as philosophy, the love of wisdom, and search for the good—i.e. philosophy’s contribution to general cultural intelligence, a “life of reason.”



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Dewey’s metamorphosis It is important to examine the “drift” of Dewey’s early thought, especially insofar as some scholars today want to reintegrate him with idealism. I think this is unfortunate because one of the important things Dewey’s philosophy affords us is a rich, non-reductive form of naturalism that challenges various reductionist versions today. To reclassify Dewey as an idealist would be bad enough, but it would also lend more support to those critics like Rorty who have argued that whatever in Dewey’s naturalism seems too “holistic” or “metaphysical” is really an inconsistent hangover of idealist commitments uncritically and inconsistently stitched into the fabric of his so-called naturalism (Alexander, 1987, 2008; Hickman, 2008). Close inspection of this period, roughly 1890–1905, tells an interesting story: Dewey’s mounting dissatisfaction with the Absolute is due largely to his increasing realization that finite and “fragmentary” experience is quite capable of generating meanings and ideas by itself, and this leads him to identify with the movements of pragmatism, radical empiricism, and naturalism. I will look first at the period after Dewey’s most affirmative statement of absolute idealism in his Psychology (Dewey, 1887) up to his four major essays in Studies in Logical Theory (Dewey, 1903; see also Alexander, 1987, Chapter 1). The drifting began in 1889, the year his beloved teacher George Sylvester Morris died. Dewey undertook a sharp criticism of Morris’s (and Dewey’s) one-time hero, Thomas Hill Green, whom Dewey later described as a “Neo-Fichtean,” rather than Neo-Hegelian (Dewey, 1890, pp. 14–35 and 1894a, pp. 42–53). But the following year he still was capable of a spirited defense of Hegel as “the quintessence of the scientific spirit” in 1891 (Dewey, 1891a, p. 138). William James’s The Principles of Psychology, which appeared in 1890, impressed Dewey from the start and exercised increasing influence over him, especially in his period as chair of the Departments of Philosophy, Psychology, and Pedagogy at the University of Chicago from 1894 to 1904 (see Perry, 1935, pp. 517–19 and Schilpp, 1951, pp. 23–4). James’s functional approach to experience, especially to consciousness, removed the theoretical need for an a priori synthesizing power of reason. Manifest evidence for Dewey’s intimate involvement with the Principles is found in two crucial articles that embrace and build on James, going significantly beyond him: “The Theory of Emotions” (Dewey, 1894b) and the landmark “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” (Dewey, 1896).6

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Another influence that shifted Dewey’s thought was the impact of developmental and pedagogical psychology. This allowed Dewey to examine the actual process of thought in life activity and learning. Dewey is quoted as saying: There was a period extending into my earlier years at Chicago, when, in connection with a seminar in Hegel’s Logic, I tried reinterpreting his categories in terms of ‘readjustment’ and ‘reconstruction.’ Gradually I came to realize that what the principles actually stood for could better be understood and stated when completely emancipated from Hegelian garb. (Schilpp, 1951, p. 18)

Dewey’s The Study of Ethics: A Syllabus (1894c), which was written to replace his Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics (1891b), reveals the impact of James and the immense development that had already taken place in Dewey’s ethical thought; indeed, here Dewey is already discussing phases of ethical thinking as “readjustment” and “reconstruction.” We read, for example, “ethical theory arises from practical needs, and is not simply a judgment about conduct, but a part of conduct, a practical fact” (Dewey, 1894c, p. 225). Dewey inveighed against treating the agent in abstraction from the situation and stresses the experimental aspect of “the ethical postulate” (1894c, pp. 233–4). Dewey described this position, however, as “experimental idealism” (1894c, p. 264). By 1897, in The Significance of the Problem of Knowledge, we begin to hear Dewey’s criticisms of “the whole modern industry of epistemology” of “the entire neo-Kantian movement” which assumes “that knowledge gives birth to itself ” (1897, pp. 19–20). “It is action as progress, as development, … which alone can find its way out of the cul-de-sac of the theory of knowledge” (Dewey, 1897, p. 21). By 1900, Dewey widened the target of his criticisms to include the absolute idealism of Josiah Royce. In a review of the first volume of The World and the Individual (1900), Dewey criticized Royce for at once seeing our immediate experience as the basis for our conception of infinitely fulfilled experience and meaning—the Absolute—but as inherently too finite and fragmentary to reach it. Dewey states, “What we need is a reconsideration of the facts of struggle, disappointment, change, consciousness of limitation, which will show them, as they actually are experienced by us (not by something called the Absolute) to be significant, worthy, and helpful” (1900a, pp. 255–6). That same year, Dewey published a prophetic essay called “Some Stages of Logical Thought” (1900b), which he later found to be worthy of including in Essays in Experimental Logic (1916). Dewey examined knowledge as a response to various stages of doubt in terms of historical development, “the evolution of the doubt-inquiry function,” from tribal custom to dialectic to scientific experiment (1900b, p. 166). But Dewey also



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raised the question as to which logic, the Aristotelian, the empirical (e.g. that of J. S. Mill), or the transcendental should be the basis of inquiry. He rejected all three and concluded that the “practical and procedural assumptions of modern experimental science,” which focuses upon discovery, are “irreconcilable” with empirical and transcendental forms that posit something “ready-made” (be it “given” facts or the Absolute) outside the process of inquiry itself. The essay ends with a question that anticipates Dewey’s view of logic as “the theory of inquiry:” Does not an account of thinking, basing itself on modern scientific procedure, demand a statement in which all the distinctions and terms of thought— judgment, concept, inference, subject, predicate, and copula of judgment, etc. ad infinitum—shall be interpreted simply and entirely as distinctive functions or divisions of labor within the doubt-inquiry process? (1900b, p. 174)

That question was answered three years later in four essays that constituted Dewey’s contribution to a publication by the members of his Department at Chicago, Studies in Logical Theory (1903). What Dewey had hesitantly hoped for in 1900 is set out with remarkable confidence in the first essay, “The Relation of Thought and Its Subject-matter.” Thinking is not some underlying, permanent act of consciousness but rather is “derivative and secondary,” a “derived procedure” (1903, p. 298). The antecedents of thought are “the universe of life and love; of appreciation and struggle” (Dewey, 1903, p. 298). Thinking is a mediating process; it arises from the lifeworld in order to “meet the special difficulty presented,” upon which thought “enters into further more direct experience” (Dewey, 1903, p. 299). The need for general theory and reflection upon the nature of thought itself arises in historical periods where confusion is so overwhelming and conflicted that the normal course of focused thinking is frustrated. Here a danger opens, namely the idea that the “essential business of logic is henceforth to discuss the relation of thought as such to reality as such;” “In fine, logic is supposed to grow out of the epistemological inquiry and to lead up to its solution” (Dewey, 1903, p. 302). But this sets up a problem that is “insoluble;” “it creates a problem that can only be discussed in terms of itself—not in terms of the conduct of life” (Dewey, 1903, pp. 306 and 308). The alternative is to have a logic that “follows the natural history of thinking as a lifeprocess. …” with its own antecedents and consequences (Dewey, 1903, p. 309). The second essay, “The Antecedents and Stimuli of Thinking,” spells out exactly what this “antecedent” is: it is “the situation that is immediately prior to the thought-function as such” (Dewey, 1903, p. 317). Dewey described this “situation or environment” as a prereflective context that gives meaning to inquiry:

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Dewey and the Ancients The stimulus is a situation which is organized and constituted as a whole, and yet which is falling to pieces in its parts—a situation which is in conflict with itself—that arouses the search to find what really goes together. …” (1903, pp. 327–8)

It seeks “the restoration of a deliberately integrated experience from the inherent conflict into which it has fallen” (Dewey, 1903, p. 336). This, to my knowledge, is the first clear expression of Dewey’s concept of “the problematic situation.”7 Thus, by 1903, Dewey had worked through any need for the metaphysics of absolute idealism; he had arrived at his instrumentalist theory of inquiry which gave thought an intermediary, reconstructive function. There is no indication, however, that he grasped the full implications of this last step. But things were about to change. Increasing friction between Dewey and the President of the University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper, culminated in 1904 with Alice Dewey being told her post as principal of the combined Dewey and Parker schools was to be for one year only. Both she and Dewey subsequently resigned (Dykhuizen, 1973, pp. 107–15). Dewey had no job to go to, though Columbia University quickly seized the initiative and he joined the faculty there in the spring of 1905. This was a very different situation from the one he had left at Chicago. He was not head of a department of men whom he had personally appointed or who could produce a collective platform like Studies in Logical Theory. Rather, there were colleagues with very different, independent ways of thinking and a newly founded journal, The Journal of Philosophy, in which the lively debates of the day were carried on.8 The emergence of a new metaphysical orientation in Dewey’s thought can be traced from his landmark article “The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism” (1905a) to his defense of the practical as a basis for metaphysics in “What Pragmatism Means by Practical” (1908b), and then on to the call for a naturalist metaphysics in “The subject-matter of Metaphysical Inquiry” (1915) and the important Introduction to Essays in Experimental Logic (1916).9 “The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism” presents a decisive break with idealism. Not only does Dewey align his “immediate empiricism” with “radical empiricism, humanism, functionalism,” but he here explicitly states his rejection of any philosophy—and here absolute idealism would be a paradigm example— that assumes that reality is only and truly what it is as known. There are, says Dewey, a number of experiences that in themselves are not instances of knowing at all, and yet give us reality. “Immediate empiricism,” states Dewey, “postulates that things—anything, everything, in the ordinary or non-technical use of



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the term “thing”—are what they are experienced as” (1905a, p. 158). Because philosophers are preoccupied with intellectual problems, it is all too easy for them to assume that whatever any experience is, it must also be something that is also “known” at the same time—to have a pain and to “know” one has a pain are inseparable on this view. Dewey disagrees: knowing is the mediation of a problematic situation; it is as the outcome of a process of inquiry. Knowing a pain is different from merely having it. Medicine inquires into the nature of pain, its origin, meaning, and cure. That is knowing pain; it is the fruit of inquiry. Simply having a feeling is not necessarily knowing. This led Dewey to a sweeping insight: throughout most of the history of Western philosophy, reality had been equated with the object of knowledge; from Parmenides to the idealists, being, the really real, truly disclosed itself as the object of knowledge. Dewey’s restriction of reason to part of experience opened up the vista of a metaphysics of meaning in which modes of experience other than knowing also gave us reality. With this Dewey was breaking with nearly 25 centuries of philosophical tradition. Where it would lead, ultimately, would be to Dewey’s form of pluralistic, nonreductive naturalism and his rather quirky use of the word “experience” to mean “interaction with the world” and not “perception.” As it was, if the reader carelessly understood “experience” to mean “perception,” then Dewey could only be understood as advocating the purest Protagorean relativism. The “Postulate of Immediate Empiricism” was a probing, exploratory, and not very well articulated piece that did not find a very sympathetic audience (one of the main critics being none other than Dewey’s own colleague F. J. E. Woodbridge). But by the end of 1905, in his presidential address to the APA, Dewey restated his position quite forcefully and clearly in “Beliefs and Existences” (1905b). Dewey emphasized “the human world,” finite and imperfect, yet which also “has presence and transfiguration.” “It means here and now, not in some transcendent sphere. It moves, of itself, to varied incremental meaning, not to some far off event, whether divine or diabolic” (Dewey, 1905b, p. 83). This has to be read, I think, as a public repudiation of absolute idealism in any sense of the word. It is the clarion call for Dewey’s subsequent thought that emphasizes faith in common experience to furnish the meaning of life, such as we find in “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us” (1939). The critique of epistemology is resumed; its idea of a passionless, spectator view of knowledge being attributed especially to the influence of Stoicism. Dewey contrasts this with Aristotle’s description in the Nicomachean Ethics (1894) of man as “desiring thought or thinking desire” (Dewey, 1905b, p. 89;

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see also Aristotle, 1039b, pp. 4–5). Dewey speculated, “What if Aristotle had only assimilated his idea of theoretical to his notion of practical knowledge! Because practical thinking was so human, Aristotle rejected it in favor of pure, passionless cognition, something superhuman.” But, Dewey added, “Thinking is experimental, is tentative, not absolute. It looks to the future, and to the past for help in the future. It is contingent, not necessary” (1905b, p. 89). Dewey contrasted in the starkest terms “thinking as inquiry” with “epistemology” which “finds itself in flat opposition in principle and in detail to the assumption and the result of the special sciences” (1905b, pp. 92–3). In a positive way, Dewey stated that taking beliefs as “working hypotheses” that “are as ‘real’ as anything else can ever be” gives us a new way of thinking of reality: “We have a world in which uncertainty, doubtfulness, really inhere” and in which our own dispositions to them are also real “as the only ways in which an as yet undetermined factor of reality takes on shape, meaning, value, truth” (1905b, p. 95). In other words, Dewey’s rejection of the epistemological model of a “belief ” as a better or worse “appearance” of a complete reality is now replaced by the idea of belief as a phase of action in working out an unfinished world—a world in the making. Dewey concluded, “The radical empiricist, the humanist, the pragmatist, label him as you will, believes not in fewer but in more ‘realities’ than the orthodox philosophers warrant” (1905b, p. 97). Dewey’s development of the instrumental view of knowing as “derivative” or intermediary, reconstructive action opened up a new metaphysical vista. The traditional ideal of a complete, actual reality that was grasped in a supreme act of intellectual vision, of theoria, has begun to give way to the idea of an unfinished world—one with genuine potentialities and possibilities—that is grasped through action, praxis. That is, Dewey followed the advice he had, as it were, given to Aristotle: develop a conception of reality based upon human praxis, deliberative and constructive action, not the purely theoretical conceived as a disinterested spectator. This idea received further articulation in 1908 with the essay “Does Reality Possess Practical Character?”10 There, Dewey affirms that things “characteristic of practical life,” such as “lack and need, conflict and clash, desire and effort, loss and satisfaction,” are as real as anything. Dewey was led to the insight that, after all, this did say something about the nature of reality (1908a, p. 125). Here he was following through on his comment in “Beliefs and Existences” that perhaps an ontology could be based on Aristotle’s view of practical life, on praxis, rather than on theoria. Indeed, the whole qualitative status of the world was open for reconsideration: “Why, putting it mildly, should what gives tragedy, comedy, and



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poignancy to life, be excluded from things?” (1908a, p. 127). Such matters are of even more concern to philosophy conceived in the classical sense as “love of wisdom.” When critics charged Dewey’s new concept of experience as “subjectivism,” they were in fact reiterating the traditional prejudice that the practical dealt with lower realities or mere “appearances” over against true reality. Dewey’s defense of limited, finite, and fragmentary experience as the ground of meaning had opened up a new pluralistic, dynamic view of reality itself. If one holds the view that “Reality is neatly and finally tied up in a packet without loose ends,” then the idea of knowledge actually making a difference to that complete world would be disturbing; but “if one believes that the world itself is in transformation, why should the notion that knowledge is the most important mode of its modification and the only organ of its guidance be a priori obnoxious?” (1908a, p. 127). The traditional theory of knowledge is committed to the idea of a “static universe,” the perfect object of a perfect theoria.11 Dewey now defines pragmatism as “the doctrine that reality possesses practical character” and this is most fully expressed in “the function of intelligence;” that is, “things undergo change without thereby ceasing to be real” (1908a, pp. 128–9). The qualitative character of the world is not “subjective” but is a function of interaction between organism and environment. As Dewey would later insist, the ambiguity of a problem is in the situation. To see things contextualized in terms of functions in a developing situation avoids the static subject–object dualism of “that species of confirmed intellectual lock-jaw called epistemology” (1908a, pp. 6 and 138). The extent to which Dewey was willing to frame a new naturalistic metaphysics based on this conception of reality as revealed through praxis is manifest by 1915 in his article “The Subject-matter of Metaphysical Inquiry,” a piece which surely reveals the cumulative impact of Woodbridge upon his thought (see Woodbridge, 1937, pp. 95–112).12 For Dewey, metaphysics deals with “certain irreducible traits found in any and every subject of scientific inquiry” (1915, p. 5).13 Dewey lists as examples “diverse existences, interaction, change” (1915, p. 7). Dewey defends such a concept of metaphysics as not unlike “Aristotle’s consideration of existence as existence”—as long as we do not also introduce, as he did, an alternative conception of metaphysics as the search for the highest, utmost reality, that which “is” in the fullest sense of “being,” which, of course, led to his doctrine of the unmoved moved and coalesced metaphysics with theology (1915, pp. 2 and 6–7). Instead of trying to find an ultimate cause from which all flows necessarily, Dewey recommends a diachronic view that not only accepts radical pluralism but which accepts a certain form of the idea of potentiality.

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As with his appropriation of the idea of “metaphysics,” Dewey accepts this Aristotelian term with qualifications. We apply the term “potentiality,” he says, “where there is change or a process of becoming,” but we should not reify this into some inherent, latent “cause” as a preexistent determination along the lines of the Stoics’ logoi spermatikoi or Leibniz’s monads: But in reality the term refers to a characteristic of change. Anything changing might be said to exhibit a potentiality with respect to two facts: first, that the change exhibits (in connection with interaction new elements in its surroundings) qualities it did not show till it was exposed to them and, secondly, that the changes in which these qualities are shown run a certain course. (Dewey, 1915, p. 11)

In other words, “potentiality” refers to a history in which change is a function of the individual entity and its environment; this is an ecological concept of potentiality. The “locus” of the potential is in the total situation, not simply in the individual substance or ousia as Aristotle would have it. For Dewey, “potentiality” is a way of not reducing the present to a function of the past—that is, of seeing the past as implicitly actual with the present so that process or change is merely an “unfolding” of predetermined actuality. Contingency is radical for Dewey, and this means that nature is capable of genuinely new forms that arise from but are irreducible to their conditions. Dewey says, “the evolution of living and thinking beings out of a state of things in which life and thought were not found is a fact which must be recognized in any metaphysical inquiry into the irreducible traits of the world” (1915, p. 12). In the language of Experience and Nature, emergence is a generic trait of nature. To conclude this section: Dewey’s years of “drifting” away from absolute idealism involved increasing emphasis upon the importance of our own finite, imperfect experience for generating meaning through inquiry rather than by invoking a pre-existent Absolute. With the acceptance of the finite nature of experience, Dewey began to see that whereas absolute idealism made imperfections as “appearances” of a complete reality, with his new emphasis the problematic and imperfect became real traits of the world. With his move to Columbia and under the influence of new colleagues, especially Woodbridge, Dewey began to explore the possibility of a new metaphysics, this one “naturalistic” insofar as nature stood for a pluralistic domain of processes, of situations (or “rēs,” as Dewey occasionally calls them).14 The extended introduction to his 1916 collection of papers, Essays in Experimental Logic, not only has a retrospective glance at the implications of his 1903 Studies in Logical Theory, which



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were included in the volume, but articulates for the first time in a comprehensive manner the outlines of his mature theory of experience and nature.

Dewey’s analysis of the crisis of Western philosophy Before examining the reconstructed metaphysics of Experience and Nature, it would be helpful to get an overview of Dewey’s general interpretation of the history of Western philosophy, especially insofar as it has generated a crisis situation with the advent of modernity. This historical analysis was slow in developing in Dewey’s career. Although it plays a major role in his discussions in Experience and Nature, his remarks often appear peripheral and disturbingly vague (witnessed nowhere more so than in his generic references to “the Greeks” when he means “Plato and Aristotle” or one of the two). Yet, this historical dimension is crucial in understanding how Dewey saw himself in the history of philosophy and it strongly refutes any notion that Dewey or pragmatism took a dismissive view of history; Dewey’s thought, like Heidegger’s, is consciously grounded in historical interpretation. Experience and Nature is in constant dialogue with “the tradition,” but not in any chronological sense. The recent publication of drafts of chapters for what may be Dewey’s famous “lost book,” bearing the awkward title Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy, sheds far more detailed light upon this issue since the first part is a chronological account of the rise of philosophy to the end of the modern period (see Deen, 2012). The basic claim that Dewey makes is that both the ancient and the modern periods have important insights, but the modern period appropriated what was worst about the ancient views and ignored what was best. The result came to be the problem of dualism, the relation of “mind” to “the external world,” and with it the fruitless and misguided efforts to overcome the problem, summed up as “epistemology.” Epistemology for Dewey represents everything that is wrong with philosophy.15 What needs to happen, says Dewey, is that we make the genuine “pragmatic turn” which he made between 1903 and 1905: to see that inquiry (knowing, not knowledge) is an intermediary phase of experience having noncognitive origins and noncognitive ends; as a result, reality is more than simply reality-as-known. When this is realized, we can give up seeing the world through the lens of an observing, knowing, static spectator; epistemology can then be replaced with methods of inquiry and logic itself becomes the theory of inquiry. Thus Dewey’s story of the history of Western thought is not

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an irrelevant addendum to his position; it puts Dewey’s own self-understanding into an important context, one part of which was the recovery of what he thought “the Greeks”—here, Aristotle—had right. Dewey insists in putting philosophy in its socio-historical context. It is impossible to comprehend it without seeing various philosophies in terms of the times in which they flourished. This is not to reduce them to being mere reflexes of the age, as some reductive Marxist historians would do. In the context of “the Greeks,” this means trying to understand why they extolled the ideal of contemplative insight, of theoria, over skilled production, technē, and conduct, praxis. Dewey sees the social conditions behind this separation as deriving from the class-structure of Greek society which sharply divided the aristocratic class from that which engaged in manual labor.16 The practical, physically productive art that generated the fine object was ignored and the aesthetic enjoyment of the object was mistaken to be what knowledge truly was, revelation of essence (see Dewey, 1925, pp. 75–9). The contemplative view of knowledge—scientific knowledge (epistēmē), not “hands-on” experience (empeiria)—was combined with another central thesis: that reality was most fundamentally grasped in the act of theoretic insight (noūs), i.e. that things are in terms of what they are known as. It was these two components of “the Greek” view that were carried over into the modern period with disastrous results. On the positive side, the Greeks were not tormented by “the problem of the external world;” experience (empeiria) was no “mental stuff ” but a realization of the natural capacities of human existence, embodied in the practical arts and the formulation of pedagogic rules (see Dewey, 1925, pp. 178 and 266). If rational insight, noūs, was impersonal—that is, not a “mind” in the “personal” sense, as in “my mind”—it was nevertheless part of the various functions of human nature. It was a natural function. With this was a commitment to the view that the complex array of praedicamenta, such as qualities, was inherent in the beings of nature. And if the sensate psyche beheld the apple as red and tasted it as sweet, it was because the apple, as an actualized reality, could realize the powers of the psyche to take on the same form if not the same matter. What transpired in the modern period, according to Dewey, was the wholesale rejection of Aristotelian science except for: 1) the spectator view of knowledge as theoretical contemplation of objects manifesting internal necessity, now as mathematical relations instead of essences; and 2) the classical commitment to equating reality with the object of knowledge (see Dewey, 1925, pp. 108–15 and 202–3). Because the modern view of nature was now defined by mathematical knowledge, there was no place in nature for qualities, so these



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became “ideas,” modes of “mind.” Dualism was born. But two other things happened in the birth of modernity: an entirely new approach to knowledge had come about in the scientific revolution; science was conducted by practical “hands-on” experiments and observations. And these challenged the limitation of change to an imperfect, lower realm. Beginning with Copernicus’s description of the Earth as a revolving, orbiting planet—pushing it into space and placing the “noble Sun” at the imperfect center—and Galileo’s observation of the phases of Venus, sunspots, and the moons orbiting Jupiter, the realms of nature thought to be largely free of change were shown to be as full of it as the earthly center had once been thought to be. Motion could no longer be identified with “sublunary imperfection.” As Dewey pointed out in “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” introducing change into the idea of species was but the last step in the modern revolution against the ideal of the perfection of being (1909, pp. 3–14). And yet the ideal reappeared! The new science of nature was based on the idea that “nature” was at heart “physics,” the science of moving bodies, and physics was ultimately concerned with mathematical laws: nature was a mathematical machine. Hence, in the birth of the modern, Aristotle’s ontological hierarchy of grades of perfection of being collapsed into the problem of reductionism which augmented the problem of dualism. Set over against “matter,” in itself without qualities but defined only spatially and quantitatively, was now “the mind” as pure personal consciousness, the “I think” as the ground of subjectivity.17 Here is born the “mind-body” problem and with it “the epistemology industry.” “The mind set up in business for itself,” wryly comments Dewey.18 He expands: The classic tradition had, at least in the case of Aristotle, placed the operations that constitute knowledge within the natural world which the operations were engaged in knowing. One may not rate highly the method by which this view was reached and supported, since it was bound up with the idea of rational forms and essences inherent in knowable things and knowledge as taking possession of them by a process of actualization of potentialities belonging to man as the kind of living creature which he is. But at all events, the potentialities and processes of actualization were natural. If it had not been for the intervention of supranaturalism [sic], conclusions reached by the new natural knowledge might have utilized propositions of the psychology of Aristotle to develop a genuinely naturalistic account of knowing. Because of this intervention and the heritage of a mind knowing outside of the natural world which bequeathed the theory of knowledge, modern philosophies became a tortured wrestling with the problem of how an immaterial knowing “subject” could possibly know a world

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Dewey and the Ancients of “objects” defined by properties that were completely antithetical to those of knowing and knower. (Deen, 2012, pp. 94–5)19

Dewey’s view of philosophy, then, is that it has worked itself into a cul-de-sac with the subject of epistemology representing almost all that was wrong with it. Unlike the later Wittgenstein, Dewey did not see philosophy itself as a mistake, though he certainly did not see it as a “science” either. Philosophy for him was the Greek pursuit of wisdom, of searching out ideals for a value-rich and meaningful life through intelligent conduct, the “life of reason,” in Santayana’s phrase. But the burden of the crisis of modernity stood in the way of that. Its unresolved problems not only afflicted common assumptions in popular culture but diverted philosophy itself into the labyrinth of epistemology. It was the task of Dewey’s own thought to undertake a “reconstruction” of Western civilization. This sense of crisis becomes stronger in his old age, especially in the wake of the World War II and the advent of the atomic era.20 Dewey’s interest in the history of Western philosophy, then, was not a scholarly addendum to his own “progressive” thought. As with Heidegger, Dewey came to see the problem of philosophy as one of coming to grips with its history and, if possible, overcoming the mistakes made with the advent of the modern era.

Dewey’s reintroduction of potentiality into nature In some ways, Dewey is more in sympathy with Plato than with Aristotle—with the Plato who related every aspect of philosophy back to the ethical-political question of Socrates: what is the well-lived life? Clearly, however, Dewey did not follow the radical route of “Platonism” (if not ultimately Plato) in bifurcating the world into a changeless domain of Being and a changing one of Becoming or set up, like Plato, mathematics as a paradigm for a universal science.21 Dewey here belongs with the holistic naturalism and pluralism of Aristotle. Dewey’s appreciation of Aristotle was slow coming. He generally has sharp criticisms of Aristotle, focusing on three issues: 1) Aristotle’s doctrine of the priority of actuality over potentiality ending up in a hierarchical universe of fixed ends that became “the Great Chain of Being” tradition in the West; 2) Aristotle’s sharp division of practical from theoretical intelligence, with the laurel going to the theoretical; and 3) in the sphere of practical intelligence, Aristotle’s separation of deliberation about means from the givenness of ends.22 These criticisms are made fairly early on in Dewey’s career (Dewey, 1894d, pp. 124 and 137–8).



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As noted, after Dewey’s move to Columbia more appreciative comments of Aristotle also appear, most notably with regard to the idea of a descriptive naturalistic metaphysics and the need to reintroduce the idea of potentiality into our understanding of nature. By the time Dewey wrote Experience and Nature, an appreciation of Aristotle in the project of a naturalistic metaphysics is given some grudging due. For the most part, says Dewey, philosophers have eulogized the fixed, stable and eternal. But there are those rare philosophers like Heraclitus who have acknowledged— even celebrated—the precarious along with the stable in existence. Such figures are “significant to the formulation of a naturalistic metaphysics;” then Dewey says something surprising: “Aristotle came nearest the start in that direction” (1925, p. 47). Unfortunately he does not expand on this point but immediately voices his usual criticisms which are flavored with Dantesque allusions: But his thought did not go far enough on the road, though it may be used to suggest the road which he failed to take Aristotle acknowledges contingency, but he never surrenders his bias in favor of the fixed, certain and finished. His whole theory of forms and ends is a theory of the superiority of Being of rounded-out fixities. His physics is a fixation of ranks or grades of necessity and contingency so sorted that necessity measures dignity and equal degrees of reality, while contingency and change measure degrees of deficiency of Being. … Change is honestly recognized as a genuine feature of some things, but the point of recognition is avoided by imputing alteration to inherent deficiency of Being over against complete Being which never changes. Changing things belong to a purgatorial realm, where they wander aimless until redeemed by love of finality of form, the acquisition of which lifts them to a paradise of selfsufficient Being. (Dewey, 1925, pp. 47–8)

While hardly a fair estimate of the sublunary Aristotle, the Aristotle of De Generatione et Corruptione, De Partibus Animalium, or De Anima, Dewey does pick out an Aristotle whose work was used by Thomas Aquinas and poetically depicted by Dante in the way Dewey finds antinaturalistic.23 Thus when the modern thinkers reacted to the Scholastic version of Aristotelian science, not only did they dismiss the closed, hierarchical universe and the idea of final cause, they also dismissed the key element for the recognition of genuine natural change: potentiality. “[T]he Aristotelian metaphysics of potentiality and actuality, of objects consummatory of natural processes, was intricately entangled with an astronomy and physics which had become incredible” (Dewey, 1925, p. 109). But what was change, then? The modern

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cosmos was now seen as a vast, perhaps infinite, physical machine whose properties could be reduced to mathematical expression. At most there was an idea of “power”—the ghost of Aristotelian potentiality—as an inner, actual force (as in Hobbes, with similar ideas being found in Spinoza’s conatus or Leibniz’s la force) (Randall, 1962a, p. 442 and Randall, 1962b, pp. 25–7). But in a fundamental sense there was no “potentiality” in nature.24 Nature always obeyed the same mathematical laws which came down to equations, and equations are timeless. In other words, the universe was at each and every moment a realized actuality. Time was merely an order of mathematically ordained events. Even a dynamist like Leibniz had to eliminate chance and make time an order of perception fixed by pre-established harmony (see also Leclerc, 1972). Dewey wished to reintroduce a robust idea of potentiality into nature and with it the reality of chance. “The precarious” aspect of the world is not a “subjective” phenomenon; it is fully present in natural events, especially in those where it is an issue of who is or isn’t eaten by whom. A famous topologist, René Thom, was able to present a geometrical graph of a “catastrophic event,” like an animal being eaten, but the placid graph was quite different from the actual event occurring between hunter and prey (Zeeman, 1976). A map of a city is an abstraction, not the “real truth” of the city, and its system of abstractions as signs are what make the map a tool for use in negotiating the real city. So too, Dewey would say, are the abstractions, including the mathematical ones, we make of nature in science. The formulae are not “reality” any more than are the map or the topological diagram. The lifeworld is where Dewey believes metaphysics should begin and end rather than an intellectual abstraction that in fact is derived from that world and depends on it for its intelligibility.25 As noted above, Dewey did not reintroduce potentiality strictly in Aristotle’s sense of being the correlative of form which was ultimately spoken with respect to a particular formed individual, an ousia. It is a pervasive feature of situations. What Aristotle regarded as ontologically fundamental, the distinct individual being which is both a “what” and a “that,” a todeti, is for Dewey a feature of a more complex reality that includes the environment for living things and the cultural context as well for human beings. Thus potentiality is not an “occult power” for Dewey—not that it was for Aristotle—but a way of noticing conditions and consequences without trying to reduce the latter to the former or make the former predeterminative of the latter. It is to see a natural history.26 The reintroduction of potentiality in this sense allows for several important additional claims: 1) a restoration of the idea of quality as nonsubjective, though



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relational; 2) a reintroduction of a modified idea of “ends;” 3) a defense of the reality of time as “temporal quality” in which individuation as the creative renewal of nature and the centrality of “natural history” are basic; and 4) a reinstatement of the meaningfulness of practical wisdom as a goal of human life in general and of philosophy in particular, that is, of the ability to see the actual in the light of the possible. Let us examine each of these. Quality: After presenting his case in the second chapter of Experience and Nature for the ubiquity of the precarious in nature along with the stable, Dewey turns in the third chapter to deal with the way in which quality is also a generic trait. Dewey affirms that nature is constituted by events and qualities are “of cosmic events” (1925, p. 204). Thus considered in terms of events, quality is neither “in” the organism nor “in” the object. In that sense it is “situational.” But considered in itself it is the “had” or “undergone” aspect of the situation and as such. Dewey observes: [T]he enjoyment (with which suffering is to be classed) of things is a declaration that natural existences are not mere passage ways to another passage way, and so on ad infinitum. … [I]n every event there is something obdurate, self-sufficient, wholly immediate, neither a relation nor an element in a relational whole, but terminal and exclusive. (1925, p. 74)

As such any quality is “final;” it is a closure, and in this sense it is an “end” (Dewey, 1925, pp. 82–3). In its broadest sense, an end for Dewey is not necessarily any sort of culmination or realization of an aim, a telos. It is simply as it is, a limit, a pure that; it is ineffable as such, though it may bear a sense of relations or meanings within it. Although Dewey does not use this expression, it can be said to be finitude: surd thatness. But, Dewey adds, such qualities or ends can be realizations insofar as they involve anticipation. The immediate “that” of experience may be “had” as a fulfillment. This reinstates the ontological status of quality. Quality for Dewey refers to the way nature is undergone in experience; it is the full aesthetic bearing of the present or the “how” of the world in its immediacy. As noted above, while quality is an aspect of the events that are nature, it is not as simply located as in Aristotle. For Aristotle, nature obeyed strict grammatical laws that made it intelligible to “logos.” Thus “quality” (poiotēs) is “present in” (or existentially dependent upon) an ousia, e.g. we say that Socrates is hot or cold but the heat and the coolness do not exist on their own (Aristotle, 1984, Categories, 1a16−1b9). Socrates becoming warm or cool is due to the potentiality of Socrates to undergo this sort of contrariety.27

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Dewey would say that something qualitative can be variously spoken of depending on the type of situation we are dealing with. If Socrates is warm because he is standing next to a fire, then “heat” really expresses their relationship; if we are concerned as to why Socrates is hot, we attribute the heat to the fire; if we are concerned about Socrates’ comfort, we treat the heat as in him. But fundamentally there is just the immediate qualitative situation that is not a simple object but a complex whole, a rēs, a situation that involves Socratesand-the-fire. The situation is the outcome of antecedent conditions; regarding as such we may see those conditions as its potentialities or we may anticipate further outcomes and see the present situation as having those potentialities. Though quality (and so ends) is in some way brutely ineffable, being just as they are and nothing else, once intelligence and symbolization become operative, the temporal expanse of situations increases, as it were. Ends: Dewey elects to call all such finalities or outcomes of process “ends;” alternatively, insofar as they are inherently temporal, they are “closures” (see 1925, pp. 74–5 and 83–5). Some of these are mere termini and not consummations. But, as noted, some processes are consummations, particularly those involving animals capable of memory and anticipation. Here the qualitative immediacy of existence carries with it the past as a history and sees the present as an anticipated outcome and not just another random event. Especially those in human experience which are fraught with memory and anticipation, are fulfillments. Insofar as human events are part of nature, we can legitimately say that there are “ends” in a teleological sense in nature—just not everywhere in nature. In human conduct, intelligent action interprets the present situation in terms of an “end-in-view” (see Dewey, 1925, p. 280). In other words, the meaning of a present action (such as using a hammer) is with reference to a more inclusive end (say building a house). Aristotle focused on this aspect of human conduct to articulate his idea of entelechia, applying it to all processes of realization. While Dewey would restrict this to the human sphere—or possibly that of any animal that can respond to the present in terms of symbolized possibilities—he would insist that this is a feature of nature and not something “subjective.” It is this aspect of our interaction with the world that comes to its fullest realization in aesthetic experience. Temporal Quality: In particular, Dewey is emphatic about noting the importance of temporal quality. In Experience and Nature, Dewey makes his claim that qualities are “in” the world: “Things are beautiful and ugly, lovely and hateful, dull and illuminated, attractive and repulsive” (1925, p. 91). When we consider nature in terms of process, the antecedent conditions of something



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are no more real than the consequences, though, Dewey observes, we place the emphasis on the “cause” as more important in terms of control. “But in existence, or metaphysically, cause and effect are on the same level; they are portions of one and the same historic process, each having its immediate or esthetic quality and each having efficacy, or serial connection” (Dewey, 1925, p. 91). There is no “epistemological” problem of how “the mind” knows that its “ideas” refer to something in “the external world.” “The problem is neither psychological nor epistemological. It is metaphysical or existential. It is whether existence consists of events or is possessed of temporal quality, characterized by beginning, process and ending” (Dewey, 1925, pp. 91–2). Nature is characterized throughout by temporal quality; that is to say, it is a “generic trait.” Indeed, Dewey says, “… the problems which constitute modern epistemology with its rival materialistic, spiritualistic, dualistic doctrines … have a single origin in the dogma which denies temporal quality to reality as such” (1925, pp. 119–20). This means that temporality goes to the root of everything for Dewey. Even mathematics, however refined, is rooted in the ways in which we organize experience.28 Note that Dewey does not say “time” is ubiquitous—especially “time” as a theoretical object, Newtonian, Einsteinian, quantum or other. He is speaking of temporal quality: Temporal order is a matter of science; temporal quality is an immediate trait of every occurrence whether in or out of consciousness … An ‘affair,’ Res, is always at issue whether it concerns chemical change, the emergence of life, language, mind the episodes that compose human history. (Dewey, 1925, p. 92)

There are two important aspects to keep in mind. First, events are not statically “in time,” if time is thought of as some container. Events are time. Everything is rhythmically involved in existence—events are fundamentally characterized by doing and undergoing, by the stable and the precarious.29 Thus events have a whence and a whither and exist as fields, not atomic units. It also means that transformation is at the very heart of what it means “to exist.” The immediate present is not a changeless point but a phase of metamorphosis. Another way of putting this is that nature is constant interplay between or interfusion of the possible and the actual, or, better, it is a continuum of the possible-actual, and that “time” is the realization of some possibilities but not others. Time involves creative and individualizing processes. Many years after Experience and Nature was written, Dewey articulated this idea in a highly important essay, “Time and Individuality” (1940). Whereas most philosophers have eulogized the timeless—eternal Ideas, species, or fixed laws of

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nature—Dewey credits William James and Henri Bergson for putting “change at the very heart of things” and Whitehead for saying in systematic form that “reality is process” (1940, pp. 100–1). Our own human existence is historical; our lives can be told as a biography. “Temporal seriality is the very essence, then, of the human individual” (Dewey, 1940, p. 102). And each human life is unique. But this is often used to contrast human existence with “things;” we are “historical” but “things” are not.30 Dewey sees human existence as indicative of all natural events: “the principle of a developing career applies to all things in nature, as well as to human beings …” (1940, p. 108). In other words, there is “the intrinsic connection of time with individuality” (Dewey, 1940, p. 109). He connects this with the idea of potentiality: Positively, it is implied that potentiality is a category of existence, for development cannot occur unless an individual has powers or capacities that are not actualized at a given time. … While it is necessary to revive the category of potentiality as a characteristic of individuality, it has to be revived in a different formulation from that of its classic Aristotelian formulation. … [P]otentialities must be thought of in terms of consequences of interactions with other things. Hence potentialities cannot be known till after the interactions have occurred. (Dewey, 1940, p. 109)

Dewey adds one further crucial point: temporality is creativity: Individuality conceived as a temporal development involves uncertainty, indeterminacy, or contingency. Individuality is the source of whatever is unpredictable in the world. … To say this is not arbitrarily to introduce mere chance into the world. It is to say that genuine individuality exists; that individuality is pregnant with new developments; that time is real. (Dewey, 1940, p. 111)

To exist is not simply to be “actual;” it is also to have possibilities and to realize some of these and not others. Art and the artist give us insight into a basic aspect of existence. “The free individuality which is the source of art is also the final source of creative development in time” (Dewey, 1940, p. 114). Everything, in one way or another, is a creative response to the universe. The Pursuit of Wisdom: Dewey’s concept of “situational or ecological potentiality,” if one may call it that, also provided him with a way of integrating his view of intelligent conduct—ethics—with his naturalism. With the reintegration of potentiality into nature, we no longer need to postulate a “realm of values.” “When we return to the conceptions of potentiality and actuality, contingency and regularity, qualitatively diverse individuality, with which Greek thought operated, we find no room for a theory of values separate from a theory of



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nature” (Dewey, 1925, p. 295). Human existence marks for Dewey a new development or “plateau” in nature insofar as the phenomenon of symbolic communication expands the sphere of interaction. Not only does this make “shared experience” possible, but it adds vast reaches of remembered experience cumulatively passed on through education. It also opens up the possibility of anticipating alternative actions and their meanings for present conduct. That is, it allows for “imaginative experimentation” to guide conduct. The primary example of this is social discussion. As Dewey says, we deliberate with ourselves because others have deliberated with us. To sum up these transformations we can call them history and imagination, and culture itself can be seen as a collective process governed by the interplay of these two capacities. Moreover, this process allows for the possibility of collective learning over time, and with that comes the further possibility of discovering ways that progressively enrich human life and clothe the world with meaning. One might say that philosophy (as Dewey conceives it) is this process of becoming self-reflective. One of the tasks of philosophy is to keep the range of possibilities alive, to keep the awareness of possibility itself alive. Cultures often succumb to their own traditions and close themselves off from creative growth as well as to the meanings of other cultures. Dewey does not conceive philosophy as a science. This is a major point of misunderstanding exhibited by many of his advocates as well as his critics. Science is what gives us truth. Philosophy aims at critical reflection—especially on values, judgment, integrative understanding and above all at wisdom. “Only in verbal form,” says Dewey, “is there anything novel in this conception of philosophy. It is a version of the old saying that philosophy is love of wisdom, of wisdom which is not knowledge and which nevertheless cannot be without knowledge” (1925, p. 305). In fact, Dewey states that “the most far-reaching question of all criticism” is “the relationship of existence and value, or, as the problem is often put, between the real and the ideal” (1925, p. 310). And by “ideal” Dewey means, “indications of the possibilities of existence…” (1925, p. 311). This is why imagination is crucial for intelligence in general and for philosophy above all, for imagination is that interfusion of the possible and the actual, it is what makes possibilities potentialities, that is, capable of transforming existence. Thus I believe that Dewey’s own philosophical development took him from absolute idealism toward a position that embraced the finite, but which realized that the finite also bore within it possibilities as well as its immediate actuality. Upon his arrival at Columbia, perhaps under the encouragement of his

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colleague Woodbridge and perhaps inspired by his reading of Santayana, Dewey began to articulate a naturalistic metaphysics that relied quite fundamentally on the reintroduction of the idea of potentiality into nature. This insight gave him a way of reading the history of western philosophy, especially in terms of the crisis of modernity. This crisis had directed philosophy into the trackless desert of epistemology when in fact it should have returned to its ancient calling. Potentiality, I have tried to show, is a theme that touches the most radical and crucial elements of Dewey’s vision of nature. And, for all the repeated criticisms he offers of the Aristotle of the schools, this idea was where Aristotle nearly started off on the right path. Dewey then has gone back to the road Aristotle walked and taken the road that Aristotle missed.

Notes   1 Dewey left the Johns Hopkins University in 1884 (Dewey, 1930, p. 154).   2 Dewey attests to the influence of Woodbridge in the biography written by his daughter: “Woodbridge accepted and taught naturalistic metaphysics of the Aristotelian type. Contact with him made Dewey aware of the possibility and value of a type of metaphysical theory which did not profess to rest upon principles not empirically verifiable. The result of new contacts is seen especially in Experience and Nature …” (Schilpp, 1951, p. 36; see also Dykhuizen, 1973, p. 120 and footnote 26). Dewey wrote two reviews of The Life of Reason, one in 1906 for the first two volumes and another for the whole series in 1907. Both were highly positive. Dewey describes the work as “the most significant contribution made in this generation to philosophic revision” and “the most adequate contribution America has yet made—always excepting Emerson—to moral philosophy” (Dewey, 1906, p. 319 and 1907, p. 241). Dewey’s description in the first review reads like an outline of the philosophy Dewey himself—not Santayana—would go on to produce.   3 “I have come to think of my own position as cultural or humanistic Naturalism. Naturalism, properly interpreted, seems to me a more adequate term than Humanism. Of course I have always limited my use of ‘instrumentalism’ to my theory of thinking and knowledge; the word ‘pragmatism’ I have used very little, and then with reserves.” Dewey to Corliss Lamont, September 6, 1940 (cited in Lamont, 1961, p. 26).   4 Dewey’s running gun battle with epistemology extends throughout his mature period, not that it has been noted at all by the analytic neopragmatists. The phrase “epistemology industry” is most famously used in his 1917 essay, “The Need for



  5

  6

  7

  8   9

10 11 12

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a Recovery of Philosophy” (Dewey, 1917, p. 23) but occurs as early as 1900 in the monograph The Significance of the Problem of Knowledge (Dewey, 1897, p. 19). Dewey had been known to be working on a book, legendarily his masterpiece, which may have become lost in 1947 during a return from his summer up in Nova Scotia. Drafts of the chapters were discovered among the Dewey Papers in Morris Library (Southern Illinois University at Carbondale) by Phillip Deen who edited the material and published it with the Southern Illinois University Press in 2012. Deen recounts the story of the loss and his discovery and reconstruction in the Introduction. Not only does this article stand as a major contribution to the science of psychology, but it articulates the model of the “circuit of coordination” as the pattern of learning behavior that underlies everything else in Dewey’s mature philosophy. He also invoked, though not by name, James’s famous “Psychologist’s Fallacy:” “To read back into the preliminary situation those distinctions of mere conjunction of material and of valid coherence which get existence … only within the process of inquiry is a fallacy” (Dewey, 1903, p. 328; see also James, 1950, pp. 196–7). But Dewey was quiet about what, if any, metaphysical ideas could support such views. Originally called The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Experimental Methods. The “Postulate” essay carries through the ramifications of his transformation of logic and critique of epistemology from Studies in Logical Theory. “What Pragmatism Means” argues against the traditional spectator-view of metaphysical theory. The “Metaphysical Inquiry” paper embraces the idea of a naturalistic, descriptive metaphysics in terms of the Aristotelian “study of existence as existence.” The Introduction articulates in a comprehensive manner for the first time the theory of experience that will receive its fullest expression in Experience and Nature some nine years later. Reprinted in Philosophy and Civilisation (1931) as “The Practical Character of Reality.” Such a view not only is explicit in idealism, says Dewey, but also underlies the then-current realist debate. Dewey presents here in outline what will be his conception of metaphysics in Experience and Nature as the search for the “generic traits of nature” or of “existence as existence.” The search for causes, in the sense of originating events or conditions, he leaves to the sciences. Dewey limits the comment to scientific inquiry because he is speaking of the sciences as searches for causes; in Experience and Nature he is clearer: the generic traits are those that turn up in any and all sorts of experiences. Latin for “affair” or “concern,” roughly the equivalent of the Greek pragma. Dewey writes, “There are times when I believe that the chief obstacle to genuine

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16

17

18 19 20

21

22

23

24 25

Dewey and the Ancients advance in philosophy has this source; these times are when I read writings of fine minds, exercising great academic influence, still engaged in threshing over the husks of epistemology,” (Deen, 2012, p. 331). Evidence of this can be found in the acceptance of music and poetry as “gentlemen’s arts” whereas painting, sculpture, architecture, and so on were “tradesman” occupations. Thus the aesthetic enjoyment of finished products was separated from the practical means of bringing them about, and this aesthetic appreciation of meaning became the theory of essences as objects of pure contemplation. As John Herman Randall, Jr., has put it, in Locke the classical view that “ideas” (forms) are objects of knowledge has become entangled with the modern view that it is by means of ideas we get knowledge of objects—but ideas now are the products of efficient causation and therefore do not have to share any similarity of form with their causes. Whereas for Plato or Aristotle the form was the cause of the being of the thing, and so to know the form was to know the thing in its essence, the modern view simply saw the mental idea as the effect of a cause and the effect did not have to resemble the cause at all; hence the “idea” was simply a sign, not an insight (see Randall, 1962a, pp. 601–2). Dewey’s analyses of Descartes and Locke are particularly sensitive (see Deen, 2012, Chapters V−VII). See Dewey’s continued critique pp. 144–5, 182–3, 232–5, and 242–6. See Dewey’s critique of the effects of the unresolved problems of modernity especially on economics in the unfinished reintroduction for Experience and Nature—a critique worthy of the pen of an angry young Marx (Dewey, 1925, pp. 358–9). Plato himself gives a thoroughgoing critique of this view in Parmenides and seems to propose a compromise in Sophist (see Plato, 1997, 246a−f. and especially 247e). But, whatever modifications he may have introduced, the hypothesis of the Forms as self-existent and “really real” seems present in the late dialogue Timaeus and very late—and likely authentic—Letter VII. There is no question that Dewey’s Aristotle is the one received through medieval philosophy and which has been operative in the Western tradition. And that is the Aristotle that had to be dealt with. As for Aristotle himself, the debate goes on, especially for those working in the tradition of Woodbridge, Randall, Veatch, and Anton. I find it interesting to compare the number of pages Aristotle devoted to natural science, fish, frogs, and chickens, with those he devoted to his “god,” the Unmoved Mover. Hobbes says, “Correspondent to cause and effect, are power and act; nay, those and these are the same things …” (Hobbes, 1656, X.1). This is the main argument of the first chapter of Experience and Nature. Due to misinterpretations of the book, Dewey rewrote the first chapter for the 1929



26

27 28

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edition—with much less success in my opinion than the original of 1925 (see also Alexander, 2013, pp. 54–71). Dewey’s observation, then, of the “generic trait” of the precarious/ stable is an acknowledgment that nature, as manifested in our human interactions with it, shows us degrees of order and disorder, of stability and change, and these are omnipresent throughout our dealings with the universe. “Potentiality” might as well be the term given to this ability to see some things as conditions of other things and those others as outcomes without making assumptions that the result was “contained” in the condition absolutely. This was Aristotle’s reply to the Presocratics, like Anaximander, who made The Hot and The Cold as primary manifestations of nature. This can be illustrated in the origin of zero. According to Robert Kaplan, one possibility for the origin of our symbol for zero originated from the empty impression left by a counting stone in sand; it expresses something that is taken away (see Kaplan, 2000, p. 25). A profitable comparison can be made to the Buddhist idea of dependent origination, pratitya-samutpada, or emptiness, sunyata. (see Alexander, 2013). This of course is a key theme in Heidegger’s Being and Time (1962); his later thought seems to think of Being itself as an Ereignis, an event (see also Heidegger, 1999).

References Alexander, T. (1987), John Dewey’s Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. —(2008), “Comments on James Good, a Search for Unity in Diversity,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 44 (4), 563–8. —(2013), The Human Eros. New York: Fordham University Press. Aristotle (1894), Nicomachean Ethics. Oxford: The Oxford University Press. Barnes, J. (ed.) (1984), The Complete Works of Aristotle. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cooper, J. and Hutchinson, D. (eds) (1997), Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Deen, P. (ed.) (2012), Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. (1887), “Psychology,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1890), “The Philosophy of Thomas Hill Green,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1891a), “The Present Position of Logical Theory,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

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—(1891b), “Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1894a), “Self-Realization as the Moral Ideal,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1894b), “The Theory of Emotions,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1894c), “The Study of Ethics: A Syllabus,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1894d), “Intuitionalism,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1896), “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1897), “The Significance of the Problem of Knowledge,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. — (1900a), “Review of the World and the Individual by Josiah Royce for Philosophical Review,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1900b), “Some Stages of Logical Thought,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1903), “Studies in Logical Theory,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1905a), “The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1905b), “Beliefs and Existences,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1906), “Review of The Life of Reason by George Santayana for Science,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1907), “Review of The Life of Reason by George Santayana for Educational Review,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899-1924, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1908a), “Does Reality Possess Practical Character?” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1908b), “What Pragmatism Means by Practical,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1909), “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1915), “The Subject-matter of Metaphysical Inquiry,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 8. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1916), “Introduction to Essays in Experimental Logic,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 10. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.



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—(1917), “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 10. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1925), “Experience and Nature,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1927), “Philosophy and Civilization,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 3. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1930), “From Absolutism to Experimentalism,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1939), “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 14. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1940), “Time and Individuality,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 14. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dykhuizen, G. (1973), The Life and Mind of John Dewey. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Heidegger, M. (1962), Being and Time. New York: Harper. —(1999), Contributions to Philosophy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Hickman, L. (2008), “Dewey’s Hegel: a search for unity in diversity, or diversity as the growth of unity?,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 44, (4), 569–76. Hobbes, T. (1656), Elements of Philosophy. London: R. & W. Leybourn for Andrew Crooke. James, W. (1950), The Principles of Psychology. New York: Dover Publications. Kaplan, R. (2000), The Nothing that Is. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lamont, C. (1961), “New Light on Dewey’s Common Faith,” The Journal of Philosophy, 58, (1), 26. Leclerc, I. (1972), The Nature of Physical Existence. London: Allen & Unwin. Perry, R. (1935), The Thought and Character of William James, vol. II. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Randall, J. (1962a), The Career of Philosophy, Volume I: From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. New York: Columbia University Press. —(1962b), The Career of Philosophy, Volume II: From the German Enlightenment to the Age of Darwin. New York: Columbia University Press. Royce, J. (1900), The World and the Individual. New York: Macmillan. Santayana, G. (1905), The Life of Reason. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons. Schilpp, P. (1951), The Philosophy of John Dewey. New York: Tudor Publishing Company. Woodbridge, F. (1937), Nature and Mind. New York: Columbia University Press. Zeeman, E. (1976), “Catastrophe theory,” Scientific American, Issue 234, 65–70, 75–83.

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Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy Christopher C. Kirby

While John Dewey’s notion of inquiry is readily considered against thinkers like C. S. Peirce (Prawat, 1999), Hegel (Shook, 2000), and Immanuel Kant (Johnston, 2006a), there have been few who have attempted to trace the Greek contours of his position. This is noteworthy, however, since: More than one critic … has remarked that most of [his] significant commentary on ancient philosophy occurs within argument for some special phase of his own theory of inquiry. The indication … is that, in Dewey’s eyes, the study of Greek philosophy should not be thought of primarily as the occupation of a special academic task force, but as a continuing reinterpretation that is of general importance within contemporary philosophy. (Anderson, 1967, p. 86)

Those who have considered the connection between Dewey’s theory of inquiry and Greek thought have mostly situated their remarks within larger points, regarding either teaching and learning (Garrison, 1997; Johnston, 2006b; Cahn, 2007) or aesthetics and craft (Alexander, 1987; Hickman, 1990). The fact that this area remains somewhat underexplored could be chalked up to several factors: 1) Dewey was often quite critical of the classical tradition, particularly when it came to theories of knowledge; 2) Dewey was not a trained classicist, with little working knowledge of ancient Greek, and was self-admittedly not a historian of philosophy; and 3) whenever Dewey did turn positive attention toward ancient thought, he tended to speak in generalities, referring most often to “the Greeks” rather than any particular Greek thinker. In spite of this, there remain many compelling reasons to place Dewey’s views on inquiry in meaningful dialogue with the classical tradition. I will suggest that the most compelling of all is the link between Dewey’s view of inquiry and his particular brand of naturalism, which found its fullest expression late

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in his career. This is an underappreciated connection in Dewey’s work on inquiry, either taking a backseat to the instrumental, experimental themes in his thought or misinterpreted as a form of positivism/scientism. Once acknowledged, however, this connection could help bring Dewey’s normative, socio-political writings in line with his theories on ontology, logic, and the acquisition of knowledge. Of course, Dewey’s theory of inquiry grew out of his rejection of the term “epistemology” and he worked his entire life to supplant it with more scientific, embodied terms. His suspicion of epistemology, and the various terms it employed, stemmed mainly from his rejection of the dualisms of the Modern period, which he believed married the worst aspects of classical metaphysics to enlightenment subjectivism. On Dewey’s view, modern philosophy went wrong by attempting to: … substitute an Idealism based on epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, for the Idealism based on the metaphysics of classic antiquity… Idealism ceased to be metaphysical and cosmic in order to become epistemological and personal … It tried, after all, to put the new wine in the old bottles. (Dewey, 1920, pp. 49–51)

Such general accounts would appear elsewhere in Dewey’s writings and were often tied to his critique of the “spectator theory of knowledge,” which he seemed to trace from Kant back through the church fathers and eventually hung on the writings of Aristotle (MacPartland, 1945, pp. 291–3). This might explain why Dewey singled out Aristotle more often than Plato as a target for his polemics. Yet, as John Anton and F. M. Anderson have argued, even within Dewey’s more biting criticisms of the classical tradition, there remains an apparent admiration (Anton, 1965; Anderson, 1967). Though, whenever he wished to praise something in antiquity—especially anything Aristotelian—he tended to couch it in generic terms of “Greek” thought. Anderson even notes that, “To Dewey ‘Greek philosophy’ is, practically speaking, synonymous with ‘Athenian philosophy’: this in itself is a significant equation” (p. 87, n. 2). It is important to recognize that Dewey’s generic references to “the Greeks” should not be taken as a mere aversion towards praising Aristotle. In fact, Dewey made reference to the “Greeks” one and half times as often as he referenced “Plato” or “Aristotle” singularly–1246, 793, and 841, respectively. Those numbers are represented by volume of his Collected Works as follows:



Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy 49

Figure 3.1  Referencing trends in Dewey’s Collected Works (Source: Intelex Past Masters/Carbondale, SIU Press; Image source: chartgo.com)

As the graph in Figure 3.1 indicates, Dewey’s tendency to generalize about ancient philosophy also increased as he got older, except for the spike in 1908, when he and Tufts published the Ethics. The volumes of The Middle Works contain 510 references to the “Greeks,” whereas The Later Works contain 651. References to “Plato” and “Aristotle” each drop slightly over that same duration (down 65 and 20, respectively). This seems to suggest something about how Dewey viewed and employed the classical tradition, especially with regard to later developments in his thinking. I shall argue that reading Dewey’s later, deepened appreciation for Greek philosophy in general, alongside the development of his naturalistic theory of inquiry demonstrates how the various threads of Greek organicism at play in his thinking were undergoing constant adjustment and mutual refinement. Dewey’s general references to the “Greeks” should neither be seen as an indication of disinterest or unfamiliarity with the classical world nor as always a symptom of loose speaking. Rather, I believe he sought to recapture, sometimes unwittingly, something of the “spirit” of Greek thought, especially with regard to how it problematized human relationships with the natural world. As Anderson wrote: Generally, when Dewey suggests that contemporary philosophers should do for modern culture what Greek philosophers did in their own time, or when

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Dewey and the Ancients he speaks positively of Socrates, Plato or Aristotle, the emphasis is consistently on the ideas of thought as telic process. With shifting stress and accent, Dewey points to the awareness of the social problem, to their concern for intellectual criticism with a practical bearing, or even to the spirit of their queries. (Anderson, 1967, p. 98)

While Dewey may have shared with Plato particular concerns about education and with Aristotle certain commitments regarding method, it was the organic, inquisitive spirit that united them and other Greek philosophers with which Dewey most identified.

The organic spirit of Greek philosophy What I am calling the organic spirit of Greek philosophy sprang up from the ground in the Greek city-states of Asia Minor during the fifth century b.c.e. where thinkers like Thales, Pythagoras, and Heraclitus began to speculate about physis. As George Herbert Mead put it, the origin of that speculation was largely determined: … [B]y the physical character of their country. It broke them up into small communities largely situated upon the sea-coast with but slight possibility of spreading inland. The land itself except a few local­ities was not capable of supporting a large population even from the standpoint of the relatively small communities that inhabited them. It followed that the natural increase in population flowed out almost con­stantly except in later periods of Greek history over the sea in small contingents. (Cote, 2013, p. 390)

This social structure can be found in literature as far back as Homer and Hesiod. The earliest philosophers, therefore, would have been accustomed to viewing the world as a precarious one, in which change often occurred rapidly and violently. Consequently, their speculations centered on the interplay between stability and instability in the natural world and physis was a concept well suited to this aim.1 The early Greeks did not see nature as something antecedent and wholly separable from the human. Instead, the view that they shared, which did not sharply distinguish between the human and natural realms, could be called—following Werner Jaeger—an “organic point of view.” As he put it, the ancient Greeks in general, always had “an innate sense of the natural,” wherein: The concept of “nature,” […] was without doubt produced by their peculiar mentality. Long before they conceived it, they had looked at the world with the



Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy 51 steady gaze that did not see any part of it as separate and cut off from the rest, but always as an element in a living whole, from which it derived its position and meaning. (Jaeger, 1986, p. xx)

This point of view filtered into every aspect of Greek life. Even philosophers who held a dualistic view of reality would not have drawn their distinctions along the lines of organic nature versus “inorganic” humanity. Regardless of how their speculations about change and permanence were worked out, the underlying assumption was always that human understanding was part and parcel of this larger picture, not separated from it. Over and above this “physical” continuity between the natural and human realms, early Greek philosophy is colored by a picture of the universe, the kosmos, as both alive and orderly: The “Nature” of which the first philosophers tell us with confident dogmatism is from the first a metaphysical entity; not merely a natural element, but an element endowed with supernatural life and powers, a substance which is also Soul and God. It is that very living stuff out of which daemons, Gods, and souls had slowly gathered shape. It is that same continuum of homogeneous matter, charged with vital force, which had been the vehicle of magical sympathy, that now is put forward explicitly, with the confident tone of an obvious statement, as the substrate of all things and the source of their growth. (Cornford, 1957, p. 123)

The consequences of this view held deep implications for how human beings were thought to relate to the world around them—experientially, epistemically, and ethically—and became the core of philosophical considerations. Various strains of Greek organicism may be apparent in the writings of Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Aristotle, but it also loomed large in the thinking of figures traditionally considered to be more abstract, such as Pythagoras, Parmenides, and even Plato. As Huntington Cairns wrote in his “Introduction” to Plato: Complete Works: Plato was the culmination of several centuries of Greek speculation and he took full advantage of the insight which his predecessors had developed. But speculation assumes intelligibility. The insight that the world is system, is organic, therefore both orderly and alive, is the Greek view as far back as we have records. Because of this previous work in philosophy he was able relatively early in life to see the world as an entirety and to grapple with its implications. The Greek organic view stressed a living entirety made up of members. (1961, p. xvii)

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However, since Plato’s theory of forms is most often read as an idealistic solution to the stability/instability problem, the organic features of his thought have often been ignored, aiding in the rise of the various dualisms of Western thought—appearance/reality, mind/body, fact/value, and subject/object—each built upon a sensualist view of experience not present in early Greek thought, perhaps not even in Aristotle, with whom it is often associated.2 Besides speculating about a world which appeared quite unstable, these figures worked in a time of great cultural transition as well, in which an oral tradition was giving way to a written one. This required the repurposing of old terms to fit new concepts: The Greece of 700 B.C., of Homer—and this was only two and a half centuries earlier—was completely non-literate; its early architecture, art, politics and poetry were the achievements of a people who could neither read nor write … the transition can be summed up as a shift from the poetic to the prosaic, as this occurred not in the vernacular, but in that part of the language selected for preservation. (Havelock, 1984, p. 70)

The word the early philosophers used to indicate the function of organizing the yields of sensory perception was one such word. Derived from an earlier, Homeric usage, empeiria is a combination of the prefix that meant “in” or “on” and a root that meant “to try” or “to attempt.” In this sense, “experience” for the Greeks meant that the trials of the sea could be read on the chapped hands and weathered faces of the sailors who had survived them. For them, there would arise no need to speak of erroneous experiences, in the sense of that which is abstracted “out of ” peiria, taking place within a mind, cut off from its surroundings. Instead, they spoke of empeiria as a middle state between perception on the one hand and knowledge on the other, but with a firm foothold in each. In this way, experience was, at once, in and of the world and, although it involved some measure of practical success, was not strictly identical with craft, or “technē” (Butler, 2003). Although Greek thinkers like Plato and Aristotle may have disagreed about the make-up of the world around them, one element common in their thought was that experience was a natural event, generated by that world. Simply put, experience for the organic-minded Greeks would be more like what is now called “life-experience.” Such a view of experience yields three insights regarding the acquisition of knowledge that might appear quite alien to contemporary epistemologists. First, since experience was related to some notion of practical success, knowledge would have to possess a deeply practical character, as well:



Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy 53 The new effort to deal with abstractions seemed to require separate signification, a terminology of what we might call pure intellection. Thinking and thought as a conceptual process was recognized as replacing, or at least as supplementing the activities of sensing, of noting, of looking at, of perceiving and feeling.3 (Havelock, 1984, p. 80)

This usage had two significant effects. One was that references to knowledge were colored by a newly coined reflexive grammar. Havelock explains, “In oral language the actions of agents commonly acted upon something; the subject did something to an object. But here was a new kind of action, namely sheer intellection, which perhaps was not an action at all” (Havelock, 1984, p. 81). The other was that knowledge was necessarily viewed as incomplete. Just as experience accreted over time, so too would knowledge. Second, under an organic understanding of empeiria, knowledge would likewise have to possess a decidedly non-propositional flavor. On such a view: [A] sentence or proposition expresses how a thing is qualified (poion ti) rather than what it is (ti esti). The point is apparently that any statement I make, for example, about virtue, will only qualify virtue in one way or another by saying that it has this or that property. (Gonzalez, 1995, pp. 185–6)

In other words, to say anything about a particular object or concept would be, necessarily, to say something incomplete, which may be more or less useful, but which could never be confused with what the thing is, as such, completely. Last, the practical, incomplete, and non-propositional characteristics of knowing imply that there is something of a process, or building up, toward robust knowledge from more inchoate cognitive states.4 In this way, intuition, creativity and deftness would be indispensable aspects of knowledge acquisition. Under such a view, thought and action could be said to “fit” together and “reinforce” one another. This becomes important when considering that, from the earliest accounts, the core of Greek moral life was aretē, or “excellence,” rather than piety. In order to fully appreciate the emphasis on skill implied by this concept, we English speakers may be better off using the term virtuosity rather than the usual translation of “virtue” when referring to the Greek moral ideal. To be an excellent person was to be a virtuoso, illustrated by the Homeric heroes Achilles and Odysseus. The aretē of each—the unparalleled physical prowess of Achilles and intellectual cunning of Odysseus—is what raised each above other mortals. This type of potency was later clearly tied to the intellect in Socrates’ famous dictum “to know the good is to do the good.” And, in

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Aristotle’s Ethics (Barnes, 1984), we are told that reason is grounded in human experience and that theoria and praxis are ultimately united in that most philosophical of tasks—“thinking about thinking.” In summary, there appear to be a cluster of themes in Greek organicism relevant to Dewey’s theory of inquiry. First, it offered a picture of the natural world as functional and growth oriented. Second, it employed a conception of experience rooted in praxis and continuous with bio-physical processes. Third, it created a vocabulary of knowledge acquisition which extended from notions of “doing” instead of “seeing.” This distinction underscored three aspects of knowledge itself, namely its instrumentality (which entails reflexivity and incompleteness), its non-propositional elements, and its non-cognitive, intuitive origins. Finally, the praxeology delivered by Greek organicism focused on constructing and reconstructing habit through rational reflection with an aim toward better living.

Organicism and the development of Dewey’s naturalism Before these themes are tied to Dewey’s naturalism and, more specifically, his theory of inquiry, it may be helpful to briefly trace how Greek organicism filtered down to him over the first few decades of his career. As a scholar who was neither trained as a classicist, nor primarily concerned with the history of ideas, it seems Dewey did not fully come to appreciate the Greek themes implicit in his work until well after he had joined the faculty at Columbia. As Walter Veazie recounts, Dewey’s self-assessment as a Greek revivalist came sometime during the academic year between 1915 and 1916. But the path Dewey took to such a realization was an indirect one and was a long time in the making (1961, p. 3). Going back to his graduate work at Johns Hopkins, Dewey was heavily influenced by the neo-Hegelian G. S. Morris, who rejected the dialectic of Geist in favor of a more Aristotelian, biological description of the dynamism of nature, as well as C. S. Peirce, who, “by his own account emerged from the German fog primarily by the assistance of Aristotle” (Veazie, 1961, p. 4). Under Morris’s view, the traditional “subject” in epistemology was redefined as an organism, fully immersed in and interacting with a dynamic, organic environment. This move, which proved vital in Dewey’s later thought, came to Morris from his mentor Trendelenburg, who had been sharply influenced by Aristotle’s notions of potentiality and actuality and by Darwin’s theory of evolution (Boisvert, 1988).5 On Trendelenberg’s reading, the notion of telos was rendered a type of



Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy 55

biological end in both nature and organisms. Morris, in turn, appropriated these ideas as he aimed at detailing the meaning of existence and the undermining of dualisms. Peirce also handed down a few concepts to Dewey, via Darwin, that were inspired by the Greeks. One was what Peirce called synechism, the idea that the cosmos consists in a continuous whole—with none of its part being fully separable, determined or determinate—increasingly growing together in complexity and connectedness. Since the universe, according to Peirce, could not be fully understood in terms of its constituent parts, he argued that synechism was an essential heuristic hypothesis to all scientific progress, and Dewey apparently absorbed the lesson, although he did not see the same implications as Peirce toward the question of the immortal soul. Another Peircean idea was tychism, which was the thesis that chance was a fundamental aspect of reality, and which Peirce believed directly followed from synechism. As he saw it, “our knowledge is never absolute but always swims, as it were, in a continuum of uncertainty and of indeterminacy. Now the doctrine of continuity is that all things so swim in continua” (Peirce, 1931, p. 171). For Peirce, the combination of continuity and chance led directly to fallibilism, insofar as precision is impossible when measuring the values of continuous quantities. Thus, the laws of nature are probabilistic rather than absolute. As Peirce would put it, the laws of nature express the tendencies or habits of things. From this, Peirce proposed an evolutionary cosmology, the upshot of which was: from irregularity, regularity emerges. This view, according to Peirce, could account for increasing complexity and diversity insofar as it always allowed for possible deviations and derivations from any established rule. These early experiences with Greek themes, albeit with a noticeable Darwinian slant, were reinforced at the University of Chicago, where Dewey worked closely with George Herbert Mead and Jane Addams, who both had intimate knowledge of classical thought and applied it to their work in social psychology and activism, respectively.6 By the time Dewey left Chicago for Columbia in 1904, philosophical naturalism was already on the rise in America and many of those working on the articulation of the naturalist position found its roots in the Greek tradition. George Santayana’s five-volume treatise, The Life of Reason (1905–6), which claimed to be built on the legacy of Plato and Aristotle and aimed at showing, “everything ideal has a natural basis and everything natural an ideal development,” is a prime example (Santayana, 1905, p. 21). Dewey’s arrival at Columbia occurred two years after that of F. J. E. Woodbridge, who was known for his naturalistic reading of Aristotle, and one year after William Pepperell Montague, who was (along with Edwin Holt and

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Ralph Barton Perry at Harvard) one of the leading proponents of the “new realism.” They were soon joined by Wendell T. Bush and the department at Columbia quickly moved to the forefront of the naturalism movement. Within a scholarly community of like-minded scholars, the naturalistic kernels of Dewey’s thinking could be nourished and would eventually produce fruits like Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Experience and Nature (1925), Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), and a volume co-authored with Arthur Bentley, Knowing and the Known (1949).7 At the same time, the interest in Greek philosophy shown by the naturalists was diverging sharply from the scholarship being done both across the Atlantic and among classicists in the States. One example is Alfred North Whitehead’s Gifford lectures on process philosophy, which he called yet another effort in “a series of footnotes to Plato,” by which: I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings … I mean that if we had to render Plato’s general point of view with the least changes made necessary by the intervening two thousand years of human experience … we should have to set about the construction of a philosophy of organism. (Whitehead, 1929, p. 39)

If nothing else, Dewey and the Columbia naturalists would have railed with Whitehead against a reading of Plato which rendered reality, as Whitehead put it elsewhere, into “two natures, [where] one is the conjecture and the other is the dream” (Whitehead, 1920, p. 30). Given these early encounters with Greek organicism, it should seem no stretch to say the commitments of Dewey’s naturalism were largely informed by a Greek spirit, especially in the account it offered of the sensual, volitional, and desirous aspects of knowledge acquisition, elements which Dewey clearly incorporated into his theory of inquiry. His theory was not strictly an epistemic one, but also reached down into his work in ontology, aesthetics, ethics, and political theory. There will not be enough space here to connect all of the dots between these areas, Dewey’s functional accounts of nature and experience, and the Greek notions of physis and empeiria. Fortunately, there is a raft of excellent scholarship regarding Dewey’s philosophy of experience which supports my reading of his theory of inquiry as embedded in his ontology and theory of experience (Alexander, 1987; Boisvert, 1988; Eldridge, 1998; Tiles, 1990; Hickman, 2001). Thus, I will limit my remaining comments to those aspects of Greek organicism which pertain directly to transitions from immediate experience to knowledge acquisition, trusting that it will be obvious how those



Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy 57

Greek aspects may be read back into what has already been written by others about Dewey’s theory of experience.

Knowledge as “doing” Dewey insisted that investigations into any area of human understanding should always begin with the activity itself in order to get a grasp on its epistemic value, instead of starting from the imagined cause of such behaviors. Jim Garrison, for one, has emphasized this unique aspect of Dewey’s thought: For Dewey scientific inquiry (thinking), was a process engaged in by some natural existences, including human beings … As Dewey saw it, we are participants in an unfinished universe rather than spectators of a finished universe. That is why our action, our behaviors, our social constructions, deconstructions, and reconstructions have ontological significance. (Garrison, 1994, p. 8)

The upshot of this was that while nature was in constant change, human beings could still act in their environment by testing their beliefs and adjusting them according to experience. Garrison finds the inroad to this feature of Dewey’s inquiry to be intuition. He argues that intuition for Dewey is a part of operative knowledge which helps turn an actual situation into a desirable one; “for Dewey all inquiry, not just moral inquiry, begins and ends with an affective intuition that involves a distinct feeling for the quality of a situation” (Garrison, 1997, p. 33). This belief can be read in many of Dewey’s essays, particularly two—“Affective Thought” (1926) and “Qualitative Thought” (1930)—but its foundations are located in an earlier paper, “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” (1896), which has been regarded as one of the most significant turning points in the research of human behavior. There, Dewey attacked the mechanistic view of stimulus and response that dominated the psychological research of the period and mimicked an older, erroneous mind–body dualism by placing stimulus in opposition to response. He wrote: … [W]e still incline to interpret the latter [response] from our preconceived and preformulated ideas of rigid distinctions between sensations, thoughts and acts. The sensory stimulus is one thing, the central activity, standing for the idea, is another thing, and the motor discharge, standing for the act proper, is a third. As a result, the reflex arc is not a comprehensive, or organic unity, but a patchwork of disjointed parts, a mechanical conjunction of unallied processes. (Dewey, 1896, p. 97)

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In this regard, Dewey complained, the reflex arc was inaccurate because it placed the parts of an act prior to the whole. It failed to recognize that stimulus, movement, and response only made sense as an interpretation of an event after it had occurred; moreover, he claimed the notions of stimulus and response were non-existent entities that only gain meaning once placed in relation to one another. Even this early in his career, one can see Dewey’s preference for naturalistic accounts. Under his reformulation, the reflex arc does not run in a linear direction from stimulus, through response, to movement. Rather, multiple stimuli, responses, and movements arise simultaneously and are experienced, in chorus, as a singular, unbroken act, “which is as experienced no more mere sensation than it is mere motion,” and thus, when analysis dissects the reflex arc into separate states, “we have, only the serial steps in a co-ordination of acts” (Dewey, 1896, p. 106). Simply put, before an act can be divided into parts, its quality as a whole must be explicated. With this in mind, Dewey looked to give an account of inquiry that could present how it showed up within various functional conditions, or modes of experience. Those modes are, according to Dewey, natural conditions that determine how organisms would deal with the “instability” and “precariousness” of experience. In his earliest text devoted to inquiry, Studies in Logical Theory (1903), Dewey set out on this project. There, he raised “important questions about the relations between dominantly aesthetic, moral, and affectional modes and subject-matters of experience and the cognitional mode and its specific subject-matter” (Anton, 2005, p. 138). Studies marked the beginning of what Joseph Ratner, in 1939, referred to as Dewey’s recasting philosophy as a “general logic of experience” (Schilpp, 1951, p. 71). However, while Dewey made mention of a number of modes in that volume, he never offered a comprehensive list anywhere else in his writings. The absence of such a list should not lead one to read Dewey’s use of modes as an appeal to some nebulous, ineffable Absolute leading to a perverse “metaphysics of experience” (Cochran, 2010, p. 62). Rather, it should be seen as an initial exploration into a new conception of logic, the broad strokes of which needed to be worked out prior to the details. In fact, the majority of Dewey’s works between the 1903 Studies volume and his Logic: The Theory of Inquiry could each be seen as working out the details of one of the fields of inquiry (ethics, art, religion, science, and politics) which arise out of the diverse modes of experience (the moral, aesthetic, religious, cognitive and social). “When we take Dewey’s works severally,” as Ratner put it:



Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy 59 … [T]hey very naturally group themselves into special (or specific) logics of the typical (or distinctive) modes of experience. Thus to mention only some of his representative works: Human Nature and Conduct is the special logic of the socio-ethical mode of experience; Art as Experience is the special logic of the esthetic mode; A Common Faith—of the religious; …The Quest for Certainty and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry—comprise the special logic of the scientific mode of experience; The Public and It’s Problems, Individualism Old and New, Liberalism and Social Action—comprise the socio-practical or utilitarian; …And finally Experience and Nature. [Therein] All modes of experience are naturally interconnected, being socio-cultural differentiations of common experience. (Ratner and Altman, 1964, p. 71)

The influence Ratner’s reading has had on Dewey scholarship warrants lengthy quoting. However, the last remark of the passage—that, in Experience and Nature, the diverse modes of experience are naturally interconnected—is perhaps the most informative. As Ratner explained, the modes of experience are, for Dewey, differentiations of a cultural sort, each of which imparts a specialized form of cultural “intelligence” interwoven into the fabric of common experience, and thus—nature. As Alexander and Eldridge have suggested, there seems to be a “guiding thought” in Dewey’s body of work; however, picking it out does not seem to be a matter of choosing between the “aesthetic dimension of experience” and “cultural instrumentalism” once knowledge as “seeing” is connected to knowledge as “doing.”

The “instrumental” features of knowledge If Dewey’s work on the modes of experience is to be taken seriously, the immediacy of experience could be said to possess certain pre-cognitive elements, which are enriched through inquiry toward more robust cognitive states. This is probably what led to Dewey positing the concept of the “indeterminate situation” as “the antecedent condition” of inquiry. In his words, “Inquiry is the controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in its constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of the original situation into a unified whole” (Dewey, 1938, p. 108). For Dewey, the organic interaction within an indeterminate situation will be transformed when: … [E]xistential consequences are anticipated; when environing conditions are examined with reference to their potentialities; and when responsive activities are selected and ordered with reference to actualization of some of the potentialities, rather than others, in a final existential situation. (1938, p. 111)

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Where many have seen this aspect of Dewey’s work as a “life-long effort to practicalize intelligence,” he was adamant that his goal was rather to “intellectualize practice” (Eldridge, 1998, p. 5). The former suggests intelligence must be made practical, while the latter implies experience is already inquiry-laden. Unsurprisingly, a straight line can be drawn from this mischaracterization to the type of charge leveled against Dewey’s thought, and pragmatism at large, as philosophical underwriting for crass opportunism. The difference between “intelligence practicalized” and “practice intellectualized” could be framed as one between rudimentary and robust acts of inquiry. The downside to any rudimentary form of inquiry is that it yields a very narrow set of solutions. The traditions and techniques it produces will disclose only a limited number of possible solutions. Conversely, scientific inquiry, according to Dewey, can free meaning from the interests of a particular group and allow that meaning to become more abstract insofar as “semantic coherence, as such, is the controlling consideration” (1938, p. 119). What issues forth is a pattern of reasoning that guides inquiry vis-à-vis subsequent indeterminate situations. And, while this also amounts to a set of norms or imperatives, each is accepted or rejected only in terms of coherence with one another. This opens up the set of possible solutions to a problem by offering a logic of the situation. As such, Dewey’s Logic contained a marked difference in its treatment of the modes of experience. Dewey clearly had moved beyond discussing the various modes of experience and put forth arguments that were “intended to indicate that the different objectives of common sense and of scientific inquiry demand different subject-matters and that this difference in subject matters is not incompatible with the existence of a common pattern in both types” (1938, p. 119). In response to Ratner’s critique, Dewey commented, “Dr. Ratner has put his finger upon the main ‘shift’ in my writings …:” … I should, from the start, have systematically distinguished between knowledge as the outcome of special inquiries (undertaken because of the presence of problems) and intelligence as the product and expression of cumulative funding of the meanings reached in these cases. (Schilpp, 1951, pp. 520–1)

Two points of clarification are needed. The first is that there is a salient difference between knowledge as the “outcome” and intelligence as the “habit” of the cognitive mode of experience, on one hand, and those outcomes and habits that are the byproducts of non-cognitive modes, on the other. When taken as a product of these latter, non-cognitive modes, knowledge is strictly passive and intelligence manifests itself as a supplicatory method



Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy 61

for dealing with problems. In other words, there are innumerable ways of coping with precariousness, few means for transforming it. The second point of clarification to be noted is that inquiry, understood in its broadest sense as enrichment within any of the modes of experience, may only provide the type of intelligence that allows for the accommodation or avoidance of adversity. Although Dewey believed that everyday inquiry is continuous with the more specialized, cognitive type of inquiry, he argued that only the virtues of the sort of intelligence, of which science was an example, could “give expertness of dealing with materials and tools, and promote the development of the experimental habit of mind” (Dewey, 1920, p. 86).8 Rather than viewing Dewey’s distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive modes of experience as an indication of an underlying scientism, as many have, it again seems more appropriate to view it in terms of the difference between reflexive and non-reflexive actions identified in Greek organicism. Only the reflexivity of cognitive modes of experience can yield principles for further indeterminate situations as well as insights about the one doing the inquiring—thus uniting the Latin imperative, “Sapere aude,” with the Greek aphorism, “Gnothi seauton.” Conceptually, the “indeterminate situation” also reveals the incompleteness in any inquiry. According to Dewey, “Every such interaction is a temporal process, not a momentary cross-sectional occurrence;” that is to say, it is best characterized as a process (1938, p. 110). While rudimentary inquiry is a process of accommodation to meet demands of the environing conditions, cognitive inquiry is a process of adjustment in the situation, in both the environment and the organism. The result of which is an increase in complexity for both. As Dewey described it, “The temporal quality of inquiry means, then, something quite other than that the process of inquiry takes time. It means that the objective subject-matter of inquiry undergoes temporal modification” (1938, pp. 121–2). Twenty-two years earlier, in Democracy and Education, Dewey referred to this temporal modification as “plasticity,” and described it therein as “the capacity to retain and carry over from prior experience factors which modify subsequent activities” (1916, p. 47). In his later work, Dewey would refer to this as the capacity for “habit-formation.” As he put it in Experience and Nature: … [A]n organism acts with reference to a time-spread, a serial order of events, as a unit, just as it does in reference to a unified spatial variety. Thus an environment both extensive and enduring is immediately implicated in present

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Thus, any transformation of the indeterminate into the determinate is a process of once again returning to a “unified whole,” except that, qua the outcome of cognitive inquiry, the determinate situation is a context that has been enriched, i.e. it has gained structure, through a newly emergent habit. This is the major difference between habits as the outcome of cognitive inquiry and those of the non-cognitive experience. The habits which are employed in the former, which Dewey called intelligence, involve manipulation of abstract symbols, or meanings, whereas the latter involve the manipulation of values, which are always more proximate than meanings. In other words, cognitive habits form the principles of thought, on which fields like logic and mathematics are based. Non-cognitive habits form the principles of normativity, which form the subject matters of aesthetics and ethics. The former yields knowledge; the latter yields attitudes. But, for Dewey, all knowledge—even that which has been traditionally termed “propositional”—is essentially a skill, one acquired through developing appropriate habits. The consequence, then, is that even the semantic and logical rules that govern language are habitual.

The non-propositional elements of knowledge Although both types of inquiry can lead to the formation of habits, only the cognitive variety can lead to the type of re-evaluation of its habits that Dewey referred to as “reconstruction.” Cognitive inquiry achieves this through the versatility of meaning. As Dewey put it, “the more numerous our habits the wider the field of possible observation and foretelling. The more flexible they are, the more refined is perception in its discrimination and the more delicate the presentation evoked by imagination” (1922, p. 123). Because cognitive inquiry employs habits that deal with meaning, this type of inquiry can lead to the changing of those habits whenever they produce a solution that does not cohere with other meanings. This is where experimentation, which Dewey believed was merely a description of the default setting in which all “live creatures” operated, comes into focus within his account. As he had explained over a decade earlier, in his How We Think (1910), when any organism is presented with a series of events it will inevitably relate them to past experiences. Dewey claimed that the limitation of valuation within non-cognitive modes of experience is that it “affords no way of



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discriminating between right and wrong conclusions” (1910, p. 294).9 Inquiries made from cognitive modes of experience, on the other hand, have an apparatus for distinguishing between competing theses. This apparatus is the habit of abstraction, or meaning manipulation. As Dewey put it, “Experiment is the chief resource in scientific reasoning because it facilitates the picking out of significant elements in a gross, vague whole” (1910, p. 298). He thought new interpretations arose through experimentation in response to particular problems. The difference, in the end, between cognitive inquiry and non-cognitive valuation boils down to the ability to create new habits via new interpretations of the meaning of action. All of this explains why Dewey became so concerned about precision of terminology in the field of epistemology, and why he eschewed that title for the field of knowledge acquisition as well. His work with Arthur Bentley in Knowing and the Known aimed to “fix a set of leading words capable of firm use in the discussion of “knowings” and “existings” in that specialized region of research called the theory of knowledge” (1949, p. xi). The collected essays of which Knowing was comprised originally appeared between 1944 and 1949 and were the result of a rich correspondence which began in November of 1932 and continued until the winter of 1951, when Dewey had become too weak to maintain it. The collected correspondence, edited by Sidney Ratner and Jules Altman and published in 1964 by Rutgers University Press, shows itself to be a worthwhile study as a proving-ground for a terminology they hoped would clarify key concepts in Dewey’s Logic. Though many terms traditionally used by Dewey were dropped for the publication of Knowing (for example, “experience,” “interaction,” and “knowledge”), one of the main holdovers was “inquiry,” indicating how much of the theoretical structure of their collaboration owed to Dewey’s view (Ratner and Altman, 1964, pp. 44–5). Also retained in Knowing and the Known was Dewey’s notion of “situation,” now tied to more deeply to “events,” “occurrences,” and “objects.” As they wrote: When an event is of the type that is readily observable in transition within the ordinary spans of human discrimination… we shall call it occurrence… Object is chosen as the clearly indicated name for stabilized, enduring situations … Thus, any one of the three words Situation, Occurrence and Object may, if focusing of attention shifts, spread over the range of the others. All being equally held as Event. (Dewey and Bentley, 1949, p. 70)

Although most naturalists of Dewey’s era rejected substance ontology and the Cartesian assumptions drawn from it, what made Dewey unique among them was how he rejected it. As he put it:

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Dewey and the Ancients … [W]hat we call matter is that character of natural events which is so tied up with changes that are sufficiently rapid to be perceptible as to give the latter a characteristic rhythmic order, the causal sequence. It is no cause or source of events or processes; no absolute monarch; no principle of explanation; no substance behind or underlying changes—save in that sense of substance in which a man well fortified with this world’s goods, and hence able to maintain himself through vicissitudes of surroundings, is a man of substance. The name designates a character in operation, not an entity. (1925, p. 65)

While “characterization” takes on an important role in Knowing and the Known, one has to turn to the Dewey–Bentley correspondence to grasp what he meant by the “character” of “events.” In a letter dated December 4, 1945, Dewey wrote to Bentley that in the Logic he “had need to distinguish the concrete and abstract from the standpoint of logical use in inquiry,” and “As I used ‘character,’ it is a synonym … [for] an ‘abstract’ noun” (Ratner and Altman, 1964, p. 499). Reading this and surrounding correspondence against an essay Dewey published in the Journal of Philosophy that same month, titled “Ethical Subject Matter and Language” (1945), suggests that Dewey felt this use of “character” was all of a piece with its use in his moral writings. This also links up with the abandonment, in Knowing and the Known, of the separate terms “experience” and “knowledge” in favor of a single term—“knowing-known”—to cover both, as well as the choice to drop “individual” in favor of “organism.” Under this more precise terminology, Dewey and Bentley hoped to make clear that human beings themselves were also events. Just as Darwin had shown that a species was not a static eidos, pre-ordained by some unmoved mover, Dewey sought to prove that what we take to be individual objects are actually confluences of significance, and what we take to be an individual intelligence is merely a concrescence of habit—both cultural and experiential. In this way, reason is not something over and above nature, but is immersed within it as a part of cultural experience. He wrote: … [R]eason is experimental intelligence, conceived after the pattern of science, and used in the creation of social arts; it has something to do. It liberates man from the bondage of the past, due to ignorance and accident hardened into custom. It projects a better future and assists man in its realization. And its operation is always subject to test in experience. (Dewey, 1920, p. 135)

Instead of positing reason as the tenant of a reified mind, as naturalists like Santayana seemed to do, Dewey argued that the intellect was a function that emerged from the transaction of experiencing events (or “organisms”) from



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within the context of other events surrounding them (or “environment”) toward working out unstable situations—it was, in a word, a habitual.

Knowledge, praxis, cosmos—habit and growth “Habit” is another term that appears in the Dewey–Bentley correspondence, but not in their finished manuscript of Knowing and the Known. This seems to be Bentley’s influence. Dewey, looking for a substitute for “conception,” wrote on July 2, 1945: “There are attitudes, dispositions, habits, which operate continuously and for the most part steadily and stably. (‘Habits’ is perhaps the best word because it is a transactional word. … Attitudes being always toward, and dispositions, arrangements, of something)” (Ratner and Altman, 1964, p. 436). Bentley’s response to Dewey, however, made it clear he thought habit to cover only some of the instances in which “conception” might be used, and misused, and so it was not replaced. Later, however, Dewey and Bentley agreed “100%,” as Dewey wrote, that habit was a not merely something possessed by an organism, but was instead in the entire situation, it was, as they called it a “habit-transactional” (Ratner and Altman, 1964, p. 496). More will need to be said about transactions below, but first more must be said about how Dewey viewed habits as encompassing both moral character and the character of situations. For Dewey, habits were intimately connected to his conception of “growth,” which also held special meaning in his work. In his words: Habits take the form both of habituation, or a general and persistent balance of organic activities with the surroundings, and of active capacities to readjust activity to meet new conditions. The former furnishes the background of growth; the latter constitute growth. (1916, p. 57)

A general definition of growth in this sense can be found earlier in Democracy and Education, where Dewey called growth the “cumulative movement of action toward a later result” (1916, p. 46). This definition, however, is perhaps too vague. Dewey probably did not mean to reinstate what he saw as “a false idea of growth or development,—that it is a movement toward a fixed goal,” so some unpacking is required (1916, p. 55). Dewey’s own explication is only marginally helpful: “Growth is [mistakenly] regarded as having an end, instead of being an end;” it “has no end beyond itself ” (1916, pp. 55–7). Even among Dewey’s proponents, this has been found problematic:

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Granted, the efforts Dewey made to identify the “conditions of growth” throughout Democracy and Education and Human Nature and Conduct do not, by themselves, fully establish growth as a building block for a full-fledged moral philosophy; yet, when the concept is considered in juxtaposition with the features of Greek organicism already outlined, its subtle upshots become more apparent. Dewey believed a better understanding of “immaturity,” which for him included the notions of capacity and potentiality, would help clarify his view: Capacity may denote mere receptivity, like the capacity of a quart measure. We may mean by potentiality a merely dormant or quiescent state—a capacity to become something different under external influences. But we also mean by capacity an ability, a power; and by potentiality potency, force. Now when we say that immaturity means the possibility of growth, we are not referring to absence of powers which may exist at a later time; we express a force positively present—the ability to develop. (1916, p. 46)10

Achieving a new “power” of interaction with the environment through the reconstruction of habit is best understood as a pause, not a break in the process of growth. This is the point that Dewey later developed in his 1932 revision of the Ethics text, where he wrote, “It is in the quality of becoming that virtue resides. We set up this and that end to be reached, but the end is growth itself. To make an end a final goal is but to arrest growth” (1932, p. 306). With these statements, Dewey wanted to show that character (his expression for abstract tendencies to act, or “principles”) and conduct (actual acts) are not only inseparable, because they are different sides of habit formation, but also that the habits produced by inquiries within the cognitive modes of experience provide freedom to individuals insofar as they open up the possibility for new interpretations, whereas habits formed through repetition, i.e. tradition, restrict freedom, and often become our masters by restricting the growth of reconstruction (Dewey, 1922, chapters 2–3). Growth, as Dewey saw it, is naturalistic insofar as it eradicates the supposed ontological distinction between abstract “Reason” on the one hand and immediate experience on the other that has



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colored most of philosophy since the enlightenment. According to Dewey, inquiry, and ipso facto the growth that arises out of it, always already takes place in the having of an experience. If Dewey’s theory had stopped there, it would be quite similar to other naturalists of his day; however, the above evidence seems to suggest his view of growth was also ontological. For instance, in the third chapter of Knowing and the Known, Dewey and Bentley offer the following: A.  Postulations for Behavioral Research 1. The cosmos: as system or field of factual inquiry. 2. Organisms: as cosmic components 3. Men: as organisms. 4. Behavings of men: as organic-environmental events. 5. Knowings (including the knowings of the cosmos and its postulation): as such organic-environmental behavings. (1949, p. 84)

With a theory of inquiry so outside of the mainstream, it should not be surprising that Dewey’s view received more than its fair share of critics.11 Richard Gale, for one, has characterized Dewey’s view as a Promethean mysticism: The metaphysics of Experience and Nature, far from being an empirically based description of the generic traits of existence, can best be understood as a transcendental deduction argument for what nature must be like if it is to be possible for inquiry to take place in it, and this results in an anthropomorphic metaphysics that ensures the world will be a fit place for Promethean endeavor to control nature through inquiry. (Cochran, 2010, p. 57)

Gale identifies three “underlying doctrines” within Dewey’s naturalism that typify metaphysical speculation insofar as they “do not admit of any objective verification” (Cochran, 2010, p. 75). The first is what he calls Dewey’s “Humpty Dumptyism,” which stems from the Deweyan worry that “if we ever let [reality] fall apart into numerically distinct pieces, not all the king’s philosophers can put it back together again into relational complexes” (Cochran, 2010, p. 60). Next is what Gale designates as Dewey’s “organism,” which he attributes to Dewey’s early Hegelianism and affinity for the Romantic poets. Gale points to Dewey’s notion of mutual dependency, such as the one between lungs and air, as a hallmark example of his tendency to overblow the role of organisms: Dewey’s claim of a mutual dependency between lungs and air, and, more generally, between an organism and its natural environment, is dubious, for the air can exist without there being lungs to breathe it and a natural environment can survive the demise of all organisms. (Cochran, 2010, p. 65)

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Last, Gale holds up Dewey’s reliance on the notion of “continuity” as the third pillar of his mystical metaphysics. Because Dewey was so adamantly against reductive approaches in the sciences and philosophy, Gale concludes that what Dewey meant by “continuity” must have been of a top-down variety, tantamount to panpsychism. These criticisms may appear, at first blush, quite damaging to Dewey’s position—particularly when considering it in connection with Greek organicism. However, there seems to be something incredible in each of the supposed “mystical” doctrines Gale has put forth. First, while Dewey would have assented to the notion that reality could fall into “numerically distinct pieces,” he would have seen any such distinction as just a matter of a “selective emphasis.” Furthermore, just as respiration transforms the object of air chemically, physically, and volumetrically, so an organism transforms its environment. That the natural environment would survive the demise of all organisms (albeit in a significantly diminished capacity), or the existence of air would continue without lungs, does not negate that the changes made by these respective involvements is not constitutive. Finally, to suggest that any notion of continuity must conform either to reductionism or panpsychism seems a completely wrongheaded false dichotomy.

Transaction and non-linear growth What Gale’s reading of Dewey fails to fully consider is the centrality of transaction in Knowing and the Known. In the fourth chapter, Dewey and Bentley introduce the term: … [L]et us now set down in broad outlines three levels of the organization and presentation of inquiry in the order of their historical appearance … Self-action: where things are viewed as acting under their own powers. Inter-action: where thing is balanced against thing in causal interconnection. Transaction: where systems of description and naming are employed to deal with aspects and phases of action, without final attribution to “elements” or other presumptively detachable or independent “entities,” “essences,” or “realities,” and without isolation of presumptively detachable “relations” from such detachable “elements.” (1949, pp. 107–8)

In accounting for the development of these levels of inquiry, the origins of self-action are located within the proto-scientific theories of ancient cultures,



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interaction in the mechanistic theories of Galileo and Newton, and transaction in the relational perspectives opened up by quantum and magnetic field research. In the notes to this passage, it is explained that “Dewey’s early employment of the word ‘transaction’ was to stress system more emphatically than could be done by ‘interaction,’” and is compared with his use of “integration” in the Logic and is an extension of the position taken in “The Reflex Arc” (Dewey and Bentley, 1949, p. 116, n. 8). Dewey and Bentley were explicit that each of these three levels remains available in any inquiry, which connects up nicely with Dewey’s earlier claims about the modes of experience and the incompleteness of Greek organicism. Gale’s criticism seems to stem from an interactional viewpoint, however, which turns on linear notions of causality, progress, and growth. What is meant by “linear” refers to those systems or processes which follow an analog series of steps aimed at a particular goal, clearly defined antecedently to action—what Dewey often called final ends, in a disapproving tone. In linear frameworks, causal arrows (and ipso facto progress) point in a singular direction. As shown, Dewey believed that growth was an inevitable aspect of life, one that could be either nourished and directed, or untended and chaotic. The latter form often stems from a classically liberal, laissez-faire approach that extends from the interactional perspective, one which can lead to overgrowth and morbidity. Dewey rejected this approach and instead sought a growing together of individuals within a community that resulted in what he called social intelligence. This holds interesting implications for both Dewey’s philosophy of education and his political philosophy. James Scott Johnston nicely sums up the connection between Dewey’s theory of inquiry, growth, and his views on education: To construct meaningful facts about the world is to expand the fund of meaning one has. To expand the fund of meaning one has is to enrich present and future experiences. Inquiry is the primary means by which growth is occasioned, and inquiry is a habit that is (and must be) developed, brought to bear on environmental and social situations. To develop this habit is precisely what is meant by education. (Johnston, 2006b, p. 111)

For Dewey, education fails when it seeks only to foster the growth of the individual and not the public, or situation, at large. In this way, it seeks a singular, final end, and is, therefore, linear in its practice. By contrast, the educational practice Dewey sought to develop was a “non-linear” process meant to increase experiential complexity (in the sense of richness) through a chorus of interrelated events and feedback loops. Nonlinear

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education comes not from some teleological design prior to action, but rather emerges through action. As such, causal arrows (and progress) simultaneously point in multiple directions, toward what Dewey called ends-in-view. The difference between linear and non-linear conceptions of growth is equivalent to the difference between the progress made when traveling toward a set destination and the general progress one makes when fitness training. Only in the former type of activity is growth measured according to a quantifiable telos. Yet, when a new indeterminate situation arises, those who have experienced non-linear growth, instead, will be able to adapt to the changes in the situation like a healthy organism can adjust to changes in its environment or a skilled jazz musicians can improvise around the notes she hears. There is ample evidence from Dewey’s life and work to suggest that non-linear growth was the primary value in his socio-political thinking, as well, one he called both the means and “the only end” from which he believed a better future could emerge through the process he called “creative democracy.” Far from naively espousing this ideal, however, Dewey took growth to be an arduous and daunting task, but one that was nevertheless indispensable to progress. What sets Dewey’s advocacy for public adaptability apart from other philosophies of social progress is its circumvention of Thomistic notions of Aristotelian teleology, which was a key maneuver in his philosophical naturalism, as well. Just as Dewey’s naturalism adopted non-linear depictions of nature as an “environing field” and of human psychology as a matrix of “sensori-motor coordination,” so too was the view of social progress he adopted non-linear; it did not hang on the kind of final, utopian political end espoused by many others. The distrust of democracy held by Greek thinkers like Plato and Aristotle was likely rooted in problems similar to those faced by our American democracy—successful democratic constitutions require citizens to have rich repertoires of cultural experience, critical apparatuses finely tuned to subtle political nuances, and the intellectual maturity to not be threatened by alternative points of view—while at the same time requiring a process sufficiently streamlined to address public needs with efficiency and timeliness. Simply put, “democracy is too simple for complex societies and too complex for simple ones” (Benhabib, 1996, p. 42). Dewey would couch the problem in this way: social intelligence is a property of publics, not individuals; yet, democratic institutions are aimed solely at the education of individuals and not publics. This mismatch is why democracies often fail and why Dewey spent so much of his time championing “creative democracy” as a “way of life,” instead of merely a mode of governance. The difference hangs on learning “to



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treat those who disagree—even profoundly—with us, as those from whom we may learn” (Dewey, 1939, p. 228). This resonates deeply with one of the most enduring aspects of Greek philosophy—a pursuit of wisdom that started with the problems and powers of humankind, and placed these in dialogue with the surrounding world. Yet, to show how the preceding ideas jibe with the most salient features of Greek organicism, and why I believe Dewey sought to capture its general spirit, it may be best to allow him to speak for himself. In an encyclopedia entry titled “Humanism and Naturalism,” one of several contributions to A Cyclopedia of Education (1912–13), Dewey wrote: Greek classic philosophy presents, upon the whole, a view of things in which there is a balance between naturalism and humanism … classic Greek idealism was idealistic in the sense that it had a teleological view of nature. Nature and mind were not regarded as two forces working either together or against each other, but as means and end, causal conditions and final values, potentiality and actuality. (pp. 214–15)

This article, written only three years before Dewey disclosed his interest in Greek philosophy to his graduate students at Columbia, shows what he hoped to revive. It continues: … [F]ound in the revival of Greek philosophic thought [is] a means of justifying the growing interest in the phenomena of physical and  human nature …  The prevailing way of conceiving the relation of man and nature was that of a microcosm to a macrocosm. Man was in small edition that which the universe was in large. This union, resting upon the use of Greek thought and the emulation of the free Greek spirit to justify a free and full satisfaction of human capacity through natural conditions, was, however, soon undermined from both sides. (pp. 215–16)

Perhaps these statements will lead scholars to look more closely at what Dewey found inspiring in Greek philosophy. As he concludes: … [C]ontemporary philosophy and contemporary educational theory may be said to be confronted with a common problem: The discovery of the common background or matrix in which humanistic and naturalistic interests are united; and the tracing of their respective differentiations from this community of origin—a differentiation, however, which should not become a separation, and which, accordingly, secures the possibility of fruitful interaction between them whenever desired. (p. 217)

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Notes   1 At first glance, such a concept may appear to correspond completely with a contemporary “physical” understanding of nature, and it is often translated as such. Yet, the connotation of this term, “organic growth,” stands in sharp contrast with the modern conception of nature built on the Latin equivalent natura, indicating “birth,” and handed down to history by figures like Descartes and Newton.   2 According to John MacPartland, Aristotle “speaks of knowledge as a ‘vision,’ ‘view,’ or ‘seeing.’ He knows very well that a misconception might easily arise here, and that is why he customarily says that knowledge is an immaterial act, but we do not see the immaterial, hence we have to take our terms from the material acts we see going on around us and use them analogically to describe immaterial activity. Thus the terms ‘vision,’ ‘view,’ or ‘seeing’ mean to view from without when they describe the way the eye sees its object, or the way a spectator views a spectacle. But when they describe the manner of seeing of the knower, that is, when they describe an immaterial act, they still mean a ‘vision,’ ‘view,’ or ‘seeing,’ but from within. This follows from the fact that the knower is the other, intentionally or immaterially, hence his view of reality is from within. In like manner, by contrast with the passive view of the spectator, who is external to the object, the view of the knower is vital, because he ‘lives the life of the other.’ ” (MacPartland, 1945, p. 292)   3 Havelock continues, “The pioneers preferred to adapt old terms, rather than invent new ones. Noein, to be aware or sensible of, phronein, to have wits, logizesthai, to tally, skopein to look at, epistasthai, to get on top of (in mastering a skill) were converted to the senses of thinking, reasoning, analyzing, understanding scientifically, and the corresponding nouns, phronesis, episteme, nous, dianoia (thought, science, mind, intellect) began to turn into indexes of sheer thought and abstract intellection” (Havelock, 1984, p. 81). See also Joanne Waugh’s reference to this shift in “Neither Published nor Perished: The Dialogues as Speech, not Text” (1995).   4 For instance, Robert Scharff has suggested that the Socratic paradox might be resolved by thinking of these claims of ignorance and his apparent wisdom as involving some sort of “vital understanding,” or what Heidegger called verstehen (Scharff, 1986).   5 Trendelenburg synthesized these two ideas into what he called “constructive motion” which he saw as the common trait between thought and being. On one hand, thought moves from potentiality to actuality, per Aristotle, as it becomes the object that is thought, on the other hand, being moves from potentiality to actuality, per Darwin, through natural selection. For a more detailed description of Trendelenburg’s “constructive motion,” see Raymond Boisvert’s Dewey’s Metaphysics (1988, pp. 22–4).   6 In her autobiographical account of her work at Hull House, Addams writes



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Dewey and “the Greeks:” Inquiry and the Organic Spirit of Greek Philosophy 73 of organizing Hellenic festivals, where classical philosophers and playwrights would be read and discussed (Addams, 1910). Renewed scholarly interest in Mead has revealed a deeper interest in the development of classical philosophy than previously realized. In fact, it seems that he was working, during the 1890s when he and Dewey were colleagues, on a book-length manuscript regarding the “origins of Greek speculation.” In 1944, Columbia University Press published a collection of essays edited by Yervant Krikorian under the title, Naturalism and the Human Spirit. Most of the contributors in that volume were associated with the department of philosophy at Columbia. It represented the culmination of nearly 40 years of work at Columbia and was a clear expression of their brand of naturalistic philosophy. This has led to many of Dewey’s critics, and some of his admirers, to the mistaken conclusion that the aim of his theory of inquiry was to give a complete logic of science in a vein similar to that of the positivists. However, he admitted in the preface of Logic that this account “does not have and could not have the finish and completeness that are theoretically possible” (1938, p. 5). Yet, he was convinced that it was “so thoroughly sound” that anyone who entertained it would “develop a theory of logic that is in thorough accord with all the best authenticated methods of attaining knowledge” (p. 5). Thus, by itself, the kinds of rudimentary inquiry which extend out from non-cognitive experience, namely “valuations,” do not provide the habits of deciding between simple conclusions such as “phlogiston” or “opium’s dormative powers” against more complex explanations such as “combining oxygen with a combustible” or “a chemical reaction in the brain.” Although growth involves the transformation of the indeterminate to the determinate, this should not suggest once this transformation has taken place that growth has ended. This is why Dewey repeatedly warned against interpreting his “consummatory” experience as a break in the continuity of experience. There is not room here for a proper treatment of the many criticisms Dewey’s theory of inquiry has received since its inception. For such an account, one should turn to James Scott Johnston’s Inquiry and Education: John Dewey and the Quest for Democracy (2006b). Though his interest in Deweyan inquiry is mainly in the realm of philosophy of education, his second chapter gives an excellent overview of the historic and present-day debates surrounding inquiry.

References Addams, J. (1910), Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: Macmillan. Alexander, T. (1987), John Dewey’s Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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Anderson, F. (1967), “Dewey’s experiment with Greek philosophy,” International Philosophical Quarterly, 7, 86–100. Anton, J. (1965), “John Dewey and Ancient Philosophies,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 25 (4), 477–99. —(2005), American Naturalism and Greek Philosophy. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Benhabib, S. (1996), Democracy and Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Boisvert, R. (1988), Dewey’s Metaphysics. New York: Fordham University Press. —(2002), Forget Emerson, Forget Growth, Embrace Anaximander: Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense. Available at: http://american-philosophy.org/archives/past_ conference_programs/pc2002/2002_papers/boisvert_saito.htm [accessed: May 27, 2013]. Butler, T. (2003), “Empeiria in Aristotle,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 41 (3), 329–50. Cahn, S. (2007), Puzzles & Perplexities. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Cairns, H. (1961), Introduction to Plato: Complete Works. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cochran, M. (2010), The Cambridge Companion to Dewey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cornford. F. M. (1957), From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation. New York: Harper and Row. Cote, J. (2013), “George Herbert Mead on Ancient Greek Society: An Introduction,” Canadian Journal of Sociology, 38 (3), 383–406. Dewey, J. (1896), “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1903), “Studies in Logical Theory,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1910), “How We Think,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 6. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1912−13), “Humanism and Naturalism,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 7. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1916), “Democracy and Education,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 9. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1920), “Reconstruction in Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1922), “Human Nature and Conduct,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 14. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1925), “Experience and Nature,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.



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—(1926), “Affective Thought,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1930), “Qualitative Thought,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 6. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1932), “Ethics,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 7. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1938), “Logic: The Theory of Inquiry,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1945), “Ethical Subject-Matter and Language,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 15. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. and Bentley, A. (1949), Knowing and the Known. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Eldridge, M. (1998), Transforming Experience. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Garrison, J. (1994), “Realism, Deweyan Pragmatism, and Educational Research,” Educational Researcher, 23, 5−14. —(1997), Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching. New York: Teachers College Press. Gonzalez, F. (1995), The Third Way. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Hartshorne, C. and Weiss, P. (eds) (1931), The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Vols. I−VI. vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Havelock, E. (1984), “Historical Origins of Moral Philosophy in Europe,” in Eugene Kelly, New Essays on Socrates. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, pp. 67–93. Hickman, J. (1990), John Dewey’s Pragmatic Technology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. —(2001), Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Jaeger, W. (1986), Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture Volume I: Archaic Greece: The Mind of Athens. New York: Oxford University Press. Johnston, J. (2006a), “Dewey’s critique of Kant,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society: A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy, 42 (4), 518–51. —(2006b), Inquiry and Education: John Dewey and the Quest for Democracy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Krikorian, Y. (ed.) (1944), Naturalism and the Human Spirit. New York: Columbia University Press. MacPartland, J. (1945), “Aristotle and the Spectator Theory of Knowledge,” The Journal of Philosophy, 42 (11), 291–3. Prawat, R. (1999), “Dewey, Peirce, and the Learning Paradox,” American Educational Research Journal, 36 (1), 47–76. Ratner, S. and Altman, J. (eds) (1964), John Dewey and Arthur F. Bentley: A Philosophical Correspondence, 1932–1951. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

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Santayana, G. (1905), The Life of Reason. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons. Scharff, R. (1986), “Socrates’ Successful Inquiries,” Man and World, 19 (3), 311–27. Schilpp, P. (1951), The Philosophy of John Dewey. New York: Tudor Publishing Company. Shook, J. (2000), Dewey’s Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Tiles, J. (1990), Dewey. New York: Routledge. Veazie, W. (1961), “John Dewey and the Revival of Greek Philosophy,” University of Colorado Studies, (2), 1–10. Whitehead, A. N. (1920), The Concept of Nature. London: University of Cambridge Press. —(1929), Process and Reality (rev edn.). New York: Macmillan and London: Collier Macmillan. Waugh, J. (1995) “Neither Published nor Perished: The Dialogues as Speech, not Text,” in F. Gonzalez (ed.), The Third Way. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Part II

Dewey and Plato

4

Let Education in the Cave: Reclaiming a Progressive Political Role for the Individual in a Modern Democracy Vasiliki Karavakou

The modern world professes allegiance to a range of values. Compared to the discussions on liberty, justice, and equality, education has been a second-rate issue, at least for modern liberal political philosophy that remains indifferent or neutral about the necessity of education. In our days, education is burdened with an unprecedented weight of various pressing issues: the incredible expansion of knowledge, the technological advancements, and the preferences of market economy, the alarming tensions and conflicts around the global and the local setting, the expanding ethos of “thoughtlessness,” the questions of epistemic authority and moral integrity. In all cases, there is always the demand that modern citizenship and democratic government should rest on the ideals of deliberation and diversity. No matter how much emphasis education has attracted, it undeniably explains and justifies to a great extent the state and the development of any modern political society. In this sense, education betrays the degree of rationality and maturity of a society in its attempt to uphold the imperatives of democracy. In a thought provoking paper on “Paideia: The Global Challenge of Political Leadership” (2008), John Anton named economics, technocracy, business, and the vision of a universal democracy as the main features of our modern global political system that contribute to the negligence of the concept of excellence as a desideratum in personal, as well as public, conduct. Professor Anton wrote that, “Productive efficiency and its related operations have replaced what was once indispensable to political life” (Anton, 2008, p. 24). In the same spirit, in her latest book Not for Profit, Martha Nussbaum depicts a rather grave picture of modern education arguing in favor of resisting all those

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erosive forces which prevent modern education from preparing and producing true democratic citizens. In the first chapter entitled “The Silent Crisis,” Martha Nussbaum writes: We are in the midst of a crisis of massive proportions and grave and global significance. … I mean a crisis that goes largely unnoticed, like a cancer; a crisis that is likely to be, in the long run, far more damaging to the future of democratic self-government: a world-wide crisis in education. Radical changes are occurring in what democratic societies teach the young, and these changes have not been well thought through. Thirsty for national profit, nations and their systems of education are heedlessly discarding skills that are needed to keep democracies alive. If this trend continues, nations all over the world will soon be producing generations of useful machines, rather than complete citizens. … (2010, p. 1)

To borrow Professor Anton’s words once more: “Whatever the future may bring, given the trends that promote global developments, the real loser will be the paideia of political life and consequently of human entelecheia” (2008, p. 26). Inspired by different philosophical assumptions and attached to different philosophical commitments, philosophers have always suggested that education is one of the values which any society should seek to express and realize. In the history of philosophy, however, no philosopher has elevated education to such a pre-suppositional status as Plato and Dewey did. Plato and Dewey highlight the reasons for which we should broaden and enrich our modern conception of political education. Hence, it should not be conceived as surprising, or completely redundant, that we should take recourse to past philosophical conceptions in order to respond to modern challenges. In a peculiar but different way, they both maintained that without support from suitably educated citizens, no democracy can survive, meaning thereby an education for such a type of citizenship that encourages the exercise and the cultivation of reason and the pursuit of excellence in private and public life. Therefore, in an equally peculiar way, they both anticipated and faced a crisis, although not in the unprecedentedly massive manner of our modern predicament. Any attempt to recapitulate the didactic message of their political philosophies obeys, to a large extent, the need of not glossing over their assumptions: idealist in the case of Plato and pragmatist in the case of Dewey. No matter how critical one is of these assumptions, we can safely argue that the issues highlighted by their philosophical theories are not artificial or strange to us today. The challenge for us is not to be dismissive of their argumentation, or



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of the theoretical relation developing between them, but try to reconstruct this relation and benefit from their concerns regarding education and democracy. This means that we should interpret in a rather re-constructive fashion the ventures upon which Plato and Dewey embarked. In this spirit, our aim is not to over-emphasize the so-called absence, or subjugation, of the individual in the Platonic republic, judging the latter with the help of modern theoretical lenses. Nor do we intend to read Dewey’s critique of the way Plato dealt with this issue as a fierce polemic against the ideals of Plato’s political philosophy. We argue that platonic concerns regarding democracy and education should be addressed today and that Plato had simply the courage to unravel the problems, the tensions, and the contradictions of his political culture exposing our modern tendency to be elusive, evasive, and hypocritical about our modern expectations of democracy. In the same manner, we also argue that Dewey’s position obeys an internal logic of being faithful to the modern imperatives of progressivism and pragmatism. In his Democracy and Education (Dewey, 1916) the individual becomes the underpinning pillar of his conception of a progressive and democratic society. His criticism of Plato is much more a positive re-affirmation of the modern Zeitgeist rather than the expression of a sheer negativity against Plato’s political philosophy.

Reflections on Plato’s views on education, individuality and democracy In the modern world, the term democracy signifies both an amalgam of political ideals and a particular political system. Actually, modern political discourse on democracy prefers to put forward the feature of the ideal rather than describe a certain sociopolitical situation. Undeniably, on the one hand, this gap reflects a profound modern concern of distinguishing the internal strength, the maturity, and the education of an entire culture from the recognition of the need to re-assess and criticize the institutional space in accordance with the demands of reason and morality. On the other hand, however, the term democracy is accepted, almost universally, as a necessary honorary title with loose internal cohesion and enormous conceptual elasticity. We should be rather concerned with the implications of this modern verbal expansionism, which affords the title and the privileges of democracy so freely or loosely, or without warrant. Surely, we cannot expand such an important term to the extent that it means

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everything, whilst we reduce it, at the same time, to the point that it may mean nothing. On these grounds, surely it is plausible and necessary to hold fast on to some principles with which democracy is currently identified: the principle of political legitimacy and the concept of consent as a necessary (although not sufficient) constituent of a democratic culture, the principle of collective control and inclusiveness, the principle of political equality in the exercise of the control,1 the principle of pluralistic and oppositional competition, the principle of representation and accountability, and a cluster of principles such as social tolerance, respect of private life and individual rights and liberties. One of the main modern concerns is to avoid identifying democracy with strict majoritarianism, for this may prove not only misguiding but also potentially dangerous. A last, but of equal importance, element is the steady emphasis on the concepts of “the common good” and “the general will,” or the “will of the people.” This scheme, with evident Rousseaunean origins, has been credited with a number of assumptions about the existence of such a common good and the possibility for a monolithic definition that excludes all conflicts. To a certain extent, as citizens of the post-modern era, we have received the exceedingly realist Schumpeterian critique (1950) of this scheme with equal trepidation. We will have the occasion to return to this issue later. Anticipating those worries, we may note that we have indeed suffered much from the rather hypocritical obsession of modern politicians, who have made and still make excessive use of inspired verbal expressions and rhetoric language. Therefore, not at all surprisingly, one may find the platonic critique of democracy illuminating in this regard. Plato certainly does not express any allegiance to all, or even the majority of, the above principles. But, once we can agree that Plato’s interest was not to deceive future ages by “dressing up illiberal suggestions” (Russell, 1945, p. 105) or that he cannot be safely regarded as the father of modern totalitarianism (Popper, 1945), we can envisage a position according to which his negative critique of democracy “highlights the case for it rather than against it” (Brooks, 2006, p. 25). Given that in the Platonic scheme of things we cannot really speak of a democratic form of polity, it is wise to turn our attention to what a “good” form of government actually means (or implies) for Plato. This should be seen as a certain kind of political arrangement that meets certain requirements: 1. For Plato the art of good governance presupposes expert knowledge. He invites us to endorse the view that they should rule those who, as Aristotle said later, “are able to rule best” (Aristotle, 1932, vol. 2, 1273b 5–6). For



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Plato it is a problem that all citizens in democracies possess an equal voice in political decision making, whereas some are more capable of good governance than others. Professor Anton usefully suggests that we should discern two levels on which Plato deals with democracy (1997, p. 18). On the first level, Plato inquires the status of the candidature democracy itself offers in an attempt to secure the paradigm of both the just man and the just political or institutional space that enables man to cultivate all his abilities in order to be just. Let us briefly remember, at this point, that justice (both in the individual soul and in the political state) presupposes a certain hierarchy of man’s mental, emotional, and volitional powers, and a certain epistemic authority that is granted to those who respect this hierarchy. This is finally reflected in the role of the philosopher king, who rules the polis. Plato recognizes that true political knowledge carries a certain epistemic authority that is never to be found in uneducated opinion (Plato, 558c). Therefore, the republic is to be ruled by philosopher kings whose exclusive craft is ruling and serving the interests of the citizens. The right to rule is conferred by expertise in statesmanship (Euthydemus, 291c−292c; Republic, 426c; 477 d−e; Statesman, 292c). In Book Eight of the Republic Plato offers a negative, almost hostile, critique of democracy as a decadent, corrupted, and fragmented polis. It lapses into an unfortunate degenerative process, a stage to which democracy essentially amounts, a really serious misfortune.   On a second level, we find a more lenient depiction in the Statesman (426b) and a more constructive social assessment later in the Laws (trans. Mayhew, 2008). In these texts Plato feels free to respond to democratic claims in a positive way. In the Laws he defends a form of government composed of a legislator with a democratically elected body of citizens, who enforce the laws created by the unelected legislator. In the same text Plato writes: “It is absolutely vital for a political system to combine them … if it is to enjoy freedom and friendship applied with good judgement.” (trans. Mayhew, 2008, 693d−e). This move brings Plato, as it has been rightly suggested, closer to “the so called Schumpeterian tradition of elite theories of democracy … and … provides an improved justification for democratic government as we practice it today than rival theories of democracy” (Brooks, 2006, p. 24). 2. A form of good government should be consonant with the broader idealist requirement that the political state should serve an ultimate goal. In Plato’s case this goal is no other than justice. Justice is a thematic concept around which the epistemological, metaphysical, and political philosophy of Plato

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evolves. Unless one grasps the significance of this goal, one has simply missed the point of Plato’s philosophy. Beside its multi-dimensional nature, this concept concerns both the individual soul and the broader social space with its political articulation and institutional arrangements. The dialectical bond Plato creates between individual subjectivity and the social substance of the polis is meant to secure the existential traffic that is created between the individual “part” and the social “whole.” Not only is the just state dependent on the virtue of its leaders, but it also reflects the psychological, mental, and moral qualities of its individual members. The state is just when its members embody justice in the balance of the parts of their soul and this can only happen in a state that reflects justice. To put it differently, a form of good government should re-enact the dialectic of reason and reality. This means that it should follow the imperatives of organicism and respect the relation between the “part” and the “whole.” Plato does not conceal the fact that he invests the success of his theory upon this relation. On the contrary, he explicitly states that, methodologically speaking, his conclusions about the political state could be transferred to the individual soul (369a 2–5). In the history of political philosophy “organicism” seems to have operated quite comfortably not only in the platonic Republic but also in Hegel’s Philosophie des Rechts (trans. Knox, 1967) and in Bradley’s “My Station and its Duties” (1951). For practical reasons we may accept that a follower of organicism takes it for granted that, although each of us has his own separate personal individuality with distinct mental, emotional, and volitional integrity, each of us remains an imperfect individuality with limited epistemic and practical abilities. Every society, together with its political articulation, enables separate individualities to realize their potentialities in a way that they could never achieve on their own. On this basis, their participation in and contribution to the political state maximizes their own purposes and self-fulfillment. By securing the welfare of the parts, one secures the welfare of the polis and the reverse. For Plato, individual welfare and eudaimonia is conceptually possible and practically meaningful only on the assumption of such an unbreakable bond between the individual part and the political whole. In fact, Plato’s just state appears not as an end in itself, but as the necessary pre-condition for the harmony of the individual soul and for individual eudaimonia. It is from this basis that the platonic republic acquires justification for its existence and significance and it is this basis that has led many of its readers to understand it more as a recipe for individual integrity rather than as a grand political plan. In the



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eyes of Plato, this basis secures a certain conception of the common good, whilst it also constrains unlimited negative freedom and presupposes a conception of an integral human nature. There are basically two reasons that guide Plato in arguing that democracy violates the principles of organicism.2 First, democracy is alleged to involve anarchy and incoherence. This might mean either that anarchy is mistaken for freedom (Plato, 557b, 560e, 572d–e) leading to an ever growing insecurity about the protection of individual rights. Or, it might also mean that such societies lack political unity and structure to the extent that they constitute mere collections of separate individualities and not an integral political organization. Plato aims to remedy the situation by offering two structures that assume a rather mediating role: in the Republic there is the tripartite division of labor on the basis of psychological determining factors, and in the Laws it is a lawgiver that creates laws and educates the public about their necessity and a democratically elected assembly that enforces them. At this point, we should note that Plato’s criticisms of the danger to lose the political integrity and cohesion of a society do not concern modern liberal democracies. But again, the latter seem to take account of his worries about the lack of political unity quite seriously. In this sense, the fact that modern political culture is determined to address such concerns betrays the plausibility of Plato’s remarks. Second, democracy is also said to give in to the lures of unlimited negative freedom, being thus indifferent (or even hostile to) a conception of the common good. Unlimited negative freedom leads to unlimited conflicts of interests and needs and unlimited egoism. Any attempt to resolve the conflict leads to an unsurpassable impasse, since all individuals are guided by their private passions and not by reason and the rule of law (Plato, 561b–c). Democratic citizens are people who “grope in the dark” and do not know how to govern (Rowe, 1993, 99b; Plato, 20c–d). Plato remarks that democratic citizens are quite untroubled by the fact that they lack sufficient political knowledge. Their involvement in politics and their political status are given (Plato, 1977, 48c–49a). Democracies do not show any respect for knowledge and epistemic authority. Plato is happy to conclude that a democracy is run by fools, i.e. by people who are unable to govern both themselves and others. Professor Anton hits the mark when he points out that “democracy in the Republic is the dramatization of the soul in a state of crisis” (Anton, 1997, p. 18). One can hardly conceal the fact that Plato restricts popular participation in order to leave more space for those with political expertise. It is worth noticing again that modern democracies pay tribute to such concerns, when they make

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room for a rather Schumpeterian understanding of democracy in terms of “the rule of the politician” and not “the rule of the people” (Schumpeter, 1942, pp. 284–5). This is another case where modern democratic culture seems to have actually tried to accommodate Platonic concerns. Of course this does not absolve the Platonic theory from criticism. However, it does place it in the right context in order to ensure that it is criticized for the right reasons. In modern times, as it has been plausibly pointed out, those political theorists, who wanted to relate education to democracy emphasized the “… the indirect political effects of socialization and the value of moral learning for improving and increasing democratic participation” (Esquith, 1992, p. 248). However, on the level of actual practice, modern (liberal) democratic education has acquired a certain kind of political character which goes beyond moral education and a variety of socializing experiences. Liberal democratic education has developed a distinct interest relevant to the political confrontation with the consequences of power for all those who exercise, endure, debate it, or witness its use. In order to come to terms with these consequences, one has to deal with questions about teaching citizens how to generate political power, how to react to its exercise, what the distinction between those who have power and those who do not actually implies, about the constraints of power, its equal distribution, the effects on those who become accustomed to it, about inclusion, exclusion and suffering due to the exercise of power. On this new basis, democratic education requires a lot more than the development of mere moral and social skills. It requires the development of political discursive competence or character, something that prevents democratic education from turning into “an episodic citizenship that abdicates political agency to expert policymakers” (Esquith, 1992, p. 262). This issue is highly crucial, as it challenges all enthusiasts of modern liberal democracies on epistemological grounds, exposing the educational deficit and the hypocrisy of modern democracies to dethrone the myth of universal equality, participation in and sharing of the procedures of political decision making. In an equally paradoxical way, we may remember at this point that the Platonic negative critique of democracy on educational and epistemological grounds highlights the case for genuine democratic preconditions. In this spirit, raising the veil of modern democratic hypocrisy should mean that a modern understanding of democracy should simply refuse to take for granted the alleged excellence of the expertise of politicians. It should not simply criticize Plato’s rejection of democracy and accuse him of totalitarian predilections. It should also raise the issue of trust in expert authority, as power in modern liberal democratic societies is increasingly embedded in a network of



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trust and expert authority. In Anthony Giddens’ words, “the nature of modern institutions is deeply bound up with the mechanisms of trust in abstract systems, especially trust in expert systems” (1990, p. 83). For some people the modern problem of political education is “the problem of learning how to trust in expert authority without succumbing to radical skepticism or blind faith” (Esquith, 1992, p. 252). In this sense, political education may constitute our best ammunition, or the best antidote, to the vices of empty rhetoric and feigned political expertise. Unless somebody tells us that there is another way to secure the existence of properly trained and uncorrupt civil servants, we will stubbornly insist on the importance of education. We need to compromise the importance of knowledge and epistemic authority with the idea that modern democratic government should lead through persuasion and deliberation and that nobody is beyond public scrutiny. A modern critique of Plato should abandon the extreme and unfair interpretations of Russell (1945), Popper (1945) and Berlin (1969). Still, a critique of his overall political program could expose many points. We will focus on two points, which we regard as rather crucial for modern political culture. On the one hand, in Plato, we should not fail to stress the fact that the psychological determination of the division of labor and the subsequent social division is contrary to the modern educational imperative of lifelong learning. (In contrast, we will have the opportunity to consider in the next section that lifelong learning constitutes ex definitio a Deweyan challenge.) Plato assumed that education has the means to determine everyone’s exact psychological profile, which places everyone in the class to which they belong. The assumption is that everyone engages in the suitable forms of activity which procure in turn satisfaction. However, Plato never discusses whether and how an educational system could ever succeed unquestionably in such an act of psychological determination, or indeed that no man’s psychological profile would never change or develop in the course of a lifetime. In other words, this educational act of psychological determination lies in immediate contrast with our modern allegiance to one of the most profound principles of lifelong learning as being dependent on the didactic value of our experiences and the context within which they are acquired. It is plausible, therefore, to assume (or to expect) that learning has a strong transformative influence upon one’s psychological profile and even upon one’s life in general. It follows quite plausibly that the modern imperative of lifelong learning should have certain implications for what we call education in democratic politics, particularly in relation to what may be called as strict democratic skills. If Plato is onto something, this is his idea that a good form of

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government, a democracy in our eyes, is not something like a mechanical clock, which can be left after its initial set up to work on its own. It is rather a process. This implies that education in democratic politics does not end once all the parts of the machine have been put in their proper place. If Plato is right in stressing the epistemic authority of certain claims and practices, then it is of incredible worth to examine the democratic skills that need to be cultivated today. Finally, we may use a point which Hegel raised in his own critique of the platonic Republic in favor of the platonic position. In the “Preface” of his mature Philosophy of Right (trans. Knox, 1967), Hegel addresses, among other issues, the issue of the nature, the role and the mission of political philosophy. He clearly states that political philosophy should both avoid to “spin its web in seclusion” (trans. Knox, 1967, p. 9), and not offer descriptions of a certain sociopolitical condition, as if the latter is the norm that exhausts the political sphere. In this last point, although Hegel clearly expresses his determination to be consistently critical of Plato’s undermining the role of the individual subject and subjective freedom (“… he did fatal injury to the deeper impulse which underlay it,…”) (trans. Knox, 1967, p. 10), he takes recourse to Plato in order to formulate his own proposal regarding political philosophy. In this context, Hegel reminds us that Plato’s insistence to raise high doubts over the individual’s epistemic and practical ability to determine the truth of practical issues must be understood in the context of Plato’s commitment to fight against the growing influence of Sophistic subjectivism and relativism. In this light Plato does inflict a penalty on individual subjectivity. However, this was a choice to run against the vague subjectivism and the rampant relativism in the formulation of a viable political theory. Having said that, we are still allowed to quote from Hegel: “Plato was conscious that there was breaking into that life in his own time a deeper principle [i.e. individuality] which could appear in its directly only as a longing still unsatisfied, and so only as something corruptive” (trans. Knox, 1967, p. 10). Hegel was right in his observations, as was John Dewey, who obviously thought that this was not a necessary conclusion at all.

Dewey on the role of the individual in a modern democracy After the powerful influence exercised by the omnipotent presence of Kantian deontology in the eighteenth century (which raises the individual as the source of his practical autonomy), all sides of the modern political tradition



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have plausibly and expectedly condemned any attempt to restrain or subvert the space of the individual, i.e. the integrity and autonomy of the individual. The modern conception of the individual obeys a new logic whose origin lies perhaps in the political tradition of social contract theories. In the latter, the relation between the social whole and the individual parts (which has been seen operating so nicely in the works of Plato, Hegel, and Bradley3) has been reversed: the sociopolitical whole depends upon its individual parts in order to subsist itself and be meaningful in the first place. The member of the ancient Hellenic world recognizes himself as a member of the Athenian state for example, as distinct and different from a member of another culture. But he has no conception of the psychological distance between the individual “I” and the collective “We,” which is a much more recent achievement. The fact that no such psychological distance existed (with the notable exceptions of Antigone and Socrates according to Hegel) together with the conception of that type of political unity, did not imply the political crushing of individuality. The ancient polis shared another conception of individuality as deeply ingrained in the ethos and the concerns of the polis. The concept of subjective freedom as the concept of a subject isolated or abstracted from its social habitat is an invention of European modernity. Even in the case of Antigone and Socrates, their protest was expressed in the name of a right given to them by the gods, not a right of personal choice and conscience. Hence, both in Plato’s writings and in the world which he had probably in mind, the individual and its liberties could have only social application and meaning. In as much as Dewey was critical of modern abstract individualism and classical liberalism, he was equally critical of the old Hellenic tradition that left no space for individual expression and social diversity. As stated, Dewey’s embrace of the individual and his dismissal of the explicit educational elitism detected in The Republic betray his desire to serve the ideals of modern progressivism and pragmatism rather than an attempt to scorn exhaustively, with a rather polemic spirit, the ideals of a past culture. The individual becomes for Dewey the underpinning pillar of his conception of a progressive and democratic society. He needed, therefore, a genuinely democratic education. Indeed, Dewey sets the tone of his position in the introductory paragraph of Chapter 7 in his Democracy and Education, when he says: Particularly it is true that a society which not only changes but which has the ideal of such change as will improve it, will have different standards and

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There are several important stages of his argumentation before Dewey actually begins to deal with the platonic educational philosophy. The following points constitute in fact the two guiding criteria of what he styles “democratic education.” First, he makes it clear that he entertains a certain conception of society. In an indirect way, never mentioning Plato on this particular point, he refuses to accept any abstract, utopian ideal society. The ideality of the Deweyan society is to depend on “the desirable traits of forms of community life which actually exist, and employ them to criticize undesirable features and suggest improvement” (Dewey, 1916, p. 83). This deviates considerably from the idea of an ideal polis characterized by its permanence and ontological independence from its constituent parts. Progressivism requires from Dewey that he sees the idea of society as the result of the constructing activity of its constituent members. Put differently, this is to be an open, versatile, pluralistic and dynamic society; a society in which no limits are set on the number of interests, on the opportunities of sharing undertakings and experiences and no distinctions exist between “a privileged and a subject-class” preventing “social endosmosis” (Dewey, 1916, pp. 84–5). Second, Dewey’s reference to the element of diversity and the value of intellectual stimulation one should be able to get from one’s work is not accidental. He immediately goes on to debunk the idea of “a rigid and formal isolation” of the various aspects and the institutions of the society. Instead, being faithful to the principle of reconstructing the social space in accordance with the needs and interests of its members, he encourages the idea of social contacts and social recognition (Dewey, 1916, p. 86). The idea of “distance” and “external barriers,” of neglecting “perceptible connections with one another” could be nothing else but inimical to his idea of a society that learns from all shared experiences, common ventures and the idea of progress. These two criteria compose Dewey’s democratic ideal. Dewey hastens, whilst formulating the basic tenets of this ideal, to offer a more substantive explanation of education. He goes well beyond the “superficial explanation” that “… a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and who obey their governors are educated” (Dewey, 1916, p. 87). We read in the immediately next passage: “A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience” (Dewey, 1916, p. 87). When Dewey writes that



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“[a] society marked off into classes needs be especially attentive only to the education of its ruling elements” (1916, p. 88), we can safely detect between the lines Dewey’s condemnation of the high and rigid stratification in social classes as based on personal abilities and interests which we have already witnessed in the platonic republic. That is how we reach the climax of the introductory sections of Chapter 7: “A society which is mobile, which is full of channels for the distribution of a change occurring anywhere, must see to it that its members are educated to personal initiative and adaptability” (Dewey, 1916, p. 88). Thus, when Dewey deals with the platonic educational philosophy (1916, pp. 88–91), he uses the first criterion of his own standard for a democratic education in order to castigate the platonic theory for its inability to apply useful ideas to the construction of social reality. He recognizes that, although the idea of social organization on the basis of individual interests and abilities is in itself valuable, Plato “… never got any conception of the indefinite plurality of activities which may characterize an individual and a social group, and consequently limited his view to a limited number of classes of capacities and of social arrangements” (Dewey, 1916, p. 88). Dewey avoids misinterpretations or misrepresentations of the prerequisites of the platonic political venture: 1) Social organization depends essentially on knowledge of the end of existence of the polis. That was a necessary precondition enforced by the dominant idealist and rationalist strands of Plato’s philosophy. In itself, this allowed Plato to remain internally consistent with the preconditions he had set for his political structure; 2) However, justice, as the end under discussion, is “a trait of both individual and social organization.” Dewey raises the crucial and plausible question: “But how is the knowledge of the final and permanent good to be achieved?” (1916, p. 88). Plato had clearly anticipated the question when he emphatically stated that it is only a just and harmonious society that can satisfy the conditions of a reasonable and viable response. For Dewey “we seem to be caught in a vicious circle,” the desirable exit from which is given by the platonic philosophers; a group of powerful rulers that loved wisdom (p. 88). It was Plato’s failure to recognize the importance of “the uniqueness of individuals” (Dewey, 1916, p. 90) that obliged him to exhaust education to a static allocation of all individuals in certain social classes. This prevented the platonic theory of education from constituting a useful tool in the achievement of social change and progress. The exclusion of individuality amounts to the exclusion of diversity, which also amounts to the stagnation of society and the sheer absence of genuine democracy. This is reflected in one of Dewey’s later arguments when he says:

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Dewey and the Ancients A progressive society counts individual variations as precious since it finds in them the means of its own growth. Hence a democratic society must, in consistency with its ideal, allow for intellectual freedom and play of diverse gifts and interests in its educational measures. (1916, p. 305)

This allows us to move a step forward to suggest that Dewey is not really convinced by the platonic rejection of democracy on the basis of the argument that perceived democracy as the only natural consequence of unrestrained negative freedom. Plato never fully took into account what the key factor is in the idea of organizing society on the basis of individual abilities and interests. Consequently, Plato retreats to the argument of negative freedom without really allowing any room or scope to education to do its work. Plato is not accused ab initio of subjugating the individual to the social whole, but: … [I]t is true that lacking the perception of the uniqueness of every individual, his incommensurability with others, and consequently not recognizing that a society might change and yet be stable, his doctrine of limited powers and classes came in net effect to the idea of the subordination of individuality. (Dewey, 1916, p. 305)

We read a few paragraphs later: “The breakdown of his philosophy is made apparent in the fact that he could not trust to gradual improvements in education to bring about a better society which then improve education, and so on indefinitely.” Education is exhausted to the act of simply conserving, under the supervision of the vigilant philosopher king, the structure of a just political state. For Dewey the requirement of justice was inadequately applied on two occasions: genuine social diversity was banned since individuality found expression only in and through its social class and education was relegated to a mechanism of preserving the existent rule, no matter how much politically wise this rule might be. In defense of Plato, Dewey’s critique is not a thorough personal attack against the old sage: “Yet the society in which the theory was propounded was so undemocratic that Plato could not work out a solution for the problem whose terms he clearly saw” (1916, p. 89). Indeed, even in the case of Aristotle, a political realist who criticized the epistemological preconditions of the platonic political state, he insisted on the imposition of a single plan of education that would be beneficial for both individual citizens and for the integrity of the polis (Aristotle, 1932, 1337a 21–30). It has to be said that Aristotle proceeded to this imposition precisely because he also insisted on the existence of generally accepted assumptions of what we should teach our children, and socially



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accepted practices our engagement in which makes us good candidates for achieving the standards of excellence. The standards were to be derived from the content of the phronimos man’s judgments. But, again, the phronimos man was someone in complete accordance with the social ethos and the legislative rules of the polis. Dewey expresses here the guiding principle of modernity and aligns his progressive pragmatism with a broader tradition of educational and political Enlightenment: The deeper concern of any modern philosophical theory is, or should always be, to respect the distinctiveness of individuality and contribute to its education as well. Philosophers may disagree on what exactly this may involve, but no philosophical controversy can release them from their common belief that the expression of individuality constitutes the absolute touchstone of our modern mental and moral integrity.4 The modern political culture, with all its emphasis on democratic principles, human rights and liberties, imposes upon us a huge weight of different educational demands that we must learn to tolerate. Modern culture has also declared loudly its upholding of individual autonomy and the disenchantment from all customary and authoritarian prejudices. Dewey had actually recognized the need and the force of these demands. Modern theories rightly recognize that the important issue that should attract our attention should be about certain defining features of any polity that pay justice to the free expression of individuality. In addition, modern political culture makes enough room for beliefs in the sanctity of individuality, as it corresponds to, or coincides with, our acceptance of certain inalienable individual rights more than any other historical period (or so we would like to believe). For example, the right to appeal to one’s individual conscience and judgement is universally recognised. It is usually regarded a sign of the maturity and the internal strength of a modern democratic culture the fact that it does not lead individuals to the predicament of Antigone and Socrates. The modern world has wholeheartedly professed the principles of individual reflection, expression and autonomy. These principles describe and explain the profound need of modern individuals to shape their present and future life in a self-willing and self-determining manner. In doing so, we assume that these, as well as any other set of similar moral principles, apply to all humans as humans. In many respects, this is what leaves the modern individual with a sense of a strong character, an unshakeable will and an ineliminable conscience. That is why any modern theory of education should embrace a strong conception of individuality. This need not be a radical or eccentric conception, but rather one which amounts to the ineliminable right to define one’s life in a uniquely

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distinctive way and erect oneself into a judge of the most intricate as well as the most important questions that can occupy both humanity and oneself. Dewey stands nowadays as a source from which we may get inspiration in our modern attempts to relate education, democracy and individuality. In this spirit, we may regard the following two features as the necessary conditions of any modern theory of education wishing to pay justice to the internal bond of education, democracy and individuality. The first feature is about the way we understand the right of the individual to exercise reason in a self-determined manner. This demands the acknowledgment of the individual’s capacity to abstract himself from his particular social situation and from a given social system of what is proper/right/good and enter into a reflective relationship with it. This act of “stepping back” and reflecting on one’s social roles is vital for a number of reasons: First, it allows the individual to withdraw into himself and reflect on his qualities, limits and rights. That is how the individual acquires full knowledge of his purposes and assumes full responsibility for his actions. Second, the individual can always re-evaluate his stand in relation to what he should regard as proper/right/good. Finally, the individual may discover that the values upheld by society are hollow and inconsistent and decide that he cannot accommodate such poverty. This does not mean that the individual rejects the social standpoint in itself. It only means that we must accept the possibility that any culture with its institutional arrangements may cease to be, at a particular instance and for particular reasons, intellectually and emotionally satisfying for its individual members. It would be unwise to gloss over the constant danger for any culture to assume that it exhausts the demands of reason and morality and that it, consequently, embodies epistemological and practical perfection. Dewey taught us that giving in to such false assumptions is what marginalizes the need for education. In fact, such assumptions render education redundant and lead society to stagnation and injustice. The second feature is about what we do with the right of individual judgment. When a certain situation is significant and a response is expected from us, we need to exercise reflection. The crucial element in the reflective process is the use and further exercise of our individual judgment. This has been so eloquently exposed by Hannah Arendt, who castigates the absence of critical reflection and the exercise of individual judgement in her Eichmann in Jerusalem. A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). As the modern world is full of such and other similar cases, where the exercise of judgment is what really matters, we should recapture the idea of individual judgment as a constructive teaching weapon the extensive use of which enables the individual to discern the relevance and



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significance of any situation and respond to it appropriately. This enables the individual to take recourse to levels of significance and to be able to discern priorities and hidden relations. A theory of democratic education along the lines of Dewey’s philosophy allows the individual to respond to situations with an increasing sense of responsibility, with greater awareness of one’s obligations and commitments and with a greater ability to recognize the universal significance of certain things in political life. All these are factors that should be considered and weighed in the context of reflection and the exercise of individual judgment. In one of his last critical remarks (where he refers again to the internal inadequacies of Greek culture, particularly the absence of the idea of experimentation and testing one’s beliefs and the omnipotent role of custom), Dewey writes: Without such a method individuals could not engage in knowing and be checked up by the results of the inquiries of others, the minds of men could not be intellectually responsible; results were to be accepted because of their aesthetic consistency, agreeable quality, or the prestige of their authors. (Dewey, 1916, p. 292)

In his reflection, the modern individual must consider the following points: 1) He must determine that the particular situation he faces is a genuine case that calls for the exercise of judgment and may decide to escape the normal run of custom and law. Dewey recognizes this need when he says that “True individualism is a product of the relaxation of the grip of the authority of custom and traditions as standards of belief ” (1916, p. 305); 2) the individual must be able to produce some rational justification for his decisions and actions. Equally, he should not rest on the beliefs of others. One of the significant effects of education is that the individual learns to “listen to the voice of reason,” because he realises himself what is at stake and not because others believe certain things, or act in certain ways; 3) the individual must be prepared to publicise his conviction. As Hegel put it, modern individuality should not prefer to remain “dumb” enjoying the privacy of its inner life, as if it has no real existence (trans. Miller, 1977, para. 653). With this qualification, Hegel urges us to stop thinking of individuality in terms of solitary contemplation. By bringing its content under the light of public intelligibility and recognition, the individual does not declare any kind of sovereignty. He simply speaks the truth that he knows and wills in his own mind what his duty is. The reflective process gives the individual the opportunity to sense and use his power for autonomous thought and action but it also constitutes an

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opportunity to become aware of one’s limitations and inherent imperfections. Dewey never hesitates to point out that the individual must be reminded to be moderate and modest and resign from the claim that his convictions amount to some infallible standard of rightness. This is the advantage of any theory of education that understands education and social life in developmental terms. For philosophers such as Dewey, the right strategy is not to identify individuality with the ultimate and non-revisable truth. Individuality must understand that it undergoes the effects of development and experience; that it reaches new and perhaps more sophisticated stages where it can achieve a less inadequate, a less distorted and a less incomplete understanding of the demands of reason, culture and democracy. That is why Dewey concludes Chapter 11 of his Democracy and Education with the following revealing passage: For we live not in a settled and finished world, but in one which is going on, and where our main task is prospective, and where retrospect—and all knowledge as distinct from thought is retrospect—is of value in the solidity, security and fertility it affords our dealings with the future. (1916, p. 151)

Dewey was perspicacious enough to stress that learning to be an educated individual, a subject with reason and judgment, and a good citizen is not an issue of an instantaneous grasp of social and political demands. Nor is the perception and understanding of the validity and value of any political form of life instinctively given, or simply a gift of our natural constitution. These are achievements of the overall educational process that makes our active participation in the world of politics and culture a conceptually possible and a practically meaningful task. Hence, Dewey was absolutely right to remind us that it is the task of any philosophical theory of education to assist modern individuality in this everlasting paideutic inquiry.

Concluding remarks The emergence of the individual was for Dewey a desideratum of the modern world. His Democracy and Education created a powerful philosophical interlock between the two concepts and the realities to which these concepts refer. Dewey enabled us to recognize that “democratic education must implement the principles of democracy but at the same time meet the requirements of education” (Oelkers, 2000, p. 15). In another perspective, Dewey failed “… to distinguish adequately between the governing and the educational functions of



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democracy” (Feinberg, 1993, p. 213). In any case, however, the recognition of the educational dimension of democracy or the political dimension of education constitutes to the present day one of his greatest contributions. The austere, but by all means sincere, criticism of the platonic educational philosophy was a necessary ingredient in a philosophy that had assigned itself the task of promoting social progress. Years later in an equally politically and socially progressive work under the title Individualism Old and New (1930), Dewey still insists on the importance of social and cultural reforms consonant with the expression of modern individuality and its liberties. His political and educational theory is consistently putting forward: 1) the idea of democracy as a form of relationship inherent both in political institutions and in all kinds of social spheres; and 2) the idea of education as deeply ingrained in a cluster of pragmatist or experimentalist conceptions. In his influential work on Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920), whilst attacking the classical liberal view of the individual as something already given, pre-fixed or pre-social (a critique highly reminiscent of the Hegelian deposit in Dewey’s thought), the practical realm with its sociopolitical institutions is the means for creating individuals (1920, pp. 190–2). This speaks volumes for the rather complex and social nature of Dewey’s conception of individuality. In addition, as we have seen in the previous section, individuality is not eccentric but reflective, inquisitive and active. At the background of his political writings there is always his allegiance to a conception of knowledge as bound up with a pragmatist notion of inquiry, learning, problem-solving, and constant revision of theories and hypotheses. What counts as knowledge can only be “the product of competent inquiries” (Dewey, 1938, p. 16). In the absence of all these, the honorary title of “knowledge” is a term “… so empty that any content or filling may be arbitrarily poured in” (Dewey, 1938, p. 16). Considering the current state of political apathy, pernicious neutrality, and rampant relativism that affect modern political culture, which is of course the result of the absence of critical thinking and the imposition of the banking conception of education, it is wise to think instead of Dewey’s emphasis on the constant need to reflect and revise. It is obvious that democratic education should solidify the relationship between civic education and genuine democracy. Inculcating critical reflection and an inquisitive ethos is necessary for the free expression of modern individuality and a vital ingredient of a modern democratic society. This is the only way modern individualities will assume full use of their abilities and full responsibilities of their actions. This is also the only way modern democracies will cease to exist as empty structures with no substantive content. As it has been plausibly

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suggested “… even when we subscribe to a generous view of democracy with content, the content is nonetheless formal, appropriate to perpetuating political and legal institutions, but dramatically insufficient, when we embark on the enterprise of education” (Haberman, 1994, p. 183). Education may constitute the content of an ever progressing, open, and pluralistic society. This is a lesson we owe to the work of John Dewey.

Notes 1 Robert Dahl entitles the principle of collective control and the principle of political equality in the exercise of the control as “the twin principles of democracy” (1999). 2 There is an excellent analysis of the platonic critique of negative freedom and its social implications in Thom Brooks’s paper on “Plato, Hegel and Democracy,” (2006). We have argued elsewhere how much important the principle of organicism is for the political philosophies of both Plato and Hegel (Karavakou, 2007). 3 Hegel and Bradley come of course much later than the contractarian tradition, but, as we have already seen, they opt for the ontological and axiological priority of the political whole, being thus faithful to their idealist commitments. 4 It has to be stated that with all its emphasis on the idea of using one’s reason in all situations and for all purposes, Kantian deontology has made a substantial contribution to our belief in the sanctity and ineliminability of the individual. Under the luring influence of Kantian deontology we are usually inclined to think that, when individual consciousness ‘enters’ the sphere of practical reason, this means that it enters a realm where it can be sovereign and powerful by obeying the laws it produces on its own and by estimating its worth by reference to its inward activity.

References Anton, J. (1997), “Plato as a Critic of Ancient and Modern Democracy,” in K. Boudouris (ed.), Platonic Political Philosophy. Athens: Ionia Publications (in Greek). —(2008), “Paideia: The Global Challenge of Political Leadership,” in K. Boudouris and M. Knezevic (eds), Paideia: Education in the Global Era. Athens: Ionia Publications. Arendt, H. (1963), Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press. Aristotle (1932), Politics, trans. H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.



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Berlin, I. (1969), “Two Concepts of Liberty,” Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bradley, F. (1951), Ethical Studies. New York: Liberal Arts Press. Brooks, T. (2006), “Plato, Hegel and Democracy,” Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, 53, 24–50. Cooper, J. and Hutchinson, D. (eds) (1997), Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Dahl, R. (1999), On Democracy. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Dewey, J. (1916), Democracy and Education. New York: The Free Press. —(1920), “Reconstruction in Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1930), “Individualism Old and New,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1938), “Logic: The Theory of Inquiry,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Esquith, S. L. (1992), “Political Theory and Political Education,” Political Theory, 20, 247–73. Feinberg, W. (1993), “Dewey and Democracy at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century,” Educational Theory, 43, 195–216. Giddens, A. (1990), The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Gutmann, A. (1999), Democratic Education. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Haberman, B. D. (1994), “What is the Content of Education in a Democratic Society?,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 28, 183–9. Karavakou, V. (2007), “The Role of the Republic in Hegel’s Political Philosophy,” in G. Arambatzis (ed.), Plato, vol. 3. Athens: Papadima Publications. Knox, T. M. (trans.) (1967), Philosophy of Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, A. V. (trans.) (1977), Phenomenology of Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nussbaum, M. C. (2010), Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Oelkers, J. (2000), “Democracy and Education: About the Future of a Problem,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 19, 3–19. Plato (1930), The Republic, trans. P. Shorey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —(1977), Philebus, trans. and ed. J. C. B. Gosling. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —(2008), The Laws, trans. R. Mayhew. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Popper, K. (1945), The Open Society and its Enemies. London: Routledge. Rowe, C. J. (ed.) (1993), Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Russell, B. (1945), A History of Western Philosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster. Schumpeter, J. (1942), “Two Concepts of Democracy,” Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: Allen and Unwin.

5

The Dialogues as Dramatic Rehearsal: Plato’s Republic and the Moral Accounting Metaphor1 Albert R. Spencer

In John Dewey & Moral Imagination, Steven Fesmire blames “Plato’s low estimation of imagination in the Republic and Ion,” for the denigration of imagination’s role in moral deliberation (2003, p. 61). He argues that John Dewey’s dramatic rehearsal better integrates imagination into the process of moral deliberation. His treatment of Plato represents a habit among pragmatists to reduce Dewey’s reading of Plato to the polemics present in major works, such as The Quest for Certainty (Dewey, 1929). In fact, Plato was Dewey’s favorite philosopher and he claimed that “Nothing could be more helpful to present philosophizing than a ‘Back to Plato’ movement” (1930, p. 154). Following the scholarship of John Herman Randall and Henry Wolz reveals Plato as a moral artist engaged in a project of social reconstruction who wrote the dialogues as dramatic rehearsals of particular historical and cultural problems, specifically Athenian hegemony and Sophistic education. From this perspective, Republic Book I dramatizes the inadequacy of the moral accounting metaphor critiqued by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson and experiments with metaphors sympathetic to Fesmire’s construal of moral imagination. According to Fesmire, Dewey believed moral deliberation works best when we actively use our imagination to rehearse and evaluate a variety of responses and possible outcomes to particular problems. The four most common modes of dramatic rehearsal are dialogue, visualization of results, visualization of their performance, and imagination of possible criticism. By consciously recognizing the role of imagination in the process of deliberation and flexing among the various phases and modes of rehearsal, Dewey and Fesmire believe we can reconstruct “frustrated habits” and normative theories that perpetuate moral problems (Fesmire, 2003, pp. 70−8). Fesmire suggests that the moral artist

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provides opportunities to practice dramatic rehearsal through the creation of works of art that engage our imagination. He lists the characteristics of the successful moral artist as follows. First, she must perceive “relations that otherwise go unnoticed.” Second, she must create works that “transform cultural perceptions” through “an ongoing experiment with novel possibilities.” Third, she must coherently express moral experience in a manner that presents “overall character rather than blindly giving way to either custom or fleeting impulse,” thus “such acts become role models.” Fourth, she possesses “delicately refined skills [my emphasis]” judged not by the “quantity of possibilities available to imagination, but their fittedness to the situation for wise deliberation.” Finally, the moral artist communicates with an audience by anticipating their reception of a work in a way that “enables a dialectical interaction that gives point and focus to art” (Fesmire, 2003, pp. 115–18). At first blush, the dialogues and Plato meet the criteria of both Dewey’s four modes of dramatic rehearsal and Fesmire’s characteristics of the moral artist. The dialogues use conversation as a means of exploring moral problems and Plato uses dramatic irony to highlight the consequences of specific moral opinions as represented by the fate of recognizable interlocutors. His ability to create works of art that continue to challenge cultural perceptions should qualify Plato as a moral artist. But when Fesmire references Plato, his comments are usually critical. He acknowledges that Plato was the first to address the “moral power of art” to “directly and literally contribute to the moral imagination and character,” but he criticizes Plato’s understanding of this relationship as “psychologically simplistic” and as the source of Socrates’ infamous arguments supporting censorship in Books II and III of the Republic (see Plato, 1997, 378cd, 380c, 401a, and 401de). Furthermore, Plato fails to use art as a metaphor for moral experience. Fesmire cites George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s criticism of the “dominant moral accounting metaphor, in which moral interactions are understood as business transactions” and he agrees with their claim that Dewey provides a “wealth of alternative metaphors,” specifically “organic growth, evolutionary adaptation, scientific experimentation, technological innovation, and art” (Fesmire, 2003, p. 110; see also Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p. 141). Lakoff and Johnson correctly condemn Western philosophy’s over­dependence on the moral accounting metaphor and Fesmire provides a much needed alternative to contemporary ethics by reintroducing Dewey’s concept of dramatic rehearsal. But, must Plato be a foil to contemporary pragmatism or can we imagine a different relationship with the first author of philosophy? Fesmire correctly diagnoses the denigration of imagination as originating with Platonism,



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but this denigration originates from a literal analysis of the arguments presented by Socrates in the dialogues. It stems from an inability to imagine Plato as an artist, rather than a theorist, and Dewey struggled to overcome this lack of imagination throughout his entire career. One of the first essays to examine Dewey’s complex reading of Plato is John P. Anton’s “John Dewey and Ancient Philosophies” (1965). Anton focuses on three aspects of Dewey’s relation to Greek philosophy: the “polemic,” the “historicocontextual,” and the “cumulative aspect” (1965, p. 477; see also Betz, 1980). According to Anton, the: [S]ustained historical analyses he presented in his Quest for Certainty and Reconstruction in Philosophy are so dominated by a central philosophical and ethical concern of his social pragmatism as to mislead the reader into concluding that this is all he had to offer by way of understanding and appreciating the classical heritage. (1965, p. 477)

Because Dewey’s most explicit commentary on Greek philosophy attempts to overcome barriers to philosophical inquiry, specifically the misapplication of ancient theories to contemporary problems, one is tempted to reduce Dewey’s criticism only to its polemic aspect. Anton argues that a more accurate treatment of Dewey’s approach accepts his admonishment of dualism and leisure class theory, without ignoring his “avowed sympathy with Plato” as a fellow social reformer (1965, pp. 477–9). On one hand, Dewey was impressed by the degree of social awareness expressed in the dialogues and Plato’s commitment to and aptitude for social reform. On the other hand, Dewey was cautious and skeptical of “the static features he read into Plato’s ideals,” what one might refer to as the Plato of Platonism. Anton points out other areas of kinship between Dewey and Plato, specifically seeing “art as imitation,” seeing “intelligence as a method rather than a collection of finished outcomes,” and seeing “philosophy in a wider meaning of a critique of institutions and a fundamental way of life.” Thus, while key differences exist, specifically “on issues of metaphysics, ethics, logic, or aesthetics,” the two philosophers are united by their desire for social reform and similar temperament (Anton, 1965, pp. 487–91). Ultimately, Anton’s assessment of Dewey’s approach to Greek philosophy is unsympathetic. He claims that while Dewey had the potential to offer a fruitful pragmatic analysis of ancient thought, his obsession with contemporary problems prevented him from developing an accurate picture of classical philosophy. Essentially, the polemic aspect of Dewey’s approach hinders his

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attempts to produce a valid historico-cultural account of ancient thought and obscures the continuity between Plato and Dewey (Anton, 1965, pp. 498–9). Frederick M. Anderson offers a more charitable assessment when he suggests that Dewey uses polemics so that ancient philosophy might disclose itself in its original richness free of received, modern interpretations. He argues that Dewey sees the problems of Greek philosophy as emerging from specific historicocultural influences and that modern philosopher misinterpreted as necessary and intractable. Dewey believed that the topics discussed by the ancients are not perennial; they are reflections of specific human concerns embodied within the fabric of Athenian intellectual culture (Anderson, 1967, pp. 87–8). In summation, both Anton and Anderson agree that Dewey sees the authentic Plato as an expression of the cultural need for reform. A more useful middle view can be distilled from Anton and Anderson’s commentaries. The polemics against the Greeks in Dewey’s major works border on the hyperbolic because he wanted to dislodge interpretations of Plato that overemphasized metaphysical dualisms and leisure class values as necessary to present inquiry. Using Dewey’s own words, a convenient label for this interpretation would be Plato as the “original university professor.” However, Dewey preferred the “dramatic, restless, cooperatively inquiring Plato of the Dialogues, trying one mode of attack after another to see what it might yield … the Plato whose highest flights of metaphysics always terminated with a social and practical turn” (1930, p. 155). Thus, the dramatic Plato uses the drama of the dialogues to experiment with different lines of inquiry in relation to specific practical problems, whereas Professor Plato invents abstract theories relevant to perennial, yet imagined philosophical problems. Sadly, Dewey never fully articulated his interpretation of the dramatic Plato. He wrote only two essays that provided extended commentaries on the dialogues. “The Ethics of Democracy” (1888) rebuts Sir Henry Maine’s Platoesque critique of democracy as a “numerical aggregate” and “The Socratic Dialogues of Plato” (1925) presents an interesting, but quirky treatment of the Socratic problem. Both essays demonstrate Dewey’s affinity for Plato, but neither presents a developed hermeneutical approach to the dialogues for which Dewey longs. He delivers his final word on the matter in “Experience, Knowledge, and Value: A Rejoinder” (Dewey, 1939), when he states in response to John Herman Randall’s “Dewey’s Interpretation of the History of Philosophy” (1951) that “I believe the factors of the existing cultural situation … are such that philosophical theories which in effect, … are products of pre-scientific and pre-technological, dominantly leisure class conditions, are now as obstructive



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as they are unnecessary” (Dewey, 1939, p. 11). But, Dewey does not directly dispute Randall’s claim that the history of philosophy can be used instrumentally “as an arsenal, or as a warning” (Randall, 1951, p. 79). In fact, the recently recovered manuscript Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy (Deen, 2012) confirms Dewey next intended to articulate his philosophy of history and the relationship between the Greeks and their modern interpreters. Editor Phillip Deen cites a 1939 letter from Dewey to Joseph Ratner as Dewey’s first reference to the project and the published manuscripts date from 1941–3 (Deen, 2012, p. xiv). Dewey postponed completing the text to write Knowing and the Known with Arthur Bentley and misplaced the draft in 1947 (Deen, 2012, pp. xv–xvi). The first three chapters narrate how philosophy emerged from pre-philosophic cultures through the lens of Dewey’s cultural naturalism and Chapter Three, “The Discovery of Rational Discourse,” provides his most thorough account of how Greek philosophy adapted to the needs of its cultural context. Furthermore, he contrasts Plato with Aristotle by saying the “dissolution of Greek social life had gone so far that there was no longer the question of the Platonic heroic endeavor for revolutionary reform” and that “[w]e must never forget in any study of Plato his passionate conviction of the union of knowledge and action” (Deen, 2012, p. 44). These comments and others anticipate the more detailed reconstruction that Randall presents decades later. In Plato: Dramatist of the Life of Reason (1970), Randall develops the three characteristics of the dramatic Plato (drama, experiment, and practice) that Dewey outlines. Randall contends that Plato is not a historical philosopher but “a poet and a dramatist”, which he explains as follows: “Plato is a philosopher because he is a poet. True philosophy is poetry—poetic insight and vision, the imaginative enhancement of life.” In the dialogues, Plato dramatically depicts the “qualities of man’s thinking, the play and conflict of his ideas, the spectacle of his mind” as embodied in the “discourse of men” or “the drama of the Life of Reason.” The dialogues do not defend or analyze philosophical theories. They convert individuals to the philosophical life (Randall, 1970, pp. 3–4). The dialogues are not meant to be an accurate historical snapshot of ancient Greece, but a presentation of “Greece in Plato’s own perspective, Greece as he understood it, how Greece and Greek culture looked to him” (Randall, 1970, pp. 36–40). Randall prefers to speak in terms of “The Greek Heritage of Plato,” i.e. the patterns of thoughts and values that he inherited from Greek culture, early Greek philosophers, the Sophists, Socrates, and Plato’s audience. Randall believes that Plato’s use of drama attempts to capture this combination of

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curiosity and humanism in the attempt to recruit noūs as a means of orienting human nature towards the Good Life. Drama allows Plato to express how these themes shape the life of reason. Thus: [T]he dialogues emerge, not as programs of action, but as dramatic portrayals of the life of the mind—of the follies, contradictions, enthusiasms, and greatness of human thinking, as beheld by a detached and ironic intelligence—by nous, Dramatic Reason. (Randall, 1970, p. 54)

Plato hopes to impart the value of the philosophical life and to inspire his audience to participate in it so that they might improve themselves in the hope of finding fulfillment. The dialogues are not presentations of philosophical theories; they are invitations to engage in the betterment of humanity through inquiry and conversation. Randall continues by explaining how Plato uses drama to respond to the social and cultural challenges of the Periclean Age (1970, pp. 58–65). During the century preceding Plato’s career, Athens experienced optimism in the form of imperial expansion and hegemony. This expansion enabled social mobility and the Sophists met the aristocracy’s desire to maintain power and the needs of the new rich to access to greater political privileges by teaching aretē or success. While some of the original Sophists advocated “high ideals” like “professional standards” or the improvement of “social conditions” they quickly became “commercialized” and began to teach methods of gaining political advantage. Randall argues that Plato and Socrates saw the cynicism underneath this veneer of careerism and start teaching and writing as a response to the Sophists (1970, pp. 82–4). Randall contrasts them with Socrates. He suggests that Socrates’ actual teachings were broader than a set of dogmas and that his purpose for engaging in philosophy was not to know the Good in a systematic way (see also Wallach, 2001). Socrates teaches his students how to philosophize; he does not teach a philosophy. He postulates the Forms and the Good for the purpose of revealing to his students the bias and prejudices that prevent them from thinking better about the practical challenges they face. Students gain excellence, aretē, not through skillful rhetoric or seeking personal advantage, but through a love of wisdom and the practice of critical reflection—through imitating the life that Socrates leads, loving wisdom for its own sake—rather than teaching it for profit. Plato uses the character of Socrates dramatically to demonstrate how his readers can benefit from philosophical reflection and to initiate critical reflection within the reader. Henry Wolz elaborates on Randall’s conception



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of the dialogues as philosophical drama. Wolz sees two phases at work in the dialogues: the destructive phase in which the interlocutor becomes aware of his ignorance which then initiates the constructive phase of inquiry that gives birth to new insights. In both phases, Socrates avoids presenting his own views because doing so would undermine his student’s attempts at philosophy. Thus, the goal of the Socratic Method is to empower the student to engage in philosophy and by dramatizing philosophical inquiry, Plato’s dialogues empower his readers to engage in philosophy. Wolz cites Crito as an example of how the dialogues stimulate reflection rather than indoctrination. It presents the philosophical conflict between “radical freedom and unconditional submission” that “reside in the same mind [Socrates]” (1963, pp. 238–48).2 Good citizenship requires the ability to negotiate these two demands and by depicting their conflict within the character of Socrates; rather than in separate characters, the reader witnesses a single character dramatically rehearsal the problem. By extension, the drama of the situation inspires the reader to think critically about the place of citizenship between radical freedom and submission. Thus, choosing to write dialogues allows Plato to dramatize moral deliberation within a practical context. He teaches the reader how to perceive their situations and imagine multiple solutions in response to particular problem. Socrates might recommend a specific solution, but Plato depicts a variety of strategies and allows the reader to evaluate all of them critically. He does not present them dogmatically. In fact, Republic Book I dramatically critiques the dominance of the moral accounting metaphor. Plato sets the dialogue at the height of Athens imperial hegemony in the city of Piraeus, the base of the commercial and military navy. The subsequent conversation occurs at the home of Cephalus, a foreigner from Syracuse who became one of the wealthiest members of Athenian society through the manufacture of shields. Plato frames this discussion of justice with a setting symbolic of a society dominated by the moral accounting metaphor. Furthermore, Athens will soon overextend itself in the Second Peloponnesian War and be conquered by Sparta. As an artist, Plato chooses the temporal and spatial setting of the dialogue to reflect of the failure of this metaphor to provide moral guidance for individuals and the city-state. The opening conversation between Cephalus and Socrates directly calls the moral accounting metaphor into question. The aged Cephalus has spent the day sponsoring sacrifices which Adeimantus will later describe as an economic transaction with the gods for the purpose of atonement (Plato, 364c). Ever the gadfly, Socrates asks Cephalus three probing question: what is it like to be old, how did you become so wealthy, and what is the greatest benefit of wealth (328e−30d)? Cephalus takes Socrates’

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philosophical bait when he answers that wealth removes some of the temptation to “cheat or deceive someone against our will” and allows us to die without the fear of owing a “sacrifice to a god or money to a person” (331b). This reference to sacrifice as a means of easing one’s conscience before death foreshadows and alludes to the final words of Socrates in the Phaedo and a subtle contrast emerges between Cephalus and Socrates as potential role-models for different life paths. Cephalus models the metaphor of moral accounting whereas Socrates models the metaphor of the love of wisdom. Glaucon reinforces this contrast when he contrasts between the perfectly unjust man, Gyges, who uses a ring of invisibility to privately commit injustice while publically maintaining a reputation for justice and the perfectly just man who lives ethically, but is publically reviled (360c–1d). Cephalus could be a candidate for the perfectly unjust man who commits injustice to achieve his ends but dies without moral debts through a life of shrewd moral transaction and Socrates execution for impiety by the state certainly qualifies him as a candidate for the perfectly just man. When we consider Cephalus and Socrates at the end of their lives, Socrates dies content and peaceful, confident in a life well lived, whereas Cephalus has achieved everything he wanted, but approaches death desperately trying to ease a guilty conscience.3 This segue into the dialogue is thick with references to the moral accounting metaphor and links them to the discussion of justice and ethics. Socrates critiques the metaphor directly when he refutes the claim that justice is “to give to each what is owed to him,” a definition presented by Cephalus but quickly bequeathed to his heir Polemarchus (331d). By implying this contrast without direct comment, Plato undermines the moral accounting metaphor and the remainder of the dialogue is an exploration of other possible metaphors for moral deliberation. The key metaphor of the Republic is the city-soul analogy, i.e. that a link exists between public justice and personal morality (369a). Ultimately, Socrates supports this connection through an appeal to the metaphysical unity of the forms, but a more Deweyan interpretation would see Socrates as insisting that the “individual and society are organic to each other” (Dewey, 1888, p. 237). Clearly, Dewey believes that the metaphors of democracy are superior to the metaphors of aristocracy, but Dewey always admired Plato’s dialogues as works of moral imagination. He claimed that “if they had no value for philosophical reasons” and the harshest interpretation of Dewey’s polemics might reach that conclusion, “the Republic would be immortal as the summary of all that was best and most permanent in Greek life, of its ways of thinking and feeling, and of its ideals” (Dewey, 1888, p. 240). Dewey designed his polemics against Plato to demolish



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specific entrenched interpretations that buried the novelty of Plato’s reconstruction of his historical context. Now those polemics should be set aside, lest they become barriers to future inquiry. By appropriating Plato as a moral artist, rather than a theorist, and reading the dialogues as dramatic rehearsals of moral problems, rather than philosophical arguments, we can connect with the Plato that inspired Dewey and uses the dialogues to broaden our own imaginations.

Notes 1 From The Pluralist. Copyright 2013 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with permission of the University of Illinois Press. 2 Wolz also notes the Greek convention of using drama as moral education, e.g. Sophocles’ Antigone, and contends that Plato’s dialogues are another example of this convention. 3 Consider Socrates’ final words in the Phaedo, “Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; make this offering to him and do not forget” (118a) in comparison to Cephalus’ statement “that when someone thinks his end is near, he becomes frightened and concerned about things he didn’t fear before” (330d). Socrates greets death peacefully and asks his student to offer a single and meager final sacrifice to the god of healing, whereas Cephalus hints that he has troubled dreams and quickly exits the dialogue to continue the sacrifices he has already been performing throughout the day. Given these last words and behavior, it appears that Socrates goes to his grave with a clearer conscience than Cephalus. Also, Phaedo and Republic are conventionally considered to be from the same phase of Plato’s career and address similar philosophical themes (see Ruprecht, 1999).

References Anderson, F. M. (1967), “Dewey’s Experiment with Greek Philosophy,” International Philosophical Quarterly, 7, 86–100. Anton, J. P. (1965), “John Dewey and Ancient Philosophies,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 25, (4), 477–99. Betz, J. (1980), “Dewey and Socrates,” Transaction of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 16, 329–56. Cooper, J. (ed.) (1997), Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett [cited in text using Stephanus pagination by number and section]. Deen, P. (ed.) (2012), Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

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Dewey, J. (1888), “The Ethics of Democracy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1925), “The Socratic Dialogues of Plato,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1929), “The Quest for Certainty,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1930), “From Absolutism to Experimentalism,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1939), “Experience, Knowledge, and Value: A Rejoinder,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 14. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Fesmire, S. (2003), John Dewey & Moral Imagination: Pragmatism in Ethics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980), Metaphors We Live By. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. Randall, J. H. (1951), “Dewey’s Interpretation of the History of Philosophy,” in P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of John Dewey. New York: Tudor. —(1970), Plato: Dramatist of the Life of Reason. New York: Columbia University Press. Ruprecht, L. (1999), Symposia: Plato, the Erotic, and Moral Value. Albany, NY: State University of New York. Wallach, J. (2001), The Platonic Political Art: A Study of Critical Reason and Democracy. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Wolz, H. (1963), “Philosophy as Drama: An Approach to the Dialogues of Plato,” International Philosophical Quarterly, 3, 236–70.

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Justice in Society and the Individual: A Comparison of Plato’s Republic and Dewey’s Great Community Philip Schuyler Bishop

Discussions on justice in philosophy are as plentiful as grains of sands on a beach and, while I could not hope to offer a new and wholly complete theory of justice in the few pages I have here, I shall argue that a comparison of Plato’s and John Dewey’s works on the subject may help to break ground toward a richer understanding of justice. Despite his many criticisms of the Greeks, Dewey was clearly influenced by ancient philosophy (and by the work of Plato in particular) going so far as to ask his Columbia graduate students to place his thought with the “revival of Greek philosophy” (see Veazie, 1961), and calling for a “back to Plato” movement after he had retired from teaching (see Dewey, 1930; also Anton, 1965 and Anderson, 1967). Given these connections and the fact that each thinker devoted so much of his attention to public life, it stands to reason that a Dewey–Plato association should be fruitful for political philosophy. With this in mind, I will explore some common themes in Dewey’s The Public and its Problems (1927) and Plato’s Republic (Cooper, 1997) to show how each thinker handles the political theory of justice. This examination looks beyond Dewey’s polemics by asking the following question: is there a theory of justice that could accommodate both Dewey’s theory of “the great community” and Plato’s characterization of the “city of pigs,” found in Book II of the Republic? My comparison focuses especially on the social structures of these communities and I plan on tackling this question by utilizing six conditions laid out by Dewey as requirements for the great community, demonstrating how the city of pigs meets these conditions. Once this is determined, the question will be extended to consider if this theory of justice could also accommodate the larger theoretical frameworks in

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which “the great community” and the “city of pigs” are situated. To answer this secondary question I turn to The Study of Ethics, where Dewey stated: Justice is the habit of maintaining function, concrete individuality, in its supremacy and of giving every impulse, desire, habit its value according to its factorship in this function. Justice conveys so fully, in the very term, its meaning of regard for the whole, but for the whole maintained by the positive maintenance of its parts as organs, instead of by their suppression, that it is hardly possible to bring out the idea more closely with any number of words. (1894, p. 357)

Contrary to Dewey’s estimate, this description could benefit from even a few more words, however, certain points about Dewey’s conception of justice are elucidated: Dewey orients the value of impulse, desire, and habit according to maintaining “concrete individuality, in its supremacy” but also a deep “regard for the whole.” A cursory interpretation might declare these concepts as antipodes and entirely at odds with one another, but a deeper examination reveals that “regard for the whole” entails individual potential being reached, and therefore orienting toward a concrete individuality. One of the core conditions required to reach the great community in Dewey’s estimation is that individuals within that community are able and encouraged to reach their full potential; further, in so doing, it brings about a robust sense of justice as “regard for the whole,” insofar as a society comprised of flourishing individuals would indeed be just. In what follows, this theory of justice as “regard for the whole” will be applied to Dewey’s own theory of “the great community” and Plato’s “city of pigs,” the latter being examined for whether it further fits Dewey’s six conditions for “the great community.” Of course, such an examination will focus on just a few lines Socrates used to discuss his “healthy city” and Glaucon’s rejection of it as fit only for pigs. There, Socrates proposed to “inquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them” (Cooper, 1997, 369a). Since only the “greater” analogy is offered for the healthy city/city of pigs, I will resort to speculating on an analysis of the “lesser” letters of how the individual human psyche would operate in such a position. In Republic Book II, Socrates answers the challenge put forth to him by Glaucon and Adeimantus as to whether one could properly describe a just individual. Rather than answer the question directly, he offers an analogy, that of a community. This community is purported to be a representation of the psyche of a person who pursues a balance of all their intellectual powers, but



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Socrates’ account is cut short before the analogy can be applied to the object of investigation when Glaucon challenges his construction as apt only “if you were providing for a city of pigs” (Cooper, 1997, 372d). Standard commentaries on this passage tend to treat Glaucon’s dismissal as authoritative, just as Paul Shorey does in his 1930 translation: “By the mouth of the fine gentleman, Glaucon, Plato expresses with humorous exaggeration his own recognition of the inadequacy for ethical and social philosophy of his idyllic ideal” (pp. 158–9). However, I contend that Glaucon’s remark subtly changes the object of the conversation, for Socrates had already stated this was to be only an analogy of how the well-ordered soul (psyche) would be arranged, yet Glaucon focuses on the analog at the expense of the object of investigation: psyche. Socrates’ construction is simple, ordered, calm, free of strife, and he has already claimed this analogy is meant to “read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser,” because it is easier to understand justice at the scale of a community than it is of a single soul. Socrates believed the two were analogous enough to make the comparison when he stated that “there would be more justice in the larger object and more easy to apprehend” (Cooper, 1997, 368e). Socrates’ description of the “city of pigs” is brief and consisting only of a few lines but its vision of the human psyche is left unplumbed in what remains of the Republic. Instead, Glaucon pursues the same sort of analogy for the luxurious city, and rejects out of hand the possibility of a city ordered as Socrates describes. For, according to Glaucon, people desire what is customary: to “dine from tables and have dishes and sweetmeats such as are now in use” (Cooper, 1997, 368e). The remainder of the Republic investigates the city at fever pitch, even though Socrates states that “the true and healthy constitution of the state is the one which I have described [that is, the city of pigs]” (Cooper, 1997, 372e). The city detailed in the later chapters of the Republic is an attempt by Socrates to curb the fever instilled by luxury in order to bring it back to the calm and ordered unity of the city of pigs, a psyche which is not ruled by need of bodily luxury but is instead concerned with the good and the just. Before such an investigation can proceed, it is important to explore differing academic evaluations of the city of pigs in order to situate how my interpretation differs. Scholars have interpreted the inclusion of the “city of pigs” in the Republic in various manners. Some misinterpret the allegory of the city of pigs, confusing it with the luxurious city infected by fever (Hueglin, 2008, p. 29). Others interpret it as a “low grade communal achievement” (North, 1977, p. 13). For instance, Helen North views the city of pigs as a merely “economic society” geared only toward the “fulfillment of the bare necessities of food, clothing, shelter and the

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like” (1977, p. 12). She dismisses the city of pigs and describes how the Republic, as frequently interpreted, is the source of goodness and human flourishing. But these sorts of interpretations overlook entirely the analogical nature of the city of pigs, and therefore its coordinating psyche, ordered along similar principles. Rather than Plato merely building a simple society with only material wants satisfied, the city of pigs represents a psyche which does not desire beyond what it needs (such as the discussion found in Republic, 558e; also 581e regarding necessary needs). My contention is that failing to notice the analogical nature of the city of pigs leads one to believe that the city founded in response to Glaucon’s challenge is the more just and true city, when, on the contrary, Socrates explicitly repudiates this claim by saying “if it is your pleasure that we contemplate also a fevered state, there is nothing to hinder” (Cooper, 1997, 372e). The neglect of the analogical nature of the city of pigs (found in North, among others) leads to the common misconception of the “fevered state” as the genuine and just state. Others commentators read the city of pigs as a merely representation of the necessary needs which do not satiate the needs of the learned class, who desire luxury, for it “lacks refinement and pleasures” (Allen, 2002, p. 305). They, therefore, dismiss the city of pigs out of hand without further attention. Meanwhile, some authors interpret the city of pigs as a mere stand-in for a distant past which is recalled with nostalgia and whim but that the city of pigs is just a place-holder for primitive society (Barney, 2001). As before, this interpretation overlooks the fact that Socrates explicitly indicates the city is analogous of the individual human psyche; said differently, the discussion between Socrates and his interlocutors is not focused exclusively on what a just city would look like, but rather a dual investigation into polis and psyche. Such interpretations of the city of pigs as primitive society only view it from one perspective, namely an investigation of justice in the polis. One is left asking what the analogous human psyche would look like for the primitive society and why Socrates would call that the just and healthy option. A handful of scholars take Socrates’ first model more seriously, recognizing it is how a well ordered state should appear, but admitting that such ordering depends upon good fortune and is therefore unstable (McKeen, 2004). Catherine McKeen takes Socrates at his word that the city of pigs is the just formulation and examines the various “city limits” of this just city. She goes so far as to praise this version of political life inasmuch as “life in this less-regulated polis seems preferable in many respects to that of the Kallipolis. One enjoys the simple pleasures of life, manages one’s own affairs, and relaxes with one’s family” (McKeen, 2004, p. 73).



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While McKeen’s contention that the city of pigs is the true and healthy city, only lacking the ability to defend itself (i.e. from military invasion), she likewise overlooks the dual nature of the analogy and focuses too strongly on the side of the polis while neglecting the psyche. McKeen’s analysis at least delves into the place of the city of pigs in the larger argument of the Republic, how Socrates could possibly determine the city of pigs was the just and healthy city, and why it inevitably becomes the fevered city of luxury at the hands of Glaucon. McKeen deserves further praise for analyzing the role of appetites in the eventual fever that overtakes the city, but fails to explore the full analogy of the city of pigs as psyche.1 If the city of pigs is the just city, what would the character of those raised in that city be? Perhaps more pressing, what would the character of those individuals be that could found the city of pigs? Rather than discussing the generations that could exist in the state of the city of pigs, what would an individual be like that thrived during the period prior to degeneration? These are important questions that fall outside of McKeen’s attention. The city of pigs will be taken to be Socrates’ answer, in analogy form, to the question regarding how a just psyche, well ordered, looks, as well as how the polis, well-ordered, should look. This dual-natured approach will explore polis and psyche as co-terminal and co-creational. It seems that if a psyche is well ordered, its interactions in the setting of the polis would better conform to the layout of the city of pigs. Ipso facto, as the city of pigs is more widely adopted, individual psyches should become well-ordered. Socrates establishes the city of pigs by positing that each of the necessary jobs be done by a specialist where he has only one occupation. This way, that person can concentrate on the task at hand and not be diluted in their work. This is taken to be analogous to each component of the psyche being charged with only its one job and the various components of the psyche are not to do the jobs of another part more suited for that task. In the case of the luxurious city the various parts of the psyche are reason, spirit, and appetite, and in the analogy of the city of pigs, all three lack vivid delineation. Appetites in the city of pigs are kept to only those that are necessary (thus avoiding the infectious luxuries), are self-regulated, and therefore do not require a hierarchical social class, as seen in the later chapters of the Republic, in order to control bloat and waste. Likewise, there is no class of reason-instilled philosopher kings or spirittempered guardians in the city of pigs.2 The psyche, if the analogy is taken on its face, of just individual is one such that appetites are controlled voluntarily rather than forced. Reason is not the necessary ruler over the psyche because the appetites have been trained to value only the necessary and do not require

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constant impulse control from higher brain functions. Instead, these individuals naturally and effortlessly desire only those goods which are necessary and do not crave luxury. In the later Republic, reason would be used by the philosopherkings to utilize the control of the appetites by directing the thumus to force the appetites into order. Once it is outlined which jobs are necessary and all have fulfilled their roles, Socrates describes the just lifestyle: Let us then consider, first of all, what will be their way of life, now that we have thus established them. Will they not produce corn, and wine, and clothes, and shoes, and build houses for themselves? And when they are housed, they will work, in summer, commonly, stripped and barefoot, but in winter substantially clothed and shod. They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war. (Cooper, 1997, 372a–c)

This city looks radically different than the kallipolis of the Republic because this is not the city separated into castes, with philosopher kings ruling the guardians and artisans. Instead there is no distinction between the citizens; they have no hierarchical divisions. Additionally, there is no community of wives and children, or even an abolition of gold or silver. The community does pool their labor into a “common stock” such that the husbandman produces four times the amount he needs and can therefore meet the needs of other citizens. While this initial presentation of the city of pigs is far from an in-depth examination of the analogy, it will suffice for the current project. With the analogy on display, now a tool is needed to examine it critically. For this purpose, an investigation into Dewey’s theory of “the great community” and the conditions required to achieve one will be utilized. In examining “the great community,” Dewey outlines a community which results in the full-flowering of human potentiality. The end-in-view of Dewey’s way of life is continued growth and expansion of the freedoms that come about from the cultivation of human intelligence. Dewey laid out the conditions required for “the great community” to be possible at all, as he called it, “the search for conditions under which the Great



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Society may become the Great Community” (Dewey, 1927, p. 147). Further, obtaining these conditions may be inadequate, for “it is not claimed that the conditions which will be noted will suffice, but only that at least they are indispensable” (Dewey, 1927, p. 157). Said differently, a community may possess all of these qualities and still fail to become a great community. Dewey did not delve further into why these conditions were not also sufficient conditions. One of the chief ways to bring about peaceful cooperation is by way of communication. Genuine shared interest is perhaps the most powerful glue that can hold a community together, and shared interest is only possible if the interests can be conceptualized and communicated. The clearest form of shared interest is when each member has in mind the same consequences and utilizes the same modes of meaning to bring about those consequences. Even if individuals are speaking to one another, it does not mean they are communicating. Communication requires more than merely talking at one another, it requires talking to one another. Although it is impossible for the experience of events to be passed directly to other members of a community, it is possible for those events to be shared. This sharing comes by way of utilizing signs and symbols which stand as representations of the events or experiences: Only when there exist signs or symbols of activities and of their outcomes can the flux be viewed as from without, be arrested for consideration and esteem, and be regulated. (Dewey, 1927, p. 152)

Dewey added that, “symbols in turn depend upon and promote communication” (Dewey, 1927, p. 153). The signs and symbols only act as communication when both parties have the same or very similar meaning for those signs. Emotions and beliefs make up the bulk of shared interest, but goals and outcomes play their role as well. Therefore, the first and most important condition for a community is the maintenance of common signs and symbols which allow for robust communication of meaning between its members. The barest benefit of association was known to even early hominids. Associated living brings protection and freedom which an individual is incapable of having alone. Even in Locke’s view of the “state of nature,” the individual is perpetually in danger and this danger is only alleviated by entering into a social contract to gain a higher level of assurance. As Dewey stated, “individuals can find the security and protection that are prerequisites for freedom only in association with others—and then the organization these associations take on, as a measure of securing their efficiency, limits the freedom of those who have entered into them” (Dewey, 1939, pp. 126–7). Association also comes with a cost: the

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individual must conform and adopt the values and practices of those around her for fear of being ostracized from the association. This conformity is not always something the individual is aware of; she is so thoroughly indoctrinated into the values and beliefs of those with whom she associates. Sometimes these values and beliefs must be adopted, such as when an outsider joins the group and must learn its ways. While associated living brings a certain amount of freedom, it also takes away from freedom in another sense. The freedom granted by association is the liberation of potentialities that comes with coordinated living, while the freedom sacrificed is the ability to behave indiscriminately. The liberation of potentialities can be seen in the ability to explore concepts such as high speed travel accomplished by working with enormous teams of highly specialized individuals rather than a single individual needing all of those skills by themself. An example of the sacrifice of indiscriminate living can be seen in individuals wearing clothing rather than living nude. The modesty of situated living demands that clothing be worn, but some may find clothing restrictive; clothes are worn in order to participate in situated living even if the price is discomfort. Dewey held that the only meaningful freedom is the ability to control conditions in order to bring about desired consequences, and while independent existence permits the greatest range of individual behavior, it doesn’t allow for the greatest range of control over conditions. Many of the most meaningful outcomes have as their prerequisite the cooperation and coordination of other individuals. Contemporary life shows many examples of this, ranging from corporations and research groups to family life, sports teams, and book clubs. All told, Dewey held the positive freedom gained from association far outweighed the indiscriminate freedom of rugged individualism for “no man and no mind was ever emancipated merely by being left alone” (Dewey, 1927, p. 168). Being left alone can be of immense value, and in that space there can dwell a sort of freedom, but profound freedom only comes about by being able to overcome the obstacles one will face in life. This lasting freedom only exists, for humans, through associations that transmit the wisdom of the past and methods for overcoming novel situations: humans do not, by nature, come pre-equipped with these capabilities, and therefore they must be learned. The mutual benefit and freedom granted by associated life is the second condition required to bring about a community In order to arrive at a proper conception of community, however, Dewey first sought the conditions for the possibility of association. He saw a distinction between an association and a community, because a mere collection of



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individuals counted as an association but more was needed for that to cohere into a community. To become an association, beyond a mere aggregate of individuals, there has to exist an arrangement and coordination of parts. Dewey stated that an organization is another word for an association, but regardless of which synonym we used, it was a group of individuals that had a rudimentary functional basis that came together in an organized manner. This could range from the American Philosophical Association (APA) to a local bowling league, and while these associated forms of living promote the foundations of communal life, they do not quite attain the unification of community. While each of these associations could allow for a community to form, they lack the necessary components to ensure it. Nevertheless, in order for a collection of individuals to become an association, there must be coordination and there is usually a function which defines why they come together. Some of the most pressing functions that organizations can provide its members are protection, access to tools and medicines, companionship, and the possibility for enduring bonds. The previously mentioned APA and bowling league may bring like-minded individuals with similar interests together, or even people whose only common element is inclusion in the association with one another, but they lack common values. Some members of the APA may find Gorgias fascinating, while others may find him deplorable; there is nothing in the formation of either association to ensure common values, only common interest. It is unimportant as to whether these people are geographically contiguous or not, only that they come together in some manner and coordinate their actions. Dewey stated that, “associated or joint activity is a condition of the creation of a community” (Dewey, 1927, p. 151). Therefore, the third condition for the attainment of community is free association. Not all members of associations and communities share the same values, and often times this can lead to conflict and bloodshed. A collection of factions and cliques can only become a community if these various groups interact flexibly and fully. If membership in one group comes at the expense of other groups, or if the exploitation of other groups is the express purpose of one group, there can never exist a community of these parts. Effectively, these groups are either 1) gearing-up toward or 2) already presently in, a state of war. Dewey uses the example of members of a robber-band to make this point: A member of a robber band may express his powers in a way consonant with belonging to that group and be directed by the interest common to its members.

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But he does so only at the cost of repression of those of his potentialities which can be realized only through membership in other groups. (Dewey, 1927, p. 148)

While participation within the band can continue freely, association with other groups is strained by way of the parasitic nature of the robber-band. The robberband cannot be an integrated aspect of a community insofar as they prey upon that very community. As long as one group benefits at the detriment of another, there can be no association, and therefore no community. Dewey states that group cohesion is necessary when he said: From the standpoint of the groups, it demands liberation of the potentialities of members of a group in harmony with the interests and goods which are common: since every individual is a member of many groups, this specification cannot be fulfilled except when different groups interact flexibly and fully in connection with other groups. (Dewey, 1927, p. 147)

The fourth condition for the attainment of community therefore stands as the smooth integration and cooperation of internal groups. Individuals are not just beholden to the values and beliefs of the associated life, they are also expected to be held responsible, to the extent which they are capable, in forming and directing the activities of the group. Individuals who wish only to reap the benefits of associated living will never really be a part of a community because community life is a give and take. Individuals able to do more are expected to do more. The bright and charismatic should step up to the role of leadership and guides, the courageous should defend and the careful should calculate. On the other side of this coin, the group should demand the liberation of the potentialities of its members in harmony with the interests and goods of the association. If individuals do not take part in directing the activities of the group, they are beholden to something which they are not really a part of, and if groups do not demand the furtherance of individual potentiality, they may never obtain their capacity to participate in said group: From the standpoint of the individual, it consists in having a responsible share according to capacity in forming and directing the activities of the group to which one belongs and in participating according to need in the values which the groups sustain. (Dewey, 1927, p. 147)

Therefore, the fifth condition for community is the participation of its members in taking their fair share according to capacity in the doings and sufferings of the community.



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The most direct route to controlling conditions, and thereby being free, is to possess knowledge of social means. Knowledge is a social capital; it is developed, passed on, distributed, and clarified by way of social means such as language, education, and conjoint research. Additionally, many researchers depend upon tools which are either developed or produced by others or otherwise are products of sociable living. Even if one had the know-how and ability to craft these tools, still the resources needed to produce them are a social capital. Steel is more than a metal dug whole-cloth from the earth; it must go through a process, itself the result of generations of social investigations, to become a product. So much of what contemporary life depends on is so indelibly social that its social nature has become transparent. The more advanced research has become, the more specialized the tools which permit that research to advance have become as well, and therefore the more socially indebted it is. The sixth condition for the attainment of community is the possession and distribution of knowledge. In order for a community to flourish, this social knowledge must be distributed freely and inquiry must be encouraged, not prevented (Dewey, 1927, p. 166). These six conditions: 1) communication through shared signs and symbols; 2) trust from natural association; 3) mutual benefit; 4) the possession and distribution of social knowledge; 5) the active participation of the members in the directing of the community, and 6) the full integration of individuals, stand as the requirements to bring about a cohesive and free community. If any one of them is lacking, the result is a community striving to become, but existing still only at the level of an association. The benefits of a robust community can be felt by every member of that community, and whether individuals realize it or not, one of the strongest drives among us is to belong. If a community-tobe lacks even one of these conditions, it would be exceedingly difficult for the individuals of that association to reach full potentiality; even a dictator with full control over a conquered people lacks integration with those conquered.3 Utilizing force can motivate the actions of individuals, but rarely reaches within to alter their values or habits of thought; force changes the outward actions and sublimates different thought. Individuals ruled by fear and domination reside amidst and among one another, but not with one another. The moment the yoke of oppression is lifted, even a little, those suppressed habits of thinking resurface, and history has shown this resurfacing can be dangerous, especially for those who rely mostly, or exclusively, on force to keep the yoke in place. The important thing lacking in such dictatorships of force is a sense of belonging amongst those governed; for in its place is fear and mistrust. With trust comes

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a sense of belonging to an associated form of living rather than being pressed to service involuntarily. Belonging to an association is one thing, but belonging to a healthy community brings about individual fulfillment in ways no mere association can. It is this higher aim of health and not mere joint living, at which Plato and Dewey aim, but such health requires individuals perform tasks within a community they believe are valued and worthy, not merely performed for monetary gain. When individuals operate out of hope, joy, and compassion rather than necessity and short term gain, they begin to tap into their greater potentiality and approach their personal flourishing. Dewey contends that by accomplishing the aforementioned six conditions that individuals stand the greatest chance of achieving this flourishing. It can be seen from these conditions that the city of pigs proposed by Socrates meets nearly all of the conditions: since the individuals are able to engage “in happy converse,” it can be assumed that the citizens are capable of communicating with one another, and they mutually benefit from each other’s work by engaging in a common stock of their labors. The citizens explicitly trust one another, going so far as to only focus on their own job rather than split their time between the many various tasks required of communal life. All members participate in the community in whichever way best suits their individual potential and they are expected to fully integrate into the community. The possession and distribution of social knowledge is not discussed, but even still the city of pigs clearly meets five conditions for the great community, as laid out by Dewey. Since every other aspect of life is shared in the “common stock” of the city of pigs, it can be hypothesized that knowledge would be as well, thus meeting all six conditions. Are meeting these conditions sufficient for a thriving and strong community? No, they are not sufficient, but these six conditions are the necessary conditions required to have a thriving community, and the city of pigs meets them all. Chance and availability of the resources required for sustained life are not taken into account in this formulation, but on the assumption that peace is attained and food is plentiful enough for life, I see no reason not to claim that Socrates’ city of pigs meets all conditions laid out by Dewey to be capable of becoming a great community, and therefore a community capable of creating great individuals. There is at least one other textual oddity in the Republic which can be resolved by taking Socrates at his word regarding the city of pigs. The connection between the lifestyle recommended there and Socrates’ otherwise baffling decision to have Odysseus select the lot he does in Book X has been examined by several scholars (Benardete, 1992; Planinc, 2003; Kirby, 2011). As one has put



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it, “it is only fitting … Socrates should be carried on a journey to rival the one of Odysseus, given that Glaucon has blown him off course” (Kirby, 2011). The original course being the one outlined in the city of pigs; Odysseus selects a life which mirrors that simple lifestyle: And it fell out that the soul of Odysseus drew the last lot of all and came to make its choice, and, from memory of his former toils having flung away ambition, went about for a long time in quest of the life of an ordinary citizen who minded his own business, and with difficulty found it lying in some corner disregarded by the others, and upon seeing it said that it would have done the same had it drawn the first lot, and chose it gladly. (Cooper, 1997, 620c)

Odysseus selects the simple life, one free of ambition, greed, wealth, power, or fame. Odysseus’ selection should not be a surprise to anyone reading the city of pigs as Socrates’ true answer to Glaucon and Adeimantus, but it would surprise someone who takes the hierarchical analogy given in the middle chapters of the Republic. In the kallipolis, would the best lot not be that of the philosopher-king? Why would anyone willing and happily choose the life of a simple citizen, given the bronze status of that life, the lack of education in philosophy or the lack of need for material wealth? Odysseus’ selection only makes sense if the city of pigs is likewise Socrates’ preferred model. To date, both the city of pigs and the great community exist only in logos, requiring a cultural project as yet accomplished, to become more than mere potentiality (Anton, 2011). To this effect, I return to Dewey’s conception of justice as “the habit of maintaining function, concrete individuality, in its supremacy and of giving every impulse, desire, habit its value according to its factorship in this function” (Dewey, 1894, p. 359). I believe that by meeting all six of the conditions Dewey dictated as requisite for the great community, the city of pigs has met this definition of justice. The individual’s supremacy is captured in their meeting of their own full potentiality while contributing to the “factorship in function” of individuality by integrating fully in the community. While participating in a larger community is expected of individuals, they are given the greatest freedom within those constraints in order to reach the full blossom of their own possibilities. By examining both the great community and the city of pigs in light of this theory of justice, it is my contention that each of these thinkers has an enormous amount of overlap in their cultural projects, though this may not be apparent at first blush. Whether this overlap is accidental or purposeful I leave for another individual to determine, but the achievement of this theory of justice

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should become a cultural project that is the focal point of a reconstruction in education. The role of education is to bridge the gap between that potentiality of individuals and their actuality, and if this cultural project is ever to come to fruition it will be because a community has accomplished those six conditions laid-out by Dewey and demonstrated allegorically by Plato.

Notes 1 Perhaps a more charitable reading would be that McKeen’s examination of psyche is too minimal to fully flesh out the analogy, especially with regard to what it means to be a just individual. 2 It should be noted that the philosopher-king violates the specialization principle from the city of pigs insofar as they have two jobs: on the one hand they are philosophers and on the other hand they are rulers. 3 It could also be noted that conquerors find themselves perpetually in danger for fear of uprising, never find a convivial acceptance from those conquered, and lack trust.

References Allen, W. (2002), “Modernity: the “City of Pigs,” Modern Age, 44, (4) 304–16. Anton, J. (2011), “Dewey’s Unfinished Cultural Project,” in Shook, J. and Kurtz, P. (eds), Dewey’s Enduring Impact on American Philosophy. Amherst, NH: Prometheus Press, 149–57. Barney, R. (2001), “Platonism, Moral Nostalgia, and the ‘City of Pigs’”, Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, 17, 207–27. Benardete, S. (1992), Socrates’ Second Sailing. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Cooper, J. (ed.) (1997), Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. [Cited in text using Stephanus pagination by number and section.] Dewey, J. (1894), “The Study of Ethics: A Syllabus,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1927), “The Public and its Problems,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1930), “From Absolutism to Experimentalism,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1939), “Freedom and Culture,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 13. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Hueglin, T. (2008), Classical Debates for the 21st Century. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.



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Kirby, C. (2011) “The Kallipolis and its Problems: A Deweyan Response to Plato,” XXXVIIIth Annual Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy Conference, Spokane, WA, March 10–12. McKeen, C. (2004), “Swillsburg City Limits (the City of Pigs: Republic 370c−372d),” Polis: The Journal of the Society for Greek Political Thought, 21 (1–2), 71–92. North, H. (1977), Interpretations of Plato. Lugduni Batavorum: E. J. Brill. Planinc, Z. (2003), Plato through Homer. Columbia, MO [u.a.]: University of Missouri Press. Shorey, P. (trans.) (1930), Plato. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Veazie, W. (1961), “John Dewey and the Revival of Greek Philosophy,” University of Colorado Studies, (2), 1–10.

Part III

Dewey and Aristotle

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Dewey, Aristotle and the Spectator Theory of Knowledge Kevin S. Decker

Dewey’s kinship with Plato and Aristotle is found in his insistence that thought and action are intimately related, and in his sensitivity to the soul of Greek objectivism, whose qualitative experience endures to reappear in a different form in which Dewey calls “common sense inquiry.” Chambliss, 1990, p. 99 With his emphasis on the development of individuals and communities, it makes sense to ask, to what extent was Dewey an Aristotelian thinker? Should his work be seen primarily as an overcoming of Aristotelianism within the tradition, in the same way that it is often cast as therapy against Cartesian and Kantian aspirations toward certainty? Richard Rorty offers this insight: Aristotle has been praised by Ryleans and Deweyans for having resisted dualism by thinking of ‘soul’ as no mor­e ontologically distinct from the human body than were the frog’s abilities to catch flies and flee snakes ontologically distinct from the frog’s body. (Rorty, 1979, p. 40)

If this is so, why did Dewey repeatedly target Aristotle with wholesale criticism in a number of his major works? These questions continue to be of serious significance to anyone who is interested in finding what is living and what is dead in the work of John Dewey with reference to what Dewey himself called “the problems of men.” Dewey was different to most of the analytic philosophers of his time in being acutely aware of the need to reconstruct the western intellectual tradition to keep up with rapidly changing technological and social processes. This urge toward revisionary transformation must account for the fact, as Taneli Kukkonen has

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pointed out, that “much of our basic theoretical vocabulary is Aristotelian in provenance,” not the least of which are basal concepts such as “energy, actuality, and potency; necessity, possibility, and contingency; matter and form …” and that “the development of Western ethical and political theory is likewise inextricably intertwined in its engagement with Aristotelian notions of virtue, sociability, and worldly and otherworldly happiness” (Kukkonen, 2010, p. 70). Perhaps the most memorable feature of the Peripatetic school of Aristotle’s students was the uncompromising attempt by figures like Theophrastus and Xenarchus to offer sweeping, constructive criticism in order to “be more Aristotelian than Aristotle” (Schilpp, 1951, p. 102). Does Dewey also fit this mold? Add to this the observation that scholars working on the interpretation of the pragmatism and instrumentalism of Dewey have never found him in closer philosophical concordance with a non-pragmatist—Hegel excepted— than when noting his similarities to Aristotle of Stagira. Despite this, both the nature of Aristotle’s influence on Dewey and the extent to which Dewey was working in an Aristotelian vein is highly ambiguous. This ambiguity is evident in the literature that interprets Dewey interpreting the Greeks. For example, John Herman Randall observed that: [I]t is [the Greeks’] ideas that [Dewey] deems fruitful material for further critical development. And in contrast to the whole of modern philosophy, save where it in turn has most powerfully felt Greek influence, Dewey himself seems to be working primarily with the conceptions of Aristotle. (Randall, 1989, p. 101)

In contrast, John Anton explains Dewey’s own stated antipathy to Aristotle in terms of certain fundamental misunderstandings, which in turn are based on the fact that “not being a trained historian of philosophy, [Dewey] missed some of the deeper subtleties in the broader view of Greek intelligence.” Anton accurately demonstrates that many of Dewey’s criticisms of Aristotle are simply wrong, while others overgeneralize in the service of cultural and intellectual reconstruction (Anton, 2005, p. 133). The focal point of this chapter is the intersection of Aristotelian epistemology and psychology in De Anima (Barnes, 1984). From a pragmatist perspective, Aristotle’s naïve (or “moderate”) realism presented there (and in other texts such as the Metaphysics and Posterior Analytics) (ed. Barnes, 1984) is preferable to the later, representationalist theories of knowledge in Descartes and Locke. Yet, Dewey sees in Aristotle a reification of the object of knowledge as well as a general misunderstanding of the process of inquiry. He is staunchly critical, in other words, of a passive “spectator theory of knowledge” that seems to form the foundation



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of Aristotelian views of science and the self. My goal in this chapter is to show that while Dewey’s disagreement with Aristotle is more methodological than substantive, Dewey’s pragmatic approach to problems in the history of philosophy “with malice prepense” also erodes the distinction between method and substance. Further, Dewey’s critique of Aristotle as an incorrigibly dualistic thinker (Anton, 2005, pp. 133–4) becomes more intelligible when the role of Hegelian influence in drafting that critique is taken into account. So while it is important to point out the ways in which Dewey misreads Aristotle, it is even more crucial to indicate the role that such a misreading plays in Dewey’s own projects of reconciling theory with practice and of reintegrating mind with nature. To accomplish these goals, this chapter will briefly survey the development of the critique of the spectator theory in Dewey’s works, then examine Aristotle’s philosophical psychology in search of faults of the spectatorial kind. The third and final section will provide an overall summary and interpretation of Dewey’s relationship to Aristotle.

The Problem of Knowledge Very early in his career, Dewey made it clear that the relation of his thought to the perennial problems of Western philosophy would be both genetic and critical; that is, he would recognize the historic, cultural, social, and economic circumstances in which philosophical inquiry arises and would take account of the non-philosophical problems that philosophy tried to solve. As John Herman Randall says, Dewey’s attitude toward the history of philosophy was to “view the chronicle of man’s intellectual achievement as an arsenal, or as a warning, but not as an ancestral mansion to be lovingly explored” (Randall, 1989, p. 79). Like his early, major influence, Hegel, he felt that philosophy could criticallyretrodictively pick out the most significant threads of thought in periods of intellectual history, but without succumbing to Hegel’s allegiance to dialectical logic. Dewey views ideas and values as historically relative, with the caveat of what Randall and Raymond have called “objective relativism,” that is, with the perspective that “the ideas of previous thinkers must be understood as specifically and objectively relative to the particular conditions and conflicts to which they were the answer” (Randall, 1989, p. 95). In The Significance of the Problem of Knowledge, published in 1897, Dewey asks after the meaning of “the problem of knowledge,” that is, “what is its meaning, not simply for reflective philosophy or in terms of epistemology itself, but what is its meaning in the historical movement of humanity and as a

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part of a larger and more comprehensive experience?” (Dewey, 1897, p. 5). In the case of classical Greek culture, Dewey isolates both genuine and spurious versions of the problem of knowledge. The genuine enigma of that time that confronted Socrates, Plato, Aristotle—and every other reflective, informed Greek citizen—was how to face the disequilibration of nature and conventional values that occurred as contact with the wider world of Persians, Egyptians, Romans, and Jews. The spurious problem of “knowledge in general”—whether expressed in Socratic aporias or Platonic Forms—is one that, according to Dewey, only deepened as it valorized the “necessary” truths that could be reached through philosophical reflection over the merely contingent truths revealed through technē and praxis. By the time we reach Aristotle, Dewey writes (with Nicomachean Ethics Book X (Barnes, 1984) and the “prime mover” undoubtedly on the brain) that, “the world of practice is now the world of compromise and adjustment. It is relative to partial aims and finite agents. The sphere of absolute and enduring truth and value can be reached only in and through thought” (Dewey, 1897, p. 8). We can count this as Dewey’s earliest misreading of Aristotle, ignoring as it does the substantial collection of ethical and political (if not technical) works in the Aristotelian organon that emphasize practical and intellectual virtues to minimize risk and maximize success in contingent ventures. It is worth remembering that Dewey is quite self-conscious about this misreading; he will later argue, “this genetic method of approach is a more effective way of undermining this type of philosophic theorizing than any attempt at logical refutation could be” (Dewey, 1920, p. 93). We can also engage Dewey’s views on Aristotelian psychology by looking at the development of Dewey’s own psychology under the influence of instructors G. Stanley Hall and George Sylvester Morris at Johns Hopkins between 1886 and 1891. According to John Shook: Morris was one of only a handful of American academics who taught neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian doctrines. Hall’s experimental psychology was an even greater rarity, as only William James of Harvard and George T. Ladd of Yale were extensively familiar with the new psychology. The presence of these two philosophies at Johns Hopkins is quite remarkable in itself, and it also proved to be very fortunate, as they collided with great force in the absorbing mind of one graduate student who found both philosophies powerful and impressive. (2000, pp. 23–4)

The effects of this intellectual “collision” dominate the themes of Dewey’s 1887 Psychology, in which he first critically refers to mind as a “spectator” in contrast to what he there calls “objective method:”



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Mind has not remained a passive spectator of the universe, but has produced and is producing certain results. These results are objective, can be studied as all objective historical facts may be, and are permanent. They are the most fixed, certain, and universal signs to us of the way in which mind works. Such objective manifestations of mind are, in the realm of intelligence, phenomena like language and science; in that of will, social and political institutions; in that of feeling, art; in that of the whole self, religion. (1887, p. 15)

Dewey’s list of examples of the objective products of the operation of mind is remarkable for replicating almost exactly the stages of the “cultural consciousness” of Spirit (or Geist) in Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind (Hegel and Wallace, 1894). The lasting influence of Hegelian interpretations of Aristotle on Dewey cannot be underestimated: even into the early 1940s, when Dewey was composing the drafts of what would end up being his “lost book,” Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy, he characterized Aristotle’s naturalism as premised on treating “the ordinary discursive operations of the intellect” was “but a stepping stone to that self-enclosed complete rational activity in which nature attains its own culminating reality” (Deen, 2012, p. 48). The heavy hand of Hegel is equally present in Dewey’s book Leibniz’s New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding (1888), in which the spectator theory of mind is not mentioned (although the alleged passivity of John Locke’s psychology with its unexplained “powers” is a target). However, as Morton White emphasizes, Dewey’s recognition of the implicit presence of a principle of continuity in Leibniz’s work makes this book “an even better index of his position at that time than his Psychology” (White, 1964, p. 60). In using this implicit principle, Leibniz’s monadology overcomes several of the drawbacks of a dualistic Cartesian theory of the mind. More importantly, it also extends the metaphor of the universe as an organism to psychology, reviving the Aristotelian conception of mind as living activity or process as well as emphasizing the continuity, rather than separation, of subjects and objects of perception. Where Leibniz failed, the early Dewey thought, was in recognizing that a method of inquiry and the subject of that inquiry must be conceived as not fundamentally different in order for the principle of continuity to be applied universally. “The fundamental contradiction in Leibniz,” he wrote, is between “… the scholastic formal logic on the one hand and the idea of interrelation derived from the development of scientific thought on the other” (cited in White, 1964, p. 63). This is a Dewey who, it was clear from these early days, already favored meaning holism and was subordinating knowledge to meaningful experience

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in human nature and human conduct (a reversal of what he and James called “intellectualism” in philosophy). In his painstaking reconstruction of the idealist influences on the early Dewey, John Shook argues Dewey had developed the notion that “meaningful experience[s] relate a present mental state to a temporally distinct mental state,” or that “an experience of a thing which refers to another thing” (Shook, 2000, p. 69). Equally importantly, Dewey must have been committed to a position according to which “knowledge requires meaning, and meaning requires relations between experiences; only mental activity can supply the relating meaning” (Shook, 2000, p. 69). Since these positions are demonstrably idealist in nature, it would take the addition of the organicist framework provided by 1896’s “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” to give Dewey his own unique platform for meaning holism and an embodied account that shows how theoretical reason and knowledge could subserve—yet be continuous with—practical intelligence. By the publication of “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy” in 1917, these concerns have been integrated into the dictum that “any account of experience must now fit into the consideration that experiencing means living; and that living goes on in and because of an environing medium” (Dewey, 1917, p. 7). This is also where the spectator theory becomes an explicit target. As Terrance MacMullan notes, Dewey’s criticism can be understood as a reaction against several of the main tenets of classical metaphysics and epistemology: The first is that there is a single, fixed reality that is antecedent to our attempts to come to know it. As Dewey says of this theory, ‘for knowledge to be certain [it] must relate to that which has antecedent existence or essential being.’ The second relevant aspect … is that the known thing is separated from the knower, and is unaffected by the act of knowing itself. (2009, p. 62)

Dewey’s thesis in “Need for a Recovery” is the emancipation of philosophy from inauthentic traditional problems, and we can see in it one of the first motivators for skepticism about the explanatory effectiveness of spectator theories: their inability to account for novel practical experiences. Speaking specifically of modern empiricism from Locke, he argues that on this view, “thinking was but the gathering together and tying of items already completely given, or else an equally artificial untying—a mechanical adding and subtracting of the given” (Dewey, 1917, p. 17; see also Dewey, 1920, p. 113). Closely related to this line of criticism is his effort, again in “Need for a Recovery,” to reintegrate the knowing subject back into nature by stressing the fact that knowledge relations are different in quality, but not in kind, from other natural relations: “knowledge



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is always a matter of the use that is made of experienced natural events, a use in which given things are treated as indications of what will be experienced under different conditions” (Dewey, 1917, pp. 33–4). At this point, Dewey contrasts spectator theories of knowledge—whether a realism that reifies the object or an empiricism1 that posits a static subject—with a dynamic connection (later to be called an interaction or transaction) between knower and known that changes both. “It is not that knowing produces a change, but that it is a change of the specific kind described …” he writes. “Because of this change, an object possesses truth or error …; it is classifiable as fact or fantasy; it is of a sort or kind, expresses an essence or nature, possesses implications, etc., etc.” (Dewey, 1917, pp. 35–6). The nature of the type of change that occurs is the realization of the consequences of putting a thing into certain real or ideal relations: it is the novel creation of a layer of meaning that cannot easily be separated from the real object of knowledge.2 Because of the essentially dynamic and relational nature of knowledge acts, it is correct to say, as Dominique Parodi does: Perceptual events become cases of knowledge when habit … associates them with others as their signs. The body of the propositions of the natural sciences rests thus upon perceptions, but only by considering them as indications or signs of each other; and this is what finally obscures their real nature, “that of being simply natural events.” (Parodi, 1989, p. 233)

In discussing the evolution of an “epistemology industry” in early twentieth century philosophy, Dewey goes farther to isolate a second problem with spectator theories of knowledge—they license and encourage a variety of unreal epistemological conundrums. Here, Dewey introduces his well-known analogy between the process of digestion and the “problem of knowledge” (for example, of the external world, or of evidence or warrant) in general: The problem of knowledge überhaupt exists because it is assumed that there is a knower in general, who is outside of the world to be known, and who is defined in terms antithetical to the traits of the world. With analogous assumptions, we could invent and discuss a problem of digestion in general. All that would be required would be to conceive the stomach and food-material as inhabiting different worlds. (Dewey, 1917, p. 24)

Dewey goes on to counterbalance traditional empirical spectator theories with a position rejecting a problem of “knowledge in general,” as well as the dissolution of epistemology as first philosophy into multiple, specific inquiries into the normativity of rules and criteria of various theoretical and practical disciplines.

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“As it is,” he interjects, “we find experience assimilated to a non-empirical concept of knowledge, derived from an antecedent notion of a spectator outside the world” (Dewey, 1917, p. 26). In 1920, Dewey used the invitation to lecture at the Imperial University of Japan to fulfill some of the promises about recovering philosophy that he had made in 1917. He revisits the genetic criticism of Greek thought—particularly its metaphysics—first made in The Significance of the Problem of Knowledge, claiming that the mission of Plato and Aristotle was not what they thought it was—rather, they “were sworn in advance … to extract the essential moral kernel out of the threatened traditional beliefs of the past.” But this is an essentially conservative project, he claims, and stands as macroscopic correlate to the idea of the mirroring spectator of knowledge, because “it became the work of philosophy to justify on rational grounds the spirit, though not the form, of accepted beliefs and traditional customs” (Dewey, 1920, pp. 89–90). If Reconstruction is a radical text, then it is so along the same lines as Bacon’s Novum Organum was in reference to the dominantly scholastic natural philosophy in the early seventeenth century. Situating another criticism of spectatorial knowledge within a Baconian framework, Dewey isolates a third strand of the spectator critique: the implied passivity of the mind: The mind of man spontaneously assumes greater simplicity, uniformity, and unity among phenomena than actually exists. It follows superficial analogies and jumps to conclusions; it overlooks the variety of details and the existence of exceptions. Thus it weaves a web of purely internal origin which it imposes on nature. What had been termed science in the past consisted of this humanly constructed and imposed web. (Dewey, 1920, p. 99)

In this passage, Dewey polemically employs Bacon’s project to create an analogy against both the idealism of his own time and the kind of reductive physicalism operating heedless of the impact of Darwinism in changing the logic of science. It is probably because of Darwin and the gradual development of themes of the transactional, precarious relationship of environment and organism in Dewey’s mature works, beginning with Experience and Nature (1925), which makes it difficult to draw Aristotle and his American antecessor closer to each other. By its publication in 1925, Dewey has put his finger on where the lapse of novelty and the absence of a “logic of discovery” emerge in the isomorphic relationship Aristotle theorized between logic and reality. “The universal is already known because given to thought,” he writes, “and the particular is already known, because given to perception… .” As a result, “learning merely



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brings these two given forms into connection, so that what is ‘discovered’ is the subsumption of particular under its universal” (Dewey, 1925, p. 122). This tallies well with Aristotle’s naturalism, which as noted earlier is that of the observant, categorizing collector. While Aristotelian teleology unwisely conflates the normativity of function with final ends, it also correctly stresses the dependence on embodiment of perception (if not thought) and the reciprocal functioning of psyche and flesh. By contrast, the empirical, “denotative” method Dewey employs in Experience and Nature employs organic and ecological models at the levels of system, individual, social, and physical environment, and community. For Dewey, the impact of this thoroughgoing naturalism on representational theories about the objects of human thinking is quite clear. First, only “when the act and object of perception are isolated from their place and function in promoting and directing a successful course of activities in behalf of use-enjoyment [are] they taken to be exclusively cognitive” (Dewey, 1938, p. 73). Second, when considered as adaptations to a constantly changing environment, perception and reason (as components of experimentation) also alter that environment: … [I]n at least the more complex organisms, the activity of search involves modification of the old environment, if only by a change in the connection of the organism with it. Ability to make and retain a changed mode of adaptation in response to new conditions is the source of that more extensive development called organic evolution. (Dewey, 1938, p. 35, see also p. 41)

And it is in Dewey’s effort to frame some of these models in terms of certain Jamesian principles—most importantly, the ubiquity of selective attention, that we find a fourth and final dimension to the critique of the spectator theory of knowledge (Dewey, 1925, p. 31). Just as Peirce advocated for the partiality of a consciousness that consistently refers beyond itself semiotically, James had argued that the way the mind is fundamentally active is not through Kantian conceptual spontaneity, but rather through the selectivity of its attention to the objects of experience and knowledge. “Only those items which I notice shape my mind—without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos,” James tells us. “Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light and shade, background and foreground—intelligible perspective, in a word” (James, 1890, p. 402). Were this true, then any robust spectator theory would be untenable, as the “mirroring” function of the mind could not form the basis for an objective report of the object as it is in itself. Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle functions in The Quest for Certainty as an

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archetypal instance of selectivity and discrimination in natural processes; even more importantly for Dewey, it is “the final step in the dislodgment of the old spectator theory of knowledge” (Dewey, 1929, p. 163). With the inquirer selfconscious of her own basal selectivity in operation, she can acknowledge that “the objective of knowing is the consequences of operations purposely undertaken, provided they fulfill the conditions for the sake of which they are carried on” (Dewey, 1929, p. 164). Throughout Dewey’s writing, the expectation is clear that an authentic acknowledgment of “the conditions for the sake of which” will take the form of identifying concrete, “retail” problems rather than sweepingly systematic efforts in metaphysics and epistemology. In the case of Aristotle (as we will see in the next section) systematic investigations can actually be quite fruitful if they are carried out under the correct type of naturalistic presuppositions. But while Dewey’s objections to the spectator theory of knowledge have centered on the license it affords to “unreal” epistemological problems, its picture of the mind as passive, its inability to account for novelty in human experience, and the way in which it flies in the face of the ubiquitous selectivity of experience; a closer look at Aristotle’s psychology reveals that it is guilty of none of these. This does not mean that Dewey has no basis for a thoroughgoing critique of Aristotle, but only that such a critique should have focused on the distinctive ways in which Aristotle enshrined particular values within the structure of an apparently descriptive metaphysics. In other words, Dewey would have been on surer ground had he addressed the imbalance in Aristotle between teleological necessity, on the one hand, and contingency, on the other. In fact, in Experience and Nature, Dewey makes a rather startling claim in favor of reorienting our attitudes toward the acceptance of contingency: … [A]s long as objects are viewed telically, as long as the objects of the truest knowledge, the most real forms of being, are thought of as ends, science does not advance. Objects are possessed and appreciated, but they are not known. To know, means that men have become willing to turn away from precious possessions; willing to let drop what they own, however precious, in behalf of a grasp of objects which they do not as yet own. Multiplied and secure ends depend upon letting go existent ends, reducing them to indicative and implying means. The great historic obstacle to science was unwillingness to make the surrender, lest moral, esthetic and religious objects suffer. (Dewey, 1925, p. 107)

It is not in substantive disagreement about the place of mind in producing knowledge that Dewey and Aristotle fundamentally disagree, but rather in



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methodological considerations about the nature of knowledge and how sense experience informs knowledge, or so I will argue in the next section.

Dewey’s uncharitable reading Aristotle’s philosophy of mind or soul (psyche) and the theory of knowledge via perception that follows from it can be located primarily in On The Soul (De Anima, particularly book 3), but traces of it also exist in the Posterior Analytics, Book two, Chapter 19; in Book ten of the Nicomachean Ethics; and throughout the Metaphysics (ed. Barnes, 1984). Aristotle states his basic approach to understand the nature and function of the soul in the first book of De Anima: The knowledge of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general, and, above all, to our understanding of Nature, for the soul is in some sense the principle of animal life. Our aim is to grasp and understand, first its essential nature, and secondly its properties; of these some are thought to be affections proper to the soul itself, while others are considered to attach to the animal owing to the presence of soul. (ed. Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 641, 402a 5–9)

In pursuing this aim, Aristotle will use the method of demonstration, requiring “a definition of the essence” of mind or soul so that its “incidental properties” can also be sought out (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 642, 402b 25–9). The idea of the psyche, in fact, sits in the crook between two branches of Aristotelian science: the metaphysical distinction between matter and form and the elucidation of a theory of knowledge in which (among other things) there is no possibility of a “problem of the external world.” Regarding the latter, Richard Rorty in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature approvingly quotes Wallace Matson on the failure of the Greeks to develop a mind–body problem, or issues about the existence of a world influencing mental content in their time: The Greeks did not lack a concept of mind, even of a mind separable from the body. But from Homer to Aristotle, the line between mind and body, when drawn at all, was drawn so as to put the processes of sense perception on the body side. That is one reason why the Greeks had no mind-body problem. Another is that it is difficult, almost impossible, to translate such a sentence as “What is the relation of sensation to mind (or soul)?” into Greek. The difficulty is in finding a Greek equivalent for “sensation” in the sense philosophers make it bear. … “Sensation” was introduced into philosophy precisely to make

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it possible to speak of a conscious state without committing oneself as to the nature or even existence of external stimuli. (Cited in Rorty, 1979, p. 47)

The vector of Dewey’s approach to Aristotle, though, does not resemble this traditional and charitable type of interpretation. In the early chapters of Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy, one of Dewey’s last engagements with Aristotle as a pillar of the philosophical tradition, Dewey sums up his understanding of the Stagerite’s approach in terms of three principles of explanation. The first is that “the true individual is the species or kind.” The metaphysical and epistemological status of particulars, on this view, is mediated by “their inclusion into the eternal and immutable kind or species,” which makes them “real” as objects of certain knowledge. Second, Dewey continues, Aristotle thought that, “kinds or species as the ultimate substances of which particular things are partial expressions form a graded hierarchy” (Deen, 2012, pp. 47–8). Third, because nature is comprised of a hierarchy of fixed species, it is correct to study it using the Aristotelian logic “of the syllogism of classification and definition,” because “logic corresponded exactly to the ontological and cosmological structure of Nature” (Deen, 2012, p. 49). However, this perspective seems to be more a criticism of scholasticism than of Aristotle himself. This is partly because Aristotle also doesn’t speak of objects of sense or of knowledge, at least in the sense in which this term gets used in modern philosophy. Rather, things of the world are “sensibles” or “thinkables” as they relate to perception and thought; in other words, a specific potential for interacting with other things is their cognitive potential for a knower. Aristotle calls this potential “sensible form” in the former case and “intelligible form” in the latter. An important part of Aristotle’s naturalism is this idea that “the class of visible objects is determined by reference to the causal powers of its members,” and so on for the other senses (Everson, 1995, p. 177). There are prospects for quite complex causal explanations of perceptive experiences through the inclusion in Aristotle’s theory of states (hexis) that function not only as media for sensation, like light or air, but that also make possible episodes of “hearings,” for example, out of the “soundings” of things (Kosman, 1978, p. 343; see also Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 684, 429a 14–17). Jonathan Lear, in analyzing Aristotle’s view of the interconvertability of potentialities and actualities at different levels of explanation claims: The sense faculty of an animal is a (first-level) actuality for the animal, but a (first-level) potentiality for taking on sensible forms. Gained knowledge is a



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(second-level) potentiality for the knower to think actively, and a (second-level) actuality in the form of the more developed soul. (1988, p. 103)

Grasping these forms is the first, but not the sole function of mind, because, as Aristotle claims in the Metaphysics, “there is knowledge of each thing only when we know its essence” (Barnes, 1984, vol. 2, 1628, 1031b 6). However, to set up the basic elements of the knowledge relationship, we need to consider the nature and capacities of the knower. Just as a thing to be known through perception is comprised of form and matter, in the same way the rational animals called “humans” are constituted by souls or minds that comprise a subclass of the set of forms in nature (Wilkes, 1992, p. 110). The distinction between human and other animal minds (psyche) lies in the former’s capacity for rational thought (noūs). For Aristotle, there must be the right kind of commonality between perceiver and perceived, knower and the known in order for these epistemic relationships to be possible. But let’s zero in on the parts of Aristotle likely to provoke Dewey. First, Aristotle takes it as axiomatic, in moving from discussion of the reproductive to the sensing soul, that “sensation depends … on a process of movement or affection from without, for it is held to be some sort of change of quality” (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 663, 416b 33–4). Yet if one had to choose the single passage in De Anima that points to the apparent passivity of perception, it would be this: Generally, about all perception, we can say that a sense is what has the power of receiving into itself the sensible forms of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold; what produces the impression is a signet of bronze or gold, but not qua bronze or gold: in a similar way the sense is affected by what is colored or flavored or sounding not insofar as each is what it is, but insofar as it is of such and such a sort and according to its form. (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 674, 424a 18–24)

Aristotle applies the same idea to the process of thinking at De Anima book three, chapter four: “The thinking part of the soul must … be, while impassible, capable of receiving the form of an object; that is, must be potentially identical in character with its object without being the object” (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 682, 429a 13–18). This certainly seems like an entry point for flaws of the spectator theory kind, wherein active or constructive faculties, if they are integrated at all, appear at the level of concept-use or judgment.3 Given the notion of the passive power to receive sensible forms, Aristotle infers from this that:

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… if to perceive by sight is just to see, and what is seen is color (or the colored), then if we are to see that which sees, that which sees originally must be colored. It is clear therefore that ‘to perceive by sight’ has more than one meaning: for even when we are not seeing, it is by sight that we discriminate darkness from light, though not in the same way as we distinguish one color from another. Further, in a sense even that which sees is colored; for in each case the senseorgan is capable of receiving the sensible object without its matter. (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 677, 425b 18–24)

But Aristotle scholars roundly reject the idea that psyche or noūs literally becomes what it perceives or thinks (Lear, 1988, p. 103; Miller, 2012, pp. 315–16; Anton, 2005, p. 148). Because Aristotle’s analysis of sensing and perceiving is, like most such inquiries, resolved into atomistic deliverances from one sense alone (that is, of “special sensibles,” Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 676, 424b 22ff.), it is difficult to see how a phenomenologically robust explanation of perception of a thing—that is, not merely of a set of sensible qualities or forms—could be sustained. Contemporary phenomenology, fuelled by the research of cognitive scientists, points out that what we perceive is not even merely a thing, but a field-focus gestalt (or “perceptual holism,” Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012, 105ff.). Fortunately, Aristotle also includes in De Anima an account of what Ross calls “unspecialized perception,” (1923, p. 140) which takes account of “common sensibles” such as movement, rest, number and unity. Aristotle realizes that because an experience, for example, of a bouncing ball is a complex set of perceptions, there must be an ability of the mind to coordinate such perceptions—and this seems to be the role of unspecialized perception. When our senses of taste and sight alert us, to give another example: … [T]o the bitterness and the yellowness of bile; the assertion of the identity of both cannot be the act of either of the senses; hence the illusion of sense, e.g. the belief that if a thing is yellow it is bile. (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 676, 425b 2–5)

Ross notes that memory and association are also involved—a conclusion derived, incidentally, from the research of empirical psychologists such as James and Dewey (see Shook, 2000). Recalling MacMullan’s summary of the spectator theory of knowledge as including a “separation of knower and known,” there would also seem to be a metaphysical question to be answered about whether the psyche is a part of nature or sui generis. Because he favors an embodied account of sensation—if not always of cognition—Aristotle is happy to root the nutritive and sensitive psychai in a particular body. His distancing of the activity of thinking from the



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body stems from an effort to show what is wrong with accounts of materialists, who ignore the fact that “perceiving and understanding are not identical” and thus believe that thinking is merely a bodily process (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 680, 427b 8). Thought, or the power of reflection “… seems to be a different kind of soul, differing as what is eternal from what is perishable; it alone is capable of being separated” (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 658–9, 413b 25–7). Miller (2012) maintains that Aristotle cannot prove that the mind is ontologically separable from the body, but only separable in definition. Indeed, the supervenience of mental functions on brain activity seems to be a relatively simple empirical answer to this question that could have been decided by within Aristotle’s own lifetime, given the connections between the brain and sense organs discovered by early medical experimentation (Kahn, 1978, p. 19). Ackrill (1978) finds problematic Aristotle’s application of notions of form and matter to mind and body, respectively. After working through instances of the relationship of form and matter in terms of several “artifact cases” familiar from the Stagerite, Ackrill says that the separability of form and matter—particularly in the case of mind and body—requires not merely abstractive rationality, but also reference to specific experiences beyond the current one: In order that the matter-form distinction should be clearly applicable to anything, … it is necessary that the material constituent should be capable of being picked out. ‘Constituent’ is no doubt an unhappy word: it is because matter and form are not, in the ordinary sense, constituents that no question arises as to how they combine into a unity. We might speak of the material ‘aspect.’ To speak of a composite qua material or in its material aspect is to refer to some material whose identity as that material does not depend on its being so shaped or informed. (Ackrill, 1978, p. 69)

Because experiences of un-informed matter are not ready to hand, Ackrill notes perceptively, the sense that we can make of body as matter distinguishable from psyche as form depends on “… the idea that something that is actually the case might not have been: this stuff might not have been so arranged, the capacity being now displayed might have remained undisplayed” (Ackrill, 1978, p. 69). Thought of in these terms, even what seems like an intractable metaphysical obstacle to naturalizing Aristotle’s psychology becomes amenable to Deweyan questions such as, “It makes (evolutionary) sense to say that there was a time when there was no such thing as ‘mind’ on Earth—from whence did it come?” So given the weight of evidence, there seems to be little question that Dewey failed to extend the principle of charity to Aristotle. He had the intellectual

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resources to do so, as John Anton notes, in such a way as to “‘reconstruct’ his own way of reading Aristotle and thus bring his interpretations to do justice to Aristotle’s biological and pluralistic contextualism of experience” (Anton, 1965, p. 498). To extend this concern about Dewey’s intellectual resources, evidence makes it clear that Dewey had very little interest in representing Aristotle’s views in detail. At the time of his death, his personal library contained copies of only the Politics and the Nicomachean Ethics and no secondary treatments of Aristotle whatsoever (Boydston, 1982, pp. 5, 106). It is therefore possible, although given this evidence perhaps unlikely, that he was familiar with a text such as W. D. Ross’ Aristotle (1923), in which Ross implicitly agrees with Dewey that much in Aristotle’s psychology is defective because of his “untenable physics and physiology” (1923, p. 139). But far from making us reject Aristotle entirely, Ross offers a reasonable solution to the question of how “things unlike become like,” that is, to the apparent quietude of the mind in events involving perception. “It is only if reception of form means awareness of form that it is a true description of perception; and the description of the organ as becoming qualified by the form of its object is irrelevant” (Ross, 1923, p. 137). Indeed, it is not difficult to find Aristotle discussing the difference between sensing and perceiving, and that between perceiving and understanding; this allows Aristotle to have an error theory of perception and thinking that was not available (at least in his view) to Democritus and the materialists. It is also incompatible with the passivity, novelty, and selectivity aspects of the spectator theory of knowledge (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 676, 425a 14ff.; vol. 1, 680, 427a 8ff.).

Shifting the paradigm Of the handful of scholars who have devoted significant space to discussing Dewey and Aristotle, John Herman Randall takes a weaker stance than is warranted, overlooking many problems in Dewey’s interpretation of Aristotle in order to proclaim that Dewey “… carr[ies] the Aristotelian attitude still further in the direction in which Aristotle criticized Platonism. It was not difficult to exhibit Dewey as an Aristotelian more Aristotelian than Aristotle himself ” (Randall, 1989, p. 102). Randall doesn’t seem to consider the possibility that certain of Dewey’s central explanations, like the evolutionary naturalism of Experience and Nature, might undermine any substantial acceptance of the Aristotelian project.



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Boisvert thinks that the intellectual chasm between the two philosophers is a matter of understanding Dewey’s antipathy toward the contemplative ideal in terms of the intervening influence of Francis Bacon. Dewey’s acceptance of a new conception of nature, “the Baconian ideal of the modification and transformation of nature in order to subject it to human control,” is for Boisvert the central explanation that puts Dewey on (at least) the defensive toward his Greek predecessor (Boisvert, 1988, p. 104). Melvin Rogers also positions Aristotle and Dewey closely together by comparing their views on practical reason. Within this limited scope, he is quite successful in showing that in broad terms, Dewey and Aristotle both agree to the same “thick” normative social theory, namely: … [T]hat when we say a person (e.g., scientist, craftsman, or citizen) displays practical wisdom, we are reading their judgments within a complex horizon, wherein success as judgments requires alertness, cultivation of perception and imagination, and discernment of salient features in response to a demanding environment. (Rogers, 2009, p. 62)

The conclusions of both Boisvert and Rogers serve as validation of Ralph Sleeper’s critical interpretation of the most basic locus of difference between the two: Dewey had heard much about the virtues of Aristotelian metaphysics from his colleagues at Columbia, particularly F. J. E. Woodbridge, who had pressed his own ‘functional Aristotelianism’ on Dewey as the needed foundation for an instrumentalist theory of knowledge. But Dewey was not looking for foundations at all; he was looking for a vehicle to carry forward the process of knowing. To use [Sidney] Hook’s phrase, he was searching for a ‘metaphysics of the instrument.’ (Sleeper, 2001, p. 92)

This paradigm shift in the status and value of knowledge is also confirmed by Westbrook (1991, p. 129) in his intellectual biography of Dewey. To further understand why Dewey sees himself as a critic (rather than as a reformer) of Aristotle, it is necessary to point out that Dewey saw the operative philosophical concept of experience as unchanged from the Greek thinkers up to and including the theorists of the Scientific Revolution. Of course, this interpretation goes against the grain of what Descartes and Locke, for example, claimed that they were doing in trying to make science safe for philosophy by moving it away from Aristotelian presuppositions. But in fact the movement was mostly reorganization rather than an abrogation. It is ironic that in dispensing with certain metaphysical views of Plato, Democritus, and the Milesian pre-Socratics, Aristotle was also prescient in foreseeing the greatest mistake of philosophy in

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the early modern period: “… [T]hey all join the soul to body, or place it in a body, without adding any specification of the reason of their union, or of the bodily conditions required for it” (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 649, 407b 15–17). Dewey enters this particular argument across the centuries in “An Empirical Survey of Empiricisms,” in which Dewey observes that “Aristotle modifies the Platonic concept of experience” by emphasizing a “graded emerging of rational understanding out of experience” (Dewey, 1935, p. 72). He further explains: First sensation, then perception, then the reproductive memory or reproductive imagination, and then the consolidation or organization of these images in experience. And with this generalized idea there is also a general tendency to action in a certain direction toward a certain end form, in other words, a habit. … Thus experience comes to consist of standardized ways of action and a standardized body of beliefs, expectations, materials, and techniques. (Dewey, 1935, p. 71)

This leads to “three great limitations” of the concept of experience that reigned in western philosophy for approximately two thousand years: a stark contrast between science and empirical belief and knowledge; a deprecation of practical activity in favor of the “free character of rational thought;” and, finally, a metaphysics that takes reason to be akin to ultimate reality while “sense and bodily action” are merely phenomenal (Dewey, 1935, p. 74; see also Dewey, 1929, p. 195). It really is a shame that the conclusions of “An Empirical Survey” came so late in Dewey’s career, as this essay demonstrates that if the spectator theory of knowledge applies to any historical theories of experience, it best does so in reference to the post-Cartesian epistemologies that tracked the early Scientific Revolution. By further way of contrast, K. V. Wilkes—in no way a Deweyan—cites several heuristic advantages for inquiry of the Aristotelian psyche over the post-Cartesian concept of “mind.” First, Aristotle consistently relies on the premise of the interdependency of mental and physical functions, the study of which is constrained by that interdependency; second, Aristotle’s explanatory focus is on capacities or functions, not individual mental events. In both his psychology and his practical philosophy, Aristotle relies on types rather than tokens of behaviors as well. Finally, there is the pervasive Aristotelian emphasis on activity [energeia] (Wilkes, 1992, pp. 116–17, 118, 120). On the other hand, Dewey seems to think that the presence of a spectator theory in epistemology automatically entails a particularly sedentary vision of the good. In Aristotle, he finds this equated with the contemplative life. And indeed, Aristotle seems to give him reason to do so:



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… [T]he activity of intellect, which is contemplative, seems both to be superior in worth and to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself (and this arguments the activity), and the self-sufficiency, leisureliness, unweariedness (so far as this is possible for man), and all the other attributes ascribed to the blessed man are evidently those connected with this activity, it follows that this will be the complete happiness of man, if it be allowed a complete term of life (for none of the attributes of happiness is incomplete). (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1., 1861, 1177b 17–26)

There are also Aristotle’s remarks (throughout Nicomachean Ethics book six) that practical wisdom is subordinated to philosophic wisdom about “ultimate principles” in the list of excellent human capacities (Barnes, 1984, vol. 2, 1803, 1142a 23–30). Whether epistemological norms and norms about human nature can be disentangled from each other, so that we can keep a naturalistically chastened version of the Aristotelian psyche while leaving behind the contemplative ideal, is another question however, and beyond the limits of this chapter to address. The genuinely pragmatic question then is not so much whether Aristotle discovered enduring truths about these matters, but the use to which these discoveries, which seem to accord with the best contemporary scientific knowledge, can be put. Can they, in slightly different terms, be serviceable in the paradigm shift about thinking that Dewey proposes? It is most probably true that the Aristotelian perspective that truth occurs “in the rational operation of the mind” is now untenable. Yet the heuristic model of the Aristotelian psyche can support the efforts of Deweyans to treat “knowledge [as] not simply a static entity available for retrieval” and see that “truth is dynamic and dialectical,” (Berlin, 1982, p. 774) while still avoiding spectator theories of knowledge that lurk after Aristotle’s time. Certainly Dewey could find common ground with Aristotle in the latter’s affirmation that “… the soul is analogous to the hand; for as the hand is a tool of tools, so thought is the form of forms and sense the form of sensible things” (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 686, 432a 1–2).

Notes 1 In “Need for a Recovery,” Dewey is targeting the arguments of the “New Realists,” led by Ralph Barton Perry, whose cooperative anthology of essays, The New Realism, was published in 1912. In terms of his other target, Dewey also speaks

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interchangeably of empiricists and “subjectivists,” who reify the “transcript” of states of consciousness representing real objects. 2 “… [T]he self becomes a knower or mind when anticipation of future consequences operates as its stimulus” (Dewey, 1917, p. 42). 3 It’s interesting that, despite the many other details of his criticism of Dewey on Aristotle, Anton (2005, p. 148) effectively dismisses the charge of the spectator theory by claiming, “A careful reading of the De Anima shows that all sensory acts are ipso facto judgments, including qualitative judgments.” It is clear that Aristotle believed that knowledge claims were ipso facto expressed in subject-predicate judgments, but Anton’s claim does not seem to square with the difference between actual and potential knowledge (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 685, 431a 1–3). And when Aristotle says, also in De Anima, that “to perceive then is like bare asserting or thinking,” (Barnes, 1984, vol. 1, 685, 431a 8) he is merely interested in creating an analogy between judgment and perception that takes an interest based on pain and pleasure, both as opposed to perception as simply awareness of body and the environment.

References Ackrill, J. L. (1978), “Aristotle’s Definitions of Psuche,” in J. Barnes, M. Schofield, and R. Sorabji (eds), Articles on Aristotle, vol. 4. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Anton, J. P. (1965), “John Dewey and Ancient Philosophies,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 25 (4), 477–99. —(2005), American Naturalism and Greek Philosophy. Amherst, NH: Humanity Books. Barnes, J. (ed.) (1984), The Complete Works of Aristotle, vols. 1 and 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Berlin, J. A. (1982), “Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories,” College English, 44 (8), 765–77. Boisvert, R. D. (1988), Dewey’s Metaphysics. New York: Fordham University Press. Boydston, J. A. (1982), John Dewey’s Personal and Professional Library: A Checklist. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Burnyeat, M. (1992), “Is an Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind Still Credible? (A draft),” in M. C. Nussbaum and A. O. Rorty (eds), Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Chambliss, J. J. (1990), The Influence of Plato and Aristotle on John Dewey’s Philosophy. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. Deen, P. (ed.) (2012), Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. (1887), “Psychology,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.



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—(1888), “Leibniz’s New Essays Concerning the Understanding,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1896), “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1897), “The Significance of the Problem of Knowledge,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1917), “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 10. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1920), “Reconstruction in Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1925), “Experience and Nature,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1929), “The Quest for Certainty,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1935), “An Empirical Survey of Empiricisms,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953 vol. 11. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1938), “Logic: The Theory of Inquiry,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Collected Works of John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Everson, S. (1995), “Psychology,” in J. Barnes (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gallagher, S. and Zahavi. D. (2012), The Phenomenological Mind, 2nd edn. New York: Routledge. Hegel, G. and Wallace, W. (1894), Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press. James, W. (1890), Principles of Psychology, vol. 1. New York: Dover Books. Kahn, C. A. (1978), “Sensation and Consciousness in Aristotle’s Psychology,” in J. Barnes, M. Schofield, and R. Sorabji (eds), Articles on Aristotle, vol. 4. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kosman, L. A. (1978), “Explanation and Understanding in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics,” in J. Barnes, M. Schofield, and R. Sorabji (eds), Articles on Aristotle, vol. 4. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kukkonen, T. (2010), “Aristotle and Aristotelianism,” in A. Grafton, G. W. Most, and S. Settis (eds), The Classical Tradition. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

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Lear, J. (1988), Aristotle: The Desire to Understand. New York: Cambridge University Press. MacMullan, T. (2009), Habits of Whiteness. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Miller, F. D. Jr. (2012), “Aristotle on the Separability of Mind,” in C. Shields (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle. New York: Oxford University Press. Parodi, D. (1989), “Knowledge and Action in Dewey’s Philosophy,” in P. A. Schilpp and L. E. Hahn (eds), The Philosophy of John Dewey, 3rd edn, La Salle, IL: Open Court. Perry, R. (1912), The New Realism. Norwood, MA: Norwood Press. Randall, J. H. Jr. (1989), “Dewey’s Interpretation of the History of Philosophy,” in P. A. Schilpp and L. E. Hahn (eds), The Philosophy of John Dewey, 3rd edn. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Rogers, M. L. (2009), The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press. Rorty, R. (1979), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ross, W.D. (1923), Aristotle. London: Methuen & Co. Shook, J. (2000), John Dewey’s Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Sleeper, R. W. (2001), The Necessity of Pragmatism: John Dewey’s Conception of Philosophy. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. Westbrook. R. B. (1991), John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. White, M. (1964), The Origins of Dewey’s Instrumentalism. New York: Octagon Books. Wilkes, K. V. (1992), “Psuche Versus the Mind,” in M. C. Nussbaum and A. O. Rorty (eds), Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Beyond Fixed Ends and Limited Moral Community: Aristotle, Dewey, and Contemporary Applications in Ethics Heather E. Keith

Dewey’s relationship with Aristotelian philosophy was complex and interesting. As would be expected of any philosopher whose career spanned seven decades, Dewey’s view of the Greeks evolved over time and was influenced by a variety of interactions with scholars who held various interpretations (such as George Morris and Frederick Woodbridge), and his own criticism of philosophers such as Aristotle was selective. For example, while Anton (1965) argues that Dewey “tended to see dualisms almost everywhere” in Plato and Aristotle, this did not necessarily extend to the distinction between humans and nature (p. 480). One of the most obvious criticisms of Aristotelian thought was Dewey’s post-Darwinian complaint that it relied on a static worldview that was “fixed, certain and finished” (1925, p. 47); however, many scholars note an affinity between Aristotle and Dewey (Randall, 1960; Anton, 1965). While the lineage of Aristotelian thought as it makes its way into Dewey’s worldview is important and interesting, this chapter will explore common themes in Dewey and Aristotle, especially in the social nature of ethics. I will argue that Aristotle’s concept of morality as character-forming habitual practice and Dewey’s similar focus on habit as the foundation of moral behavior are, in the spirit of both Greek and American traditions, consistent with scientific views of human nature and, more importantly, can be used by contemporary ethicists as they consider the problems of our time, even in cases where Aristotle and Dewey would have disagreed. For Aristotle, every “investigation” should lead to some good (Ostwald, 1962, p. 3), and for Dewey, philosophy “recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and

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becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men” (1917, p. 46).

Habit and character in Aristotle’s ethics Dewey was an interested reader of Greek philosophy. While he shared a deep concern for education and the goodness of the state with Plato, his pragmatic characterization of the moral self as emerging from and contributing to a social environment is shared with the ethical and political works of Aristotle. While much of the significance of social context may have been lost in the conception of the individual in Enlightenment philosophy, some important aspects of social thought may be recovered from the Greeks, especially as they influence and reinforce more recent social-political ideas. The margins and underlined passages of Dewey’s personal copy of the Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle, 1884, marginalia) highlight his interest especially in Aristotle’s notions of habit and character.1 Writing some 2,200 years before Darwin, Aristotle’s psychology involves a metaphysics aimed at fixed ends, contrary to the growing and changing social environment outlined by pragmatists such as Dewey, William James, and Jane Addams. However, in Aristotle’s conception of the political individual, we see the seeds of a social ethics that, with the cultivation of some contemporary pragmatic elements, is still fruitful in our moral discussions today. For Aristotle and Dewey, the growth of the moral individual, one capable of making intelligent decisions from within situations rather than from without (following rules or engaging in prior speculation), depends on the growth of a certain kind of self within a community of others. Humans are, for Aristotle, naturally political. Speech, distinctly human as the ability to communicate according to justice and injustice, allows us to associate with one another on the more abstract level of commerce, politics, and, of course, philosophy. Aristotle writes, “a social instinct is implanted in all men by nature ...” (Everson, 1994, 1253a). The social instinct makes possible individual progress toward ethical life and political progress toward just community. The psychological structure of moral deliberation is, for Aristotle, found in the cultivation of character through certain habits of behavior; and he notes, of course, that moral virtue’s name, “ēthikē,” is derived from habit, “ethos” (Ostwald, 1962, 1103a). On the individual level, Aristotle viewed eudaimonia, human flourishing, and well-being, as the ultimate goal of moral behavior. Since even the life



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unimpeded by “ill-fortune,” will not necessarily end in happiness, the means used to reach the end of eudaimonia are the ultimate focus of the Nicomachean Ethics. While it is dependent to some extent on good fortune, a rich quality of life in Aristotelian terms comes primarily from rigorous moral effort; a virtuous person may have bad luck in life and still be able to flourish, but a vicious person has little chance of happiness. In the Ethics (Barnes, 1984), Aristotle explores how habits of our behavior in moral situations lead to the kind of character we will develop over time. Whether we have good or bad character determines quality of life as it results in extrinsic concerns such as how others will treat us, the kinds of friends we will have, and how well we will do professionally, as well as the intrinsic value of high moral ground. Habitually attempting a virtuous path in our moral dealings with others leads to generally virtuous character, which leads to even more potential for virtuous action, which in turn leads ideally to a holistic sense of well-being. It is, as psychologists today might proclaim, living well by doing good (Seligman, 1998). The development of good character via the habits we practice is quite straightforward, according to Aristotle. It is all about finding the mean between extremes, which he outlines in Book Two of his Ethics. For example, one of the virtues Aristotle extols is temperance. Although we obviously want to avoid starvation, Aristotle also warned against the extreme of gluttony. Likewise, in the case of courage, we attempt to reach some middle ground between cowardice and recklessness. In the case of many of Aristotle’s examples of virtues, there is a clear connection between personal moral behavior, consequences for others (such as in the case of generosity), the development of a reasonable and good city-state, and even physical health. Phronēsis, practical wisdom, includes both knowledge of how to live well and action which brings about the good life. Practical knowledge implies a profound understanding of how to act in given situations in accordance with finding the “mean.” Avoiding extremes, according to Aristotle, will surely help us to live a temperate, just, virtuous life. This knowledge, however, is inseparable from practice since it is through eupraxia, good action, that we first, find the mean, and second, learn to apply it within various situations. An Aristotelian student will not know what bravery is, and how it differs from the immoderate behaviors of cowardice and recklessness, until she is faced with a fearful situation which demands action. Frequent similar situations will help her to form habits of good practice which will facilitate virtuous action in future situations. Aristotle as a psychologist, then, studies human nature in order to uncover the structures of social existence which allow for eupraxia and eudaimonia.

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Since moral virtue itself cannot be native (nothing native can be changed), only the capacity for moral virtue is natural (Ostwald, 1962). The capacity to know and practice virtue has its grounding in our habits which, in turn, comprise our character. Aristotle claims: ... [T]he virtues are implanted in us neither by nature nor contrary to nature: we are by nature equipped with the ability to receive them, and habit brings this ability to completion and fulfillment. (Ostwald, 1962, 1103a)

Moral virtue comes not from nature, as those things natural are impossible to change, praise, or blame. Rather, moral goodness is bound up in the habits we cultivate in ourselves, as individuals, and the habits we nurture in others, as members of a social group. Habits of eupraxia lead to well-being, while habits of vice lead to moral anemia. As the conglomerate of habits, character determines present and future tendencies to act. “Hence,” Aristotle states, “it is no small matter whether one habit or another is inculcated in us from early childhood; on the contrary, it makes a considerable difference, or, rather, all the difference” (Ostwald, 1962, 1103b). While habits and character are composed of individual traits, the process of learning the mean must be social and thus individual character and social context reinforce each other. Pagan writes, “Putting the virtues into practice is a matter of practice or training, and the process inevitably involves other people whose behavior serves as a model to be imitated. People become courageous, for example, by imitating courageous people” (2008, p. 242). In the Politics (Everson, 1994), Aristotle argues that virtuous action is best made possible by a just state, and in the Ethics, he writes, “The attainment of the good for one man alone is, to be sure, a source of satisfaction; yet to secure it for a nation and for states is nobler and more divine” (Ostwald, 1962, 1094b). The social context of morality is so important that Aristotle devotes an entire book of his Ethics to the virtues and complexities of friendship, which is “most indispensible for life” (Ostwald, 1962, 1155a). Virtuous friends model good habits and character, provide us with the opportunity to practice good deeds (such as generosity), and create a social context in which care, justice, and flourishing are likely. Fahy notes that, for Aristotle, “Friendship is a unique disposition because a friend views the situation not only in terms of objective harmonization, but also in terms of the appropriate passions of others,” and, as such, “… introduces an element of otherness into the self ” (2002, p. 11). The otherness of friendship expands the social context in such a way that it



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provides an opportunity to transcend the application of static virtues or rules to known situations. Friendship presents us with novelty and complexity, and thus the need for thoughtful and sympathetic action. Without the social context of friendship, broadly construed to include family and even political relationships, an individual would have no sense of, or reason for, a virtuous life. Thus, although the virtues themselves may be static and innate, the evolution of an individual’s moral life within a network of social relationships is natural and organic. Based on an early view of science and nature, Aristotle’s ethical and political philosophy, because of the fixed ends of the specific virtues (as well as a rather limited view of who may achieve these—Aristotle notably excludes women, for example) may not immediately lend itself to the moral problems of the twenty-first century. It is unique, however, as it attempts to naturalize human association in a way that is not recovered in the West until post-Enlightenment thought. Heavily influenced by Darwin, and hence a thoroughgoing encounter with pluralism and precariousness, Dewey takes up Aristotle’s vision of human sociality in a description of the individual and state more natural and true to human experience in its complexities and uncertainty within a constantly changing physical and social ecology.

Beyond fixed ends: Dewey’s social ethics It would be a naïve reading of the history of philosophy to assume that moral theory as socially construed was nowhere to be found in the two thousand-plus years between the Greeks and the American pragmatists.2 However, Aristotle and Dewey both provide strong arguments against the standard traditions of post-Hellenistic ethics, such as morality based on religious duty (such as in medieval theology), innate reason (such as in Kant), or logical calculation of discrete actions (such as in Mill). Dewey’s commitment to a vision of the moral self as social is clear throughout his work, and offers a useful extension of Aristotle’s ethics. If we are to trust the underscores and other markings in Dewey’s own copy of the Nicomachean Ethics, he was most interested in Aristotle’s description of the process of moral engagement via concepts such as habit and character. Dewey drew out the importance of “habit” in moral action even further than Aristotle. In Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Dewey claims that habits are the very means by which we act—inseparable from the final act, which will

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itself reinforce the existing habits in such a way that the end becomes a means to further action. Dewey states: We may think of habits as means, waiting, like tools in a box to be used by conscious resolve. But they are something more than that. They are active means, means that project themselves, energetic and dominating ways of acting. (1922, p. 23)

As active means, habits take on a vital importance in moral conduct more generally, and are not merely integrated into single acts. Rather, they are “ways or modes of response” (Dewey, 1922, p. 32) that collectively lead to a more general “tendency” to act according to experience—a continuity of response to various stimuli. This continuity is what both Dewey and Aristotle refer to as character—the general tendency to act which calls for us to make either intelligent and (for Aristotle) virtuous moral decisions or decisions which lead to vice. Our decisions, as well as our character, depend on our experience in a variety of situations. Like Aristotle, Dewey views character as the “interpenetration of habits” (1922, p. 29). Since habitual responses to a relatively stable and “overlapping” environment are responsible for conduct, there is a unity of action which makes up character. Without character as the interpenetration of habits, an individual would be “simply a bundle, an untied bundle at that, of isolated acts” (Dewey, 1922, p. 29). This general tendency to act in certain ways can be both fatal and fruitful, depending on the kind of character we cultivate. The habits which make up character can be, as William James explained, the “enormous fly-wheel of society” (1890, p. 121), keeping the moral character of a community from plummeting into chaos; or habits, when we are blind to them, can be, as Dewey worried, “a guarantee for the maintenance of hedges of custom” (1922, p. 47). A character blind to such habits lacks the stability to adjust to novel and precarious situations. A strong and integrated character, according to Dewey, relies on the compatibility of habits. Habits should “embody one another” for the “solidity of a habit is not its own possession but is due to reinforcement by the other habits …” (1922, p. 30). For example, in Aristotelian terms, an individual who has become accustomed, through education and habit, to being generous with her resources is more likely to practice charitable giving when presented with such an appeal (Ostwald, 1962). However, Dewey wrote, “A weak, unstable, vacillating character is one in which different habits alternate with one another rather than embody one another” (1922, p. 30). A character made up of radically conflicting



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habits not only will lack the ability to make sense of goals and desired ends, but also will not be able to withstand the precarious nature of a constantly changing environment outside of that character. This is similar, perhaps, to Johnson’s (1993) “moral dissonance,” the attempt to apply universal moral frameworks to particular, novel situations. As James referred to how the road to hell is proverbially paved, attempting to apply even the best-intended moral rules to variable contexts might result in unpracticed, clumsy action. A person of strong character, cultivated from practiced habits, however, will be able to intelligently mediate desires, even those presented by new situations. She will rely on her experiences of the consequences habits can bring about—as both means and ends—to identify the course of action which is most likely to end in further integration of habits within a strong, stable, and integrated character. For Dewey, as well as for Aristotle, habits and character (as the foundations of moral action) rest on education, social experience, and practice, rather than isolated intentions or logic (Fesmire, 2003; Keith and Keith, 2013). A strong moral character is something that is cultivated and maintained; it is not native, and it does not rely on duty or universal reason alone. Moral engagement as the process of developing character through learning and habituation fits well with theories which focus on relationships and emotion as the impetus to be a good moral citizen. For Dewey, heavily steeped in Mead’s psychology of the social self (Reck, 1964), there is no moral vacuum in which habits spontaneously emerge without the influence of social forces. He writes “… since habits involve the support of environing conditions, a society or some specific group of fellowmen, is always accessory before and after the fact” and “… it is not an ethical ‘ought’ that conduct should be social. It is social, whether good or bad” (Dewey, 1922, p. 16). Habits and character are a psychological fact (Odozor and Agulanna, 2012), so an understanding of them as structures of our moral lives is essential to a description of human interaction. Further, habits of action originate and grow only within the realm of human experience and a community which inevitably includes other characters and their conditions and actions. The habits and characters we cultivate in interaction with others will, as Aristotle wrote, make “all the difference” for the social structures which make up our private and public relationships. And conversely, the health of the social environment is important to the kind and quality of habits and character we grow. Whether a community or state contributes to a strong or weak character will also make all the difference.

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Aristotle and Dewey after Darwin One of the important hallmarks of both Aristotle’s and Dewey’s work on ethics was that they attempted to ground their views of human moral potential in the best information about human nature that science had to offer. In fact, Anton argues that Dewey’s persistence in enlisting Darwin, even against the Greeks, is “precisely what accounts for the striking similarities between Dewey and Aristotle” (1965, p. 486). This raises the question, however, of whether their theories are obsolete in an era of genetic descriptions of human behavior. Some contemporary biologists (e.g. Wilson, 1975) and philosophers (e.g. Dennett, 1995) argue that the biological study of the human mind should eclipse more normative descriptions of moral goodness. As a pragmatist who eschewed dualisms such as nature versus culture, Dewey might argue today that we are asking the wrong question if we wonder whether morality is a matter only of biology or of some supernaturally imposed ideal. In addition to the influence of James’s extensive study of human psychology, Dewey drew from F. M. Alexander’s theory of embodied habits, thus tethering the structures of moral behavior within human psychology and biology. Likewise, by focusing primarily on the structure of morality via the psychological function of habit and character, Aristotle squared his ethical theory with views of human nature of his time. While many of his claims about human mind and metaphysics are dated, Aristotle’s philosophy may be useful in navigating the debate between biological determinism and freedom in that it posits that while ethics is not native, the structures that make better or worse moral behavior possible, as well as (for Dewey) the contexts in which they are better and worse, are part of our natural environment. In this sense, Aristotle offers a “soft” normative account. Odozor and Agulanna write about Aristotle’s “continuous habitation” model that, “… one can argue for a theoretical model of ethics which recognizes the findings of Biology, and at the same time, brings back normativity into ethical theory …” (2012, p. 161). The concept of human flourishing has also experienced a renaissance in recent social science research. If we change some of the vocabulary of traditional ethics to words such as “pro-social” (moral), “positive intersubjectivity” (moral relationships), or “flow” (eudaimonia), then a social approach to morality, such as in Aristotle and Dewey, begins to look something like the positive psychology of Seligman (1998) and Csikszentmihalyi (1997). Jonathan Haidt’s research in psychology and ethics provides evidence for the idea in Aristotle and Dewey that morality is learned within a social context, and that it is motivated by an embodied emotional response to others within



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relationships. In Haidt’s studies on college students, he asked subjects to report emotional and physical effects of witnessing good deeds, both in person and on screen. Students reported “warm, pleasant, or ‘tingling’ feelings,” and a desire to “help others, become better people themselves, and to affiliate with others” (2003, p. 282). Haidt could just as well discuss what he terms “elevation” from the perspective of Aristotle’s eudaimonia and Dewey’s social moral self. We can easily see the framework for “doing well by doing good” in Dewey—that some habits are to be loved so well and so integrated into life that they result in more, not less, growth, that they reinforce themselves, that they are ends in themselves, and that the goodness of our relationships empower subjective well-being and lead to further affiliation. Embodied and biologically evolved, the many ways of cultivating pro-social behavior and reinforcing moral character are at the same time both natural and cultural. Though Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia and an early attempt at a social ethics remain relevant to contemporary ethical discussions, it makes sense that Dewey’s post-Darwinian, more fully contextual, worldview might lead to a moral theory that is more in keeping with what we now know about our world. As Dewey argued, the concepts of purpose and perfection permeated the Greek view of species which influenced subsequent philosophies for over two thousand years, while Darwinian biology introduced chance and conflict (Dewey, 1910). Although Aristotle addressed the relevance of chance and spontaneity to human well-being, he concluded that tyche is indefinite and incidental to causation, and so always under the influence of the four causes (Barnes, 1985). Influenced by Peirce’s tychism and Darwinian biology, Dewey, on the other hand, believed that the precarious permeates all experience (Dewey, 1925). By embracing the precarious nature of our social, as well as physical, environment, and the continually evolving capacity for making decisions about habit and character within that context, a Deweyan approach pushes Aristotelian social morality beyond Darwin and into the twenty-first century. Fixed ends and virtues can too easily become hard and fast rules which may only clumsily address an evolving moral scene (Dewey, 1922). Further, Aristotle’s theory of virtue requires abilities beyond the kind of character-developing social intelligence that Dewey favors. One of the most obvious problems according to contemporary philosophers is that Aristotle explicitly excludes women from full participation in moral life. While Dewey, also a product of his time, was only marginally a proto-feminist, his moral theory has been engaged more recently by feminist philosophy (Seigfried, 2002). Additionally, the end goal of Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia through the contemplative life requires a static

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rationality separate from practical wisdom. This becomes problematic not only for an attempt to square Aristotelian ethics with contemporary social science, but it also presents a normative problem for a moral community which includes people with intellectual disability. Reading Dewey in light of Aristotelian ethics, however, allows us to explore the ideas that make modern sense as well as to understand the context of those that we now find dated and problematic. As Dewey said, “Old ideas give way slowly; for they are more than abstract logical forms and categories. They are habits, predispositions, deeply ingrained attitudes of aversion and preference” (1910, p. 14). The best test for either theory may be to apply them to contemporary moral issues that would have been difficult to address historically, such as gender, the nonhuman environment, and intellectual diversity.

Virtue, care, and expanding moral relationships: Contemporary applications in ethics The social nature of morality as structured by habit and character has been expanded dramatically by contemporary feminist ethicists. Nel Noddings’ care ethics provides a clear bridge between an Aristotelian virtue approach and a Deweyan pragmatist approach while emphasizing the empathetic and emotional element of care and the experience of the feminine (Noddings, 1984). Noddings suggested that any “ethical ideal” has its source only within the web of relationships. Her concept of the moral agent as the “best self ” (1984, p. 80) emerges from good relationships with others, much in the way that strong moral character was cultivated in Aristotle’s virtue ethics through friendship. Likewise, Dewey’s contemporary and colleague Jane Addams developed her own social ethics grounded in the relational value of family and neighborly life, and used this theoretical approach to inform heroic reconstruction of the community (Addams, 1902). Charlene Haddock Seigfried suggests that the attraction of pragmatist theory such as Dewey’s to feminism is in its contextualism and mode of discourse: The pragmatist goal of philosophical discourse, which is shared understanding and communal problem solving rather than rationally forced conclusions, is more feminine than masculine, as is its valuing of inclusiveness and community over exaggerated claims of autonomy and detachment. The same can be said for its developmental rather than rule-governed ethics. (1996, p. 32)



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Social ethics in the vein of Aristotle and Dewey might also be of interest to theorists considering the world beyond human nature. Although the Greeks notoriously ranked nonhuman animals and nature far below humans on the great chain of being, and Dewey was not overtly interested in environmental ethics as we would recognize the field today, moral theory that requires the cultivation of relationships beyond the self as the foundation for pro-social behavior is useful to considering humans’ relationship to the more-than-human world. In fact, ethics as primarily relational might help us get beyond debates about where to center our responsibilities, such as anthropocentrism, ecocentrism, etc. (McDonald, 2004). Recentering moral community to make it more expansive can happen only within a theoretical framework that accepts that morality is about the habits we cultivate and that our well-being depends on having commitments beyond self- or human-interest. The well-being of the self, and its interests, in fact, is shaped by our physical environment, as well as our social context. For example, a recent study suggests that immersion in nature may actually make us more caring. In looking at the effect of exposure to nature, Netta Weinstein et al., found that people rated intrinsic aspirations (such as care and love) higher and extrinsic aspirations (such as personal wealth and fame) lower after viewing images of nature (such as desert canyons), while the opposite was true after viewing scenes of the built world (such as cityscapes). Further, subjects reported greater motivation for pro-social activities, such as developing close relationships and serving the larger social community. Weinstein writes, “Overall, these results are interesting because they suggest that nature, which is inherently unrelated to human intervention, brings individuals closer to others, whereas human-made environments orient goals toward more selfish or self-interested ends” (2009, p. 1327). In moral frameworks focused on reason, duty, and other discrete attributes of individuals, nature may not merit membership in our moral community, but an approach that highlights character and context in response to the precariousness of experience might allow us to stretch our view of community beyond humans. Fesmire argues that a relational view of the self, informed by Dewey, is necessary to cultivating the kind of “ecological imagination” that allows us to respond reflectively to environmental concerns. The ability to see wider relationships helps “children learn that every action has systemic consequences, and they are more likely to become the kinds of people who habitually take a measure of responsibility for these actions” (Fesmire, 2012, p. 128). Viewing the moral world first in terms of relationships (and not primarily on an individual

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duty or virtue level) might lead to greater respect for the human and natural connections that are most likely to bring us shared goods, and might even make us better humans in the end (Keith and Keith, 2013). Recent research on animal behavior and biology also tells us that nonhuman animals may exhibit traits that suggest that they experience a kind of protomoral life. Frans de Waal (2009) argues that the seeds of pro-social behaviors such as empathy and altruism can be found in nonhuman primates and other animals. His research notes that humans exhibit the seeds of these traits from birth, too, suggesting that we are not primarily selfish, but that we have evolved in such a way that we are open first to responding to others. Although Dewey and other classical pragmatists were largely silent on the issue of animal ethics, many contemporary scholars are finding a Deweyan approach useful in thinking about the moral considerability of nonhumans (McKenna and Light, 2004). The expansion of moral community is relevant in the twenty-first century within the human world, as well. In the growing field of disability studies, many recent philosophers (e.g. Keith and Keith, 2013; Kittay, 2010; Lekan, 2009; Danforth, 2008) point to variations on social ethics as reasonable and responsible ways of conceptualizing morality in a world filled with intellectual diversity. Most historical accounts of ethics have relied on a strict sense of rationality (e.g. Kant, 1785; Mill, 1861), which effectively excludes from the moral community people with intellectual disability. Ethics based on education, practice, and social relationships, such as in Aristotle and Dewey, offer a foundation on which we may be able to build a more inclusive system. Dewey’s approach is, perhaps, a better place to start since Aristotle and others of his time had problematic beliefs about intelligence. For example, Aristotle proclaimed in his Politics “As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law that no deformed child shall live” (ed. Everson, 1994, p. 182). Blatt (1987) and others have noted that key to understanding the construction of moral value as connected to reason is understanding the view of human nature in ancient philosophy. And Stainton argued that: A core paradigm in the negative construction of intellectual disability in Western society is that human value is directly associated with human reason … and that … current debates in the field, such as those on consent and capacity, prenatal testing, the abortion of disabled fetuses, access to treatment, euthanasia, citizenship, and self-determination, all have at their heart this association between reason and value, and this association in turn has its intellectual roots in classical thought. (2001, p. 452)



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In Book 10 of the Ethics, Aristotle noted that the most eudaimonic life is that of intellectual contemplation. Noūs, rational understanding, is the end goal of practical wisdom, and supersedes it in value (Stainton, 2001). Without the contemplative life, human existence is not fully actualized. Further, a certain amount of rational intelligence is necessary to the process of assessing and reasoning about the good in the practice of phronēsis. As Aristotle noted in Book Six, thinking about how one action achieves a particular goal is part of the deliberative process, but more important is to deliberate more evaluatively “in an unqualified sense” (Ostwald, 1962, p. 163), about how our habits and character help us to actualize eudaimonia. Without this higher level of reasoning, a person can achieve only practical ends but is not fully acting in accordance with practical wisdom, and is not, for Aristotle, fully human. Stainton argued that “the implication here is that the person without sufficient intellectual capacity cannot become truly good …” (2001, p. 457). As offensive as Aristotle’s political views about intellectual disability (as well as women, children, slaves, and foreigners) may be, I have argued that some elements of his ethical theory are fruitful to the development of theories of moral engagement that are more inclusive, especially in the concepts shared by Dewey and care ethics, such as habit, character, and friendship (Keith and Keith, 2013). With Plato, Aristotle believed that education and practice are the keys to moral personhood, and that a good society supports its citizens (albeit unequally in the case of the Greeks) in striving to lead fulfilling and moral lives. Dewey (1935) offered an alternative conception of intelligence that supports morality based on social context and a caring response to others. For Dewey, intelligence, like character, was not something native or static. Rather, it was a product of growth and education, habituated and maintained through practical experience, and had as its aim “the mediation of problematic situations” (Fesmire, 2003, p. 38). According to Eldridge, for Dewey, intelligence was both the means and the end of associated living, involving education and creativity: “As a creative practice, it is the use of one’s fund of experience to modify practices that have become dysfunctional” (1998, 179). Danforth argued that the concept of moral equality was also integral to a Deweyan view of intelligence as the capacity for growth: “Moral equality involves a shared, active ethic that acknowledges differences between individuals without constructing those as differences within schemes of hierarchical gradation” (2008, p. 55). Likewise, Lekan argued that people with intellectual disability are important members of the moral community, regardless of rational status, also because they contribute important elements of diversity. Within a framework of

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social ethics, there is an appreciation, or perhaps even a necessity, for people of diverse capabilities. As a pluralist, Dewey might argue that no one historical moral theory would be sufficient to reasonably solve the problems of our time. Certainly Aristotle’s ethics, as well as Dewey’s, was not expansive enough to account for evolving views of intelligence, ecology, gender, or many other issues that are central to our modern moral lives. However, the structures of morality offered by Aristotle and Dewey, based on their best understanding of the science of their time, provide insights into human behavior and potential that are still relevant to contemporary ethicists.

Notes 1 Special thanks to the Center for John Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University, and the Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL. 2 We would also be mistaken in thinking that social morality was a product only of the Western hemisphere. Though it is beyond the scope of this chapter, the ethical theories of Confucius (Ames, 2011) and Mencius (Ivanhoe, 2002), for example, offer important arguments for the social nature of ethics.

References Addams, J. (1902), Democracy and Social Ethics. New York: Macmillan. Ames, R. (2011), Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Honolulu, HA: The University of Hawai’i Press. Anton, J. (1965), “John Dewey and Ancient Philosophies,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 25, (4), 477–99. Aristotle (1884), “Nicomachean Ethics,” in marginalia of John Dewey papers, 1858–1970, Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL. —(1985), “Physics,” in J. Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Barnes, J. (ed.) (1984), The Complete Works of Aristotle. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Blatt, B. (1987), The Conquest of Mental Retardation. Austin, Tx: PRO-ED. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997), Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.



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Danforth, S. (2008), “John Dewey’s Contributions to an Educational Philosophy of Intellectual Disability,” Educational Theory, 58, 45–62. Dennett, D. (1995), Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster. De Waal, F. (2009), The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society. New York: Random House. Dewey, J. (1910), “The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899–1924, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1917), “The need for a Recovery in Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899–1924, vol. 10. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1922), “Human Nature and Conduct,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, vol. 14. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1925), “Experience and Nature,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925–1953, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1935), “Liberalism and Social Action,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925-1953, vol. 11. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Eldridge, M. (1998), Transforming Experience: John Dewey’s Cultural Instrumentalism. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Everson, S. (ed.) (1994), The Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fahy, G. (2002), “The Idea of the Good in John Dewey and Aristotle,” Essays in Philosophy, 3, Article 10. Fesmire, S. (2003), John Dewey and Moral Imagination. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. — (2012), “Ecological Imagination and Aims of Moral Education Through the Kyoto School and American Pragmatism,” in P. Standish and N. Saito (eds), Education and the Kyoto School of Philosophy. New York: Springer. Haidt, J. (2003), “Elevation and the Positive Psychology of Morality,” in C. Keyes and J. Haidt (eds), Flourishing: Positive Psychology and the Life Well-Lived. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Ivanhoe, P. (2002), Ethics in the Confucian Tradition. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. James, W. (1890), The Principles of Psychology. New York: Dover. Johnson, M. (1993), Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Kant, I. (1785), “Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals,” in J. W. Ellington (ed.), Immanuel Kant: Ethical Philosophy. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Keith, H. and Keith, K. (2013), Intellectual Disability: Ethics, Dehumanization, and a New Moral Community. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Kittay, E. (2010), “The Personal is Philosophical is Political: A Philosopher and Mother of a Cognitively Disabled Person Sends Notes from the Battlefield,” in E. F. Kittay and L. Carlson (eds), Cognitive Disability and its Challenge to Moral Philosophy. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

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Lekan, T. (2009), “Disabilities and Educational Opportunity: A Deweyan Approach,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 45, 213–30. McDonald, H. (2004), John Dewey and Environmental Philosophy. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. McKenna, E. and Light, A. (eds) (2004), Animal Pragmatism: Rethinking HumanNonhuman Relationships. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Mill, J. S. (1861), Utilitarianism. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Noddings, N. (1984), Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Odozor, U. and Agulanna, C. (2012), “Biology and Ethics: A Case for Aristotle’s Theory of Moral Habituation,” Canadian Social Science, 8, 154–62. Ostwald, M. (ed.) (1962), Nicomachean Ethics. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. Pagan, N. (2008), “Configuring the Moral Self: Aristotle and Dewey,” Foundations of Science, 13, 239–50. Randall, J. H. (1960), Aristotle. New York: Columbia University Press. Reck, A. (ed.) (1964), Selected Writings. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Seigfried, C. H. (1996), Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. —(2002), Feminist Interpretations of John Dewey. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Seligman, M. (1998), Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. New York: Simon and Schuster. Stainton, T. (2001), “Reason and Value: The Thought of Plato and Aristotle and the Construction of Intellectual Disability,” Mental Retardation, 39, 452–60. Weinstein, N., Przybylski, A., and Ryan, R. (2009), “Can Nature Make Us More Caring? Effects of Immersion in Nature on Intrinsic Aspirations and Generosity,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 1315–29. Wilson, E. O. (1975), Sociobiology: A New Synthesis. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.

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How to Make Our Passions Clear: How Aristotle’s Understanding of the Passions Enriches Dewey’s Conception of Changing Human Nature Brent Lamons

This chapter explores Dewey’s relationship with Aristotle’s conception of human nature and highlights a major difference between their positions. More specifically, it focuses on a native endowment within human nature, namely passion, and argues that a deeper engagement with Aristotle’s understanding of the passions enriches Dewey’s position on the plasticity of human nature. Reciprocally, it also demonstrates how Dewey’s position likewise can enrich Aristotle’s. Human passions (pathe) are some of the most natural and native endowments of human nature. This topic is easily worthy of a book-length treatment; however, this chapter’s purpose is to serve as a short introduction to this very rich topic. The marrow of this chapter underscores the importance of understanding the nature of what an educator and lifelong learner is trying to direct, structure, ignite, know, often overcome, and clarify in the educative process of experience, which is passions. There have been several books and articles highlighting how critical eros, and desire in general, are to teaching, education, and the expansion of meaning and value within one’s life. It has been shown that desire relates to varying aspects of Dewey’s philosophy, including but not limited to his philosophy of education and aesthetics (Alexander, 1993, 2013; Garrison, 1994, 1997; Lachs, 2012). At the root of those works that highlight the importance of “The Human Eros” is a deep-seated quest to revive the Delphic charge to “know thyself.” This chapter seeks to champion that quest, in a way, but also to advance it towards a more pointed purpose: know thyself so one can improve thyself. Few works exist

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that aim to understand the nature of human passions in the context of Dewey’s philosophy. Fewer still are the works that investigate how Aristotle can enrich and add meaningful dimension to the evolution of Dewey’s thoughts with regard to human nature. An understanding of the passions is extremely important to one’s own self education and the better understanding of one’s fellow human beings. Humans are at the mercy of the passions. Everything we think and do is affected by passion and desire. The training of the passions is always at the mercy of one’s current culture—family, school, friends, neighbors, and so on. Understanding the passions (not just what they are but why they exist and how they come about) at work in the formation of one’s choices and shaping of character is paramount in the development of one’s own intellectual and emotional development. I begin my treatment of this topic by first providing a brief orientation to Dewey’s philosophical relationship to Aristotle with regard to human nature, and highlight a major difference between the two. I will proceed in exploring and clarifying how Aristotle can help add a dimension of understanding to what is involved in changing human nature, or human passion. I then discuss Aristotle’s position on human nature in relation to what poses the problem for changing human nature. Next, the exploration moves to covering Dewey’s position on the passions. Throughout the remainder of the chapter, both positions are synthesized to demonstrate how consistent re-discovery and re-examination of this essential component of nature advances the Deweyan concept of the plasticity of human nature and strengthens one’s understanding of what is involved with rational self-correction.

Dewey, Aristotle, and human nature: The line in the sand Aristotle’s influence on Dewey’s thought is undeniable. The similarities are striking even to the point of John Herman Randall Jr. making a comment about Dewey being more Aristotelian than Aristotle. Like Aristotle, Dewey is a holistic thinker, a philosopher of change (though in his own way), and Dewey’s influence on the twentieth century also has been noted to be of Aristotelian magnitude. Likening his influence to that of Aristotle’s, Hilda Neatby declared, “Dewey has been to our age what Aristotle was to the later Middle Ages, not a philosopher, but the philosopher” (1953, pp. 22–3). Regardless of the similarities between Aristotle and Dewey and their scope of influence, the two differ greatly in their positions on human nature. The line in the sand that is drawn between



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these two views of human nature is this: Dewey’s position is that human nature can change, and Aristotle’s position is that it cannot change. While there are many parts of Dewey’s conception of human nature that are heavily influenced by Aristotle, his position also is strongly influenced by Charles Darwin. One can see this Darwinian influence throughout Dewey’s writings because one of the keystones of Dewey’s philosophy is change. Dewey’s position on human nature is challenging to pin down and understand in a systematic way. His theory of human nature is not as systematic as Aristotle’s; however, it is markedly different because Dewey feels that human nature does and can change. Dewey’s belief that humans can change is very complex and cannot be located centrally within just one text. However, an essay that Dewey wrote in 1938 in Rotarian titled “Does Human Nature Change?” provides insight into his thinking on the potential for human nature to change. Dewey’s answer to the question in the essay is, quite plainly, “I think the proper answer is that human nature does change” (p. 286). Dewey is quick to recognize the perspective and context in which he believes it changes. Dewey states that basic needs for “food and drink” are not eligible for this change, however. To be clear, Dewey’s position on the plasticity of human nature rests on the potential for modifying an important feature of human nature, and that is habit. So, it is not the case that human nature can or does change but rather a vital element within our nature can be modified, and that is habit. The “force of engrained habits” and “inertia of custom” are the obstacles that both impede the changeability of human nature and also hinder the perception of the plasticity of human nature. Dewey declares, “If nature is unchangeable, then there is no such thing as education and all our efforts to educate are doomed to failure” (1938, p. 292). Thus, the problem and challenge lay with education. In analyzing Dewey’s conception of human nature one must begin with the context of that nature, which is nature itself. One of the most important elements of Dewey’s philosophy of habit and human nature (in general) is impulse. In certain places in his early writings, Dewey interchangeably uses the word instinct with impulse. He even does this in Human Nature and Conduct (1922). However, when he says “instinct,” he really means impulse. Impulse begets habit; without impulse there would be no habit. Of course, vital to the acquisition of habits are the outside environing forces that continue to influence and shape those habits. Dewey characterizes “Habits as Expressions of Growth,” and wishes to leave them open, subject to change, and modifiable. Dewey understood habit as “that kind of human activity which is influenced by prior

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activity and in that sense is acquired; which contains within itself a certain ordering or systemization of minor elements” (1922, p. 31). In this way, habits are structures. The Latin habere or habitus means “to have” but what is had in the case of habit is structure or an ordering. Now there have been many different conceptions of human nature, and many of those have taken from Aristotle but have made revisions here and there. In his systematic approach to human nature, human nature is static and cannot change; it is steady. An important unalterable element within Aristotle’s conception of human nature is habit, the vital feature of human nature Dewey felt so strongly about being modifiable. In Aristotle’s view, human nature is set, and habits in particular are set. Aristotle’s philosophy of human nature guides his philosophy in general. Under Aristotle’s conception, one might ask: is the modern human being essentially different from the human beings who lived in the fifth century BC? When reading Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey do we find that we are in any essential way different from any particular individual, such as Odysseus? Look at the ways of thinking, the employment of thought, the understanding of obstacles, the thinking to overcome obstacles, and the thinking to obtain certain ends. These seem quite familiar, perhaps even identical to our ways of thinking. So, if Dewey is right, and human nature does change, we must ask how it changes and exactly what is it that changes? Aristotle declares in the first line of the Metaphysics (Barnes, 1984) that all humans by nature desire to know. What they want to know and how they proceed in their quest to know is another matter. The inspired command of “know thyself ” is one thing, but what is a self? What is it made of? Aristotle makes it clear that all humans by nature are knowers and seek to know, but what can be known varies from person to person depending on the level of inquiry. Aristotle is especially clear and rich in answering these questions in the De Anima (Barnes, 1984) but continues his quest for a better understanding of human nature throughout his works. Dewey finds in Aristotle’s conception of human nature a limiting agent that serves as a hazard to growth because it does not allow for the modification of habits. This is why Dewey cannot accept Aristotle’s position on human nature completely. If Dewey did accept it, it would undermine the evolutionary nature of his philosophical position. It’s important to bear in mind that the Greek eidos can be translated either “form” or “species,” and Dewey made use of the latter meaning.1 For someone like Dewey, working within a post-Darwinian framework, the semantic gap between these two would appear unbridgeable.



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At the same time, Aristotle would never have accepted Dewey’s position, either, because it would have the same corrosive effect on his philosophical position regarding quality. As John P. Anton has put it, “unlike Aristotle’s specific categorial use of quality, limited to one genus of being, in Dewey’s theoretical framework, quality is at once inclusive and generalized as a basic feature of experience as well as plural and contextual” (2005, p. 149). Nevertheless, Dewey has a strong faith in the power of human experience and trusts human intelligence to the point of believing that one’s habits can change if the proper conditions are in place. While Aristotle and Dewey will not agree on the fixity or plasticity of human nature, much educational value is found in returning to ancient philosophy as it relates to understanding what changing human nature (as it relates to habit in Dewey’s position) entails. In the case of Aristotle, the value is found in clarifying what humans are up against in setting out to reconstruct habits—those things that work for and against the human, namely passions. Although the important topic of the passions is not discussed and clarified at length in Dewey’s position on human nature, it is extremely relevant to his belief in the plasticity of human nature.

Aristotle on the nature of the passions According to Aristotle, humans begin with dynamis, or powers, which enable us to act. Native powers include the passions (Pearson, 2012). The passions and desiring are built into these powers and cannot be removed from the powers within human nature. These powers are stimulated from the moment one is born. The passions are never still, and desiring never stops. These powers are native to the organism such that they enable the organism to respond and survive, and continue to do so. And one responds to the nature of the things; one determines what the nature of the things is, what a person is, and what can be done. The passions must be understood as part of the human equipment. Understanding the passions and their nature is within the cognitive abilities of the human and should be understood.2 The human being has two great sets of power, the first of which is cognitive intelligence. I use the word in a comprehensive way, concerning the powers of consciousness and rational powers, that is, those which involve logos. The other set is non-cognitive. When analyzed, it is found that the non-cognitive set contains a variety of movers that move the human being. The first set, the

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cognitive, are also movers. Both are endowed with the same push, what Plato called eros, and Aristotle called desire (or orexis). Every passion that belongs to non-logos is a mover; it motivates to act. Thus, the power of the passions and desiring move to seek an object. Aristotle is clear on this point; passions or desires are movers. He declares: It is not the power of reasoning or what is called nous that is the mover. For the theoretical nous thinks nothing that is practical and says nothing about what is to be avoided or pursued, whereas motion always implies that we are avoiding or pursuing something. But even when it thinks something of the sort, it does not forthwith order avoidance or pursuit. Thus it often thinks of something alarming or pleasant without prompting to fear; the only effect is a beating of the heart or, when the thought is pleasant, some other bodily movement. Besides, even if nous issues the order and reasoning (dianoia) bids us avoid or pursue something, we are still not thereby moved. Rather, men act from appetite (epithymia), like the incontinent man (ho akrates). … Nor again is it desire alone which controls motion. The self-controlled, though they feel desire and appetite, do not do that which they have the desire to do, but obey nous. (Barnes, 1984, 432b 26–433a 8)

This moving is typically at the expense of other things and effects the functioning of other parts of the soul. Pathetikon is the term Aristotle uses to denote the power of the passions, permeated as they are with the power of desiring, and functioning in any of the following affections: craving (epithymia), anger, fear, daring, envy, gratification, friendliness, hatred, longing, jealousy, and pity.3 The passions are those things that move the organism yet cannot be seen, only felt. Aristotle unifies the diverse parts of the soul in his philosophy of human nature to a greater degree than Plato does. The nature of the passions is an extremely complex and an unsettled topic. Their nature is one of movement, force, and expression. The passions do not illumine or know themselves. The passions are more powerful than intelligence. They do not want to be controlled, seen, or understood. By examining them, one interferes with their movement. The passions in this case will resist; to be halted and examined is against their nature, their natural force. For these reasons, the passions are very difficult to understand. They are also difficult to understand because of what they do to the knower; the passions turn entelechia into a tool. The most difficult moment in any human being’s life is when passion takes over and turns the intellect into a tool alone. Knowing that which sustains us is important. The passions are viewed as powers or potencies, that is, capacities we have and according to which we are said to undergo or be subjects to certain



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processes. That is why Aristotle uses the term “passive processes,” and they occur almost involuntarily. All human beings, although not all animals, are capable of experiencing emotions; that is, we are all capable of getting angry or feeling pity, and so on. Aside from the faculty’s characteristic of sensing, the souls of animals also are in possession of potencies—the passions and the ability to form habits—that is, to structure their ways of responding to obtaining the means to satisfy the appetitive needs. The soul has two sides to it: the rational and the non-rational, both being indispensable and necessary for the organism to persevere and continue its course. One can turn to Nicomachean Ethics Book II, section 5 as well as Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Barnes, 1984) for an expansion of this discussion. There, Aristotle describes the passions (themselves potencies, powers, or dynameis) as also endowed with ways to form hexeis or habits. Still, these processes have a way of falling into patterns or structures, or habits. They are states according to which we handle the passions when they are aroused; the passions live within structures and what is being structured. Whether we handle them well or badly depends on how we have managed to form the corresponding habits. Anger, for example, is not the habit, but rather the habit related to anger is located in how the anger is expressed. Humans all get angry but do so in different ways. This is a case of conditioning and occurs with the aid of family upbringing, education, cultural standards, tradition, religion, and so on. The forming of habits with the aid of these agencies is not necessarily the best. The concept of “what is the best,” that is, aretē or excellence (tr. as virtue). Aretē must be understood as the most desired habit to effect eudaimonia or happiness (well-being), a topic that is discussed extensively in the Nicomachean Ethics. Of course, one of the hardest things with which humans wrestle is determining what is the best (Leighton, 1995). We naturally turn human nature into an object because human beings are a type of being. Talking about types of beings requires one to think of the human as a type to study within its own context. We can never get rid of the erotic or orexis (desire). The object may change, the level of value may change, but we always remain loving. Two particular forms of art in which both the passions and the conduct of human beings are objects of study are tragedy and poetry. In fact, the consequences of actions based on the passions when they take over the entire domain of psychic energy find rich examples in the Greek tragedies.4 Especially important to Aristotle as it relates to understanding and examination of human passions is the art of tragedy and tragic poetry. With regard to Dewey’s sensitivity to the aesthetic, Thomas Alexander points to the important place “dramatic temporality” holds in Dewey’s philosophy of experience and

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existence.5 However, Aristotle felt it important to focus in on a genre within the dramatic, the tragic. We see in the Poetics (Barnes, 1984) that art (for Aristotle) is the clearest illustration of what nature can do. Human art is not absolute novelty; it is a most successful instance of human production. Technē first meant a making of something. Nature, in the sense of “making” is the great poet (maker). Nature makes something out of her materials, while humans make things out of the materials that are external to them. Both processes, natural and artistic, make things by realizing potential forms in certain materials. Art completes what nature leaves incomplete; it imitates nature but does a better job and deliberately completes nature. What art imitates is nature’s productive activities, not nature’s products. In Aristotle’s view, tragedy is a type of poetry. It aims at arousing fear and pity for the protagonist in the souls of the audience. In tragic poetry we see not only an array of mere facts in some active sequence, but also the “why” of these events. This is so because tragedy works with universals and particulars. By making events intelligible to the spectator in an immediate way, art does consciously what nature does unconsciously. In nature we discover, while in art we behold universality and intelligibility. The poets make nature’s pattern clearer than she does. A good tragedy must have a single and important action, complete in itself, a perfected process with a thorough design; it must be done in beautiful language; it must be an ideal imitation in the form of universal knowledge and must disclose self-consciousness of the characters; its characters must exist in tragedy for the sake of action; it must arouse profound emotions, which give it an effectiveness that makes it better than epic poetry; it must not entertain but consolidate size, form, and order the emotions of the spectator, and this happens because a plausible universal is grasped in a direct theoria of action.6 We see Aristotle basing his theory of tragedy on his fundamental notions of functions and processes, and specifically the functions and processes of human nature as placed within the total system of processes we call nature. John P. Anton points out that the “[t]ragic personages face different situations but they see the same spectacle: what happens in life when the pressure of passions and acts of hubris and ignorance force man to lose sight of the desiderated harmony of human wholeness” (1974, p. 12). The cathartic moment in the tragedy serves an extremely important educational function. Anton clarifies this: What is needed then is to view the effects of catharsis as special acts of illumination, of intellectual enlightenment, of understanding conduct in the context of certain emotions. Catharsis is best understood as a case of fulfillment when



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viewed within the general framework of the educational process leading to eudaimonia through the moral and intellectual excellences. (1974, p. 17)

Aristotle did not outlaw the poets and the artists. Rather, he asked them to take their tasks seriously and join hands with all other seekers of wisdom for the education and happiness of men. Of chief import to the educational aim of selfknowledge is understanding the nature of that which moves us, the passions; to be ignorant is to ignore, and to ignore the movers, Aristotle believes, is the height of human ignorance. Thus, knowing thyself is crucial here because of the ease with which we so willingly and unknowingly deceive ourselves. This selfdeception is fed by the stealthy and forceful nature of our passions.

Towards understanding the passions In Dewey, we find scant mention of affections, emotions, or passions. When he does make mention of them, he does not set out to examine them or build on our understanding of their nature. He did, however, write an article dedicated to Darwin’s position on emotions (Dewey, 1894).7 While Dewey himself does not provide much enlightenment on the nature of passions such as anger, greed, pity, and so on, within the article, his sensitivity to the topic of the passions and human nature is evident throughout scores of his writing. Dewey asserts in Human Nature and Conduct: The nature of the strife of reason and passion is well stated by William James. The cue of passion, he says in effect, is to keep imagination dwelling upon those objects which are congenial to it, which feed it, and which by feeding it intensify its force, until it crowds out all thought of other objects. (1922, p. 136)

In this case we see that Dewey, paraphrasing from James, understands that passions do intensify the human’s attachment to objects of desire. Jim Garrison points to the power of human passions by saying, “The supreme power of human passion lies in its capacity of attaching itself to ‘ethereal things’ and thereby acquiring foresight and a greater capacity to engage in reasoning in order to realize its longings” (1994, p. 2). Dewey continues: The conclusion is not that the emotional, passionate phase of action can be or should be eliminated in behalf of bloodless reason. More “passions,” not fewer is the answer. … Rationality, once more, is not a force to evoke against impulse and habit. The man who would intelligently cultivate intelligence will widen,

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not narrow, his life of strong impulses while aiming at their happy coincidence in operation. (1922, p. 136)

Thus, with cultivating critical intelligence, the passions of the person should grow, not lessen. Of course, hopefully with this growth of passions comes the growth in understanding the nature of the passions and giving them constructive direction, but Dewey does not say much about that. Intelligence for Dewey is an extremely important tool/means in discerning reason’s object. Reason is the form through which we apprehend other forms. The main tool used for the clarification of new ideas, for problem-solving, is human intelligence. One of the central goals of education, for Dewey, is the development and maturation of human intelligence. Within Dewey’s instrumentality of intelligence, ideas are instruments that are subject to be tested for verifiability of assertion and to the consequence that will follow with their application. The emotion can do all sorts of things for and to us, but the main tool, which we depend on for the clarification of new ideas, for problem-solving, is human intelligence. One of the central goals of education is the development and maturation of human intelligence. This is a basic idea. Intelligence is a feature of human behavior; there are others such as passions, but one does not depend on jealousy to solve political problems. One will not get out of problems by involving special emotions, but one most likely will understand the nature of problems and how to solve them better through better understanding the passions. If one does not turn to intelligence, one will not be systematic and will inevitably miss the goal. Trusting and cultivating intelligence provides the creative vision for which one can discern the point at which his or her inquiry aims. The accuracy of one’s aim depends on the quality of vision, which is especially important when clarifying and understanding one’s passions. Passions are blind; they know not at which they aim. If they remain blind and disoriented/unguided by intelligence, democracy as a self-correcting way of life is compromised. This is why needing to know about how passions interfere and what ways they turn intelligence itself into a tool is imperative. The goal of having intelligence guide and control the passions is common to both Aristotle and Dewey. From becoming a tyrant and waging war to planting a rose or hugging one’s children, all of these actions are constructed to satisfy a passion.8 Dewey states, in Experience and Nature, it is necessary for all humans to disrobe from their habits and examine the fabric from which they are made.



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Aristotle helps us in pointing to what constitutes that fabric: passions. In the case of Dewey and examining the fabric with which our “clothes” are made, Aristotle helps with clarifying what the fabric is. It is not enough to know how one acts in transaction with others; of equal import is knowing how one acts within himself or herself (Dewey, 1925, p. 40). If there must exist a means in order to have an end and an end in order to have a means, discerning the object of desire or passion is critical. However, in order to identify that object, one must have knowledge about the nature of that which feeds the movement toward the object. When Dewey speaks of nature he takes the term to mean the totality of natures, and rightfully so; nature is the totality of natures within it. If more “passions,” not fewer is the answer, focusing in on and understanding the most forceful “mover” within our human nature is imperative. Dewey provides hope for change where Aristotle does not, however. While Aristotle agrees that habits, preferences, and tastes may change over time, he is dubious (in the case of the individual) that once the disposition and commensurate habits are set, they never can be reversed. Dewey, on the other hand, has faith in the power of the intelligence to overcome the stultification of habit and reconstruct experience. This is at the root of his philosophy of democracy as a way of life. In this way, the basis of changing human nature, then, is changing the perception that human nature is “unchangeable.” This perception also is an affected passion that humans cling to, and so being is difficult to redirect. How can we reconstruct the self if we do not know ourselves as well as we think we do? Do we understand our tragic weaknesses and flaws? How can we change the various ways in which we get angry if we do not first understand the nature of anger within our own being and actions? The emotions and passions are not as “ineffable and undefinable” as Dewey surmised, and we have proof of that in Aristotle.9 The question lies in whether or not the flywheel of philosophy can be turned back from modern to ancient to get a clearer understanding of the natural equipment we have as humans.

Conclusion Self-knowledge for both Aristotle and Dewey has much to do with control over one’s powers. Both thinkers are very well aware of the destruction and savage acts humans are capable of. In this way, it is the role of intelligence to

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direct the natural forces at work in the best and most rational way. Thus, the continual enhancement of self-mastery will aid the quest for humans to be self-correcting. It is, of course, one thing to look at human existence as a fact and another to explore its possibilities in order to envisage the ultimate ends it could attain. The range of possibilities covers both that of failure, in which case the errors of judgment in action lead to evil, and also that of success, where the possibilities of sound judgment in action lead to the good. In referring back to Aristotle to help clarify Dewey’s task of “changing human nature,” we see not just what is at stake throughout the cathartic moments of our experience and our working to become masters of our passions, but also we learn what we are up against, which turns out to be ourselves and our own nature. Neither Dewey nor Aristotle alone holds the answer or key to knowing the deep secrets of the soul and human passions. However, when read in concert, the two thinkers are powerful in illuminating the rich and infinite landscape of human potentiality. Both Thomas Alexander’s and Jim Garrison’s endorsement of understanding Dewey by way of his aesthetics is sound advice. The technē of self-creation and re-creation demands that we not only become sensitive to the “dramatic temporality” of our experience, but also to the tragedy of everyday life and the tragic flaws that threaten to weaken our rational control over our own powers. In knowing thyself, humans turn themselves into the object for examination, and for this reason human nature and especially the nature of human passions is never a settled topic. This incompleteness will ignite our passion to continue forward. Dewey states: The man who sets a goal of final achievement before himself, a goal in which he anticipates having overcome all defects, and exhausted all the possibilities, sets before himself a goal of extinction of conscious life. It is the sense of the incomplete that stirs us to action: it is the stirring to action which makes us conscious of ourselves and of this world in which we live. (Dewey, 1901, p. 65)

Learning about oneself and educating others about the passions is an extremely difficult undertaking. It requires unlearning and reconstructing experience. Dewey tells us that before the drama of experience there are dramatic rehearsals, and the passions are present in both forms of drama. If we can explore further the enriching reciprocity between Aristotle and Dewey, the stirring to intelligent action will make us not only conscious of ourselves, but, more importantly, conscious of the nature of the passionate “stirrings” themselves.



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Notes 1 In Dewey’s words: “This formal activity which operates throughout a series of changes and holds them to a single course; which subordinates their aimless flux to its own perfect manifestation; which, leaping the boundaries of space and time, keeps individuals distant in space and remote in time to a uniform type of structure and function: this principle seemed to give insight into the very nature of reality itself. To it Aristotle gave the name, eidos. This term the scholastics translated as species” (1910, p. 5). 2 Amelia O. Rorty highlights Aristotle’s continued relevance to the discussion of the passions by stating, “While contemporary discussion of the passions have abandoned the Aristotelian metaphysical setting in which pathe were introduced, they have retained the distinctions and pre-occupations which were embedded in that metaphysical setting” (1984, p. 522). 3 Some distinctions are needed with reference to Aristotle’s terminology in reference to the various appetitive parts of the soul. Desire (epithymia) as orexis, involves pleasure and pain. 4 A rich discussion of the importance of the “tragic vision” to Greek “Philosophic Theoria” can be found in Anton (1974). As it relates to a rational understanding of the emotions and passions, Anton says, “Emotional thought and rational passion both were considered gateways leading directly to the citadel of wisdom, to understanding ‘being’ and ‘becoming’” (1974, p. 2). 5 The term “dramatic temporality” is taken from the work of Thomas Alexander, and within the context of this essay, his chapter “The Human Eros” is specifically important (Alexander, 1993). The theme of that essay has since been expanded into a book-length treatment (Alexander, 2013). 6 In the Poetics, Aristotle states, “A tragedy, then is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions” (Barnes, 1984, 1449b 22–1449b 31). 7 There is no mention of Aristotle in this article. Rather, it deals primarily with Darwin’s theory of emotion and the James-Lange theory of the nature of emotion. 8 Dewey mentions war as a social institution in his essay, “Does Human Nature Change?” (1938). 9 Dewey stated in his Human Nature and Conduct, “There is a point in deliberate action where definite thought fades into the ineffable and indefinable—into emotion” (1922, p. 181). This quote also is found in a conference paper (that is related in some respects to this chapter) presented at the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy by Gregory Fahy in 2002, titled “Being properly affected: Emotion in John Dewey’s Virtue Ethics.”

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References Alexander, T. (1987), John Dewey’s Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. —(1993), “The Human Eros,” in J. Stuhr (ed.), Philosophy and the Reconstruction of Culture. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. —(2013), The Human Eros. New York: Fordham University Press. Anton, J. (1974), “Tragic Vision and Philosophic Theoria in Classical Greece,” in C. Walton and J. Anton (eds), Philosophy and the Civilizing Arts: Essays Presented to Herbert W. Schneider. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. —(2005), American Naturalism and Greek Philosophy. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Barnes, J. (ed.) (1984), The Complete Works of Aristotle. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dewey, J. (1894), “The Theory of Emotion,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1901), “Commencement Address: San Jose State Normal School,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 17. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1910), “The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1922), “Human Nature and Conduct,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 14. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1925), “Experience and Nature,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1938), “Does Human Nature Change?,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 13. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Fahy, G. (2002), Being Properly Affected: Emotion in John Dewey’s Virtue Ethics. [online] Available at: http://american-philosophy.org/archives/past_conference_ programs/pc2002/2002_papers/tp-6.htm [accessed: October 30, 2013]. Garrison, J. (1994), “Dewey, Eros and Education,” Education and Culture, 11 (2), 1–5. —(1997), Dewey and Eros. New York: Teachers College Press. Lachs, J. (2012), Stoic Pragmatism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Leighton, S. (1995), “The Value of Passions in Plato and Aristotle,” Southwest Philosophy Review, 11, 41–56. Neatby, H. (1953), So Little for the Mind. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin. Pearson, G. (2012), Aristotle on Desire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, A. (1980), Explaining Emotions. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

Part IV

Dewey and Hellenistic Thought

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Epicurean Pragmatism Charles A. Hobbs

There has been little attention to the relationship between pragmatism and Hellenistic and Roman philosophy. As one of the few contemporary voices addressing this intersection, John Lachs creatively treats pragmatism and Stoicism together in his Stoic Pragmatism (2012), arguing that the optimistic spirit of pragmatist philosophers such as William James, Josiah Royce, and John Dewey should be balanced by a measured acceptance of our basic human limitations, as found, e.g., in Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius (see also Lachs, 2005). I have no dispute with Lachs. Indeed, I celebrate and give thanks for his efforts and the spirit in which they are made. Yet instead of furthering the discussion of pragmatism in relation to Stoicism, I here wish to consider pragmatism in relation to a competing ancient tradition, namely Epicureanism (but with warm appreciation of Lachs for helping inspire my title). While previous work on Epicureanism and pragmatism involves C. S. Peirce, my pragmatist of choice—even though he rarely used that exact label for himself—shall be Dewey (see Gordon and Suits, 2003; Hobbs, 2008). When Dewey speaks of the “ancient” or “Greek” philosophical tradition, much of the time he tends to refer exclusively to the Athenian philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, and not to the rich developments of subsequent ancient philosophy. These discussions regarding Plato and Aristotle have since been mainly characterized as ambivalent, a theme that has been explored by scholars such as John Anton (1965), Frederick Anderson (1967), and Joseph Betz (1980), among others (see Hobbs, 2013). It is less known that Dewey also engages with Hellenistic and Roman philosophical traditions, and so far as I can tell this engagement has not yet been discussed in scholarly works, with only one exception. The exception is a wise but brief comment made by Gregory Pappas in his John Dewey’s Ethics: Democracy as Experience (2008). Here is the relevant paragraph from Pappas, in which he quotes Dewey:

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Moral views that emphasize the present as a mere means to a remote future lack a certain wisdom. After all, the present is what is most under our control, while the future is not. Therefore, to subordinate the present to the future “is to subject the comparatively secure to the precarious, [to] exchange resources for liabilities.” For Dewey this was “the element of truth in Epicureanism.” The problem with Epicureanism lay in its “conception of what constitutes present good, not in its emphasis upon satisfaction as the present.” (Pappas, 2008, p. 147)

With this, Pappas helpfully points the way to more work to be done on the relationship between Dewey and the ancients. In this way, I take my orders from Pappas in trying to provide a more extended treatment of this neglected connection and its implications, and in so doing I identify such emphasis on the present as Epicurean Pragmatism. I shall take into account Dewey’s assessment of the Epicureans in his 1922 Human Nature and Conduct and in the 1932 edition (with J. H. Tufts) of his Ethics. In so doing, I demonstrate how Dewey finds in that often misunderstood ethical tradition the historical precursor to Dewey’s own emphasis upon the primacy of the present (as Pappas has briefly indicated), an emphasis quite unlike utilitarianism’s shameful subordination of the present to the future. To understand the significance of Epicurean thought for Dewey is to also better understand why Dewey is decidedly not the utilitarian for whom he has sometimes been mistaken by scholars such as Jennifer Welchman (1995). Quite the contrary, Dewey’s rich naturalistic approach is part of a reawakening of the classical philosophical spirit. I have in mind the reply Dewey is reported to have given to a question from some Columbia University graduate students in the 1915/16 school-year. The question is purported to have been about how Dewey would classify himself as a philosopher, and Dewey is said to have swiftly responded that the answer is easy: he readily classified himself as part of a revival of Greek philosophy (see Veazie, 1961). Here we might also recall James’ 1907 remark that pragmatism—while having C. S. Peirce as its modern founder—is in some sense as old as Socrates, which I do not take to be hyperbole as we recall the very subtitle of the work in which James said it was “a new name for some old ways of thinking” (James, 1975, p. 30). Let us proceed first by briefly recounting some of the basics of the Epicurean approach to ethics, which includes the Epicurean position on death. Whether in Epicurus’ foundational “Letter to Menoeceus” (Epicurus et al., 1994) or in the philosophical poetry of Lucretius’ masterful De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) (Lucretius et al., 2003), key to Epicureanism is ataraxia—literally



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freedom from pain or disturbance—as the central moral ideal This notion is probably best highlighted by the opening of the second book of De Rerum Natura. With his characteristic panache, Lucretius’ explanation is also a kind of exhortation: Sweet it is, when the wind whips the water on the great sea, to gaze from the land upon the great struggles of another, not because it is a delightful pleasure for anyone to be distressed, but because it is sweet to observe those evils which you lack yourself. Sweet, too, to gaze upon the great contests of war staged on the plains, when you are free from all danger... ... O wretched minds of men, o blind hearts! In what darkness of life and in what great dangers this little span of time is spent! Don’t you see that nature cries out for nothing except that somehow pain be separated and absent from the body, and that she enjoy in the mind pleasant feelings, and be far from care and fear? (Lucretius et al., 2003, p. 31)

The Epicureans recognized that probably the biggest obstacle to ataraxia is fear and/or anxiety. Here are three random illustrations: 1) the hypochondriac detracts from the quality of her life by constant anxiety over health issues; 2) it really does not matter how sexy one is if one remains anxious about whether one is sexy enough; also, and more importantly, 3) how could one enjoy the pleasant feelings of which Lucretius speaks—in this life here and now—if one is constantly anxious or worried about some supposed other life yet to come? It is of course well known that Epicureans are hedonists. The tradition says emphatically that the first and highest good is pleasure itself. In the “Letter to Menoeceus,” the words of the founding father are clear enough: ...[W]e say that pleasure is the starting-point and goal of living blessedly. For we recognized this as our first innate good, and this is our starting point for every choice and avoidance and we come to this by judging every good by the criterion of feeling. (Epicurus et al., 2003, p. 30)

The good or happy life is understood as the pleasant life, and, according to the Epicurean vision, philosophy itself is basically the study of how to be happy in this sense. While hedonism is sometimes viewed as a pejorative term, this need not be the case for Epicureanism, even though the tradition certainly does claim that in principle pleasure is good and pain bad. Instead—as we recall the importance of ataraxia—for the Epicureans, pleasure itself is to be understood as the

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absence of pain, and with “pain” being simply the unsatisfied desire for such pleasure, whether that desire expresses itself, e.g. in terms of sex, love, material luxury, or fame. It is, Epicurus said, “… the lack of pain in the body and disturbance in the soul.” The best life is one free from such pain and disturbance: that is the essence of Epicurean hedonism. Such is the context in which we find the Epicurean concern for ameliorating the fear of death and the arguments they marshal against such fear. The Epicurean thought is that such fear is one of the most serious disturbances that can trouble us, and theirs is a tradition aiming to make life better for us such that we can approach our own demise with calmness of mind. That is, the reason Epicurus urges us to get used to believing that death is nothing to us is because it shall make “… the mortality of life a matter of contentment, not by adding a limitless time [to life] but by removing the longing for immortality.” It is of fundamental significance to bear this in mind when considering Epicurus’ famous death-is-nothing-to-us argument, with the relevant passage from the “Letter to Menoeceus” running as follows: … [T]here is nothing fearful in life for one who has grasped that there is nothing fearful in the absence of life. Thus, he is a fool who says that he fears death not because it will be painful when present but because it is painful when it is still to come. For that which while present causes no distress causes unnecessary pain when merely anticipated. So death, the most frightening of bad things, is nothing to us; since when we exist, death is not yet present, and when death is present, then we do not exist. Therefore, it is relevant neither to the living nor to the dead, since it does not affect the former, and the latter do not exist. (Epicurus et al., 1994, p. 29)

We can understand the structure of this argument in four steps, including a wonderfully obvious first premise: 1) While one is alive, one is not dead; 2) Once one is dead, then one no longer exists (as death is assumed, along naturalistic lines, to be simply nothingness or nonexistence); 3) Because the state of being dead and the state of being a person do not overlap, there is no time during which one’s own death can be bad for one; 4) Thus, one should not fear death! Put in slightly different terms, as long as a person is alive, her death has not yet come, and of course upon her death she is alive no more. So because no one will ever encounter her own demise, death ought to be of no concern, although we should qualify that this applies specifically to the individual subject of death and not to one’s experiences as they relate to the death of others.1 It is and should



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be nothing to us. There is an important sense in which such an argument is one Dewey could have easily endorsed and applauded, a consideration to which we shall return shortly. Let us turn now to consideration of Dewey’s own remarks about Epicureanism. In Parts Three and Four of Human Nature and Conduct, and also in the 1932 Ethics, Dewey makes a point of mentioning the Epicureans, and (perhaps surprising to some) he does so in a fairly approving way, while recognizing in the Ethics how their original doctrine has been slandered over the years—as he says, “a doctrine far removed from that surrender to voluptuous pleasures often associated with the name” (Dewey, 1932, p. 201). After all, Epicurus himself had said that the goal of living does not involve overindulgence in drink, sex parties, or in various gastronomical delights. So those who continue to misuse the term “Epicurean” and/or “Epicureanism” would do well to return to the words of the Greek master: … [W]hen we say that pleasure is the goal we do not mean the pleasures of the profligate or the pleasures of consumption, as some believe, either from ignorance and disagreement or from deliberate misinterpretation, but rather the lack of pain in the body and disturbance in the soul [ataraxia]. For it is not drinking bouts and continuous partying and enjoying boys and women, or consuming fish and the other dainties of an extravagant table, which produce the pleasant life, but sober calculation which searches out the reasons for every choice and avoidance and drives out the opinions which are the source of the greatest turmoil for men’s souls. (Epicurus et al., 1994, p. 31)

With this, Dewey, who as we recall is a reviver of Greek philosophy, understands the theory (his term) “in its original form” (Dewey, 1932, p. 201). Dewey aptly characterizes this classical approach to living with the following passage: There is ... on this theory great difference between a thoughtless grasping at the pleasures of the moment, and a reflectively regulated procedure. Experience teaches that some enjoyments are extremely fleeting and are also likely to be followed by reactions of discomfort and suffering. Such is the case with all extreme and violent pleasures. Indulgence in intense pleasure rarely pays; it is a liability rather than an asset. For experience shows that such a pleasure usually plunges us into situations that are attended with inconvenience and suffering. Those enjoyments which turn out to be good are calm and equable pleasures; experience discloses that these spring from intellectual and esthetic sources which, being within us, are within our control. Pleasures of the appetites, like sex, may be more intense, but they are not so enduring nor so likely to give rise to future occasions of enjoyment as those which come from books, friendship,

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the fostering of esthetic delight. Our senses and appetites are concerned with external things, and hence commit us to situations we cannot control. Of the delights of the senses, however, those of the eye and ear are better worth cultivating than those of taste and smell. For the former are more closely associated with intellectual pleasures, and also with conditions more common, more widely spread, in nature. Enjoyment of sunlight, moving waters, fresh air, is tranquil and easily obtainable. To entrust one’s gratifications to objects of luxury is to commit one’s self to troublesome search and probable disappointment. The simple life is the good life because it is the one most assured of present enjoyment. (Dewey, 1932, pp. 200–1)

Dewey further characterizes such a simple Epicurean life as one according to which “private friendship” is more valuable than “public life,” for friendship is natural and fosters harmony, whereas the public life (the political life—as Aristotle is often translated) involves risking one’s well-being by placing it “… at the disposal of things beyond control, and to involve oneself in violent changes or at least continual vicissitudes” (Dewey, 1932, p. 201). So, far from seeing in it a one-dimensional tradition of worldly delights, Dewey claims an aspect of truth within Epicureanism. This brings us to Dewey’s appreciation of the Epicurean emphasis on what is within our control for the realization of good in the present, which he expresses in the Ethics as follows: Its maxim is to cherish those elements of enjoyment in the present which are most assured, and to avoid entanglement in external circumstances. This emphasis upon the conditions of security of present enjoyment is at once the strong and the weak point in the Epicurean doctrine. (Dewey, 1932, p. 201)

Dewey perhaps could have framed this slightly better: from his perspective, “the weak point” of the philosophy of the garden is its identification of one single good (in this case pleasure), but it is the emphasis upon the present (as Dewey himself emphasizes with italics) that is the strong point and that is, indeed, the center of Dewey’s own philosophical approach, an approach perhaps best characterized as Epicurean pragmatism. It was ten years earlier that Dewey published Human Nature and Conduct, and here I call attention to the Conclusion, specifically to Section I: “The Good of Activity” (a title which itself may imply the present). As already mentioned, Dewey declares an element of truth in Epicureanism, and this is despite the great likelihood that there are those who would respond that Dewey and Epicureans must be thus irresponsibly suggesting some purely egotistical life:



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Doubtless there are those who will think that we thus escape from remote and external ends only to fall into an Epicureanism which teaches us to subordinate everything else to present satisfactions. The hypothesis preferred may seem to some to advise a subjective, self-centered life of intensified consciousness, an esthetically dilettante type of egoism. For is not its lesson that we should concentrate attention, each upon the consciousness accompanying his action so as to refine and develop it? Is not this, like all subjective morals, an anti-social doctrine, instructing us to subordinate the objective consequences of our acts, those which promote the welfare of others, to an enrichment of our private conscious lives? (Dewey, 1922, p. 201)

Rather, Dewey is simply recognizing Epicureanism as aiming to place our attention on that which is genuinely within our grasp as opposed to that which is uncertain and contingent. In doing so, they identify the good with the present as opposed to the future. That being said, Dewey does recognize the problematic nature of Epicureanism’s own account of such good as being its weak point: The trouble with it lies in its account of present good. It failed to connect this good with the full reach of activities. It contemplated good of withdrawal rather than of active participation. That is to say, the objection to Epicureanism lies in its conception of what constitutes present good, not in its emphasis upon satisfaction as at present? (Dewey, 1922, p. 201)

So, while Dewey speaks approvingly of the Epicureans, there is nevertheless an objection, namely the Epicurean identification of the good with pleasure, with Dewey refusing to claim any one fixed good. Still, from the Deweyan perspective, as indicated in the above passage, the Epicureans were really identifying something of fundamental importance, that is, the significance of the present (to repeat Dewey: “satisfaction as at present”), as opposed to subordinating it to the future. This is what they had right! This is in stark contrast to Dewey’s assessment of utilitarianism, which he believes neglects the present for the sake of the future. According to Dewey, the utilitarians “… strove to humanize other-worldly goods …”, and yet “… they retained the notion that the good is future, and hence outside the meaning of present activity” (Dewey, 1922, p. 200). In a poetic moment of Part Three (“The Place of Intelligence in Conduct”), he says in a discussion of deliberation and calculation that utilitarianism is a movement “… concerned not with extracting the honey of the passing moment but with breeding improved bees and constructing hives” (Dewey, 1922, p. 143). To do so it offers us an impossibly complex ethical calculus, although, to be fair, one motivated by the attempt

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to work toward the development of a form of character exhibiting a social perspective of sympathy for all of sentient experience. It is well known that the most famous utilitarian, John Stuart Mill, states a historical link between utilitarianism and Epicureanism, namely that both traditions articulate moderate versions of hedonism. As he indicates at the beginning of the second chapter of Utilitarianism, Mill considers Epicurus a proto-utilitarian or at least a definite utilitarian precursor (1979, p. 6). He makes this clear with his definition of happiness: “By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure” (Mill and Sher, 1979, p. 7). The link here is quite apparent when we again recall Epicurus’ characterization of the good life as pleasure as freedom from pain/ disturbance. Now, again, Dewey would reject the emphasis that both claim on identifying the human good with one designated thing, in this case pleasure, but the key difference between the two, according to Dewey, and unacknowledged by Mill, is the Epicurean practical wisdom of knowing better than to try to found present activity on dubious assessments of generalized future pains and pleasures. Dewey calls our attention to the fact that “one has only to read between the lines to see the enormous difference that marks off modem utilitarianism from epicureanism, in spite of similarities in professed psychologies” (Dewey, 1922, pp. 142–3). While it is correct that both Epicureans and utilitarians hold that pleasure is our native good (and so share hedonism in common, as Mill recognizes), it is notable and commendable that the Epicureans are the ones who avoid the naïveté required to be seduced by the cost-benefit analysis which characterizes so much of utilitarianism. Dewey continues: Epicureanism is too worldly-wise to indulge in attempts to base present action upon precarious estimates of future and universal pleasures and pains. On the contrary it says let the future go, for life is uncertain. Who knows when it will end, or what fortune the morrow will bring? Foster, then, with jealous care every gift of pleasure now allotted to you, dwell upon it with lingering love, prolong it as best you may? (Dewey, 1922, p. 143)

Dewey shows himself to be a kindred spirit with Epicureans in enthusiastically affirming their wisdom of emphasizing the fundamental primacy of the present. The reason Dewey could have easily endorsed and applauded Epicurus’ death-is-nothing-to-us argument is that it aims at focusing attention back to the present, one of Dewey’s own main goals. Individual lives will end, but when we do not know (unless one successfully chooses the ultimate action



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herself, admittedly always a possibility and well recognized by Camus and more recently by John J. McDermott). Perhaps we shall be denied any tomorrow or perhaps we shall have it: Epicureanism, like Deweyan pragmatism, recognizes the precarious and tragic, and it also recognizes that, while many of us may act to the contrary, there is nevertheless not any need to brood over our losses or to dread the ones to come in pathetic anticipation of predicted—and in some cases, guaranteed—negative outcomes. This Hellenistic and Roman emphasis on the experiential present of existence accords directly with the only “imperative” (Dewey’s term) with which Dewey might ever agree, namely from the Conclusion: “So act as to increase the meaning of present experience” (Dewey, 1922, p. 196). To be faithful to Dewey in this, of course, we should acknowledge his addendum to this pragmatic “maxim” of present experience: But even then in order to get instruction about the concrete quality of such increased meaning we should have to run away from the law and study the needs and alternative possibilities lying within a unique and localized situation. The imperative, like everything absolute, is sterile. Till men [sic] give up the search for a general formula of progress they will not know where to look to find it. (Dewey, 1922, p. 196)

Thus the call “to increase the meaning of present experience” is perhaps best understood not as an imperative or maxim if that means a detachment from the given context. Perhaps, then, we are better off understanding it as a Deweyan principle, one referring always to the actual context at hand. At any rate, this presentist principle is a rallying cry which he constantly speaks to us, as, for example, when reminding us that “The present, not the future, is ours” (Dewey, 1922, p. 144). There is no batch of information, however large, and no cleverness that can transform the future into being ours. It is always not yet. As such, if we ask about the goal of thinking in terms of consequences, then we immediately realize that it is not for predicting the future. Rather, the real purpose is for understanding the unified meaning of the present, for ascertaining, in Dewey’s phrase: “… the meaning of present activities and to secure, so far as possible, a present activity with a unified meaning” (Dewey, 1922, p. 143). Thus the task of deliberation is not one of calculating future events and subordinating the present to such calculus, but, instead, deliberation is for evaluating the proposed activity of the present.2 How so? We make judgments about our present habits and desires through the tendencies they have for bringing about particular consequences. It is,

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Dewey says, “… our business to watch the course of our action so as to see what is the significance, the import of our habits and dispositions” (Dewey, 1922, p. 43). The outcomes of the future are of course contingent, as underscored by Epicureans. Using the example of a fire, Dewey reminds us that it could be extinguished or, unexpectedly, it could be fed and grow (Dewey, 1922, p. 43). Yet “… its tendency is a knowable matter, what it will do under certain circumstances” (Dewey, 1922, p. 43). Likewise, we can know the tendency of various virtues and vices (e.g. charity, patience, conceit, malice) through observation of their consequences, through remembering our observations, through employing such memories for constructing “imaginative forecasts of the future”, and through employing such forecasts to appraise the present quality of whatever action now being proposed (Dewey, 1922, pp. 143–4). When we engage in such Deweyan moral assessments as a secure basis for action and modification of habit, we are indeed Epicurean pragmatists, for all of this so importantly and prudently avoids the irresponsible practice of squandering present values in a wager on the contingent future. Now we must of course acknowledge that, at least in the Ethics, Dewey does ultimately judge Epicureanism as overly passive and seclusive, claiming that it “...not only omits the enjoyment which comes from struggle against adverse conditions, with effort to achieve the difficult, but it is a doctrine of retreat from the scene of struggle in which the mass of men are perforce engaged” (Dewey, 1932, pp. 201–2). As such, it is appealing perhaps only to the already well-off among us (and yet “is a doctrine which will always flourish, though probably under some other name”) (Dewey, 1932, p. 201). However, as we have seen, in basically the same breath Dewey acknowledges and profoundly appreciates the Epicurean wisdom tradition for its “underlying truth,” a truth which includes the significance of the cultivation of present enjoyment and meaning (the Epicurean practical lack of pain) as opposed to a utilitarian gamble of such value on the uncertain, unknown future (Dewey, 1932, p. 210). Such a nurturing care for the present is of course the very motivation for Epicurus own argument against the fear of death, as well as Lucretius’ so-called symmetry argument: we need peace of mind now.3 While it is true that fellow classical pragmatist William James can in at least one instance sound perhaps too close to utilitarianism for comfort (i.e. in his 1891 “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life”, in James, W., Burkhardt, F., Bowers, F. and Skrupskelis, I. K. 1979. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.), Dewey is never even tempted to subscribe to it. Rather, he provides the best alternative



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possible by drawing upon an ancient but ongoing tradition—which utilitarians misguidedly think of as theirs to claim—to show the proper and richest way of relating present and future. The present is of first-order value, and that is both the beauty and advantage of what I have termed Dewey’s Epicurean pragmatism, a form of classical pragmatism well suited for living.4

Notes 1 Let us also add that none of this means or is intended to indicate that particular ways of dying might not be bad. It could be painful or lonely or frightening—and we indeed recognize that there are such lived experiences. 2 “… the problem of deliberation is not to calculate future happenings but to appraise present proposed actions” (Dewey, 1922, p. 143). 3 The same could be said with respect to Epicurean arguments against the fear of the divine. Regarding Lucretius’ symmetry argument, see Book III of De Rerum Natura, particularly 4.830–850. 4 For helpful comments, criticisms, questions, suggestions, and for inspiration, I thank: Tom Jeannot, Wayne Pomerleau, Kevin Decker, Randy Spencer, Lee McBride, Gary Herstein, Tom Alexander, Gregory Pappas, John Lachs, and the audience for my presentation at the 40th annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (March 2013, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey).

References Anderson, F. (1967), “Dewey’s Experiment with Greek Philosophy,” International Philosophical Quarterly, 7 (1), 86–100. Anton, J. (1965), “John Dewey and Ancient Philosophies,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 25 (4), 477–99. Betz, J. (1980), “Dewey and Socrates,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, XVI (4), 329–56. Dewey, J. (1922), “Human Nature and Conduct,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 14. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. and Tufts, J. (1932), “Ethics,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 7. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Epicurus, Inwood, B. and Gerson, L. (1994), The Epicurus Reader. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Gordon, D. and Suits, D. (2003), Epicurus. Rochester, NY: RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press.

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Hobbs, C. (2008), “Peirce’s Tychism and the Epicurean Swerve,” Southwest Philosophical Studies, 30. —(2013), “Reconsidering John Dewey’s Relationship with Ancient Philosophy,” International Philosophical Quarterly, 53 (3), 325–36. James, W. (1975), Pragmatism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. James, W., Burkhardt, F., Bowers, F. and Skrupskelis, I. K. (1979). The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Lachs, J. (2005), “Stoic Pragmatism,” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 19 (2), 95–106. —(2012), Stoic Pragmatism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Lucretius, Carus, T. and Englert, W. (2003), On the Nature of Things. Newburyport, MA: Focus. Mill, J. and Sher, G. (1979), Utilitarianism. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Pappas, G. (2008), John Dewey’s Ethics: Democracy as Experience. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Veazie, W. (1961), “John Dewey and the Revival of Greek Philosophy,” University of Colorado Studies, (2), 1–10. Welchman, J. (1995), Dewey’s Ethical Thought. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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The Peace of the Sword: Dewey and Pyrrhonian Skepticism Joel Amnott

Throughout his writing, John Dewey has a deep engagement with the history of philosophy. While he frequently references the Greeks or the Ancients as groups, and explicitly draws attention to the work of Plato and Aristotle, he rarely explicitly engages with the classical Skeptics. Nevertheless, as the philosopher of Inquiry, it seems intuitively obvious that Dewey must have engaged with the thinkers who gave rise to this concept, which he so thoroughly made his own. In the context of an examination of the notion of peace in our time, I have set out to discuss Dewey’s relationship with the themes of classical skepticism. Moving through the notions of inquiry, habit and belief, I apply the Deweyan lens of existence-as-precarious to shed light on Dewey’s discussion of knowledge production and truth.

The new peace In beginning to write this chapter, I was particularly struck by the divergence between the end of inquiry for Dewey, as opposed to that of the classical skeptics. While the end of inquiry for classical skepticism is the suspension of judgment, for Dewey it is precisely the opposite; the end of any inquiry must be in the formation of a new habit, a new way of relating to the world. This divergence seemed particularly poignant to me, as I was engaged in examining these issues around the tenth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That invasion opened the door to the new truth we created about the “War on Terror,” and hence the possible meanings of peace. For just as the “Cold War” meant that peace could only be found in the contentious detente of mutually assured destruction, the

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War on Terror has come to mean that peace entails persistent global military struggle between ways of life that are defined to be mutually inimical. One of the consequences of Dewey’s grappling with the problem of knowledge was his recognition of the far-reaching consequences that our understanding of ways of knowing—or “epistemology”—has for the way we value the world—or “ethics” in the broadest possible sense. It is important to recall that Dewey preferred the use of “inquiry” over “epistemology,” which aided in his avoidance of hard distinctions between fields of valuation. In particular, he recognized an indelible connection among the moral, political, and economic realms. Dewey’s project was consistently one intended to promote a particular way of relating to the world, one in which we come to understand that living in the world means being enmeshed in a field of experience that blurs the lines between the organism and the environment, and that environmental stimuli are as much a product of how the organism is predisposed to relate to its environment as they are products of that environment. That project promotes a casting away of the traditional methods for carving up experience, and, in the spirit of that project, philosophy is as much or more a way of life as it is a means of understanding something about a field of knowledge. Furthermore, Dewey’s emphasis on knowing as a creative, transactional process seems particularly timely. For all the chaos and tumult of Dewey’s life— and as someone who endured significant personal tragedy, came of age during reconstruction, and saw two world wars, that chaos was considerable—the world we live in today does not seem any less chaotic. Dewey’s prescription—that we set aside the search for an eternal ground for knowing which cannot be a part of the world we inhabit, and engage with the precarious qualities of life through the method of intelligently directed inquiry—is at least as compelling today as it was during his lifetime. The tumultuous cast of the events of Dewey’s life no doubt caused him to emphasize the precarious nature of existence, and, in reflecting on the changes the past decade has wrought, I find this understanding of precarious existence compelling, and Dewey’s development of truths of a society as the actively created product of that society remarkably on point. Individually we develop habits, and in aggregate those habits of individuals shape the face of the public. This seems especially true when it comes to the new understanding of peace adopted by the U.S. in the wake of a decade of the “War on Terror.” Peace, it seems to me, has been redefined in the wake of the “International War on Terror.” It may be that the changes in my habits of the last decade bring this to mind particularly keenly. I check casualty lists compulsively. Ten years



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ago, at the height of the conflict in Iraq, this could take hours of work. Today, mechanisms have been developed to disseminate information on U.S. and coalition casualties relatively efficiently; getting information on non-coalition casualties remains extremely problematic. No doubt part of the reason for this ease of access to this information is the public desire for access to it; while the military has well-developed mechanisms in place for notifying immediate family and next-of-kin, before the current reporting mechanisms were established it was extremely difficult for friends or distant relations to learn about casualties unless notified by members of the deceased’s immediate family. And yet, in spite of the rhetoric of the “War on Terror” and some increased hassle at airports, there seems to be little overt awareness of the ongoing conflicts. The maimed and dead are kept out of the news. This new sort of peace, that seems to exist in conscious, willful ignorance of the precarious conditions that give rise to it, is at the very least intensely unsatisfying, and probably unsustainable. “The quest for certainty is a quest for a peace which is assured, an object which is unqualified by risk and the shadow of fear which action casts” (Dewey, 1929, p. 7). If we are to find some new peace in this precarious world, it will not be through an appeal to the eternal, nor through the blind optimism of simply declaring our “Mission Accomplished.” Such peace as we may find in the world may be as precarious as the world that gives rise to it, but it will not be a peace in spite of that world, one which ignores the precariousness of existence. The quest for certainty is defined by such a search for peace, and it is in the seeking for tranquility, what the Greeks termed ataraxia, that we find one of the roots of that quest.

Ancient skepticism Many schools of classical Hellenistic thought sought ataraxia as an end of their philosophy. What distinguishes the skeptics from those other schools, such as the Stoics and the Epicureans, is that the skeptics found ataraxia not in the adoption and adherence to any particular set of principles or dogmas concerning the good life, but rather in the suspension of judgments concerning such things. The classic tradition recognized two schools of skepticism: the Academics and the Pyrrhonists. While the membership in one or the other school is readily determined, the substantive differences between the two schools are not (Thorsrud, 2009, pp. 7–16). The primary difference between these two seems to have been that:

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[A]lthough the Pyrronians and the Academics express themselves very much alike about these matters, yet they are thought to differ from each other both in certain other respects and especially for this reason—because the Academics do, as it were, “comprehend” the very fact that nothing can be comprehended, while the Pyrronians assert that not even that can by any means be regarded as true, because nothing is regarded as true. (Aulus Gellius, 2011, 11.5.8) The work of the Pyrrhonian Sextus Empiricus, in particular, bears a striking resemblance to Dewey’s exploration of the problem of knowledge. In Outlines of Scepticism (Annas and Barnes, 2000), Sextus Empiricus lays out the Pyrrhonian project in considerable detail, beginning with an examination of the motivation behind adopting the skeptical perspective. The causal principle of skepticism we say is the hope of becoming tranquil. Men of talent, troubled by the anomaly in things and puzzled as to which of them they should rather assent to, came to investigate in things what is true, what false, mistakenly thinking that by deciding these issues they would become tranquil. “The chief constitutive principle of skepticism is the claim that to every account an equal account is opposed; for it is from this, we think, that we come to hold no beliefs” (Annas and Barnes, 2000, 1.12). For Sextus Empiricus, the end of inquiry (skepsis) was the suspension of judgment (epochē). Properly adopted, this suspension of judgment would lead to ataraxia, or tranquility. Pyrrho in particular is said to have been remarkably unflappable, and his engaging in the cultivation of an attitude of suspended judgment was held to be the key to his tranquility.

Experience, doubt, and inquiry On the surface, there are some remarkable similarities between Dewey’s descriptions of experience and inquiry, and the texts of classical skepticism. Dewey’s characterization of direct existence, for example, is superficially similar to the classical Academic position described by Aulus Gellius. In Experience and Nature, he notes that the “[i]mmediacy of existence is ineffable. But there is nothing mystical about such ineffability; it expresses the fact that of direct existence it is futile to say anything to one’s self and impossible to say anything to another” (Dewey, 1925, p. 74). However, Dewey’s point is not to claim that we fundamentally lack the ability to know the world; rather, he is drawing out one of the distinctions between his transactional method of knowing the world and the older spectator theory of knowledge. For Dewey, every knowing



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is the product of some specific inquiry, an inquiry conducted into the field of experience: Knowing is, for philosophical theory, a case of specially directed activity instead of something isolated from practice. … The principle of indeterminacy thus presents itself as the final step in the dislodgment of the old spectator theory of knowledge. It marks the acknowledgment, within scientific procedure itself, of the fact that knowing is one kind of interaction which goes on within the world. Knowing marks the conversion of undirected changes into changes directed toward an intended conclusion. (Dewey, 1929, p. 163)

Where the classical skeptics, and their modern descendants, find irremediable error in the process of knowing about the world, Dewey finds the ground for understanding how we actively participate in creating that knowledge about the world. Similarly, while the doubt that the skeptics express seems superficially similar to Dewey’s notion of doubt, they are actually remarkably different. For the classical skeptics, the validity of different interpretations was doubted because they seemed equally reasonable explanations for the issue under consideration. Carried to hyperbolic extremes, this doubt paralyzes, whether or not it leads to tranquility. Hyperbolic doubt blocks inquiry, and taken up in the manner espoused by the classical skeptics, it leads to inaction in the face of problematic situations. Yet, in spite of the fact that he promotes doubt as a valuable tool, Dewey remains utterly unafraid of it: Experimental method thus teaches us how to deal with doubt. We do not cover it up and deny its existence. We are to cultivate it. But we are not to cherish it, as ancient skeptics did, as an end in itself. It then tends to paralyze action. We are to cherish doubt as but the first stage in the development of a question so put that it will direct action to the discovery of facts which will answer the question. (Dewey, 1933, p. 95)

While both Dewey and the classical skeptics cultivate doubt, for Dewey doubt is a means to finding answers, not an end. To stop inquiry in the face of doubt would, for Dewey, be to miss the point of inquiry entirely. For Dewey, the end of inquiry is the resolution of a problematic situation. Unlike the classical skeptics, Dewey’s resolution to inquiry would not generally be characterized by a suspension of judgment. Instead, the end of inquiry marks a return to an equilibrium state for the organism, wherein a new habit has been adopted. While there are certain similarities between the process of inquiry espoused by the classical skeptics and Dewey, here they clearly part company.

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It is helpful here to recall the nuances of Dewey’s notion of habit. At their most basic, habits for Dewey are tendencies to act. Since all of human activity is action of a sort—including practices as diverse as the thinking involved in abstract knowing, or meditation directed toward non-action—habit for Dewey becomes an umbrella term for everything organisms do, including those things which are typically non-conscious, such as the maintenance of heartbeat and breathing, the individual muscle movements involved in the movement of the body, or physical growth. He began developing this notion at least as early as 1896, with “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology.” In examining the concept of the reflex arc, Dewey criticized the psychology of his day for positing that the reflex arc operates according to a simple stimulus-response model. Contrarily, Dewey recognized that organisms are always already in the midst of an environment, and are enmeshed in a net of habits that serve to select stimuli from the environment which they then act upon. Action is not according to simple stimulus-response diads, but is a constantly circulating cybernetic process. In the classic example of the child grasping for the flame, touching it, receiving the stimulus of pain, and then responding to the pain by jerking her hand back, Dewey notes that it is at least as important to understand why the child reaches for the flame—as opposed to a toy, or another object in the environment—and to recognize that the reaching itself is a complicated learned behavior that involves directedness, an end in view. What the tradition of epistemology discusses as “given,” Dewey notes, might more properly be understood as “taken:” [A]s data they are selected from this total original subject-matter which gives the impetus to knowing; they are discriminated for a purpose:—that, namely, of affording signs or evidence to define and locate a problem, and thus give a clew to its resolution. (Dewey, 1929, pp. 142–3)

Dewey continues to complicate the notion of habit through his career. In Experience and Nature, Dewey discusses the way habit formation is further complicated by the process of communication (1925, pp. 213–16). New habits must be integrated into the coherent mesh of current habit. The adoption of a new habit by an organism is made progressively more complicated as the field of acquired habits becomes more complex. As systems of communication and meaning become more complex, they in turn increase by orders of magnitude the network of intersecting habits brought to bear on any situation. Communication simultaneously makes habit far more fluid, as it allows for connections among habits to be brought to bear to become infinitely more



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complex, but, as with any learning, it further restricts the paths that future learning can take, inasmuch as all future habits must cohere with the currently established system. Inasmuch as the response of the classical skeptics to problematic situations is the formation of a habit—that of suspending judgment—it is certainly possible to cast the process they engaged in in Deweyan terms; however, the reverse is not possible. The character of the classical skeptic practice seems to be a withdrawing from the world; Deweyan inquiry is precisely the opposite. It is the process by which we engage with the world.

The quest for certainty Many of the issues which underwrite the distinctions between the classical skeptics and Dewey continue to be developed throughout the modern period. Addressing those deep-seated patterns in ways of thinking about knowing about the world is the task Dewey set for himself in The Quest for Certainty. While he directed that work explicitly toward the amelioration of a problem he found in contemporary philosophy, Dewey located the genesis of the trends he sought to correct in the work of the ancients. The heart of the problem that Dewey wanted to redress is at the confluence of the spectator approach to knowing and the concomitant move to ground knowing and truth in the eternal. In short, Dewey recognized that most ways of knowing the world espoused by his philosophical forbears make two critical, interlocking errors. First, philosophy has been committed to a theory of knowledge that assumes that the guide for determining whether or not a particular instance of knowing is accurate or not should be found outside of the process of knowing, and, second, philosophy has traditionally attempted to locate that ground for knowing in the eternal, and thus avoid the possibility of error: According to both systems of philosophy, reflective thought, thinking that involves inference and judgment, is not originative. It has its test in antecedent reality as that is disclosed in some non-reflective immediate knowledge. Its validity depends upon the possibility of checking its conclusions by identification with the terms of such prior immediate knowledge. The controversy between the schools is simply as to the organ and nature of previous direct knowledge. To both schools, reflection, thought involving inference, is reproductive; the “proof ” of its results is found in comparison with what is known without any inference. (Dewey, 1929, p. 88)

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This “spectator theory” of knowledge makes knowing into a process of replication, rather than a process of creation. This theory of knowledge then requires something external as a ground for knowing, and this “quest for certainty,” beginning with the ancients, sought to ground knowledge in the eternal, and so avoid the possibility of error. The search for a way around the possibility of error, Dewey noted, has consumed more than 2,000 years of philosophy. And yet, the more we inquire into certain methods for knowing, the more arcane those methods are forced to become. Dewey’s solution to this problem was not to ignore it, but rather to recognize that the quest for certainty itself must change. Rather than continuing to seek a certain ground, we must accept the precarious, unstable nature of knowing; however, this precarious certainty is not something to be feared: In compelling surrender of the doctrine of exact and immutable laws describing the fixed antecedent properties of things, it seems to involve abandonment of the idea that the world is fundamentally intelligible. A universe in which fixed laws do not make possible exact predictions seems from the older standpoint to be a world in which disorder reigns. … As a matter of fact, the change, viewed in a perspective of distance, is nothing like so upsetting. All the facts that were ever known are still known, and known with greater accuracy than before. The older doctrine was in effect an offshoot not of science but of a metaphysical doctrine which taught that the immutable is the truly real, and of a theory of knowledge which held that rational conceptions rather than observations are the vehicle of knowledge. (Dewey, 1929, pp. 166–7)

By making knowing a creative process, and grounding it in an evolutionary understanding of the world, Dewey opened the door on the possibility of a process of knowledge creation where not only can we critique that process of knowledge creation, but we can improve it. Since knowledge creation is a directed process fully within the human realm, we can choose where and how to direct it, and work to improve upon it. Rather than be bound by the limitations of a system of knowing that presupposes that it is irrevocably flawed, Dewey showed us a system of knowing that is recursively perfectible.

The moral dimension Dewey’s process of knowing, moreover, is an inherently moral one. By this I mean that for Dewey, all acts of inquiry have a moral dimension, and all



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knowings are constituted in a moral framework. Now, in considering Dewey’s notion of the moral, it is important to remember that he casts a slightly broader net here than may be immediately implied by the term. Just as his notion of ethics is very broad, encompassing the realms of the political and the economic, Dewey’s notion of good is similarly broad, encompassing not just abstract notions of conventionally moral goodness, but also goodness in the sense of a good tool. In keeping with his discussion of the ground for knowledge, Dewey’s notion of the good is similarly created, finite, and perfectible. Rather than fall into a morass of simple-minded relativism, Dewey’s system of knowing provides us the tools we need to discern among variously constituted good and knowings without recourse to mere cultural imperialism: For the cultural relativity of beliefs, facts and problems is far from meaning that they are all, on that account, of the same value. On the contrary this fact of relativity is an indirect way of calling attention to the differences which exist in the attitudes and practices of different cultural groups as to the methods and criteria by which their beliefs are respectively reached and modified. … Assuredly no one can deny that many things once regarded as facts and as truth are now seen not to have been factual or true. But the conclusion to be drawn is that just the opposite from that which is often drawn. (Deen, 2012, p. 139)

Because knowing is a creative process, and one which has a method that is similarly constituted, we can critically examine both knowledge and the process that created it, and judge among competing knowledge claims on the basis of that examination. All standards, principles, rules, as well as tenets and creeds about good or goods, “Instead of being rigidly fixed, [are] treated as intellectual instruments to be tested and confirmed—and altered—through consequences effected by acting upon them” (Dewey, 1929, p. 221).

Precarious truth In doing away with the eternal ground for knowing, Dewey had also done away with the notion of eternal truth. This has important implications for action; the intelligent creation of the truths that guide our processes of habit formation is a critical aspect of Dewey’s method for proceeding from this ground of precariously situated knowledge: What has been lost in the theoretical possibility of exact knowledge and exact prediction is more than compensated for by the fact that the knowing which

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occurs within nature involves possibility of direction of change. This conclusion gives intelligence a foothold and a function within nature which “reason” never possessed. That which acts outside of nature and is a mere spectator of it is, by definition, not a participator in its changes. Therefore it is debarred from taking part in directing them. Action may follow but it is only an external attachment to knowing, not an inherent factor in it. (Dewey, 1929, p. 170)

Inasmuch as we are members of communities, it is our responsibility to actively and intelligently engage in the process of truth-making. In this reflection, I am particularly concerned with the way in which we create the notion of peace that we adopt. As members of the community, we cannot opt out of the community process of co-creating our truths; under a Deweyan lens, at most, we push off the business of creating that truth onto those other members of our communities that are engaged with such projects directly. The process of knowledge creation we engage in ultimately has important moral consequences. Moreover, inasmuch as every act contributes to the continued modification of the network of habits that characterize both the individual and the public, every act by every actor is actively constitutive of the moral character of both the individual and the publics in which they participate. As Dewey noted in his Ethics, “The idea of conduct as a serial whole solves the problem of morally indifferent acts. Every act has potential moral significance, because it is, through its consequences, part of a larger whole of behavior” (1932, p. 169). The kind of peace we have created out of our precarious existence in the past decade has been one which attempts to ignore the conditions in which it finds it exists; it is an unsustainable head-in-the-sand willful ignorance. I am not so naive as to think that ignoring the consequences of international conflict—or of U.S. involvement in them—is a new phenomenon. I attended my first closedcasket funeral in 1994, when a friend was killed by an explosive device in an undisclosed location, and only found out about it because another member of his unit knew enough to inform me. The current state of affairs seems sufficiently different to me that it calls out for the need for a change, although perhaps it is only that the habit established by the silence surrounding the “Cold War” and the “War on Drugs” has been carried into the “War on Terror.” Finding peace in the face of such conflict is a difficult task. I am not convinced that it is any more difficult than finding peace in the face of Dewey’s epistemological challenge that we ground our inquiry in the precariousness of experience, and, more importantly, Dewey indicates that such public inquiry



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into social truths should precisely be engaged with in the same manner, and with the same directness and rigor as we engage in producing scientific knowledge. This engagement with the creation of social truths is Dewey’s project: [T]he outstanding philosophical task of present-day philosophy is to indicate the place and function of knowledge as a rightful social power, an authority, in determination of the conduct of other social matters. Or, to speak in language which does not seem to accept the current views which convert knowledge into a kind of independent entity, the present task is to show how those attitudes and habits which constitute knowing in its actual effective practice (and which thereby determine conclusions reached) can be extended beyond the technical limited field in which they now take effect. (Deen, 2012, p. 163)

Ultimately, for Dewey, turning away from the eternal and toward the precarious is a movement away from a dead world and toward a live one. Eternal objects, by their nature cannot change or grow. Without growth, there can be no life. Such objects cannot be interacted with, and thus must be entirely outside of the human realm. Within a framework of transactional inquiry, eternal objects represent only dead non-possibilities, whereas precarious experience, for all its uncertainty, includes unlimited possibility. Doubt is not a barrier to knowing, or the end of inquiry; rather doubt is applied to the means of producing knowledge, and, through doubting and examining the process of knowledge production, we can ultimately improve our means of knowing the world. What is critical for Dewey is that we break down the barriers modern philosophy has placed on the road to inquiry, and that we follow that road into the social realm. Social knowledge and truth will continue to be created; the only question is whether or not we will bring to bear upon social problems the best tools of inquiry.

References Annas, J. and Barnes, J. (eds) (2000), Outlines of Scepticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aulus Gellius (2011), Attic Nights, vol. 2, books 6–13, trans. J. C. Rolfe. Whitefish, MT: Literary Licensing. Dewey, J. (1896), “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Early Works, 1882–1898, vol. 5. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1925), “Experience and Nature,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 1. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

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—(1929), “The Quest for Certainty,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1932), “Ethics,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 7. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. —(1933), “The Underlying Philosophy of Education,” in J. Boydston (ed.), The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 8. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Deen, P. (ed.) (2012), Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy. Carbondale, IL and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Thorsrud, H. (2009), Ancient Scepticism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Index actuality 28, 32–4, 38–9, 54, 71–2, 124, 130, 140–1 Addams, J. 55, 72–3n. 6, 152, 160, 164 aesthetics 30, 35–6, 42n. 16, 58–9, 62, 95, 173, 178 Anaximander 43n. 27 Arendt, H. 94 aristocracy (vs. democracy) 106, 108 Aristotelianism (Dewey’s) 8, 17, 129, 145 ataraxia 184–5, 187, 197–8 autonomy 88–9, 93, 160 Bacon, F. 136, 145 Bentley, A. 56, 63–5, 67–9, 105 Betz, J. 103, 183 Boisvert, R. 72n. 5 citizenship 5, 7, 70, 79–80, 83, 85–6, 96, 107, 122–3, 162 civilization 4, 12, 14 communication 39, 117, 121, 200 consciousness 20–3, 31, 37, 137, 148n. 1 continuity 51, 55, 68, 133, 156 cosmos 34, 51, 55, 65, 67 craft (techne) 30, 47, 52, 132, 174, 178 creativity 20, 38, 53, 163 culture 3, 7, 9, 17, 39, 158 custom 14, 64, 90, 95, 156, 169 Darwin, C. 54–5, 64, 72n. 5, 136, 152, 155, 158–9, 169–70, 175, 179–80 Deen, P. 41n. 5, 105 democracy (as a way of life) 6, 15, 70, 177 Democritus 144–5 Descartes, R. 42n. 18, 72n. 1, 130, 145 dialectic 13, 22, 54, 84, 102, 131 dogma 16, 106–7, 197 dualism (mind–body) 10, 27, 29, 31, 48, 52, 57, 129 dynamis (potentiality) 13, 16, 19–21, 27–8, 32–5, 38–40, 54, 66, 71, 116, 120–4, 140–1, 171, 173

ecology 161 Eldridge, M. 59, 163 emergence 28 empiricism 24–6, 135 end (in view) 36, 116, 200 enlightenment 93, 152, 174 entelechy 11, 13–14, 16, 36, 80, 172 environment (as situation) 23, 27–8, 34, 54, 61, 65–9, 136–7, 156–9, 161, 196 epistemology 10, 19–20, 22, 25–7, 29, 31–2, 37, 40, 48, 63, 130–1, 134–5, 138, 146, 196, 200 eros 167, 172 ethics 38, 102, 108, 151–64, 184, 196, 203 feminism 160 Fesmire, S. 101–2, 161 flourishing (eudaimonia) 16, 66, 84, 112, 114, 122, 152–4, 158–9, 163, 173, 175 freedom 5, 16, 66, 85, 88–9, 92, 107, 117–18, 123 friendship 154–5, 160, 163, 187–8 functionalism 7, 24 Galilei, G. 31, 69 Garrison, J. 57, 175, 178 Geist 54, 133 Gellius, Aulus 198 government 7, 70, 79–80, 82–4, 87–8, 90 habit (and habituation) 4, 10, 13–15, 54–5, 60–6, 69, 101, 112, 121, 123, 135, 146, 151–61, 163, 169–71, 173, 175–7, 191–2, 195–6, 199–201, 203–5 hedonism 185–6, 190 Hegel, G. W. F. 21–2, 47, 84, 88–9, 95, 130–1, 133 Hegelianism 8, 19–20, 67 Heidegger, M. 29, 32, 43n. 30, 72n. 4

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idealism 20–2, 24–5, 28, 39, 41n. 11, 48, 71, 136 individualism 11–12, 59, 89, 95, 97, 99, 118 inquiry 17, 20, 22–9, 47–71, 96–7, 107, 129–31, 133, 146, 170, 176, 195–6, 198–9, 201–2, 204–5 instinct 152, 169 instrumentalism 59, 130

paideia 3, 12, 15, 79–80 Parmenides 25, 42n. 21, 51 pedagogy 8, 10–12 Peirce, C. S. 47, 54–5, 137, 159, 183–4 phenomenology 142 phronesis 16, 153, 163 Platonism 4, 6, 32, 102–3, 144 pluralism 27, 32, 155 polis 83–4, 89–93, 114–15 Popper, K. 5, 87 praxis 26–7, 30, 54, 65, 132 progressivism 81, 89–90 psyche 30, 112–15, 137, 139, 141–3, 146–8

James, W. 19, 21–2, 38, 41n. 7, 132, 134, 137, 142, 152, 156–8, 175, 183–4, 192 justice 79, 83–4, 91–4, 107–8, 111–15, 123, 152, 154

Ratner, J. 58–60, 105 realism 130, 135 relativism 14, 25, 88, 97, 131, 203 Rorty, R. 21, 129, 139–40 Royce, J. 22, 183

kallipolis 114, 116, 123 Kant, I. 47–8, 88, 129, 137, 155

Santayana, G. 19, 32, 40, 55, 64 Schilpp, P. 7 scientism 48, 61 Shorey, P. 113 skepticism 87, 134, 195, 197–8 Sleeper, R. 145 Socrates 5–6, 13, 32, 35–6, 50, 53, 89, 93, 102–3, 105–9, 112–16, 122–3, 132, 184 Sophists (the) 106 Spectator (theory of knowledge) 10, 13, 48, 130–4, 137–8, 141–4, 198–9, 202 stoicism 25, 183

Heraclitus 33, 50–1 Hobbes, Thomas 34, 42n. 24 Homer 50, 52–3, 139, 170

Lachs, J. 183 Leibniz, G. W. 28, 34, 133 lifeworld 23, 34 Locke, J. 42n. 17, 117, 130, 133–4, 145 logic 9–11, 22–4, 29, 41n. 19, 58–60, 133, 136, 140 Lucretius 184–5, 192 Mead, G. H. 50, 55, 157 Metaphysics (of experience) 58 modernity 20, 29, 31–2, 40, 42n. 20, 89, 93 naturalism 7, 10, 13, 17, 19, 21, 32, 35, 38, 40n. 3, 47, 54–6, 67, 70–1, 105, 133, 137, 140, 144 nous 8, 16, 30, 72, 106, 141–2, 163, 172 Nussbaum, M. 79–80 ontology 26, 48, 56, 63 organicism 49, 51, 54, 56, 61, 66, 68–9, 71, 84–5, 98n. 2 organism 27, 35, 54, 56, 61–2, 64–5, 67–8, 70, 133, 136–7, 171–3, 196, 199–200 ousia 28, 34–5

technocracy 79 teleology 70, 137 temporality 37–8, 173, 178–9 theoria 4, 16, 26–7, 30, 54, 174 Tufts, J. H. 49 tychism 55, 159 utilitarianism 184, 189–90, 192 virtues 16, 61, 132, 145, 153–5, 159, 192 Whitehead, A. N. 38, 56 Woodbridge, F. J. E. 4, 9, 19, 25, 27–8, 40, 55, 145, 151