Thorndike's Theory of Learning

Thorndike's Theory of Learning

1)The most basic form of learning is trial and error learning.

2)Learning is incremental not insightful.

3)Learning is not mediated by ideas.

4)All mammals learn in the same manner.

5)Law of readiness Interference with goal directed behavior causes frustration and causing someone to do something they do not want to do is also frustrating.a.When someone is ready to perform some act, to do so is satisfying.b.When someone is ready to perform some act, not to do so is annoying.c.When someone is not ready to perform some act and is forced to do so, it is annoying.

6)Law of Exercise We learn by doing. We forget by not doing, although to a small extent only.a.Connections between a stimulus and a response are strengthened as they are used.(law of use)b.Connections between a stimulus and a response are weakened as they are not used.(law of disuse)

7)Law of effect If the response in a connection is followed by a satisfying state of affairs, the strength of the connection is considerably increased whereas if followed by an annoying state of affairs, then the strength of the connection is marginally decreased.

8)Multiple Responses A learner would keep trying multiple responses to solve a problem before it is actually solved.

9)Set or Attitude Set or attitude is what the learner already possesses, like prior learning experiences, present state of the learner, etc., while it begins learning a new task.

10)Prepotency of Elements Different responses to the same environment would be evoked by different perceptions of the environment which act as the stimulus to the responses. Different perceptions would be subject to the prepotency of different elements for different perceivers.

11)Response from analogy New problems are solved by using solution techniques employed to solve analogous problems.

12)Associative Shifting Let stimulus S be paired with response R. Now, if stimulus Q is presented simultaneously with stimulus S repeatedly, then stimulus Q is likely to get paired with response R.

13)Belongingness If there is a natural relationship between the need state of an organism and the effect caused by a response, learning is more effective than if the relationship is unnatural.

Theory of emotion

James is one of the two namesakes of the James-Lange theory of emotion, which he formulated independently of Carl Lange in the 1880s. The theory holds that emotion is the mind's perception of physiological conditions that result from some stimulus. In James' oft-cited example; it is not that we see a bear, fear it, and run. We see a bear and run, consequently we fear the bear. Our mind's perception of the higher adrenaline level, heartbeat, etc., is the emotion.

This way of thinking about emotion has great consequences for the philosophy of aesthetics. Here is a passage from his great work, Principles of Psychology, that spells out those consequences.

[W]e must immediately insist that aesthetic emotion, pure and simple, the pleasure given us by certain lines and masses, and combinations of colors and sounds, is an absolutely sensational experience, an optical or auricular feeling that is primary, and not due to the repercussion backwards of other sensations elsewhere consecutively aroused. To this simple primary and immediate pleasure in certain pure sensations and harmonious combinations of them, there may, it is true, be added secondary pleasures; and in the practical enjoyment of works of art by the masses of mankind these secondary pleasures play a great part. The more classic one's taste is, however, the less relatively important are the secondary pleasures felt to be, in comparison with those of the primary sensation as it comes in. Classicism and romanticism have their battles over this point. Complex suggestiveness, the awakening of vistas of memory and association, and the stirring of our flesh with picturesque mystery and gloom, make a work of art romantic. The classic taste brands these effects as coarse and tawdry, and prefers the naked beauty of the optical and auditory sensations, unadorned with frippery or foliage. To the romantic mind, on the contrary, the immediate beauty of these sensations seems dry and thin. I am of course not discussing which view is right, but only showing that the discrimination between the primary feeling of beauty, as a pure incoming sensible quality, and the secondary emotions which are grafted thereupon, is one that must be made.

[edit] William James' bear

From Joseph LeDoux's description of William James' Emotion [13]

Why do we run away if we notice that we are in danger? Because we are afraid of what will happen if we don't. This obvious (and incorrect) answer to a seemingly trivial question has been the central concern of a century-old debate about the nature of our emotions.

It all began in 1884 when William James published an article titled "What Is an Emotion?"[14] The article appeared in a philosophy journal called Mind, as there were no psychology journals yet. It was important, not because it definitively answered the question it raised, but because of the way in which James phrased his response. He conceived of an emotion in terms of a sequence of events that starts with the occurrence of an arousing stimulus {the sympathetic nervous system or the parasympathetic nervous system}; and ends with a passionate feeling, a conscious emotional experience. A major goal of emotion research is still to elucidate this stimulus-to-feeling sequence—to figure out what processes come between the stimulus and the feeling.

James set out to answer his question by asking another: do we run from a bear because we are afraid or are we afraid because we run? He proposed that the obvious answer, that we run because we are afraid, was wrong, and instead argued that we are afraid because we run:

Our natural way of thinking about... emotions is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My thesis on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion (called 'feeling' by Damasio).

The essence of James' proposal was simple. It was premised on the fact that emotions are often accompanied by bodily responses (racing heart, tight stomach, sweaty palms, tense muscles, and so on; sympathetic nervous system) and that we can sense what is going on inside our body much the same as we can sense what is going on in the outside world. According to James, emotions feel different from other states of mind because they have these bodily responses that give rise to internal sensations, and different emotions feel different from one another because they are accompanied by different bodily responses and sensations. For example, when we see James' bear, we run away. During this act of escape, the body goes through a physiological upheaval: blood pressure rises, heart rate increases, pupils dilate, palms sweat, muscles contract in certain ways (evolutionary, innate defense mechanisms). Other kinds of emotional situations will result in different bodily upheavals. In each case, the physiological responses return to the brain in the form of bodily sensations, and the unique pattern of sensory feedback gives each emotion its unique quality. Fear feels different from anger or love because it has a different physiological signature {the parasympathetic nervous system for love}. The mental aspect of emotion, the feeling, is a slave to its physiology, not vice versa: we do not tremble because we are afraid or cry because we feel sad; we are afraid because we tremble and are sad because we cry.

[edit] Philosophy of history

G. Stanley Hall

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Granville Stanley Hall, circa 1910.

Granville Stanley Hall (February 1, 1844 - April 24, 1924) was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory. Hall was the first president of the American Psychological Association and the first president of Clark University.

Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, Hall graduated from Williams College in 1867, then studied at the Union Theological Seminary. Inspired by Wilhelm Wundt's Principles of Physiological Psychology, he earned his doctorate in psychology under William James at Harvard University, after which he spent time at Wundt's Leipzig laboratory.

He began his career by teaching English and philosophy at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. In 1882 (until 1888), he was appointed as a Professor of Psychology and Pedagogics at Johns Hopkins University, and began what is considered to be the first American psychology laboratory.[1] There, Hall objected vehemently to the emphasis on teaching traditional subjects, e.g., Latin, mathematics, science and history, in high school, arguing instead that high school should focus more on the education of adolescents than on preparing students for college.

In 1887, he founded the American Journal of Psychology and in 1892 was appointed as the first president of the American Psychological Association.[1] In 1889, he was named the first President of Clark University, a post he filled until 1920. During his 31 years as President, Hall remained intellectually active. He was instrumental in the development of educational psychology, and attempted to determine the effect adolescence has on education. He was also responsible for inviting Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung to visit and deliver lectures in 1909.

Group photo 1909 in front of Clark University. Front row: Sigmund Freud, Granville Stanley Hall, C.G.Jung; back row: Abraham A. Brill, Ernest Jones, Sandor Ferenczi.

Statue at the center of campus of Sigmund Freud, commemorating his 1909 visit to the University by invitation of G.S. Hall

Darwin's theory of evolution and Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory were large influences on Hall's career. These ideas prompted Hall to examine aspects of childhood development in order to learn about the inheritance of behavior. The subjective character of these studies made their validation impossible. His work also delved into controversial portrayals of the differences between women and men, as well as the concept of racial eugenics.[1]

Hall coined the phrase "storm and stress" with reference to adolescence, taken from the German Sturm und Drang movement. Its three key aspects are conflict with parents, mood disruptions, and risky behavior. As was later the case with the work of Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget, public interest in this phrase, as well as with Hall's originating role, faded. Recent research has led to some reconsideration of the phrase and its denotation. In its three aspects, recent evidence supports storm and stress, but only when modified to take into account individual differences and cultural variations. Currently, psychologists do not accept storm and stress as universal, but do acknowledge the possibility in brief passing. Not all adolescents experience storm and stress, but storm and stress is more likely during adolescence than at other ages.

Hall's major books were Adolescence (1904) and Aspects of Child Life and Education (1921).

Hall also coined the technical words describing types of tickling; knismesis or feather-like tickling, and gargalesis for the harder, laughter inducing type.

Charles Hubbard Judd

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Charles Hubbard Judd (February 20, 1873 - July 18, 1946) was an American educational psychologist who played an influential role in the formation of the discipline. Part of the larger scientific movement of this period, Judd pushed for the use of scientific methods to the understanding of education and, thus, wanted to limit the use of theory in the field. Born in India, he obtained a PhD at the University of Leipzig under the tutelage of Wilhelm Wundt. Judd was director of the Department of Education at the University of Chicago from 1909 to 1938. His works include Genetic Psychology for Teachers, Psychology of Social Institutions and Psychology of High-School Subjects (Boston, 1915).

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Charles Hubbard Judd

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Charles Hubbard Judd (February 20, 1873 - July 18, 1946) was an American educational psychologist who played an influential role in the formation of the discipline. Part of the larger scientific movement of this period, Judd pushed for the use of scientific methods to the understanding of education and, thus, wanted to limit the use of theory in the field. Born in India, he obtained a PhD at the University of Leipzig under the tutelage of Wilhelm Wundt. Judd was director of the Department of Education at the University of Chicago from 1909 to 1938. His works include Genetic Psychology for Teachers, Psychology of Social Institutions and Psychology of High-School Subjects (Boston, 1915).

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John Dewey

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For the structural geologist, see John Frederick Dewey.

John Dewey

Western Philosophy20th-century philosophy

Full name John Dewey

School/tradition Pragmatism

Main interestsPhilosophy of education, Epistemology,

Journalism, Ethics

Notable ideas Educational progressivism

Influenced by[show]

Influenced[show]

John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose thoughts and ideas have been highly influential in the United States and around the world. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophical school of pragmatism. He is also one of the founders of functional psychology and was a leading representative of the progressive movement in U.S. schooling during the first half of the 20th century.[1]

Although Dewey is best known for his works on education, he also wrote on a wide range of subjects, including experience and nature, art and experience, logic and inquiry, democracy, and ethics.

In his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—as being key areas needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. In the necessary reconstruction of civil society, Dewey asserted that full democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully-formed public opinion, accomplished by effective communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being held accountable for the policies they adopt.

Contents[hide]

1 Life and works 2 Dewey and functional psychology 3 Pragmatism and instrumentalism

o 3.1 Epistemology o 3.2 Logic and method o 3.3 Aesthetics

4 On democracy 5 On education 6 On journalism 7 On humanism 8 Social and political activism 9 Other interests 10 Criticism 11 Academic awards 12 Publications 13 Works about Dewey 14 References 15 See also 16 External links

[edit] Life and works

Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont of modest family origins.[2] Like his older brother, Davis Rich Dewey, he attended the University of Vermont, from which he graduated (Phi Beta Kappa) in 1879. After three years as a high school teacher in Oil City, Pennsylvania, Dewey decided that he was unsuited for employment in primary or secondary education.

After studying one year under G. Stanley Hall, working in the first American laboratory of psychology, Dewey received his Ph.D. from the School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in 1884, he took a faculty position at the University of Michigan (1884-1888 and 1889-1894) with the help of George Sylvester Morris. His unpublished and now lost dissertation was titled "The Psychology of Kant".

In 1894 Dewey joined the newly founded University of Chicago (1894-1904) where he shaped his belief in an empirically based theory of knowledge aligning his ideals with the newly emerging Pragmatic school of thought. His time at the University of Chicago resulted in four essays collectively entitled Thought and its Subject-Matter which was published with collected works from his colleagues at Chicago under the collective title Studies in Logical Theory (1903). During this time Dewey also founded the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools where he was able to actualize his pedagogical beliefs which provided material for his first major work on education, The School and Society (1899). Disagreements with the administration ultimately led to his resignation from the University at which point he left for the East Coast. In 1899, John Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association. From 1904 until his death he was professor of philosophy at both Columbia University and Teachers College.[3] In 1905 he became president of the American Philosophical Association. He was a long-time member of the American Federation of Teachers.

Along with the historian Charles Beard, economists Thorstein Veblen and James Harvey Robinson, Dewey is one of the founders of The New School for Social Research. Dewey's most significant writings were "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896), a critique of a standard psychological concept and the basis of all his further work; Democracy and Education (1916), his celebrated work on progressive education; Human Nature and Conduct (1922), a study of the role of habit in human behavior; The Public and its Problems (1927), a defense of democracy written in response to Walter Lippmann's The Phantom Public (1925); Experience and Nature (1925), Dewey's most "metaphysical" statement; Art as Experience (1934), Dewey's major work on aesthetics; A Common Faith (1934), a humanistic study of religion, which was originally delivered as the Dwight H. Terry Lectureship at Yale; Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), an examination of Dewey's unusual conception of logic; Freedom and Culture (1939), a political work examining the roots of fascism; and Knowing and the Known (1949), a book written in conjunction with Arthur F. Bentley that systematically outlines the concept of trans-action which is central to his other works. While each of these works focuses on one particular philosophical theme, Dewey wove all of his major themes into everything he wrote. His professional life was extremely productive and consisted of over 700 articles in 140 journals, and roughly 40 books.

Dewey married twice, with first wife Alice Chipman, who bore him six children[2] and second wife Roberta Lowitz Grant[3].

[edit] Dewey and functional psychologySee also: History of psychology

At University of Michigan, Dewey published his first two books, Psychology (1887), and Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding (1888), both of which expressed Dewey's early commitment to Hegelian idealism. Psychology explored the synthesis between this idealism and experimental science that Dewey was then attempting to effect.[4]

While still professor of philosophy at Michigan, Dewey and his junior colleagues, James Hayden Tufts and George Herbert Mead, together with his student James Rowland Angell, all strongly influenced by the recent publication of William James' landmark Principles of Psychology (1890), began to reformulate psychology, focusing more strongly on the social environment and on the activity of mind and behaviour than the physiological psychology of Wundt and his followers.

By 1894, Dewey had joined Tufts, with whom he would later write Ethics (1908), at the newly-founded University of Chicago and invited Mead and Angell to follow him, the four forming the core of the so-called "Chicago group" of psychology.

Their new approach to psychology, later dubbed functional psychology, had a more practical emphasis on action and application. In Dewey's article "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" which appeared in Psychological Review in 1896, he reasons against the traditional stimulus-response understanding of the reflex arc in favor of a "circular" account in which what serves as "stimulus" and what as "response" depends on how one views the situation, and defends the unitary nature of the sensory motor circuit. While he does not deny the existence of stimulus, sensation, and response, he disagreed that they were separate, juxtaposed events happening like links in a chain. He put forward the idea that there is a coordination by which the stimulus is enriched by the results of previous experiences. The response is modulated thanks to sensorial experience. That is to say, the stimulus, sensation, and response are phases in a "division of labor" as part of an overall coordination of action as the human organism adapts to its environment.

Dewey, not without polemic, was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1899.

John Dewey's USA Stamp

In 1984, the American Psychological Association announced that Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) had become the first psychologist to be commemorated on a United States postage stamp. However, psychologists Gary Brucato Jr. and John D. Hogan later made the case that this distinction actually belonged to John Dewey, who had been celebrated on an American stamp 17 years earlier. While some psychology historians consider Dewey more of a philosopher than a bona fide psychologist,[5] the authors noted that Dewey was a founding member of the A.P.A., served as the A.P.A.'s eighth President in 1899, and was the author of

an 1896 article on the reflex arc which is now considered a cornerstone of American functional psychology.[6]

Dewey also expressed interest in work in the psychology of visual perception carried out by Dartmouth research professor Adelbert Ames, Jr..

[edit] Pragmatism and instrumentalism

Although Dewey did not identify himself as a pragmatist per se, but instead referred to his philosophy as "instrumentalism", he is considered one of the three central figures in American pragmatism, along with Charles Sanders Peirce, who coined the term, and William James, who popularized it. Dewey worked from strongly Hegelian influences, unlike James, whose lineage was primarily British, drawing particularly on empiricist and utilitarian thought.[7] Neither was Dewey so pluralist or relativist as James. He held that value was a function not of whim nor purely of social construction, but a quality situated in events ("nature itself is wistful and pathetic, turbulent and passionate" (Experience and Nature)).

He also held that experimentation (social, cultural, technological, philosophical) could be used as a relatively hard-and-fast arbiter of truth. For example, James felt that for many people who lacked "over-belief" in religious concepts, human life was shallow and rather uninteresting, and that while no one religious belief could be demonstrated as the correct one, we are all responsible for taking the leap of faith and making a gamble on one or another theism, atheism, monism, etc. Dewey, in contrast, while honoring the important role that religious institutions and practices played in human life, rejected belief in any static ideal, such as a theistic God. Dewey felt that only scientific method could reliably further human good.

Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions."[8]

As with the reemergence of progressive philosophy of education, Dewey's contributions to philosophy as such (he was, after all, much more a professional philosopher than a thinker on education) have also reemerged with the reassessment of pragmatism, beginning in the late 1970s, by thinkers like Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein and Hans Joas.

Because of his process-oriented and sociologically conscious view of the world and knowledge, he is sometimes seen as a useful alternative to both modern and postmodern ways of thinking. Dewey's non-foundational approach pre-dates postmodernism by more than half a century. Recent exponents (like Rorty) have not always remained faithful to Dewey's original vision, though this itself is completely in keeping both with Dewey's own usage of other thinkers and with his own philosophy— for Dewey, past doctrines always require reconstruction in order to remain useful for the present time.

Dewey's philosophy has gone by many names other than "pragmatism". He has been called an instrumentalist, an experimentalist, an empiricist, a functionalist, and a naturalist. The term "transactional" may better describe his views, a term emphasized by Dewey in his later years to describe his theories of knowledge and experience.

[edit] Epistemology

Main article: Knowing and the Known

The terminology problem in the fields of epistemology and logic is partially due, according to Dewey and Bentley,[9] to inefficient and imprecise use of words and concepts that reflect three historic levels of organization and presentation.[10] In the order of chronological appearance, these are:

Self-Action: Prescientific concepts regarded humans, animals, and things as possessing powers of their own which initiated or caused their actions.

Interaction: as described by Newton, where things, living and inorganic, are balanced against something in a system of interaction, for example, the third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Transaction: where modern systems of descriptions and naming are employed to deal with multiple aspects and phases of action without any attribution to ultimate, final, or independent entities, essences, or realities.

A series of characterizations of Transactions indicate the wide range of considerations involved.[11]

[edit] Logic and method

Dewey sees paradox in contemporary logical theory. Proximate subject matter garners general agreement and advance, while the ultimate subject matter of logic generates unremitting controversy. In other words, he challenges confident logicians to answer the question of the truth of logical operators. Do they function merely as abstractions (e.g., pure mathematics) or do they connect in some essential way with their objects, and therefore alter or bring them to light? ("The Problem of Logical Subject Matter", in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry {1938})

Logical positivism also figured in Dewey's thought. About the movement he wrote that it "eschews the use of 'propositions' and 'terms', substituting 'sentences' and 'words'." ("General Theory of Propositions", in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry) He welcomes this changing of referents “in as far as it fixes attention upon the symbolic structure and content of propositions.” However, he registers a small complaint against the use of “sentences” and “words” in that without careful interpretation the act or process of transposition “narrows unduly the scope of symbols and language, since it is not customary to treat gestures and diagrams (maps, blueprints, etc.) as words or sentences.” In other words, sentences and words, considered in isolation, do not disclose intent, which may be inferred or “adjudged only by means of context.” (Ibid.)

Yet Dewey was not entirely opposed to modern logical trends. Concerning traditional logic, he states: “Aristotelian logic, which still passes current nominally, is a logic based upon the idea that qualitative objects are existential in the fullest sense. To retain logical principles based on this conception along with the acceptance of theories of existence and knowledge based on an opposite conception is not, to say the least, conductive to clearness – a consideration that has a good deal to do with existing dualism between traditional and the newer relational logics.” (Qualitative Thought {1930})

Louis Menand argues in The Metaphysical Club that Jane Addams had been critical of Dewey's emphasis on antagonism in the context of a discussion of the Pullman strike of 1894. In a later letter to his wife, Dewey confessed that Addams' argument was "the most magnificent exhibition of intellectual & moral faith I ever saw. She converted me internally, but not really, I fear.... When you think that Miss Addams does not think this as a philosophy, but believes it in all her senses & muscles--Great God... I guess I'll have to give it [all] up & start over again." He went on to add, "I can see that I have always been interpreting dialectic wrong end up, the unity as the reconciliation of opposites, instead of the opposites as the unity in its growth, and thus translated the physical tension into a moral thing... I don't know as I give the reality of this at all,... it seems so natural & commonplace now, but I never had anything take hold of me so."[12]

In a letter to Addams herself, Dewey wrote, clearly influenced by his conversation with her: "Not only is actual antagonizing bad, but the assumption that there is or may be antagonism is bad-- in fact, the real first antagonism always comes back to the assumption."

[edit] Aesthetics

Main article: Art as Experience

Art as Experience (1934) is Dewey's major writing on aesthetics. It is, according to his place in the Pragmatist tradition that emphasizes community, a study of the individual art object as embedded in (and inextricable from) the experiences of a local culture. See his Experience and Nature for an extended discussion of 'Experience' in Dewey's philosophy.

[edit] On democracy

The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself put it in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous."[13]

With respect to technological developments in a democracy: "Persons do not become a society by living in physical proximity any more than a man ceases to be socially influenced by being so many feet or miles removed from others" -John Dewey from Andrew Feenberg's "Community in the Digital Age"

[edit] On educationMain article: Democracy and Education

Dewey's educational theories were presented in "My Pedagogic Creed" (1897), The School and Society (1900), The Child and Curriculum (1902), Democracy and Education (1916) and Experience and Education (1938).

His recurrent and intertwining themes of education, democracy and communication are effectively summed up in the following excerpt from the first chapter, "Education as a Necessity of Life", of his 1916 book, Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education: "What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education

is to social life. This education consists primarily in transmission through communication. Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession."[14]

As well as his very active and direct involvement in setting up educational institutions such as the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (1896) and The New School for Social Research (1919), many of Dewey's ideas influenced the founding of Bennington College in Vermont, where he served on the Board of Trustees.

Dewey was a relentless campaigner for reform of education, pointing out that the authoritarian, strict, pre-ordained knowledge approach of modern traditional education was too concerned with delivering knowledge, and not enough with understanding students' actual experiences.[15]

Dewey was the most famous proponent of hands-on learning or experiential education, which is related to, but not synonymous with experiential learning. Dewey went on to influence many other influential experiential models and advocates. Many researchers credit him with the influence of Project Based Learning (PBL) which places students in the active role of researchers.

Dewey's theories influenced many Chinese scholars including Hu Shih, Zhang Boling and Tao Xingzhi while they studied under him in Columbia University. His opposition regarding traditional education also had an impact on Mao Zedong.[4]

[edit] On journalismMain article: The Public and its Problems

Since the mid-1980s, Deweyan ideas have experienced revival as a major source of inspiration for the public journalism movement. Dewey's definition of "public," as described in The Public and its Problems, has profound implications for the significance of journalism in society. As suggested by the title of the book, his concern was of the transactional relationship between publics and problems. Also implicit in its name, public journalism seeks to orient communication away from elite, corporate hegemony toward a civic public sphere. "The 'public' of public journalists is Dewey's public."[16]

Dewey gives a concrete definition to the formation of a public. Publics are spontaneous groups of citizens who share the indirect effects of a particular action. Anyone affected by the indirect consequences of a specific action will automatically share a common interest in controlling those consequences, i.e., solving a common problem.[17]

Since every action generates unintended consequences, publics continuously emerge, overlap, and disintegrate.

In The Public and its Problems, Dewey presents a rebuttal to Walter Lippmann’s treatise on the role of journalism in democracy. Lippmann’s model was a basic transmission model in which journalists took information given them by experts and elites, repackaged that information in simple terms, and transmitted the information to the public, whose role was to react emotionally to the news. In his model, Lippmann supposed that the public was incapable of thought or action, and that all thought and action should be left to the experts and elites.

Dewey refutes this model by assuming that politics is the work and duty of each individual in the course of his daily routine. The knowledge needed to be involved in politics, in this model, was to be generated by the interaction of citizens, elites, experts, through the mediation and facilitation of journalism. In this model, not just the government is held accountable, but the citizens, experts, other actors as well.

Dewey also revisioned journalism to fit this model by taking the focus from actions or happenings and changing the structure to focus on choices, consequences, and conditions, in order to foster conversation and improve the generation of knowledge in the community. Journalism would not just produce a static product that told of what had already happened, but the news would be in a constant state of evolution as the community added value by generating knowledge. The audience would disappear, to be replaced by citizens and collaborators who would essentially be users, doing more with the news than simply reading it.

Dewey’s journalism was revolutionary because it changed the structure from choosing a winner of a given situation to posing alternatives and exploring consequences. His effort to change journalism, involve citizens, stimulation, was all under the auspices of creating the Great Community he wrote of in The Public and its Problems: “Till the Great Society is converted in to a Great Community, the Public will remain in eclipse. Communication can alone create a great community” (Dewey, pg. 144).

Dewey believed that communication creates a great community, and citizens who actively participate in public life contribute to that community. "The clear consciousness of a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of democracy." (The Public and its Problems, p. 149). This Great Community can only occur with "free and full intercommunication." (p. 211) Communication can be understood as journalism - the traditional forum in which people communicate.

[edit] On humanism

Dewey participated in a variety of humanist activities from the thirties into the fifties, which included sitting on the advisory board of Charles Francis Potter's First Humanist Society of New York (1929); being one of the original 34 signees of the first Humanist Manifesto (1933) and being elected an honorary member of the Humanist Press Association (1936).[18]

His views on humanism are best summed in his own words from an article titled "What Humanism Means to Me", published in the June 1930 edition of Thinker 2:

"What Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good." — John Dewey, "What Humanism Means to Me"[19]

[edit] Social and political activism

As a major advocate for academic freedom, in 1935 Dewey, together with Albert Einstein and Alvin Johnson, became a member of the United States section of the International League for Academic Freedom,[20] and in 1940, together with Horace M Kallen, edited a series of articles related to the infamous Bertrand Russell Case.

As well as being highly active in defending the independence of the teaching community, and opposing a communist take over of the New York Teacher's Union,[citation needed] Dewey was involved in the organization that eventually became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

He headed the famous Dewey Commission held in Mexico in 1938, and which cleared Trotsky of the charges made against him by Stalin,[21] and marched for women's rights, among many other causes.

In 1950, Dewey, together with Bertrand Russell, Benedetto Croce, Karl Jaspers, and Jacques Maritain agreed to act as honorary chairman of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.[22]

[edit] Other interests

Dewey's interests and writings covered a wide range of subjects, and according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "a substantial part of his published output consisted of commentary on current domestic and international politics, and public statements on behalf of many causes. (He is probably the only philosopher in this encyclopedia to have published both on the Treaty of Versailles and on the value of displaying art in post offices.)"[23]

In 1918, Dewey met F. M. Alexander in New York City and went on to write the introduction to Alexander's Constructive Conscious Control of the Inidividual (1923).[24]

As well as his contacts with people mentioned elsewhere in the article, he also maintained correspondence with Henri Bergson, William M. Brown, Martin Buber, George S. Counts, William Rainey Harper, Sidney Hook, and George Santayana.

[edit] Criticism

In his lifetime Dewey was the target of notable critics, including Randolph Bourne, a former student of his, and Walter Lippmann, among others. Always at the forefront of the battle between the traditional and progressive education of his day, he is today often criticized for "what he did to our schools,"[citation needed] a catch-all phrase which never actually pinpoints any specific criticism as it is not apparent that he really did anything directly to the schools, nor even that he fully approved of much of what passed for progressivism.

Likewise, on the one hand, Dewey is held up as the epitome of liberalism by many conservative pundits today (see The Closing of the American Mind), even being "portrayed as dangerously radical" during the era of McCarthyism,[25] while on the other, quite a few on the left find him too conservative by today's post-modern standards. Meanwhile, Dewey was strongly critiqued by American communists because he took a stand against Stalinism and had philosophical differences with Marx.

Other criticisms levelled at him include his war stances in both the First and the Second World Wars, as well as, despite having been involved in the foundation of the NAACP, not having written more directly against racism.[citation needed]

Another, albeit minor, source of criticism has been religion. While one biographer, Steven C. Rockefeller, traced Dewey's firm democratic convictions to his childhood attendance at the

Congregational Church, with its strong proclamation of social ideals,[26] another, Edward A. White, a Stanford University professor of history, suggested in Science and Religion in American Thought (1952) that Dewey's work had led to the 20th century rift between religion and science. However, in reviewing the book in The Quarterly Review of Biology (1954), noted geneticist H. Bentley Glass openly wondered if the rift between religion and science would have taken much the same course, even if there had not been a John Dewey.[27]

[edit] Academic awards

Copernican Citation (1943) Doctor “honoris causa” – University of Oslo (1946) Doctor “honoris causa” – University of Pennsylvania (1946) Doctor “honoris causa” – Yale University (1951) Doctor “honoris causa” – University of Rome (1951)

[edit] Publications

Besides publishing prolifically himself, Dewey also sat on various boards of scientific publications such as Sociometry (advisory board, 1942) and Journal of Social Psychology (editorial board, 1942), as well as holding posts at other publications such as New Leader (contributing editor, 1949).

The following publications by John Dewey are referenced or mentioned in this article. A more complete list of his publications may be found at List of publications by John Dewey.

"The New Psychology" Andover Review, 2, 278-289 (1884) [5] Psychology (1887) Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding (1888) "The Ego as Cause" Philosophical Review, 3,337-341. (1894) [6] "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896) "My Pedagogic Creed" (1897) The School and Society (1900) The Child and the Curriculum (1902) [7] "The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism" (1905) Moral Principles in Education (1909) The Riverside Press Cambridge Project Gutenberg How We Think (1910)[8] Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education (1916) [9] Reconstruction in Philosophy (1919) [10] Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology Experience and Nature (1925)[11] The Public and its Problems (1927) The Quest for Certainty (1929) Individualism Old and New (1930)[12] Philosophy and Civilization (1931) Ethics, second edition (with James Hayden Tufts) (1932) Art as Experience (1934)[13] A Common Faith (1934) Liberalism and Social Action (1935) Experience and Education (1938) Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938)

Freedom and Culture (1939) Knowing and the Known (1949) (with Arthur Bentley) Full copy in pdf file available from the

American Institute for Economic Research

See also

The Essential Dewey: Volumes 1 and 2. Edited by Larry Hickman and Thomas Alexander. (1998). Indiana University Press.

The Philosophy of John Dewey. Edited by John J. McDermott. (1981). University of Chicago Press.

Dewey's Complete Writings is available in 3 multi-volume sets (37 volumes in all) from Southern Illinois University Press:

The Early Works: 1892-1898 (5 volumes) The Middle Works: 1899-1924 (15 volumes) The Later Works: 1925-1953 (17 volumes)

The Correspondence of John Dewey is available on CD-ROM in 3 volumes.

[edit] Works about Dewey

Alexander, Thomas. John Dewey's Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature (1987)[14]. SUNY Press.

Boisvert, Raymond. John Dewey: Rethinking Our Time. (1997)[15]. SUNY Press. Campbell, James. Understanding John Dewey: Nature and Cooperative Intelligence. (1995)

Open Court Publishing Company. Caspary, William R. Dewey on Democracy. (2000). Cornell University Press. Good, James (2006). A Search for Unity in Diversity: The “Permanent Hegelian Deposit” in the

Philosophy of John Dewey. Lexington Books. ISBN 9780739110614. Hickman, Larry A. John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology. (1992) Indiana University Press. Hook, S. John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait (1939) Kannegiesser, H. J. "Knowledge and Science" (1977) The Macmillan Company of Australia

PTY Ltd Martin, Jay. The Education of John Dewey. (2003)[16]. Columbia University Press. Pring, Richard (2007). John Dewey: Continuum Library of Educational Thought. Continuum.

ISBN 0-8264-8403-4. Rockefeller, Stephen. John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism. (1994)[17].

Columbia University Press Rogers, Melvin. The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy.

(2008). Columbia University Press. [18] Roth, Robert J. John Dewey and Self-Realization. (1962). Prentice Hall. Ryan, Alan. John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism. (1995)[19]. W.W. Norton. Seigfried, Charlene Haddock, (ed.). Feminist Interpretations of John Dewey (2001)[20]. Penn

State University Press. Shook, John. Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality. (2000)[21][. The Vanderbilt

Library of American Philosophy Sleeper, R.W. The Necessity of Pragmatism: John Dewey's Conception of Philosophy.

Introduction by Tom Burke. (2001) [22].University of Illinois Press. Westbrook, Robert B. John Dewey and American Democracy. (1991)[23]. Cornell University

Press.

White, Morton. The Origin of Dewey's Instrumentalism. (1943). Columbia University Press.

[edit] References

1. ̂ Violas, Paul C.; Tozer, Steven; Senese, Guy B.. School and Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. p. 121. ISBN 0-07-298556-9.

2. ̂ Gutek, Gerald L.. Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education: A Biographical Introduction.. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.. pp. 338. ISBN 0-13-113809-X.

3. ̂ New York Times edition of January 19, 1953, page 27 4. ̂ Field, Richard. John Dewey in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Northwest Missouri

State University http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/dewey.htm Retrieved 08/29/2008. 5. ̂ Benjamin, L.T. (2003). "Why Can't Psychology Get a Stamp?" Journal of applied

psychoanalytic studies 5(4):443-454. 6. ̂ Brucato, G. & Hogan, J.D. (1999, Spring). "Psychologists on postage stamps" The General

Psychologist, 34(1):65 7. ̂ Good (2006). A Search for Unity in Diversity: The "Permanent Hegelian Deposit" in the

Philosophy of John Dewey. Lexington Books. 8. ̂ A Common Faith, p. 42 (LW 9:29). 9. ̂ John Dewey, Arthur Bentley, (1949). Knowing and the Known. Beacon Press, Boston. 10. ̂ ibid. p107-109 11. ̂ ibid. p121-139 12. ̂ Louis Menand. The Metaphysical Club p. 313 13. ̂ Early Works, 1:128 (Southern Illinois University Press) op cited in Douglas R. Anderson,

AAR, The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 61, No. 2 (1993), p. 383 14. ̂ Dewey, J. Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education.

Chapter 1: Education as a Necessity of Life 15. ̂ Neil, J. (2005) "John Dewey, the Modern Father of Experiential Education".

Wilderdom.com. Retrieved 6/12/07. 16. ̂ Heikkilä, H. and Kunelius, R. 2002. "Public Journalism and Its Problems: A Theoretical

Perspective", http://www.imdp.org/artman/publish/article_30.shtml 17. ̂ Dewey, J. 1927. The Public and its Problems. Henry Holt & Co., New York. pp 126. 18. ̂ "John Dewey Chronology" 1934.04.08, 1936.03.12, 1940.09, and 1950.09.11. 19. ̂ Italics in the original. "What Humanism Means to Me," first published in Thinker 2 (June

1930): 9-12, as part of a series. Dewey: Page lw.5.266 [The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953, The Electronic Edition]

20. ̂ American Institute of Physics [1] 21. ̂ "Dewey Commission Report" 22. ̂ "Origins of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1949-1950" CIA official web site 23. ̂ "Dewey's Political Philosophy" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 24. ̂ F. M. Alexander Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, E. P. Dutton & Co., 1923

ISBN 0-913111-11-2 25. ̂ Caspary, William R. Dewey on Democracy. (2000) Cornell University Press. Ithaca, NY. 26. ̂ Rockefeller, Stephen. John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism. (1994)[13].

Columbia University Press 27. ̂ Bentley Glass, The Quarterly Review of Biology Vol. 29, No. 3 (Sep., 1954), pp. 249-250

[edit] See also

John Dewey Society Center for Dewey Studies

Democratic education Academy at Charlemont The Bertrand Russell Case Dewey Commission Education reform Inquiry-based Science Laboratory school Learning by teaching

[edit] External links

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Center for Dewey Studies John Dewey Society Works by John Dewey at Project Gutenberg Another biography with easier readability Excerpts from Experience and Nature (pdf file) Impressions of Soviet Russia Small site on John Dewey John Dewey Papers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale John Dewey Chronology at Southern Illinois University Information about John Dewey and F. Mathias Alexander John Dewey: His Life and Work 4-minute clip from a documentary film used primarily in

higher education. More information about John Dewey and F. Mathias Alexander Article on Dewey's Moral Philosophy in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Article on Dewey's Political Philosophy in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Dewey page from Pragmatism Cybrary Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy at Northwest Missouri State University

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