Comment
John Dewey Then and Now
John Dewey. An Intellectual Portrait
by
Sidney Hook, which has recently been reissued by Prometheus Books, is
an impressive work. It was written in 1939, when Hook, a young
teacher of philosophy at New York University, was thirty-seven. The
book is a remarkable exposition of Dewey's ideas and of the flaws in the
history of philosophy before Dewey, especially in metaphysical theory.
Hook's sympathetic reading of Dewey's system makes clear the es–
sentials of pragmatism. He points out the scientific basis of Dewey's phi–
losophy, with its emphasis on systematic and logical inquiry, and its belief
that the meaning and truth of ideas depends on their consequences in so–
ciallife. Hook is especially sharp showing how Dewey's thinking escaped
the dualism and transcendentalism of earlier philosophies, and he indicates
how Dewey avoided the traps and blind alleys of earlier theories which
could not provide the answers to many problems because they asked the
wrong questions.
Hook is especially interesting in noting that Dewey was essentially an
American thinker and one who reflected the ethos of scientific advance
and of the restless curiosity of his time. Thus Hook remarked that
Dewey, who had demonstrated that earlier philosophers echoed their
times, also was responsive to his own period and social milieu. The ques–
tion of relation to one's time is an important observation, for it not
only involves Hook's relation to the thirties but the larger issue of
Dewey's viability today. In fact, Richard Rorty, who wrote the intro–
duction to the new edition of Hook's book, seems to assume that
Dewey's views, and those of Hook, apply to the world today.
Actually, both Dewey and Hook, at least partly, were classic liberals
in the thirties, especially in their social democratic leanings. Hook was
just emerging from his Marxist phase, and that was evident in his strong
interest in progressive reform, and in his concern with the democratiza–
tion of art. Dewey's essential and classic liberalism also was expressed in
his espousal of social reform. But Dewey's progressive liberalism was most
apparent in his theories of education, which probably have constituted
his greatest influence on social thought. And it was in this sphere that
Dewey would be out of step today if he did not revise his educational
theories.
It should be recalled that Dewey's radical proposals for education
came as a reaction against the stodgy, genteel attitudes toward learning,
and that Dewey was promoting a philqsophy of education in keeping
with the idea of meaningful learning as against outworn attitudes and
values.
Today, it must be emphasized, the situation is reversed. The schools
