Graduate Seminar I
Theory and Philosophy

Fall 2001

Founded by William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey
importance of experience for testing ideas
induction in addition to deduction
naturalistic humanism
George Herbert Mead's idea that the self is inherently social, mediated by and through language and social position
Peirce: "Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects"
"meaning" of an event is the consequences we expect from it
James: Truth equivalent to "workability"l Truth is MADE rather than FOUND
James: "Experience" is "double-barrelled," referring to the experiencing (actual lived, undergoing) and also to the things of experience or the experience itself
Darwin: university is becoming; "reality" becomes, rather than "is."
Agent is participant in formation of reality
Acceptance of pluralism, open-ended universe, importance of process rather than conclusion (which is just means to some other end)
Dewey: Conclusions of inquiry (products of reflection, or reason) are NOT the same as ultimate reality; to believe otherwise is to engage in "the philosophical fallacy"

As in much of his writing, Dewey was trying to OVERCOME an alleged DUALISM: that between the "child" and the "curriculum"
Qualities of "the child"
Qualities of "the curriculum"
These SEEM opposing. This seeming opposition leads to competing "schools" or "sects," described as "traditional" and "progressive"
What do we usually mean by "Traditional" and "Child-Centered/Progressive" Curriculums?

"get rid of the prejudicial notion that there is some gap in kind (as distinct from degree) between the child's experience and the various forms of subject-matter that make up the course of study."
child's experience "already contains within itself elements--facts and truths--of just the same sort as those entering into the formulated study" and "contains within itself the attitudes, the motives, and the interests which have operated in developing and organizing the subject-matter in the plane which it now occupies."
studies (curriculum) "outgrowths of forces operating in the child's life"
Must see "steps that intervene between the child's present experience and their richer maturity"
child's experience and subject-matter are "initial and final terms of one reality"
subject-matter contents represent tools for discriminating between those activities in the child which are transitory and those which will mature into long-standing habits of mind and body; it is a map offering guidance for the child's present development
Subject-matter "says to the teacher: Such and such are the capacities, the fulfillments, in truth and beauty and behavior, open to these children. Now see to it that day by day the conditions are such that their own activities move inevitably in this direction, toward such culmination of themselves"

Given originally as speech before the Progressive Education Association
Written to "clarify" Dewey's position and to answer his critics
Key concepts:

traditional vs. progressive education
the need for a theory of experience
experience is "of," "by," and "for" persons
experience is "of," "by," and "in" nature
expereince is NATURAL
experience is ALL THERE IS, really
Nature consists of "events" or "affairs"; nature is an "affair of affairs"
educative experience
qualities of experience
immediate or primary experience vs. mediated, reflective, or secondary experience
continuity of experience
interaction in experience (later, "transaction")
social participation
growth
impulse
purpose
ideas (instruments, or tools)
ideals
language
teacher as facilitator
democratic education
aesthetic experience
religious experience
consummatory experience

Do we need a theory of experience? Why? What "work" can it do?
Should teachers engage in philosophy?
Where does virtue come from in Deweyan education?
What is the relationship between psychology and philosophy (in general; for Dewey)?

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