Chapter I: Front Matter

RECONSTRUCTION IN PHILOSOPHY

BY
JOHN DEWEY
Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University

NEW YORK.
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1920

COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY

PREFATORY NOTE

Being invited to lecture at the Imperial University of Japan in Tokyo during February and March of the present year, I attempted an interpretation of the reconstruction of ideas and ways of thought now going on in philosophy. While the lectures cannot avoid revealing the marks of the particular standpoint of their author, the aim is to exhibit the general contrasts between older and newer types of philosophic problems rather than to make a partisan plea in behalf of any one specific solution of these problems. I have tried for the most part to set forth the forces which make intellectual reconstruction inevitable and to prefigure some of the lines upon which it must proceed.

Any one who has enjoyed the unique hospitality of Japan will be overwhelmed with confusion if he endeavors to make an acknowledgment in any way commensurate to the kindnesses he received. Yet I must set down in the barest of black and white my grateful appreciation of them, and in particular record my ineffaceable impressions of the courtesy and help of the members of the department of philosophy of Tokyo University, and of my dear friends Dr. Ono and Dr. Nitobe.

J. D.

September, 1919.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 1

Origin of philosophy in desire and imagination.
Influence of community traditions and authority.
Simultaneous development of matter-of-fact knowledge.
Incongruity and conflict of the two types.
Respective values of each type.... Classic philosophies
(i) compensatory, (ii) dialectically formal,
and (iii) concerned with "superior" Reality. Contemporary
thinking accepts primacy of matter-of-fact
knowledge and assigns to philosophy a social
function rather than that of absolute knowledge.

II SOME HISTORICAL FACTORS IN PHILOSOPHICAL RECONSTRUCTION 28

Francis Bacon exemplifies the newer spirit....
He conceived knowledge as power. As dependent
upon organized cooperative research.... As tested
by promotion of social progress. The new thought
reflected actual social changes, industrial, political,
religious.... The new idealism.

III THE SCIENTIFIC FACTOR IN RECONSTRUCTION OF PHILOSOPHY 53

Science has revolutionized our conception of Nature.
Philosophy has to be transformed because
no longer depending upon a science which accepts
a closed, finite world. Or, fixed species. Or,
superiority or rest to change and motion. Contrast
of feudal with democratic conceptions. Elimination
of final causes. Mechanical science and the possibility
of control of nature. Respect for matter.
New temper of imagination. Influence thus far
technical rather than human and moral.

IV CHANGED CONCEPTIONS OF EXPERIENCE AND REASON 77

Traditional conception of nature of experience.
Limits of ancient civilization. Effect of classic
idea on modern empiricism. Why a different conception
is now possible. Psychological change emphasizes
vital factor using environment. Effect
upon traditional ideas of sensation and knowledge.
Factor of organization. Socially, experience is now
more inventive and regulative.... Corresponding
change in idea of Reason. Intelligence is hypothetical
and inventive. Weakness of historic Rationalism.
Kantianism. Contrast of German and
British philosophies. Reconstruction of empirical
liberalism.

V CHANGED CONCEPTIONS OF THE IDEAL AND THE REAL 103

Idealization rooted in aversion to the disagreeable....
This fact has affected philosophy....
True reality is ideal, and hence changeless, complete.
Hence contemplative knowledge is higher
than experimental. Contrast with the modern practise
of knowledge.... Significance of change....
The actual or realistic signifies conditions effecting
change.... Ideals become methods rather than
goals. Illustration from elimination of distance.
Change in conception of philosophy.... The
significant problems for philosophy.... Social
understanding and conciliation. The practical problem
of real and ideal.

VI THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LOGICAL RECONSTRUCTION 132

Present confusion as to logic. Logic is regulative
and normative because empirical. Illustration from
mathematics. Origin of thinking in conflicts. Confrontation
with fact. Response by anticipation or
prediction. Importance of hypotheses. Impartial
inquiry. Importance of deductive function. Organization
and classification. Nature of truth.
Truth is adverbial, not a thing.

VII RECONSTRUCTION IN MORAL CONCEPTIONS 161

Common factor in traditional theories. Every
moral situation unique. Supremacy of the specific
or individualized case. Fallacy of general ends.
Worth of generalization of ends and rules is intellectual.
Harmfulness of division of goods into
intrinsic and instrumental. Into natural and moral.
Moral worth of natural science. Importance of
discovery in morals. Abolishing Phariseeism....
Growth as the end. Optimism and pessimism. Conception
of happiness. Criticism of utilitarianism.
All life moral in so far as educative.

VIII RECONSTRUCTION AS AFFECTING SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY 187

Defects of current logic of social thought. Neglect
of specific situations. Defects of organic concept
of society. Evils of notion of fixed self or
individual. Doctrine of interests. Moral and institutional
reform. Moral test of social institutions.
Social pluralism. Political monism, dogma
of National State. Primacy of associations. International
humanism. Organization a subordinate
conception. Freedom and democracy. Intellectual
reconstruction when habitual will affect imagination
and hence poetry and religion.

INDEX 217

RECONSTRUCTION IN PHILOSOPHY