John Dewey Quotes (1859-1952)

“Men's fundamental attitudes toward the world are fixed by the scope and qualities of the activities in which they partake.”

“If upon thought hang all deliberate activities and the uses we make of all our other powers, Locke's assertion that it is of the highest concernment that care should be taken of its conduct is a moderate statement.”

“Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality. Those who have the gift of creative expression in unusually large measure disclose the meaning of the individuality of others to those others. In participating in the work of art, they become artists in their activity. They learn to know and honor individuality in whatever form it appears. The fountains of creative activity are discovered and released. The free individuality which is the source of art is also the final source of creative development in time.”

“Some attitudes may be named... which are central in effective intellectual ways of dealing with subject matter. Among the most important are directness, open-mindedness, single-mindedness (or whole-heartedness), and responsibility.”

“Only a philosophy of pluralism, of genuine indetermination, and of change which is real and intrinsic gives significance to individuality. It alone justifies struggle in creative activity and gives opportunity for the emergence of the genuinely new.”

“There are three aspects of thinking as more or less complete stages of it. These are, conception, judgment, and reasoning. They are not to be considered three distinct acts; not even three successive stages. No one of them could occur without each of the others.”

“The development of science has produced an industrial revolution which has brought different peoples in such close contact with one another through colonization and commerce that no matter how some nations may still look down upon others, no country can harbor the illusion that its career is decided wholly within itself.”

“"Knowledge," in the sense of information, means the working capital, the indispensable resources, of further inquiry; of finding out, or learning, more things. Frequently it is treated as an end in itself, and then the goal becomes to heap it up and display it when called for. This static, cold-storage ideal of knowledge is inimical to educative development.”

“The realm of meanings is wider than that of true-and-false meanings; it is more urgent and more fertile. When the claim of meanings to truth enters in, then truth is indeed preeminent. But this fact is often confused with the idea that truth has a claim to enter everywhere; that it has monopolistic jurisdiction. Poetic meanings, moral meanings, a large part of the goods of life are matters of richness and freedom of meanings, rather than of truth; a large part of our life is carried on in a realm of meanings to which truth and falsity as such are irrelevant.”

“Greek and medieval knowledge accepted the world in its qualitative variety, and regarded nature's processes as having ends, or in technical phrase as teleological. New science was expounded so as to deny the reality of all qualities in real, or objective, existence. Sounds, colors, ends, as well as goods and bads, were regarded as purely subjective — as mere impressions in the mind. Objective existence was then treated as having only quantitative aspects — as so much mass in motion, its only differences being that at one point in space there was a larger aggregate mass than at another, and that in some spots there were greater rates of motion than at others. Lacking qualitative distinctions, nature lacked significant variety. Uniformities were emphasized, not diversities; the ideal was supposed to be the discovery of a single mathematical formula applying to the whole universe at once from which all the seeming variety of phenomena could be derived. This is what a mechanical philosophy means.”

“Could we not interest the people working in the neighboring factories, in these older forms of industry, so that, through their own parents and grandparents, they would find a dramatic representation of the inherited resources of their daily occupation. If these young people could actually see that the complicated machinery of the factory had been evolved from simple tools, they might at least make a beginning towards that education which Dr. Dewey defines as "a continuing reconstruction of experience." They might also lay a foundation for reverence of the past which Goethe declares to be the basis of all sound progress.”

“I cannot refrain from expressing my gratitude and that of many of my left wing fellow students to Dewey for his uncompromising honesty in exposing Stalin's show trials of 1935-37. This was not easy at a time when, in the presence of the Great Depression, many intellectuals saw a new hope in the Soviet Union. But to Dewey truth came first; and he (with the great aid of the late Sidney Hook) showed that the trials must be rigged and therefore that the Stalin regime was based on lies. This saved many of us from ever being misled.”

“In [Dewey's] thought the hope of achieving a vantage point which transcends the corruptions of self-interest takes the form of trusting ... "the procedure of organized co-operative inquiry which has won the triumphs of science in the field of physical nature." ...Not a suspicion dawns on Professor Dewey that no possible "organized inquiry" can be as transcendent over historical conflicts of interest as it ought to be to achieve the disinterested intelligence he attributes to it. Every such "organized inquiry" must have its own particular social locus. No court of law, thought supported by age-old traditions of freedom from party conflict, is free of party bias whenever it deals with issues profound enough to touch the very foundations of the society upon which the court is reared.”

“The core of Deweyan political philosophy can be stated in the slogan that is popular among contemporary Deweyans: democracy is a way of life. This slogan is intended to convey two main commitments. First, democracy is not merely a kind of state or a procedure for collective decision, but a moral ideal of human life. Second, the moral ideal that is democracy can be pursued and fulfilled only under certain kinds of social arrangements. In short, democracy is a way of life in which each individual exercises and cultivates his unique capacities in a way which contributes to the flourishing of the whole society.”