ABSTRACT. Philosophy of education may be the most significant part of John Dewey’s philosophy. He once defined philosophy as the generalized theory of education (Dewey 1916: 383, 386–7) and education as the means of the continuity of experience through renewing the social group (ibid: 2–3). He considered education – learning and growth in the broadest possible sense – as summum bonum to which everything else is ancillary (Dewey 1916: 54, 59–62, 142–5; 1920: 183–6).

Dewey (1916: chs. 1–2) understood the difference between formal and informal education. He believed formal education to be relatively shallow and informal education to have a much deeper effect upon us. Outside, and possibly in the absence of, schools, people can acquire the institutions, customs and habits, including methods of production, of their society informally.

In this presentation, I will argue that the experimental method is the method that underlies both formal and informal education. Experiment is not confined to scientific practice; on the contrary, it pervades all practice.

Dewey (1916: 163–78, 317–22) argued that all experience is experimental: all our beliefs are at test all the time. He defined experience as organism—environment interaction in many instances (e.g. Dewey 1941: 183–4). It involves action (possibly idling), undergoing its results (possibly none), and correlating the action with its results. Peirce’s belief—doubt model of inquiry describes this process (CP 2.619–44, 5.161–74, 5.265, 5.374–6, 5.416 6.469–73; EP 1: 28–9, 114–5, 186–99; EP 2: 212–8, 287–8, 336, 440–2.). That leads to knowledge about cause—effect relations. That also leads to the genesis of meaning: causes and effects become signs of each other; and the reconceptualization of effects as possible ends-in-view and causes as means to these ends-in-view brings the generated meaning home. (cf. Lindholm 2021; forthcoming.) Such genesis of meaning is how the world educates us informally – how we acquire concepts. Dewey also argued that experience has a holistic character; it takes place within a comprehensive situation which can, however, be potentially analyzed into parts, if one already has knowledge how to do so (1916: 42, 56, 91–2, 232–4; 1938: 66–70).

The experimental method pervades all experience. Science is the agency of the most perfected experimental methods. Thus there is no sharp distinction between everyday experience and science: the latter not only presupposes but also extends the former. Logic is part of more comprehensive experimentation: the conclusion of an inference is not the conclusion of an inquiry: somebody must resolve the problematic situation by rearranging its parts (Dewey [1910] 1933: 100–1).

Science must be understood as learning rather than knowing. That makes science also a form of education.

ABSTRACT. Abstract Individual autonomy is ideal for many modern and liberal doctrines. Despite disagreements about a proper notion of autonomy, it is widely accepted that individual autonomy is a matter of social justice and is important for democratic life. Some educational theories consider autonomy as the core goal of educational systems or argue that education should be autonomy-facilitating. That is because students have an interest in becoming autonomous adults, and educational policies should be made based on students’ developmental interests. In this paper, I consider Dewey’s progressive approach to education and will show that despite Dewey’s rejection of the possibility of being independent and self-sufficient, his offered educational system could establish a firm basis for fostering students’ individual autonomy in society.

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ABSTRACT. Abstract Three conventional educational approaches majorly influence current education: human capital, human right, and human capability. However, all three share the same challenge: although multiple people live interactively in society, the aim of utilizing their learning outcomes, rights, and capabilities does not fully encapsulate the concept of “otherness.” Even so, one prominent education model tackles this issue: “value-creating education (VCE).” This study refers to Dewey’s education philosophy to organize the features of VCE, compares three previous approaches with VCE, and identifies its perspective that is vital for future education policy. By analyzing practical reports, VCE provides a platform wherein people interact with each other and create public value through valuable thinking. The reasons for VCE’s effectiveness are as follows: 1) VCE rests on interpersonal relationships within society; 2) it builds on “practical democracy” in which people’s diversity and distinction become a driving force for innovation; 3) it seeks to find “value creation,” which comes from people’s beliefs and morale, in interpersonal relationships among people; 4) it aspires to embody humanitarian and moral education; and 5) its theory is founded on the universality of “agency,” or human’s intrinsic nature to create value. Hence, VCE can act as a springboard for shaping the new identity of education policy.　　

Key aspects of theoretical frames and arguments: In conventional educational approaches, education is regarded as the means. However, regarding education as merely “the means” has some criticism. Bethel criticizes, modern education lacks a defined purpose by humans, as Alfred Nobel also states, “be inherited heritage can be, but happiness cannot inherited.” The viewpoint of purpose is essential in the field of education. The founder of VCE, Makiguchi once wrote, “Rather than devise complex theoretical interpretations, it is better to start by looking to the lovely child who sits on your knee and ask yourself. What can I do ensure that this child will be able to lead the happiest life possible?” What Makiguchi emphasizes is self-contemplation and changes caused by it. Makiguchi’s educational philosophy and practice identifies “effective” value, as Dewey redefines “effective” freedom. Research design and methods (secondary literature used): Soka Gakkai Education Headquarters has been keeping practical education case studies recorded. These practical education case studies incorporates Makiguchi’s educational ideas. By analyzing its more than 140,000 case studies, several common phrases are repeatedly appeared. Researched five key words, one aspect is highlighted. VCE (Soka education) sees a not-divided relevance between teacher and student as a condition. Some practical education case studies are selected and analyzed in terms of transformative values. Findings and implication: Two things are highlighted. One is the features of agent and agency. Inspired by the idea of “for what purpose,” a teacher is aware of being “an agent of change.” Those teachers are expected to exercise the agentive role in educational improvement, and cause “agency” over students. The other is the existence of value platform, which is a term I named. It is the space to identify the meaning and effective value in human relationship, through “people’s valuable thinking for what purpose,” and it brings about the change and extent of values in the field of education.

ABSTRACT. Although Dewey's approach to education is widely recognized in educational science, contemporary democratic theory in Europe, and political science, in particular, hardly reflects on the relationship between democracy and education. As Axel Honneth has recently pointed out, contemporary theory overlooks the significance of education and work, which has serious implications for both theory and practice (Honneth 2021). Modern democratic societies fail to address the societal preconditions of democracy and the requirements that sustain its foundation.

This paper aims to highlight three arguments. Firstly, democracy can only be correctly understood by reflecting on the preconditions that underpin it. Relying solely on schools to educate responsible citizens is incompatible with integrating them into a capitalist labor market and the highly competitive structures of labor markets (Sandel 2021). This contradiction undermines the foundation of democracy. This is why Dewey advocated for both democratic schools and democratic socialism (Dewey 1916; 1930; 1935). Secondly, this paper sheds light on contemporary European debates on John Dewey and examines growth as a normative standard for both education and democracy. Finally, this paper discusses the impact of Dewey's approach in the context of the crises of the 21st century. As his normative approach to growth suggests, Dewey has a positive outlook towards the future and the potential to shape it through democratic policies (Dewey 1938b). However, the question arises as to whether such an approach remains convincing when considering the climate crisis, the relevance of fake news, or conspiracy theories (Pottle 2022). Does the future still hold the possibility of growth, or does Deweyan education require a different approach?

The paper is structured as follows: firstly, it elaborates on the link between the voids in democratic theory and the extent to which Deweyan theory can fill in such gaps. It discusses the reasons why contemporary European political theory hardly reflects on the role of education and why this poses a long-term threat to democracy. Secondly, it discusses the contradictions of educating for democracy in democratic political systems that do not sustain democracy as a way of life. How can Deweyan educational theory be sustained under capitalist conditions? Why did Dewey argue in favor of democratic socialist measures? Lastly, this paper highlights why Dewey is still relevant in the 21st century. Drawing on his conflict model, one can better understand the problems of marginalized groups in modern Western societies and develop better answers to resolve their problems and understand the societal conditions of democracy.

ABSTRACT. Though Dewey has a more modest faith in the power of schools to foster social change in his later writings, he still sees them as an essential mechanism for creating a more democratic society. In "Education and Social Change", he argues that we can't make society more democratic without fostering democratic attitudes and dispositions through the schools. His political writings in this period are dominated by the problem of how to create a truly democratic society, and the main emphasis was on how the public could gain control over the industrial and financial systems so that those systems would serve democratic ends, rather than the private interests of a privileged class. This end is supposed to be supported by a democratic education, which is needed to give citizens the skills and attitudes needed to engage in the creation and preservation of a democratic economy.

But he also admits in writings from the same period that the legal and political institutions of his day “tend to favor in substance a privileged plutocracy” (LW11, 60). This creates a problem for his vision of how schools should foster social change; if legal and political institutions favor those who hold power in industry and finance, and these institutions also control the aims and policies of the schools, it seems like those who want to create democratic schools have lost the battle before it’s begun. The changes Dewey wants to make in both society and the schools go against the interests of the industrial and financial elites who have the upper hand in the institutions that decide what aims and policies society and the schools can pursue. Because of this, it seems unclear how those who want to create democratic schools can do so, since those in charge of the schools have the power and incentives to stop them from creating these schools.

Unfortunately, this is no mere historical puzzle: we are facing a rapid rise of right-wing populist governments around the world, which seek to suppress democratic education and foster the sort of indoctrination that Dewey saw as the antithesis of democracy. And anyone who wants to support democratic education in these circumstances not only have few opportunities to do so, but must take on grave risks in going against the whims of the right-wing governments that are tightening their grip on schools. So we must ask: how can people seeking democratic education build it when the political and legal institutions which govern their schools have the will and means to suppress it? For people like me who are devoted to Dewey’s vision of democracy, this creates a task: to find a way to overcome these rising antidemocratic powers in order to give life to democratic schools and social institutions, even though these powers seem to have a clear upper hand. I don’t know if it can be done, but if there’s a way it can, our duty now is to find it and support it with all our strength.

ABSTRACT. Central to the task of creative democracy are the proper environmental conditions for democracy as a personal way of life. A key condition is education, which has its own conditions. Among the tasks of education is learning about nature, including human nature, as evolved and evolving. Such knowledge feeds back into how to educate better. When a community fails in its democracy, it fails to put to work new knowledge about how humans and nature operate. Such failure has resulted in what Emma Dowling calls The Care Crisis. Recent work in the sciences of life and mind supports Dewey’s moral ideal of creative democracy and his pragmatic naturalism. Dewey’s postulate of continuity and his conception of growth are useful aids in addressing Dowling’s care crisis. Growth, as the end of education for Dewey, is his only absolute. Growth, moreover, is not merely individual but communal. Growth is not merely an improvement in the organism but also in ameliorative modifications to the environment. Growth reflects Dewey’s emphasis on continuities across old-fashioned dualisms like mind/body, inner/outer, higher/lower, and individual/community. Education, it follows, must embrace and make productive use of these continuities, especially as our inquiries provide fresh insights into the operations of human beings in their various environments. Some relevant fresh insights from the sciences of life and mind are particularly relevant for addressing the care crisis in and through education. Using Dewey’s postulate of continuity and his conception of growth, I first discuss the anticipatory regulatory mechanism of allostasis and its role in social cooperation. I also discuss the conception of health developing from social allostasis. Continuity, growth, and nervous systems are also illustrated in Dewey’s conception of body-mind. It is illuminated by recent research on the influence of diet on mental health, specifically the important role of micronutrients. Over the last several decades, as the western diet has become heavily reliant on processed foods, people are not ingesting sufficient vitamins and minerals, contributing to increased rates of mental illness. We are, in a sense, what we eat. But, as other research in lifestyle medicine also suggests, we are what we do. The more sedentary people become, the greater the decline in health, physical, mental, and social. These insights are relevant for education. They are not only things people should learn and put to practice; but they also shed light on the care crisis and its resolution. Healthy body-minds are both means and end to education and growth. Communities that are poorly organized and poorly resourced are not able to regulate themselves in anticipation of novel problems. Such impoverishment is seen both in failures to educate and the failure to use education effectively. Basic conditions for education, and thus for creative democracy, include the learner’s ability to focus, to attend, to remember, and to reflect as much as they must be able to keep anxiety or depression from overwhelming their abilities. Social allostasis and lifestyle medicine are useful tools in promoting such conditions for education, democracy, and care.

ABSTRACT. With emerging technologies evolving at an accelerating rate, philosophers are increasingly turning their attention to the ethical, social, political, and cultural impacts of science and technology on the societies into which they become embedded. Some have recommended a reimagination of technoscience as an institution not engaged an isolated practice of seeking socially-independent truths, but rather one essentially bound up with the democratic project of serving contemporary social needs and contributing to a democratic process of shared future-building. Significant effort has therefore gone into discovering possible methods for preemptive consideration of potentially negative impacts of scientific and technological research, as well as methods for making technoscientific processes more responsive to the values and needs of the democratic societies that support it (Kitcher 2011; Douglas 2009; Brown 2020; Longino 2002).

Among the prominent recommendations for techniques to responsibly navigate values in science, Matthew Brown has suggested that the education of scientists and engineers be adapted to include the teaching of practices by which to identify the values expressed by their ostensibly neutral research choices (Brown 2020). I suggest that Brown’s recommendations for scientific education can be supplemented by a distinct strand of Deweyan thought, namely, Dewey’s theory of the democratic-educative capacities of art.

Dewey in his own time noted the disruption caused by emerging scientific beliefs and their applications, and he urged that art could be employed as an instrument of integrating science into broader social experience (1985). His recommendation, with appropriate adjustments, is still relevant for our contemporary attempts to render science and technology responsive to the needs of democratic society. For Dewey, art was a medium for collective social imagination and a vehicle (or at least the ignition) for social transformation into new (and hopefully improved) ways of living collectively. In this way, I suggest that artworks engaging with scientific ideas, most notably science fiction, may aid individuals in imagining the kinds of worlds that could emerge from pursuing certain branches of scientific research.

This could have a bidirectional positive effect on rendering scientific institutions more responsive to democratic society’s needs and values. Firstly, were such practices embedded in all levels of science education, it would transform the process of imaginative world-building from a mere afterthought into an essential element of scientific work, necessitating ongoing ubiquitous consideration of the diverse lived experiences that might emerge from any given research project. Secondly, lower requirements for technical-scientific literacy mean that this practice could be implemented on all levels of science education, as well as in broader social engagement efforts, thereby involving a wider and more diverse range of citizens in the process of imagining the collective futures potentially being ushered in by research projects. In Dewey’s words, “were art an acknowledged power in human association and not treated as the pleasuring of an idle moment or as a means of ostentatious display,” it could serve as a powerful instrument for democratizing the directions of our scientific institutions.

ABSTRACT. Dewey had first-hand experience with art education when he served as Director at Barnes Foundation. When speaking of the role of art museums in a child’s education, Dewey’s theory of art as a transformative experience leads the way. Drawing from Dewey’s notion of art as a transformative process. This study was conducted with Philadelphia schools that participated in the Art of Looking Program. The Art of Looking Program was developed by Barnes Foundation, an educational art institution in Philadelphia dedicated to connecting schools and the community to art as an educative experience. The program emphasized the visual arts as integral to learning across the curriculum and it takes student understanding of art and life to a deeper level of reflection inquiry, and critical thinking (Barnes Foundation 2012). The Art of Looking Program developed out of the need to meet Philadelphia’s interest for more impactful teaching and learning about art. The program was created specifically for 5th and 6th-grade students from the School District of Philadelphia to fill the void for students with limited access to art resources of Pennsylvania state budget cuts. The program was designed for urban students and integrated art into key curriculum standards. The goal of the Art of Looking program was to connect students to art, open the museum to teachers as a pedagogical site, and provide the community with a public space for the appreciation of art. The foundation wanted students to know they could approach a work of art with confidence because children are ingrained with knowledge and learning potential. Through the experience of the Art of Looking Program students would be able to incorporate new ways of perceiving objects in context - skills necessary to understand and more fully appreciate art. For participants in the program, understanding and appreciating a painting went beyond analyzing its formal elements, and included the ability to relate the art to real life experience. In conducting this study, I recognize that art education, especially one that includes field trips to a private art collection or museum that predominantly show- cases Western European art is positioned to be controversial for reinforcing Eurocentric culture and promoting cultural imperialism as a form of social control. Philadelphia is a city that houses global, mostly European works of art in world-famous museums, while artists of color display their work on street murals and public spaces fueling the debate about race and the marginalization of some kinds of art. At the same time, school and community partnerships can address cultural imperialism and the inequity it engenders by bridging the divide between those who have access to knowledge and those who do not, between global art that is considered elitist and local knowledge that has been historically under- recognized and excluded from school curricula. Art education can provide a meaningful catalyst to engage students, teachers, and communities to take action around issues of equal opportunities and access for all students and challenge inequities in schools and society as a move toward social justice.

ABSTRACT. In 2019, the Dutch ‘Vereniging Hogescholen’, the collected universities of applied sciences, signed the SDG charter, committing to engaging the UN formulated Sustainable Development Goals. These goals are so called ‘wicked problems,’ problems for which there is no set or prescribed solution. Discussion of the SDGs and the ways the creative industries can contribute often point to the seminal paper ‘Wicked Problems in Design Thinking’ (Buchanan, 1992) as an early statement. Often forgotten though is that Buchanan hails Dewey as one of the first thinkers that formulates an “art of experimental thinking” (ibid., 8). As educators for the creative industries, it helps us if we keep in mind the pragmatist idea of progress, especially given the challenges before us. Possibilities for progress must be found in our present times and current situations. One such possibility for me is to focus on solving some problems in the current moral practices in the creative industries. Within these practices professionals and companies realize creative concepts that have problematic aspects, ranging from television show formats exploiting people to games with lootboxes impinging on gambling laws. Up until now, we, as educators for the creative industries, have only moved towards teaching forms of concepting that focus on accountability (Crucq-Toffolo and Meys, 2019) but even the best of such accountable concepts still have a backward-looking account of progress, and the method falls prey to several false beliefs. The major one is that accountability is not the same as responsibility and keeps concepting in a state of wishful thinking: one cannot import responsibility into a realized concept ex post facto. Many of the problematic aspects of concepts are considered unforeseen or unintended consequences, by-products of the entertainment ends central to the creative industries. This is a possibility for progress. Right now, we have an insufficiently inclusive or ‘democratic’ process of concepting and there is a lack of moral imagination. My aim is to illustrate why a Deweyan ethical framework is uniquely capable of tackling said challenges. Dewey’s reconstruction of reason into operational intelligence considers all intelligent behavior as more or less imaginative in character (Alexander, 1987; Fesmire, 2003). Dewey’s view of moral deliberation thus provides a way forward into a responsible process-based form of combining creative design with the training of imaginative prospection. Hence, Dewey would consider the unintended consequences excuse an educational problem due to blunted moral habits having formed (Pappas, 2008). With this methodology of responsible imaginative concepting, I provide an example of a forward-looking account of progress. To see “schools as cultures of imagination, growth, and fulfillment” (Fesmire, 2017), and to engage the SDGs more systematically I hope to have contributed to the domain of educating for the creative industries.

ABSTRACT. “The schools I dreamed of were established in Turkey as village institutes. I want the world to see these schools.” (J. Dewey / 3.21.1945 Le Monde Newspaper / translated by Cevizci,2008

Scholars have different views about John Dewey's impact on Turkish education. While some favor his contribution (Goodenow,1990; Suleyman,1934; Kazamias,1966; Ata,2000; Buyukduvenci,1994), others argue that Dewey's influence is so slight that it can be ignored (Szyliowicz,1973; Basgoz,1968). On the other hand, some Turkish educators take no notice of John Dewey in their considerations of Turkish education (Kaya,1974; Kodamanoglu,1965). This paper will take a side of those who agree that John Dewey greatly influenced Turkish education by focusing significantly on `the Village Institutes` that are still defined as ‘the most original and useful practices in Turkish education history.’ (Kapluhan, 2012). It is known that John Dewey was invited to Turkey by the Turkish government in 1924, and after his stay between 19 July and 10 September, he presented his preliminary report containing his observations of the educational problems and suggestions for budget planning. After returning to the U.S., he prepared and sent his main report containing his detailed analysis of the problems, needs, and suggestions for establishing and improving an education system in the newly born Turkish Republic. In this paper, I aim to analyze the profound impacts of Dewey's second report on Village Institutes, from their constitutions to their developments. The Village Institutes stemmed from the needs of those times in Turkey. In the 1930s, 80 percent of Turkish people were living in villages where schooling opportunities were far from meeting their needs. A small number of teachers had been sent from cities to villages by the state. However, they could not succeed because adapting to harsh village conditions was difficult. Villagers were the most neglected section of the population during the Ottoman era, and they attained great importance for the success of the Turkish Republic. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, highlighted the state's responsibility to educate and improvement of the people living in the villages in several of his speeches in the Turkish Parliament between 1921-1922. (Tonguc, 1970) The Ministry of Education started to develop an omnibus education plan for the progress and modernization of the village and villagers and constructed the Village Institutes. Following Dewey's ideas and his second report, The Institutes developed their concrete and practical programs on the needs and requirements of village life by carefully considering the changing needs according to the region where the villages were situated. The Village Institutes achieved great success in villages; 17.341 students graduated from 21 Village Institutes in 13 years between 1930 and 1950. The village institutes were closed in 1950 by the right-wing, conservative Democrat Party. Village institutes' experience could be considered a significant educational attempt in Turkey. Even though the reasons behind the closure of these institutes were complicated, it can be summarized by saying that the political discussions and interests, in particular, destroyed Turkey's most valuable educational project, which had considerably high potential for the next generations and the democratic ideals of the Turkish Republic. (Bartan,2014)

ABSTRACT. Indian democracy has exhibited political strength for a considerable period. However, under the governance of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), multiple challenges have emerged that pose threats to the social fabric and democratic ideals that India has sought to uphold. With the current drafting of a new national curriculum framework in 2023 under the BJP government, concerns have been raised regarding the regressive nature of the proposed educational system compared to previous curriculum frameworks. Considering these issues, it is essential to explore the relevance of John Dewey's educational and social thought to the contemporary Indian education system. Dewey's philosophy emphasized the importance of experimentation as a fundamental condition for acquiring valuable knowledge. He rejected the notion of a dichotomy between theory and practice, proposing instead an approach to knowledge that encourages active engagement with the world rather than passive observation. Dewey's focus lay in the readiness to act, adapt, and accommodate—qualities that are closely associated with both learning and democracy. It is crucial to emphasize that Dewey's interest in democracy extended beyond its role as a system of governance; he viewed it as a way of life. Similarly, within the classroom setting, democracy is more than just a behavioural value or a means to enhance learning; it places significant emphasis on the freedom to act as the sole avenue for self-realization. Taking these concerns into account, this paper aims to examine Dewey's work "Democracy and Education" in the context of the Indian education system. As Indian readers, we are compelled to compare Dewey's educational and social thought with that of Mahatma Gandhi. Therefore, this study will also explore the relevance and significance of Dewey's ideas on education and democracy by contrasting them with Gandhi's philosophy. As Indian readers of Dewey's work, we feel somewhat uneasy with his idealized view of democracy, considering the many distortions and vulnerabilities that democratic governance and politics have exhibited in our country. Dewey's ideas sometimes appear disconnected from historical realities. Moreover, scepticism arises from Dewey's faith in science as a rational and moral inspiration for reconstructing society. We have witnessed numerous incidents since Hiroshima and Nagasaki that warrant scepticism regarding the extent to which science can serve as a resource for nurturing a democratic temperament. While these points highlight Dewey's limitations, we should still consider his view of democracy as a social sphere charged with the idea of communication. Additionally, his concept of social efficiency, which involves the "socialization of mind" to enhance the communicability of experiences and break down barriers of social stratification, deserves attention. Its real significance for us lies in the distinct pedagogical dimensions it delineates. Dewey's clear distinction between conservative and progressive teaching methods remains highly influential. This paper aims to examine these ideas within the present Indian context. At this juncture, we invoke Gandhi's concept of Nai Talim. While there are evident similarities between Dewey and Gandhi, such as their emphasis on manual work, personal initiative, self-reliance, and the integration of children's activities with broader intellectual concepts, a major point of contention arises when we delve deeper. The difference lies in Dewey's faith in science as a model for rationality, juxtaposed with Gandhi's belief in the moral purpose inherent in life and nature. Consequently, this paper will explore the educational and social thought of both Dewey and Gandhi. Despite their divergent perspectives, both Dewey and Gandhi hold significance in the 21st century for the reconstruction of a more effective education system in India. Symbolically recognizing elementary education as a fundamental civic right is merely a starting point. The transformation of its symbolic value into a reconceptualization of education as an integral facet of democracy, rather than merely an instrument for democratization, poses a formidable challenge. This paper aims to undertake this arduous task with both hope and concern, by examining Dewey's and Gandhi's ideas on education in detail. By comparing their educational and social thought, we seek to shed light on their respective perspectives. Although Dewey's democracy derives its motivational energy from its functioning, while Gandhi's democracy arises from the human yearning for the divine, both thinkers hold significant relevance in the 21st century for the reconstruction of a more robust education system in India. In conclusion, this study recognizes the challenges faced by Indian democracy under the current BJP government and the implications for the education system. By delving into the educational and social thought of John Dewey and Mahatma Gandhi, we aim to explore their relevance and significance in addressing these challenges.

ABSTRACT. The process of post-war reconstruction in Italy has been closely connected with the establishment in 1946 of the democratic republic, which required a deep cultural and political renewal. This implied different and innovative cultural references and models and a thorough transformation of educational models and practices, conceived as the most effective tools to cultivate new forms of citizenship. Within this framework Dewey’s thought proved to be a meaningful reference and an important role in the reception of his vision of education and democracy was played by Ernesto Codignola and his son Tristano who founded La Nuova Italia (the New Italy) publishing house based in Florence, and the journal Scuola e Città (Schooling and the City). As a matter of fact, La Nuova Italia was not simply a publishing house but rather the main tool of a cultural and political project aimed at “renewing” Italian culture. This was undertaken by means of a careful selection of authors who could represent new cultural references and could inspire an effective transformation of educational models and practices in order to sustain an effective political and social change. Democracy and Education was one of the first Dewey’s works to be translated and published within the series “Educatori Antichi e Moderni” (Ancient and Modern Educators) in 1949. The translation of Dewey’s masterpiece was carried out by Enzo Enriques Agnoletti, a scholar of Piero Calamandri and his successor in the direction of the monthly review “Il Ponte”, which was, as Norberto Bobbio points out, “the spokesman for an open, non doctrinaire democratic socialism” (Bobbio, 1995). Within this historical and cultural context, this was conceived mainly as a political operation, with the purpose of defining a shared ethical and political aim to be subsequently developed and translated into democratic forms of education and teaching for the construction of a new democratic citizenship. Democracy and Education has therefore become the core of a pedagogical “manifesto” and the reference textbook for the cultural, ethical and political formation of the following two generations of educational scholars and practitioners. As a matter of fact, it is true that in many cases, within the Italian educational debate, the approach to Dewey’s ideas has not been grounded in a philosophical and theoretical area of discourse, but rather in other practical areas, such as, for example, in an institutional or political field. This approach has progressively detached Dewey’s reasoning from the discursive context within which it was conceived as well as from the overall development of his thought. Moreover, the prevalent political focus of the first readings of Democracy and Education has, to a great extent, diverted Italian scholars from the core meaning of Dewey’s masterpiece, as a result divorcing the democratic and educational issues from the philosophical and epistemological ones. historical period in Italy) obscured Deweys’ critical positioning towards liberalism and did not contribute to sustain a thorough vision of the American philosopher’s thought (Baldacci, 2017). For this reason, Luciana Bellatalla is very critical of a ritual and simplified reading of Dewey’s thought which represents the American philosopher mainly as “the prophet of democracy” and of Democracy and Education as its “manifesto”, and highlights the necessity to read the book from an epistemic perspective, which allows us to see how it represents an epistemological turning point from an holistic to a systemic vision of the world, identifying the utopian tension which sustains Dewey’s reasoning (Bellatalla, 2017). Also Giuseppe Spadafora notes that, for an effective understanding of the whole meaning of the book it is necessary to focus symultaneusly on the philosophical, educational and political dimensions of Dewey’s reasoning (Spadafora, 2017). It is therefore important to promote a new and theoretical reading of Democracy and Education aimed at recovering its theoretical structure adn discover its implications for the construction of a democratic theory of education which is he ultimate goal envisaged by its author.

ABSTRACT. John Dewey's reflective thinking five-step model hold significant importance in the realms of education, problem-solving, and critical thinking. This research revisits Dewey's conventional five-step reflective thinking model, highlighting overlooked elements intrinsic to Dewey's philosophy: communication in community, utilization of tools, reflection on results, and the production of the final composition. Through an in-depth examination of Dewey's writings, a 4CT model is proposed. This model integrates the traditional five-step approach with other significant elements from Dewey's work that have been overlooked. The 4CT model maintains the foundational elements of context, question, hypothesis, inference, and verification, but emphasizes that such inquiry (i.e., C1, which stands for Critical Thinking and Problem Solving; Dewey called it Reflective Thinking or Practice) takes place within a community using Tools (e.g., concepts, technology, etc.) in the form of Collaboration (C2) and Communication (C3). Furthermore, the desired outcome of this inquiry is the attainment of a Creative aesthetic experience (C4). This process is consistent with Dewey's ideas about reflective practice or inquiry. Through this inquiry process, individuals engage with the external world, deriving aesthetic experiences that promote personal growth and improve the world. The 4CT model underscores the aesthetic experience's role in facilitating individual development and the assimilation of new experiences. This model arises in response to critiques suggesting a lack of subjectivization in Dewey's original five-step model.

ABSTRACT. Chinese academia has been studying John Dewey’s Philosophy of Education for about one hundred years, which could generally be divided into four phases. The first thirty years of the 20th Century marked the introduction phase when main work in this field centered on translation of Dewey’s works and review of his educational thought with Hu Shih as the representative scholar. It was followed by an in-depth study phase from 1930 to 1949 characterized by a heated discussion from a great many perspectives including the liberal approach adopted by Tsuin-Chen Ou, creative evolution proposed by Liang Shuming, and the Marxism perspective represented by Lin Bu. During 1950-1980, research on John Dewey’s Philosophy of Education in China differentiated into two scenarios on geographical bases. In mainland China, the research suffered stagnation due to ideological criticisms, while in Hong Kong and Taiwan, it thrived with Tsuin-Chen Ou as the main representative. After 1980, enthusiasm in this field was resumed as mainland China began to reassess John Dewey’s Philosophy of Education. From the perspective of the Paradigm, the research of a century was a course that started from experimentalism to absolutism before it finally came back to experimentalism.

ABSTRACT. The Arab social theory of Hisham Sharabi, the sociology of gender of Fatema Mernissi and the political anthropology of Abdellah Hammoudi emphasize that the persistence of political authoritarianism in the Arab world reflects a crisis of culture or society and, above all, a crisis of education. An education that remains patriarchal or neo-patriarchal, emphasizing the communal and undermining the individual. The thinkers mentioned above explain that a reform of demos cannot come about without a reform of eros. This is another reason why John Dewy's meditations on democracy and education, or on democracy as a way of life, are of great importance for today's Arab societies. In my work, I will deal with the relevance of Dewy’s work and show why we cannot achieve a democratic transition without a cultural transition or without an education for democracy.

ABSTRACT. Since colonial times, orientalist scholars such as Max Müller have harboured a fascination for ancient Sanskrit texts and written about a glorious ancient civilization which existed prior to the ‘Muslim rule.’ They further claimed that through the ‘masculine’ Anglo-Saxon civilization, the long-lost, glorious ancient Indian civilization could be revived. High-caste individuals eagerly took to this construction of a glorious past and furthered this through literary, political, and social engagements. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Anandamath (1882) remains a prime example of this as it crafted a blueprint for a revival of a Hindu nation, which would be made possible only after Hindus learned the modern sciences from the British. Similarly, V.D. Savarkar argued for Hindu unity in Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History (1961), which he believed existed before the Mughals. However, academicians, activists, and social reformers who belong to marginalized groups and/or have written for their upliftment have argued that such a conceptualisation of Hindu society is a farce.

Ambedkar remains one of the most well-known critics of this perspective, and he has drawn heavily from the teachings of John Dewey during his time at Columbia University. In Revolution and Counter-Revolution in India (2011), Ambedkar traces the lineage of Hindu Society to one of social divisiveness. His intellectual lineage being traced to John Dewey can be found in K.N Kadam’s Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's Philosophy of Emancipation and the Impact of John Dewey (1997) and, more recently, Scott Stroud’s The Evolution of Pragmatism in India (2023). Dewey believed that the American Public School was an institution that enabled children from social groups largely antagonistic to each other to come in contact. Similarly, Ambedkar held similar views, most famously expressed during his arguments for the Amendment Act for the Bombay University Act in 1927, protesting against the Bill’s assumption, which saw the university as an institution whose job was restricted to conducting examinations. He argued for the inclusion of marginalized groups into education and every other aspect of the public sphere by bringing up inter-caste dining and marriage, though these were not the only solutions he offered to annihilate caste. Both Ambedkar and Dewey had the realisation that merely written law would not ensure the emancipation of the oppressed, which is why they also argued for a social democracy with a political one.

In my work, I aim to draw upon the original works of Ambedkar and try to draw parallels with the Deweyian understanding of education to criticize the glorification of a constructed Brahmanic past by pointing out its divisive and exclusionary nature. Further, I will argue against the so-called modern models of education suggested by various governmental organizations and policymakers, which usually benefit the ruling classes while making education much more inaccessible to the masses. I will try to carve an Ambedkarite reading of Deweyian philosophy, explain how it has been reinterpreted to understand Indian society better, and suggest democratic reforms. Lastly, I will summarize all of my arguments while mentioning the necessity of an inclusive education model and its benefits not just for the marginalized groups but also the society at large and how it keeps a democracy functional. 

ABSTRACT. There are various interpretations since Dewey's Pragmatism Education Theory Introduction to China. Influenced by the traditional Chinese interpretation of the word "practical", Hu Shi, Tao Xingzhi and other Dewey disciples tended to translate Dewey's pragmatic theory as "experiment" or "try-on", but Huang Yanpei and others directly used "pragmatism" to mark their identification with and imitation of Dewey's thought.This phenomenon shows that Dewey's pragmatism was refracted through different cultural psychology in the process of introducing into Chinese society; The refraction itself enriches the philosophical analysis of pragmatism in language; After refraction, Dewey's pragmatic education thought has had a diversified impact on China's educational practice, and in fact has produced a new system of Chinese localized educational thought.

ABSTRACT. In his Structure of Evolutionary Theory, Stephen Jay Gould suggests that the human brain is precisely the kind of complex, enfolded organic structure we should expect to contain abundant “ever-cascading” and unidentified “spandrels”; by-products which have emerged under the organic structural constraints of the evolution of other functions, not as adaptively evolved organic functions in themselves. Spandrels, by nature of their interconnected presence within the whole, are susceptible to gain novel functions via environment-organism interaction-driven processes referred to as “exaptations” or “cooptations”. In their famous architectural analogy, the illustrative example of a cooptation given by Gould and Richard Lewontin are the decorative murals to which architectural spandrels eventually became the stone canvases; murals that were nevertheless so fitting that the spandrels themselves could erroneously appear to have been ‘made for them’. Similarly, identifying the original structural spandrels behind later-added ‘murals’ is no easy task when it comes to a physiological palimpsest such as the primate brain, much less one as embedded in complex hierarchical social relations as our homo sapiens nervous system has become in the tens of thousands of years since it first hunted on the plains of Africa. Evidence for this difficulty can be seen in the persistence of adaptationist theories of many ‘higher’ cognitive functions taken to be exclusively human, such as ‘confirmation bias’: our focus is drawn to the complex moral and epistemic domains where such bias manifests in our environment, and, asserting that no equivalent domains exist in other species, we conclude that this cognitive phenomenon must have originated in humans, whereupon we begin to shore up our anthropocentric conclusion via rationalizing explanations. However, as not only Gould in Structure but also John Dewey before him asserted, in order to move towards knowledge that will enable us to get a handle on ‘human nature’ and orient it towards a place of richer experience and greater universal welfare, we must get behind the ‘murals’ and identify the evolutionary structure and source of the ‘spandrels’. One historically tried and tested method for deepening the scope of our evolutionary theories is to use ethologically informed animal models to directly test for the presence or absence of cognitive functions. The ethological approach first requires an educated imagining of the animal’s specific ‘Umwelt’ (i.e. its lived experience of its particular environment). One can then introduce into this ‘Umwelt’ analogs of the elements of our human ‘Umwelt’ which we wish to investigate. Combining original research in behavioral neuroscience with theoretical interpretations in the Gouldian and Deweyan traditions, in this talk I will present empirical data from a mouse model of confirmation bias and use it to directly challenge certain currently dominant adaptationist theories of its supposed evolution in humans only. In so doing, we get behind the mural of our confirmation bias, allowing preliminary glimpses of the underlying organic structures it manifests through and how we may best get a grip on and coopt them.

ABSTRACT. An analysis on the National Educational Policy [NEP] 2020 of the Government of India with the reflections of John Dewey assists us to identify the presence of the educational ideals of John Dewey in the policy. The visionary suggestion of the policy statement includes the necessity of how to think critically and solve problems, how to be creative and multidisciplinary, and how to innovate, adapt, and absorb new material in novel and changing fields depend heavily on the five shifts correlated to experience as proposed by Dewey. Those five major shifts are: experience as interaction with environment, experience as objectivity, experience as experimentation, experience as connectedness and experience as reflection. These shifts make their departure from the traditional consideration of experience: experience as knowledge affair, experience as subjectivity, experience as registration of the past, experience as particularism and experience as anti-reflective respectively. While knowledge as interaction with environment helps the learners in learning by doing and engaging them with interdisciplinary thinking, the objectivity factor assists in constructing logically consistent knowledge. Experience as experimentation is significant for promoting scientific method that necessitates active attempts towards progress. While experience as connectedness endorses pluralistic perspectives, experience as reflection encourages the learner to undertake the project of reconstruction of ideas aiming at new synthesis. Undoubtedly, they make education more experiential, holistic, integrated, inquiry-driven, discovery-oriented, learner-centred, discussion-based, flexible, and, of course, enjoyable. Moreover, these educational strategies are powerful in strengthening the democratic spirit of India. Democracy in connection with experience stimulates the free interaction of individual human beings with surrounding conditions creates solid ground for sharing and interaction and creation of a freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute is necessary to challenge the fundamentalist viewpoints within the democracy. In this paper we begin our presentation by pointing out the Deweyan elements in the National Education Policy of India 2020 and proceeds further with the Deweyan implication of these elements in the practical application of the education policy. We conclude by pointing out that the Deweyan suggestions in NEP 2020 will not only purge the educational atmosphere of the country but also purify the democratic spirit of the country.

ABSTRACT. Throughout volume II of Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville claims that Americans found their own philosophical method within themselves by virtue of living in a democratic society that encourages individual rationalism. According to Tocqueville, American philosophical formulations exist because democracy ensures the equality of every individual to engage in rational thought. Studying the uniquely American factors that Tocqueville identifies offers a fresh approach to understanding the origins of Dewey's Pragmatism. This presentation will explore the connections between Tocqueville's analysis of the factors of practicality, religion, individualism, and community in relation to the development of Dewey's pragmatic ideas. Specifically, the presentation analyzes how the factors that Tocqueville identifies are present in Dewey's notion of how communities and democracy help to "create" the individual. Exploring the relationship between Tocqueville's American factors and Dewey's idea of self-realization can shed light on his concept of individualism and "democracy as a way of life."

ABSTRACT. It is widely known that Lipman himself recognized what P4C owes to Dewey. Lipman states that Dewey did not leave a specific example of a philosophy curriculum for elementary school (Lipman 2008). However, Dewey inherited a set of pedagogical criteria such as promoting emotions, sociability, imagination, the childrens’ interests and habit formation. Habits are necessary to develop higher order thinking habilities and inquiry in general. In Dewey’s conception of education, it is crucial to be able to reconstruct our belief habits as a result of the transaction between our current habits and our instincts. The community of inquiry is an optimal environment in which we can reconstruct these belief habits as David Kennedy (2012) argued. Thus, there is a continuity between Dewey’s and Lipman’s proposals concerning habits.

Clarisse Leseigneur (2021) argues that Dewey’s notion of habit is different from Lipman’s. According to Leseigneur, each author assumes a different conception of rationality, inquiry, citizenship and democracy. Dewey’s view of rationality is closer to scientific inquiry while Lipman assumes a dialogical view of rationality. Therefore, Leseigneur claims that Lipman’s proposal is not a continuation of Dewey’s. The purpose of this paper is to show that (1) the differences Leseigneur identifies between Dewey’s and P4C’s projects are a matter of emphasis rather than a discontinuity that amounts to a different model of rationality; (2) the habits promoted in P4C are included in the set of habits necessary for Deweyan inquiry, pedagogy and democracy, and (3) Dewey’s notion of habit is assumed by Lipman’s P4C in several ways. In the first section of this paper, I present Leseigneur’s interpretation, and then I discuss some of her views. I base my criticisms on textual evidence from both Dewey and Lipman, as well as on secondary sources. In the second section, I give some concrete examples of habit formation procedures from Topping, Trickey, and Cleghorn (2019) and from my own P4C experiences. Finally, I state some concluding remarks.

I argue that both Dewey and Lipman intend to form inquiry habits that include metacognitive habilities such as self-correction. Lipman’s community of philosophical dialogue can be considered as a first stage or a condition to reach a community of scientific inquiry that entails control and experimentation. Lipman’s complex thinking habilities, i.e. critical, creative and caring thinking skills, have to be cultivated and grow to become habits which are necessary for the virtuous functioning of a scientific community. Complex thinking habilities could be embodied in other kind communities of inquiry based or reasonable dialogue. For these reasons, Leseigneur does not show that there is a radical difference or an essential incompatibility between the two notions of habit, together with their pedagogical and philosophical consequences.

ABSTRACT. ON JANUARY 28, 1904, John Dewey gave a talk titled “The Significance of the School of Education” to the school’s Parents’ Association. Likely none in attendance anticipated that by May, Dewey would be departing from the University of Chicago, a move widely written about in books and articles. Far less well-known is a part of that enterprise whose significance Dewey so grandly proclaimed: the Chicago Manual Training School (CMTS). Though Dewey largely ignored CMTS while it was under his purview, the school’s rationale and curriculum resembled not only aspects of the Laboratory School but those Dewey would forcefully advocate in his noted writings about manual and industrial education over the next dozen years. How and why Dewey neglected CMTS and its potential remains an untold story. CMTS had been founded as a private secondary school for boys a decade prior to Dewey’s 1894 arrival in Chicago, Its curriculum was similar to that of the better-known Manual Training School in St. Louis. But unlike the latter, CMTS was independent, unaffiliated with a university. Its initial history and rationale were articulated at great length by attorney and self-taught historian of technology Charles Ham; its financial support came from the merchants and manufacturers of Chicago’s Commercial Club. They thought that such a manual training school might, as the title of Ham’s 1886 book proclaimed, be “a solution of social and industrial problems.” Though that did not happen, CMTS did influence the founding of other schools in Chicago and elsewhere. Henry Belfield, CMTS’s founding director, was one of several educators who established national reputations in Chicago in the years prior to Dewey’s arrival, and he guided the school’s growth into a distinctive institution for the sons of Chicago’s middle class. Despite enrolling over 300 students within its first few years, CMTS, with its half academic and half manual-work curriculum, never became self-supporting. In 1897, the Commercial Club awarded its assets to the University of Chicago. During 1901, in a transaction that included a well-funded school headed by Francis Parker, William Rainey Harper designated Dewey as head of a vast enterprise that included academic departments at the university, elementary and high schools, and a few publications in addition. It was a venture Dewey, despite his grand words, never really bought into. Nor did Dewey and Belfield ever establish much of a relationship, an untold story that does little to burnish the reputation of either but adds to our understanding of Dewey’s last years in Chicago. Despite several surface similarities, CMTS and the Lab School also had substantial differences: Dewey’s pedagogy would have teachers and pupils find their way through subject content together, thus creating a map or guide. The pedology advocated by Ham and Belfield, on the other hand, included a map that had already been drawn; the work of teachers and pupils was to follow it. With the importance of technical and vocational education receiving renewed attention, Dewey’s relationship with CMTS merits attention it has not received in the past.

ABSTRACT. John Dewey spent a great deal of time advocating for what he calls “occupations” as a childhood method of education. What is less developed by Dewey is what he means by occupations outside the educational setting. In effect, Dewey and the literature following him on occupations have asked if occupations can be taught before asking “what are occupations?” To return to the “basic vital roots” of occupations, I begin with the etymological significance of Dewey’s choice in the term. I then invite others to rethink Dewey’s notion of occupations by analyzing those few instances where Dewey hints at the embodied nature of occupations, its evolutionary emergence, and its continuity with the development of mind, morals, society, and economy.

Further, though scholars of embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended cognition acknowledge Dewey’s functional psychology as a precursor to the discipline, little if any attention is paid to the role occupations play in Dewey’s theory of embodied mind. This is even more curious since, arguably, the leading trend in John Dewey’s legacy is his relevance for contemporary debates in 4E cognition studies. Once occupations are understood in their technical and embodied sense, occupations can serve as a useful “conscious tool” in advancing Deweyan-inspired theories of embodied cognition.

In addressing the above concerns, I argue that uncharacteristic of Dewey, he employs a notion of occupations that is unduly abstracted from concrete experience. He does not adequately explain the concrete nature of occupations. Though embodiment is crucial for Dewey’s theory of mind, he does not successfully develop the haptic significance of occupations, as evidenced by its etymological roots. By emphasizing occupations’ fundamental relation to grasping, the concept retains its concreteness, social origins, and its relation to Dewey’s theory of experience and mind, particularly as it relates to perception, anticipation, and reconstruction.

ABSTRACT. Two founders of the philosophy for children movement–Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp–credited John Dewey as a major influence on their scholarly, curricular, and pedagogical work. Through their influence, numerous other scholars have turned to Dewey to illuminate and innovate key elements of the movement. We provide an overview of Deweyan aspects of philosophy for children, as well as how the movement is advancing in Deweyan directions.

First, we identify six ways in which Dewey influenced philosophy for children: (1) Dewey’s conception of philosophy as dimensions of the meaning of ordinary experience influenced Lipman and Sharp’s understanding that philosophy is relevant to the experience of even young children, who need the opportunity to reflect on these dimensions in order to understand and navigate their experience. (2) Dewey’s notion of scientific inquiry as a model of the school subjects being reconstructed as areas of inquiry influenced Lipman and Sharp’s notion of using philosophical inquiry in just that way. (3) Dewey’s notion of the school as a site of democratic interaction informed Sharp’s view that classrooms and schools be managed as communities of inquiry in which students participate in deliberative decision-making, and also that young people be empowered as social critics. (4) Dewey’s faith in children’s intellectual plasticity and social sensitivity informed Lipman and Sharp’s interest in bringing philosophy to elementary and even preschool students. (5) Dewey’s cosmopolitanism informed Lipman’s and Sharp’s interest in developing philosophy for children as a program that would not only have international reach but would be informed by international perspectives. Significantly, these six ways demonstrate how Dewey and philosophy for children see education in non-instrumental terms.

Second, we identify ways in which philosophy for children should build on each of those six Deweyan influences, especially by embracing developments in critical pragmatism, critical philosophy of race, indigenous epistemologies, and decolonial education: (1) Philosophy for children curriculum should include topics related to current realities of injustice–economic, racial, gender, and climate. (2) Philosophy for children should pay more attention to the politics of discourse, including the demographics and the procedures of the community of philosophical inquiry. (3) Philosophy for children should advocate for, and contribute to educational reform in the direction of social justice, rather than presenting itself as politically neutral. (4) Philosophy for children should invite students to carry their philosophical dialogues over into action projects that test their emergent concepts and theories and also implement them in ways that might ameliorate community problems, as illustrated by programs of “action civics”. (5) Philosophy for children should not only defend the intellectual and emotional acumen of children but contribute to efforts to expand children’s agency over their own lives and to bring children’s voices into institutions that create policy affecting them. (6) Philosophy for children, which remains largely centered on Western texts, epistemologies, and norms of discourse, should continue to find ways to inform itself by non-Western perspectives and should, in particular, pay more attention to indigenous perspectives. These directions are consistent with Dewey’s influences on philosophy for children and reflect the movement’s continued relevance and capacity for growth.

ABSTRACT. Abstract (Seth Vannatta): Part II of the book exposes conservative and pragmatist approaches to education in terms of purpose, function, and method. The central question connecting the chapters in Part II is to what extent should liberal arts education be understood as instrumental? We give an historical exposition of the liberal arts, including their origin in the trivium and quadrivium, as opposed to the mechanical arts. We then approach the conservatism of the liberal arts from the perspective of a current (but not novel) crisis in liberal arts education. The attacks on the liberal arts come from many directions, including, but not limited to, a push for STEM-based education as a vocational and national economic necessity and right-wing attacks on critical race theory and a perceived leftist agenda in the liberal arts, especially in higher education and especially with regard to issues of gender identity. Conservative approaches to liberal arts education appear on a spectrum. At one end, reactionaries respond to a perceived crisis in liberal education by calling for the curation of great books and ideas. Other conservatives, skeptical of rationalist approaches to education, approach the pragmatists by realizing that perennial questions emerge from distinct and novel circumstances thereby allowing for the possibility of an evolving canon of great works and ideas. The pragmatist embraces this evolution wholeheartedly by its model of education as inquiry. Since inquiry ensues from a disruption of habits and an indeterminate or problematic situation, education must evolve to meet the needs of the novel disruptions that spawn inquiry. The overlap between non-reactionary conservative and pragmatist approaches to education illustrates manifold virtues. First, both are skeptical of rationalism in education. Such skepticism registers as a rejection of a priori approaches to education in terms of purpose, function, method, and object. Second, conservative and pragmatist philosophies of education value the perennial questions of liberal education, thereby refusing to submit only to present social, political, and economic demands.

Abstract (Bethany Henning) Part III of the book looks more closely at the question of canonicity, conservativism, and revolutionary approaches to the philosophies of art and art education. In Dewey’s mature system, aesthetic experience is inseparable from the moment of learning, and so any discussion of education and canon must include a consideration of art education. While aesthetic experience is not restricted to art, art has a special role to play in the transmission of values, stabilizing the direct, qualitative dimension of experience that is otherwise ephemeral. The work of the artist is, in this way, an inherently conservative mode of culture, since it preserves and transmits the qualitative dimension of experience. Conservative understandings of art draw strict distinctions between high and low culture, fine and popular art, and fine and useful arts. At the “reactionary” end of the spectrum, we find Theodor Adorno, and Arthur Danto. These approaches to art, and to art education, are more consistent with traditional static or dualistic metaphysics. While Adorno is not typically associated with conservative politics, his separation of fine art from popular art, and his employment of the disjunct between appearance and reality, follows the dichotomy that we see in the metaphysical approach that has pervaded the western tradition. Danto assumes a separation between the general population and the “art world,” whose members have acquired the techniques and sophistication to identify the artworks that ought to serve as exemplars for the unfolding historical epoch. Pragmatist aesthetics, illustrated by John Dewey, draws continuity between these dichotomies by maintaining a focus on the triadic relationship between artist, art object, and the work of art in the experience of its audience. The continuity Dewey highlights has further implications for the open canon of liberal education. At the other end of the spectrum, we find emerging philosophies of art like that of Jacques Rancière, whose theories serve as the intellectual framework for Derek Ford’s “critical” approach to education, hold that the aesthetic dimension is the initial site of all revolutionary social movements. It is here that we find the conservative and pragmatist aims of education exposed to their most challenging test: is there a mode of art education that can withstand the “redistribution of the sensible” that is the unique accomplishment of the aesthetic imagination?

ABSTRACT. Dewey begins the concluding paragraph of an autobiographical essay with the following reflection:

"I think it shows a deplorable deadness of imagination to suppose that philosophy will indefinitely revolve within the scope of the problems and systems that two thousand years of European history have bequeathed to us. Seen in the long perspective of the future, the whole of western European history is a provincial episode. I do not expect to see in my day a genuine, as distinct from a forced and artificial, integration of thought. But a mind that is not too egotistically impatient can have faith that this unification will issue in its season." (LW 5: 159)

Our era of rising nationalism and intensifying xenophobia makes such faith difficult. However, it is my hope that this conference can make some contribution. This essay examines Dewey’s “naturalistic humanism” in relation to Eastern humanism concentrating on Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism (LW 1: 10). My essay is motivated in part by the strident criticisms of humanism in the West that simply do not apply to Eastern humanism. Many assume the criticisms of Western humanism include Dewey. However, once one recognizes the remarkable similarity between Deweyan humanism and Eastern humanism this these critiques are rendered irrelevant. Nonetheless, I do think Eastern humanism allows us to mildly reconstruct Dewey to make his humanism even more inclusive of the other-than-human. 

In Essentials of Chinese Humanism: Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism, Xu Xiaoyue (2023) argues, “At the core and basis of the traditional Chinese culture is classical Chinese thought, which consists mainly of Confucian, Daoist and Buddhist intellectual threads. These three teachings all take xin-xing ( 心 性 , mind-nature) as their value orientation, and are centered on humanity” (Kindle 7). He asserts that “the Three Teachings are all rooted in human activities in this world, concerned with the cultivation of the human mind and human nature, and enthusiastic about representing human life” (Kindle 7). Deweyan humanism cultivates what Dewey calls the “body-mind” (see LW 1: chapter 7). Such cultivation is education, so I will be making numerous connections between Dewey and education. Here is the most important one is when Dewey declares, “Everything which is distinctively human is learned, not native, even though it could not be learned without native structures which mark man off from other animals” (LW 2: 331). 

In Darwinian terms, we can say human beings are born with species typical traits differentiating them as a species from other animals. Understanding humanism as a “body-mind” or “mind-nature” learning to become human by participating ever-more intelligently in the affairs of nature, including that aspect of nature called culture, connects Deweyan humanism with Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist humanism. I will take them up in that order after first discussing Dewey’s humanism.