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    German Philosophy And Politics
    German Philosophy And Politics
    German Philosophy And Politics
    Ebook94 pages1 hour

    German Philosophy And Politics

    By John Dewey

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    This early work is John Dewey’s 1915 treatise, “German Philosophy And Politics”. Within it Dewey explores the work of Kant, Fichte, and Hegal, but focuses primarily on Kant and his ideas of duty. This fascinating volume is highly recommended for those with an interest in German history and philosophy, and would make for a fantastic addition to any collection. Contents include: “German Philosophy: The Two Worlds”, “German Moral and Political Philosophy”, and “The Germanic Philosophy of History”. John Dewey (1859–1952) was an American psychologist and philosopher. Many classic books such as this are becoming increasingly rare and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateMay 11, 2015
    ISBN9781473370296
    German Philosophy And Politics

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      Book preview

      German Philosophy And Politics - John Dewey

      GERMAN PHILOSOPHY

      AND POLITICS

      by

      JOHN DEWEY

      Professor of Philosophy

      in Columbia University

      Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

      This book is copyright and may not be

      reproduced or copied in any way without

      the express permission of the publisher in writing

      British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Contents

      JOHN DEWEY

      PREFACE

      I. GERMAN PHILOSOPHY: THE TWO WORLDS

      II. GERMAN MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

      III. THE GERMANIC PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

      FOOTNOTES:

      JOHN DEWEY

      John Dewey was born on 20 October, 1859, in Burlington, Vermont, USA. He was a highly influential philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer, responsible for bringing pragmatist philosophy and functional psychology into the American mainstream. Dewey was chiefly concerned with schooling and civil society; a strong advocate of democracy, he argued that true political freedom could only be attained through a fully formed public opinion - not just voting rights. Dewey attended the University of Vermont, from whence he graduated in 1879, moving on to study his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. Dewey spent a brief period as an elementary teacher, but felt he was unsuited to direct employment in primary or secondary schools. Consequently, Dewey joined the University of Chicago in 1894, where he became associated with the newly emerging Pragmatic philosophy movement. This branch of thought rejected the idea that the function of thought is to describe or mirror reality, instead thought should be utilised as an instrument for predication, problem solving, and most importantly, action. It was during this time that Dewey established the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he was able to put his pedagogical beliefs on education into practice. The school was focused on combining concept with practical application; attempting to lessen the gap between educational theory and its execution in reality. The experiment produced Dewey’s first major publication; The School and Social Progress (1899). The same year, Dewey was elected as president of the American Psychological Association, and elected to the equivalent position in the American Philosophical Association in 1905. From this time onwards, Dewey served as professor of philosophy at Columbia University, until his retirement in 1930. Dewey was primarily interested in human behaviour and its relationship with society more broadly, as well as metaphysical concerns. To name but a few notable publications, he wrote Democracy and Education (1916), Human Nature and Conduct (1922) and Experience and Nature in (1925). Dewey was a prolific scholar, he wrote more than 700 articles in 140 journals, and 40 books. Such was the extent of Dewey’s influence that Hilda Neatby, a Canadian historian and educator, wrote that ‘Dewey has been to our age what Aristotle was to the later middle ages, not a philosopher, but the philosopher.’ He died in New York, on 1 June 1952, aged 92.

      PREFACE

      The will of John Calvin McNair established a Foundation at the University of North Carolina upon which public lectures are to be given from time to time to the members of the University. This book contains three lectures which were given in February of this year upon this Foundation. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the many courtesies enjoyed during my brief stay at Chapel Hill, the seat of the University.

      J. D.

      Columbia University,

      New York City, April, 1915.

      I. GERMAN PHILOSOPHY: THE TWO WORLDS

      The nature of the influence of general ideas upon practical affairs is a troubled question. Mind dislikes to find itself a pilgrim in an alien world. A discovery that the belief in the influence of thought upon action is an illusion would leave men profoundly saddened with themselves and with the world. Were it not that the doctrine forbids any discovery influencing affairs—since the discovery would be an idea—we should say that the discovery of the wholly ex post facto and idle character of ideas would profoundly influence subsequent affairs. The strange thing is that when men had least control over nature and their own affairs, they were most sure of the efficacy of thought. The doctrine that nature does nothing in vain, that it is directed by purpose, was not engrafted by scholasticism upon science; it formulates an instinctive tendency. And if the doctrine be fallacious, its pathos has a noble quality. It testifies to the longing of human thought for a world of its own texture. Yet just in the degree in which men, by means of inventions and political arrangements, have found ways of making their thoughts effective, they have come to question whether any thinking is efficacious. Our notions in physical science tend to reduce mind to a bare spectator of a machine-like nature grinding its unrelenting way. The vogue of evolutionary ideas has led many to regard intelligence as a deposit from history, not as a force in its making. We look backward rather than forward; and when we look forward we seem to see but a further unrolling of a panorama long ago rolled up on a cosmic reel. Even Bergson, who, to a casual reader, appears to reveal vast unexplored vistas of genuinely novel possibilities, turns out, upon careful study, to regard intellect (everything which in the past has gone by the name of observation and reflection) as but an evolutionary deposit whose importance is confined to the conservation of a life already achieved, and bids us trust to instinct, or something akin to instinct, for the future:—as if there were hope and consolation in bidding us trust to that which, in any case, we cannot intelligently direct or control.

      I do not see that the school of history which finds Bergson mystic and romantic, which prides itself upon its hard-headed and scientific character, comes out at a different place. I refer to the doctrine of the economic interpretation of history in its extreme form—which, so its adherents tell us, is its only logical form. It is easy to follow them when they tell us that past historians have ignored the great part played by economic forces, and that descriptions and explanations have been correspondingly superficial. When one reflects that the great problems of the present day are those attending economic reorganization, one might even take the doctrine as a half-hearted confession that historians are really engaged in construing the past in terms of the problems and interests of an impending future, instead of reporting a past in order to discover some mathematical curve which future events are bound to describe. But no; our strictly scientific economic interpreters will have it that economic forces present an inevitable evolution, of which state and church, art and literature, science and philosophy are by-products. It is useless to suggest that while modern industry has given an immense stimulus to scientific inquiry, yet nevertheless the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century comes after the scientific revolution of the seventeenth. The dogma forbids any connection.

      But when we note that Marx gave it away that his materialistic interpretation of history was but the Hegelian idealistic dialectic turned upside down, we may grow wary. Is it, after all, history we are dealing with or another philosophy of history? And when we discover that the great importance of the doctrine is urged upon us, when we find that we are told that the general recognition of its truth helps us out of our present troubles and indicates a path for future effort, we positively take heart. These writers do not seem to mean just what they say. Like the rest of us, they are human, and infected with a belief that ideas, even highly abstract theories,

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