Contextualism describes a collection of views in philosophy which emphasize the context in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs, and argues that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context.^[1] Contextualist views hold that philosophically controversial concepts, such as "meaning P," "knowing that P," "having a reason to A," and possibly even "being true" or "being right" only have meaning relative to a specified context. Some philosophers^[2] hold that context-dependence may lead to relativism;^[3] nevertheless, contextualist views are increasingly popular within philosophy.^[4]

In ethics, "contextualist" views are often closely associated with situational ethics, or with moral relativism.^[5]

In architectural theory, contextualism is a theory of design wherein modern building types are harmonized with urban forms usual to a traditional city.^[6]

Epistemology[link]

Introduction[link]

In epistemology, contextualism is the treatment of the word 'knows' as context-sensitive. Context-sensitive expressions are ones that "express different propositions relative to different contexts of use".^[7] For example, some terms that are relatively uncontroversially considered context-sensitive are indexicals, such 'I', 'here', and 'now'. While the word 'I' has a constant linguistic meaning in all contexts of use, whom it refers to varies with context. Similarly, epistemic contextualists argue that the word 'knows' is context sensitive, expressing different relations in some different contexts. What varies with context is how well-positioned a subject must be with respect to a proposition to count as "knowing" it. Contextualism in epistemology then is a semantic thesis about how 'knows' works in English, not a theory of what knowledge, justification, or strength of epistemic position consists in.^[8] However, epistemologists combine contextualism with views about what knowledge is to address epistemological puzzles and issues, such as skepticism, the Gettier problem, and the Lottery paradox.

Contextualist accounts of knowledge became increasingly popular toward the end of the 20th century, particularly as responses to the problem of skepticism. Contemporary contextualists include Michael Williams, Stewart Cohen, Keith DeRose, David Lewis, Gail Stine, and George Mattey.

The main tenet of contextualist epistemology, no matter what account of knowledge it is wedded to, is that knowledge attributions are context-sensitive. That is, when we attribute knowledge to someone, the context in which we use the term 'knowledge' determines the standards relative to which "knowledge" is being attributed (or denied). If we use it in everyday conversational contexts, the contextualist maintains, most of our claims to "know" things are true, despite skeptic's attempts to show we know little or nothing. But if the term 'knowledge' is used when skeptical hypotheses are being discussed, we count as "knowing" very little, if anything. Contextualists use this to explain why skeptical arguments can be persuasive, while at the same time protecting the correctness of our ordinary claims to "know" things. It is important to note that this theory does not allow that someone can have knowledge at one moment and not the other, for this would hardly be a satisfying epistemological answer. What contextualism entails is that in one context an utterance of a knowledge attribution can be true, and in a context with higher standards for knowledge, the same statement can be false. This happens in the same way that 'I' can correctly be used (by different people) to refer to different people at the same time.

Thus, the standards for attributing knowledge to someone, the contexualist claims, vary from one user's context to the next. Thus, if I say "John knows that his car is in front of him", the utterance is true if and only if (1) John believes that his car is in front of him, (2) the car is in fact in front of him, and (3) John meets the epistemic standards that my (the speaker's) context selects. This is a loose contextualist account of knowledge, and there are many significantly different theories of knowledge that can fit this contextualist template and thereby come in a contextualist form.

For instance, an evidentialist account of knowledge can be an instance of contextualism if it's held that strength of justification is a contextually varying matter. And one who accepts a relevant alternative's account of knowledge can be a contextualist by holding that what range of alternatives are relevant is sensitive to conversational context. DeRose adopts a type of modal or "safety" (as it has since come to be known) account on which knowledge is a matter of one's belief as to whether or not p is the case matching the fact of the matter, not only in the actual world, but also in the sufficiently close possible worlds: Knowledge amounts to there being no "nearby" worlds in which one goes wrong with respect to p. But how close is sufficiently close? It's here that DeRose takes the modal account of knowledge in a contextualist direction, for the range of "epistemically relevant worlds" is what varies with context: In high standards contexts one's belief must match the fact of the matter through a much wider range of worlds than is relevant to low standards contexts.

Criticisms[link]

However, contextualist epistemology has been criticized by several philosophers. Contextualism is opposed to any general form of Invariantism, which claims that knowledge is not context-sensitive (i.e. it is invariant). More recent criticism has been in the form of rival theories, including Subject-Sensitive Invariantism (SSI), mainly due to the work of John Hawthorne (2004), and Interest-Relative Invariantism (IRI), due to Jason Stanley (2005). SSI claims that it is the context of the subject of the knowledge attribution that determines the epistemic standards, whereas Contextualism maintains it is the attributor. IRI, on the other hand, argues that it is the context of the practical interests of the subject of the knowledge attribution that determines the epistemic standards. Stanley writes that bare IRI is "simply the claim that whether or not someone knows that p may be determined in part by practical facts about the subject's environment."^[9] ("Contextualism" is a misnomer for either form of Invariantism, since "Contextualism" among epistemologists is considered to be restricted to a claim about the context-sensitivity of knowledge attributions (or the word "knows"). Thus, any view which maintains that something other than knowledge attributions are context-sensitive is not, strictly speaking, a form of Contextualism.) DeRose (2009) responds to recent attacks on contextualism, and argues that contextualism is superior to these recent rivals.

An alternative to contextualism called contrastivism has been proposed by Jonathan Schaffer. Contrastivism, like contextualism, uses semantic approaches to tackle the problem of skepticism.^[10]

Experimental Research[link]

Recent work in the new field of experimental philosophy has taken an empirical approach to testing the claims of contextualism and related views. This research has proceeded by conducting experiments in which ordinary non-philosophers are presented with vignettes which involve a knowledge ascription. Participants are then asked to report on the status of that knowledge ascription. The studies address contextualism by varying the context of the knowledge ascription, e.g., how important it is that the agent in the vignette has accurate knowledge.

In the studies completed up to this point, no support for contextualism has been found.^[11] This critique of contextualism can be summed up as: stakes have no impact on evidence. More specifically, non-philosophical intuitions about knowledge attributions are not affected by the importance to the potential knower of the accuracy of that knowledge. Some may argue that these empirical studies for the most part have not been well designed for testing contextualism, which claims that the context of the attributor of "knowledge" affects the epistemic standards that govern their claims. Because most of the empirical studies don't vary the stakes for the attributor, but for the subject being described, these studies are more relevant to the evaluation of John Hawthorne's "Subject-Sensitive Invariantism" or Jason Stanley's "Interest-Relative Invariantism"--views on which the stakes for the putative subject of knowledge can affect whether that subject knows—than they are of contextualism. However, Feltz & Zarpentine (forthcoming) have tested the stakes for both the subject and the attributor, and the results are not in keeping with contextualism. Experimental work continues to be done on this topic.^[12]

See also[link]

Philosophy portal

• Perspectivism
• Anekantavada
• Multi-valued logic
• False dilemma
• Principle of Bivalence
• Exclusive disjunction
• Degrees of truth
• Fuzzy logic
• Logical disjunction
• Logical value
• Propositional logic
• Relativism
• Rhizome (philosophy)
• Truth
• Epistemology at Wikiversity

Footnotes[link]

References and further reading[link]

External links[link]

• Epistemic Contextualism entry by Patrick Rysiew in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Contextualism in Epistemology - an article by Tim Black on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• A Brief History of Contextualism - DeRose on the history of contextualism in epistemology.

John Dewey

Dewey in 1902
Born	(1859-10-20)October 20, 1859 Burlington, Vermont
Died	June 1, 1952(1952-06-01) (aged 92) New York
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Pragmatism
Main interests	Philosophy of education, Epistemology, Journalism, Ethics
Notable ideas	Reflective Thinking[1] American Association of University Professors Inquiry into Moscow show trials about Trotsky Educational progressivism
Influenced by Plato · Rousseau · Kant · Hegel · Peirce · James · Ladd  · Ward · Wundt
Influenced Veblen · Santayana · Kaplan · Hu Shih · Hook · Young radicals · Greene · Putnam · Chomsky  · Habermas · Rorty · West · Durkheim

John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology. He was a major representative of progressive education and liberalism.^[2][3]

Although Dewey is known best for his publications concerning education, he also wrote about many other topics, including experience, nature, art, logic, inquiry, democracy, and ethics.

In his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—as being major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by effective communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt.^{[citation needed]}

Life and works[link]

Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, to a family of modest means.^[4] Like his older brother, Davis Rich Dewey, he attended the University of Vermont, from which he graduated (Phi Beta Kappa)^[5] in 1879. A significant professor of Dewey's at the University of Vermont was Henry A. P. Torrey, the son-in-law and nephew of former University of Vermont president Joseph Torrey. Dewey studied privately with Torrey between his graduation from Vermont and his enrollment at Johns Hopkins University.^[6][7]

After two years as a high-school teacher in Oil City, Pennsylvania and one teaching elementary school in the small town of Charlotte Vermont, Dewey decided that he was unsuited for employment in primary or secondary education. After studying with George Sylvester Morris, Charles Sanders Peirce, Herbert Baxter Adams, and G. Stanley Hall, Dewey received his Ph.D. from the School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. In 1884, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Michigan (1884–88 and 1889–94) with the help of George Sylvester Morris. His unpublished and now lost dissertation was titled "The Psychology of Kant."

In 1894 Dewey joined the newly founded University of Chicago (1894–1904) where he developed his belief in an empirically based theory of knowledge, becoming associated with the newly emerging Pragmatic philosophy. His time at the University of Chicago resulted in four essays collectively entitled Thought and its Subject-Matter, which was published with collected works from his colleagues at Chicago under the collective title Studies in Logical Theory (1903). During that time Dewey also initiated the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he was able to actualize the pedagogical beliefs that provided material for his first major work on education, The School and Social Progress (1899). Disagreements with the administration ultimately caused his resignation from the University, and soon thereafter he relocated near the East Coast. In 1899, Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association. From 1904 until his retirement in 1930 he was professor of philosophy at both Columbia University and Columbia University's Teachers College.^[8] In 1905 he became president of the American Philosophical Association. He was a longtime member of the American Federation of Teachers.

Along with the historian Charles A. Beard, economists Thorstein Veblen and James Harvey Robinson, Dewey is one of the founders of The New School. Dewey's most significant writings were "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896), a critique of a standard psychological concept and the basis of all his further work; Democracy and Education (1916), his celebrated work on progressive education; Human Nature and Conduct (1922), a study of the function of habit in human behavior; The Public and its Problems (1927), a defense of democracy written in response to Walter Lippmann's The Phantom Public (1925); Experience and Nature (1925), Dewey's most "metaphysical" statement; Art as Experience (1934), Dewey's major work on aesthetics; A Common Faith (1934), a humanistic study of religion originally delivered as the Dwight H. Terry Lectureship at Yale; Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), a statement of Dewey's unusual conception of logic; Freedom and Culture (1939), a political work examining the roots of fascism; and Knowing and the Known (1949), a book written in conjunction with Arthur F. Bentley that systematically outlines the concept of trans-action, which is central to his other works. While each of these works focuses on one particular philosophical theme, Dewey included his major themes in most of what he published. He published more than 700 articles in 140 journals, and approximately 40 books.

Reflecting his immense influence on 20th-century thought, Hilda Neatby, in 1953, wrote "Dewey has been to our age what Aristotle was to the later middle ages, not a philosopher, but the philosopher."^[9]

Dewey was first married to Alice Chipman. They had six children.^[10] His second wife was Roberta Lowitz Grant.^[11]

The United States Postal Service honored Dewey with a Prominent Americans series 30¢ postage stamp.

Functional psychology[link]

At University of Michigan, Dewey published his first two books, Psychology (1887), and Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding (1888), both of which expressed Dewey's early commitment to British neo-Hegelianism. In Psychology, Dewey attempted a synthesis between idealism and experimental science.^[12]

While still professor of philosophy at Michigan, Dewey and his junior colleagues, James Hayden Tufts and George Herbert Mead, together with his student James Rowland Angell, all influenced strongly by the recent publication of William James' Principles of Psychology (1890), began to reformulate psychology, emphasizing the social environment on the activity of mind and behaviour rather than the physiological psychology of Wundt and his followers.

By 1894, Dewey had joined Tufts, with whom he would later write Ethics (1908), at the recently founded University of Chicago and invited Mead and Angell to follow him, the four men forming the basis of the so-called "Chicago group" of psychology.

Their new style of psychology, later dubbed functional psychology, had a practical emphasis on action and application. In Dewey's article "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" which appeared in Psychological Review in 1896, he reasons against the traditional stimulus-response understanding of the reflex arc in favor of a "circular" account in which what serves as "stimulus" and what as "response" depends on how one considers the situation, and defends the unitary nature of the sensory motor circuit. While he does not deny the existence of stimulus, sensation, and response, he disagreed that they were separate, juxtaposed events happening like links in a chain. He developed the idea that there is a coordination by which the stimulation is enriched by the results of previous experiences. The response is modulated by sensorial experience.

Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1899.

John Dewey's USA Stamp

In 1984, the American Psychological Association announced that Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878–1972) had become the first psychologist to be commemorated on a United States postage stamp. However, psychologists Gary Brucato Jr. and John D. Hogan later made the case that this distinction actually belonged to John Dewey, who had been celebrated on an American stamp 17 years earlier. While some psychology historians consider Dewey more of a philosopher than a bona fide psychologist,^[13] the authors noted that Dewey was a founding member of the A.P.A., served as the A.P.A.'s eighth President in 1899, and was the author of an 1896 article on the reflex arc which is now considered a basis of American functional psychology.^[14]

Dewey also expressed interest in work in the psychology of visual perception performed by Dartmouth research professor Adelbert Ames, Jr. He had great trouble with listening, however, because it is known Dewey could not distinguish musical pitches - in other words was tone deaf.^[15]

Pragmatism and instrumentalism[link]

Although Dewey referred to his philosophy as "instrumentalism" rather than pragmatism, he was one of the three major figures in American pragmatism, along with Charles Sanders Peirce, who invented the term, and William James, who popularized it. Dewey worked from strongly Hegelian influences, unlike James, whose intellectual lineage was primarily British, drawing particularly on empiricist and utilitarian ideas.^[16] Neither was Dewey so pluralist or relativist as James. He stated that value was a function not of whim nor purely of social construction, but a quality situated in events ("nature itself is wistful and pathetic, turbulent and passionate" (Experience and Nature).

James also stated that experimentation (social, cultural, technological, philosophical) could be used as an approximate arbiter of truth. For example he felt that, for many people who lacked "over-belief" of religious concepts, human life was superficial and rather uninteresting, and that while no one religious belief could be demonstrated as the correct one, we are all responsible for making a gamble on one or another theism, atheism, monism, etc. Dewey, in contrast, while honoring the important function that religious institutions and practices played in human life, rejected belief in any static ideal, such as a personal god. Dewey felt that only scientific method could reliably increase human good.

Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions."^[17]

As with the reemergence of progressive philosophy of education, Dewey's contributions to philosophy as such (he was, after all, much more a professional philosopher than an educator) have also reemerged with the reassessment of pragmatism, beginning in the late 1970s, by philosophers like Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein and Hans Joas.

Because of his process-oriented and sociologically conscious opinion of the world and knowledge, his theory is considered sometimes as a useful alternative to both modern and postmodern theory. Dewey's non-foundational method pre-dates postmodernism by more than half a century. Recent exponents (like Rorty) have not always remained faithful to Dewey's original ideas, though this itself is completely consistent with Dewey's own usage of other writers and with his own philosophy— for Dewey, past doctrines always require reconstruction in order to remain useful for the present time.

Dewey's philosophy has had other names than "pragmatism". He has been called an instrumentalist, an experimentalist, an empiricist, a functionalist, and a naturalist. The term "transactional" may better describe his views, a term emphasized by Dewey in his later years to describe his theories of knowledge and experience.

Epistemology[link]

The terminology problem in the fields of epistemology and logic is partially due, according to Dewey and Bentley,^[18] to inefficient and imprecise use of words and concepts that reflect three historic levels of organization and presentation.^[19] In the order of chronological appearance, these are:

• Self-Action: Prescientific concepts regarded humans, animals, and things as possessing powers of their own which initiated or caused their actions.

• Interaction: as described by Newton, where things, living and inorganic, are balanced against something in a system of interaction, for example, the third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
• Transaction: where modern systems of descriptions and naming are employed to deal with multiple aspects and phases of action without any attribution to ultimate, final, or independent entities, essences, or realities.

A series of characterizations of Transactions indicate the wide range of considerations involved.^[20]

Logic and method[link]

Dewey sees paradox in contemporary logical theory. Proximate subject matter garners general agreement and advance, while the ultimate subject matter of logic generates unremitting controversy. In other words, he challenges confident logicians to answer the question of the truth of logical operators. Do they function merely as abstractions (e.g., pure mathematics) or do they connect in some essential way with their objects, and therefore alter or bring them to light?^[21]

Logical positivism also figured in Dewey's thought. About the movement he wrote that it "eschews the use of 'propositions' and 'terms', substituting 'sentences' and 'words'." ("General Theory of Propositions", in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry) He welcomes this changing of referents "in as far as it fixes attention upon the symbolic structure and content of propositions." However, he registers a small complaint against the use of "sentence" and "words" in that without careful interpretation the act or process of transposition "narrows unduly the scope of symbols and language, since it is not customary to treat gestures and diagrams (maps, blueprints, etc.) as words or sentences." In other words, sentences and words, considered in isolation, do not disclose intent, which may be inferred or "adjudged only by means of context."^[21]

Yet Dewey was not entirely opposed to modern logical trends. Concerning traditional logic, he states:

"Aristotelian logic, which still passes current nominally, is a logic based upon the idea that qualitative objects are existential in the fullest sense. To retain logical principles based on this conception along with the acceptance of theories of existence and knowledge based on an opposite conception is not, to say the least, conductive to clearness – a consideration that has a good deal to do with existing dualism between traditional and the newer relational logics.

—(Qualitative Thought 1930)

Louis Menand argues in The Metaphysical Club that Jane Addams had been critical of Dewey's emphasis on antagonism in the context of a discussion of the Pullman strike of 1894. In a later letter to his wife, Dewey confessed that Addams' argument was

"the most magnificent exhibition of intellectual & moral faith I ever saw. She converted me internally, but not really, I fear.... When you think that Miss Addams does not think this as a philosophy, but believes it in all her senses & muscles-- Great God... I guess I'll have to give it [all] up & start over again."

He went on to add,

"I can see that I have always been interpreting dialectic wrong end up, the unity as the reconciliation of opposites, instead of the opposites as the unity in its growth, and thus translated the physical tension into a moral thing... I don't know as I give the reality of this at all,... it seems so natural & commonplace now, but I never had anything take hold of me so."^[22]

In a letter to Addams herself, Dewey wrote, clearly influenced by his conversation with her:

"Not only is actual antagonizing bad, but the assumption that there is or may be antagonism is bad-- in fact, the real first antagonism always comes back to the assumption."

Aesthetics[link]

Art as Experience (1934) is Dewey's major writing on aesthetics. It is, according to his place in the Pragmatist tradition that emphasizes community, a study of the individual art object as embedded in (and inextricable from) the experiences of a local culture. Dewey attempted to justify the idiosyncratic collection of modern art that was assembled by the wealthy Albert C. Barnes at the Barnes Foundation. See his Experience and Nature for an extended discussion of 'Experience' in Dewey's philosophy.

On democracy[link]

The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous."^[23]

With respect to technological developments in a democracy:

"Persons do not become a society by living in physical proximity any more than a man ceases to be socially influenced by being so many feet or miles removed from others"

—John Dewey from Andrew Feenberg's "Community in the Digital Age"

His work on democracy influenced one of his students, Dr Ambedkar, who later went on to become one of the founding fathers of independent India.^[24]

On education[link]

Dewey's educational theories were presented in My Pedagogic Creed (1897), The School and Society (1900), The Child and the Curriculum (1902), Democracy and Education (1916) and Experience and Education (1938). Throughout these writings, several recurrent themes ring true; Dewey continually argues that education and learning are social and interactive processes, and thus the school itself is a social institution through which social reform can and should take place. In addition, he believed that students thrive in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum, and all students should have the opportunity to take part in their own learning.

The ideas of democracy and social reform are continually discussed in Dewey’s writings on education. Dewey makes a strong case for the importance of education not only as a place to gain content knowledge, but also as a place to learn how to live. In his eyes, the purpose of education should not revolve around the acquisition of a pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization of one’s full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good. He notes that "to prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities" (1897, p. 6).^[25] In addition to helping students realize their full potential, Dewey goes on to acknowledge that education and schooling are instrumental in creating social change and reform. He notes that "education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction" (1897, p. 16).

In addition to his ideas regarding what education is and what effect it should have on society, Dewey also had specific notions regarding how education should take place within the classroom. In The Child and the Curriculum (1902), Dewey discusses two major conflicting schools of thought regarding educational pedagogy. The first is centered on the curriculum and focuses almost solely on the subject matter to be taught. Dewey argues that the major flaw in this methodology is the inactivity of the student; within this particular framework, "the child is simply the immature being who is to be matured; he is the superficial being who is to be deepened" (1902, p. 13).^[26] He argues that in order for education to be most effective, content must be presented in a way that allows the student to relate the information to prior experiences, thus deepening the connection with this new knowledge.

At the same time, Dewey was alarmed by many of the "child-centered" excesses of educational-school pedagogues who claimed to be his followers, and he argued that too much reliance on the child could be equally detrimental to the learning process. In this second school of thought, "we must take our stand with the child and our departure from him. It is he and not the subject-matter which determines both quality and quantity of learning" (Dewey, 1902, p. 13-14). According to Dewey, the potential flaw in this line of thinking is that it minimizes the importance of the content as well as the role of the teacher.

In order to rectify this dilemma, Dewey advocated for an educational structure that strikes a balance between delivering knowledge while also taking into account the interests and experiences of the student. He notes that "the child and the curriculum are simply two limits which define a single process. Just as two points define a straight line, so the present standpoint of the child and the facts and truths of studies define instruction" (Dewey, 1902, p. 16). It is through this reasoning that Dewey became one of the most famous proponents of hands-on learning or experiential education, which is related to, but not synonymous with experiential learning. He argued that "if knowledge comes from the impressions made upon us by natural objects, it is impossible to procure knowledge without the use of objects which impress the mind" (Dewey, 1916/2009, p. 217-218).^[27] Dewey’s ideas went on to influence many other influential experiential models and advocates. Many researchers even credit him with the influence of Project Based Learning (PBL) which places students in the active role of researchers.

Dewey not only re-imagined the way that the learning process should take place, but also the role that the teacher should play within that process. According to Dewey, the teacher should not be one to stand at the front of the room doling out bits of information to be absorbed by passive students. Instead, the teacher’s role should be that of facilitator and guide. As Dewey (1897) explains it:

The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences (p. 9).

Thus the teacher becomes a partner in the learning process, guiding students to independently discover meaning within the subject area. This philosophy has become an increasingly popular idea within present-day teacher preparatory programs.

As well as his very active and direct involvement in setting up educational institutions such as the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (1896) and The New School for Social Research (1919), many of Dewey's ideas influenced the founding of Bennington College and Goddard College in Vermont, where he served on the Board of Trustees. Dewey's works and philosophy also held great influence in the creation of the short-lived Black Mountain College in North Carolina, an experimental college focused on interdisciplinary study, and whose faculty included Buckminster Fuller, Willem de Kooning, Charles Olson, Franz Kline, Robert Duncan, and Robert Creeley, among others. Black Mountain College was the locus of the "Black Mountain Poets" a group of avant-garde poets closely linked with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance.

On journalism[link]

Since the mid-1980s, Deweyan ideas have experienced revival as a major source of inspiration for the public journalism movement. Dewey's definition of "public," as described in The Public and its Problems, has profound implications for the significance of journalism in society. As suggested by the title of the book, his concern was of the transactional relationship between publics and problems. Also implicit in its name, public journalism seeks to orient communication away from elite, corporate hegemony toward a civic public sphere. "The 'public' of public journalists is Dewey's public."

Dewey gives a concrete definition to the formation of a public. Publics are spontaneous groups of citizens who share the indirect effects of a particular action. Anyone affected by the indirect consequences of a specific action will automatically share a common interest in controlling those consequences, i.e., solving a common problem.^[28]
Since every action generates unintended consequences, publics continuously emerge, overlap, and disintegrate.

In The Public and its Problems, Dewey presents a rebuttal to Walter Lippmann’s treatise on the role of journalism in democracy. Lippmann’s model was a basic transmission model in which journalists took information given to them by experts and elites, repackaged that information in simple terms, and transmitted the information to the public, whose role was to react emotionally to the news. In his model, Lippmann supposed that the public was incapable of thought or action, and that all thought and action should be left to the experts and elites.

Dewey refutes this model by assuming that politics is the work and duty of each individual in the course of his daily routine. The knowledge needed to be involved in politics, in this model, was to be generated by the interaction of citizens, elites, experts, through the mediation and facilitation of journalism. In this model, not just the government is accountable, but the citizens, experts, and other actors as well.

Dewey also said that journalism should conform to this ideal by changing its emphasis from actions or happenings (choosing a winner of a given situation) to alternatives, choices, consequences, and conditions, in order to foster conversation and improve the generation of knowledge. Journalism would not just produce a static product that told what had already happened, but the news would be in a constant state of evolution as the public added value by generating knowledge. The "audience" would end, to be replaced by citizens and collaborators who would essentially be users, doing more with the news than simply reading it. Concerning his effort to change journalism, he wrote in The Public and its Problems: "Till the Great Society is converted in to a Great Community, the Public will remain in eclipse. Communication can alone create a great community" (Dewey, p. 142).

Dewey believed that communication creates a great community, and citizens who participate actively with public life contribute to that community. "The clear consciousness of a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of democracy." (The Public and its Problems, p. 149). This Great Community can only occur with "free and full intercommunication." (p. 211) Communication can be understood as journalism.

On humanism[link]

Dewey participated with a variety of humanist activities from the 1930s into the 1950s, which included sitting on the advisory board of Charles Francis Potter's First Humanist Society of New York (1929); being one of the original 34 signatories of the first Humanist Manifesto (1933) and being elected an honorary member of the Humanist Press Association (1936).^[29]

His opinion of humanism is best summarised in his own words from an article titled "What Humanism Means to Me", published in the June 1930 edition of Thinker 2:

"What Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good." — John Dewey, "What Humanism Means to Me"^[30]

Social and political activism[link]

As a major advocate for academic freedom, in 1935 Dewey, together with Albert Einstein and Alvin Johnson, became a member of the United States section of the International League for Academic Freedom,^[31] and in 1940, together with Horace M Kallen, edited a series of articles related to the infamous Bertrand Russell Case.

As well as being active in defending the independence of teachers, and opposing a communist takeover of the New York Teachers' Union,^{[citation needed]} Dewey was involved in the organization that eventually became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

He directed the famous Dewey Commission held in Mexico in 1937, which cleared Leon Trotsky of the charges made against him by Joseph Stalin,^[32] and marched for women's rights, among many other causes.

In 1950, Dewey, Bertrand Russell, Benedetto Croce, Karl Jaspers, and Jacques Maritain agreed to act as honorary chairmen of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.^[33]

Other interests[link]

Dewey's interests and writings included many topics, and according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "a substantial part of his published output consisted of commentary on current domestic and international politics, and public statements on behalf of many causes. (He is probably the only philosopher in this encyclopedia to have published both on the Treaty of Versailles and on the value of displaying art in post offices.)"^[34]

In 1917, Dewey met F. M. Alexander in New York City and later wrote introductions to Alexander's Man's Supreme Inheritance (1918), Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual (1923) and The Use of the Self (1932). Alexander's influence is referenced in "Human Nature and Conduct" and "Experience and Nature."^[35]

As well as his contacts with people mentioned elsewhere in the article, he also maintained correspondence with Henri Bergson, William M. Brown, Martin Buber, George S. Counts, William Rainey Harper, Sidney Hook, and George Santayana.

Criticism[link]

Dewey is considered the epitome of liberalism by many historians,^[36][37] and sometimes was portrayed as "dangerously radical."^[38] Meanwhile, Dewey was critiqued strongly by American communists because he argued against Stalinism and had philosophical differences with Marx, despite identifying himself as a democratic socialist.^[39]

Historians have examined his religious beliefs. Biographer Steven C. Rockefeller, traced Dewey's democratic convictions to his childhood attendance at the Congregational Church, with its strong proclamation of social ideals and the Social Gospel.^[40] However, historian Edward A. White suggested in Science and Religion in American Thought (1952) that Dewey's work had led to the 20th century rift between religion and science.

Academic awards[link]

• Copernican Citation (1943)
• Doctor "honoris causa" – University of Oslo (1946)
• Doctor "honoris causa" – University of Pennsylvania (1946)
• Doctor "honoris causa" – Yale University (1951)
• Doctor "honoris causa" – University of Rome (1951)

Honors[link]

• John Dewey High School in Brooklyn, New York is named after him.

Publications[link]

Besides publishing prolifically himself, Dewey also sat on the boards of scientific publications such as Sociometry (advisory board, 1942) and Journal of Social Psychology (editorial board, 1942), as well as having posts at other publications such as New Leader (contributing editor, 1949).

The following publications by John Dewey are referenced or mentioned in this article. A more complete list of his publications may be found at List of publications by John Dewey.

• "The New Psychology" Andover Review, 2, 278-289 (1884)
• Psychology (1887)
• Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding (1888)
• "The Ego as Cause" Philosophical Review, 3,337-341. (1894)
• "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896)
• "My Pedagogic Creed" (1897)
• The School and Society (1900)
• The Child and the Curriculum (1902)
• "The Postulate of Immediate Empiricism" (1905)
• Moral Principles in Education (1909) The Riverside Press Cambridge Project Gutenberg
• How We Think (1910)
• German Philosophy and Politics (1915)
• Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education (1916)
• Reconstruction in Philosophy (1919)
• Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology
• Experience and Nature (1925)
• The Public and its Problems (1927)
• The Quest for Certainty (1929)
• The Sources of a Science of Education (1929) The Kappa Delta Pi Lecture Series
• Individualism Old and New (1930)
• Philosophy and Civilization (1931)
• Ethics, second edition (with James Hayden Tufts) (1932)
• Art as Experience (1934)
• A Common Faith (1934)
• Liberalism and Social Action (1935)
• Experience and Education (1938)
• Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938)
• Freedom and Culture (1939)
• Theory of Valuation (1939). ISBN 0-226-57594-2
• Knowing and the Known (1949)

See also

• The Essential Dewey: Volumes 1 and 2. Edited by Larry Hickman and Thomas Alexander (1998). Indiana University Press
• The Philosophy of John Dewey Edited by John J. McDermott (1981). University of Chicago Press

Dewey's Complete Writings is available in 3 multi-volume sets (37 volumes in all) from Southern Illinois University Press:

• The Early Works: 1892-1898 (5 volumes)
• The Middle Works: 1899-1924 (15 volumes)
• The Later Works: 1925-1953 (17 volumes)
• Posthumous Works: 1956-2009

The Correspondence of John Dewey is available in 4 volumes via online subscription and also in TEI format for university servers. (The CD-ROM has been discontinued).

Works about Dewey[link]

• Alexander, Thomas. John Dewey's Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature (1987) ^[41] SUNY Press
• Boisvert, Raymond. John Dewey: Rethinking Our Time. (1997) ^[42] SUNY Press
• Campbell, James. Understanding John Dewey: Nature and Cooperative Intelligence. (1995) Open Court Publishing Company
• Caspary, William R. Dewey on Democracy (2000). Cornell University Press.
• Crick, Nathan. Democracy & Rhetoric: John Dewey on the Arts of Becoming (2010) University of South Carolina Press.
• Fishman, Stephen M. and Lucille McCarthy. John Dewey and the Philosophy and Practice of Hope (2007). University of Illinois Press.
• Garrison, Jim. Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, 2010. Original published 1997 by Teachers College Press.
• Good, James (2006). A Search for Unity in Diversity: The "Permanent Hegelian Deposit" in the Philosophy of John Dewey. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-1061-4. 
• Hickman, Larry A. John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology. (1992) Indiana University Press.
• Hook, S. John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait (1939)
• Kannegiesser, H. J. "Knowledge and Science" (1977) The Macmillan Company of Australia PTY Ltd
• Martin, Jay. The Education of John Dewey. (2003) ^[43] Columbia University Press
• Pring, Richard (2007). John Dewey: Continuum Library of Educational Thought. Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-8403-4. 
• Putnam, Hilary. "Dewey's Logic: Epistemology as Hypothesis". In Words and Life, ed. James Conant. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
• Rockefeller, Stephen. John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism. (1994) ^[44] Columbia University Press
• Rogers, Melvin. The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy (2008). Columbia University Press.^[45]
• Roth, Robert J. John Dewey and Self-Realization. (1962). Prentice Hall
• Rorty, Richard. "Dewey's Metaphysics". In The Consequences of Pragmatism: Essays 1972-1980. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982.
• Rud, A. G., Garrison, Jim, and Stone, Lynda (eds.) John Dewey at 150: Reflections for a New Century. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2009.
• Ryan, Alan. John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism. (1995) ^[46] W.W. Norton.
• Seigfried, Charlene Haddock, (ed.). Feminist Interpretations of John Dewey (2001) ^[47] Pennsylvania State University Press
• Shook, John. Dewey's Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality. (2000) ^[48] The Vanderbilt Library of American Philosophy
• Sleeper, R.W. The Necessity of Pragmatism: John Dewey's Conception of Philosophy. Introduction by Tom Burke. (2001) ^[49] University of Illinois Press.
• Talisse, Robert B. A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy (2007) Routledge
• Westbrook, Robert B. John Dewey and American Democracy. (1991) ^[50] Cornell University Press. online edition, the standard scholarly biography
• White, Morton. The Origin of Dewey's Instrumentalism. (1943). Columbia University Press.

See also[link]

• List of American philosophers
• Center for Dewey Studies
• Democratic education
• John Dewey Society
• Inquiry-based science
• Laboratory school
• Learning by teaching
• League for Independent Political Action

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Dewey

Wikisource has original works written by or about: John Dewey

Wikiversity has learning materials about John Dewey

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Dewey

• Center for Dewey Studies
  • John Dewey Papers, 1858-1970 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
  • John Dewey Chronology at Southern Illinois University
• John Dewey Society
• Works by John Dewey at Project Gutenberg
• Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education hypertext from American Studies at the University of Virginia.
• Excerpts from Dewey, Experience and Nature (pdf file)
• Dewey, Impressions of Soviet Russia
• Information about John Dewey and F. Mathias Alexander
• John Dewey: His Life and Work 4-minute clip from a documentary film used primarily in higher education.
• More information about John Dewey and F. Mathias Alexander
• Article on Dewey's Moral Philosophy in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Article on Dewey's Political Philosophy in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Dewey page from Pragmatism Cybrary

Professor Green
Green in 2011
Background information
Birth name	Stephen Paul Manderson
Born	27 November 1983 (1983-11-27) (age 28) Hackney, East London, England
Genres	Grime, Hip hop, Rap
Occupations	Rapper
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	2004–present
Labels	The Beats (2006–08) Virgin (2010–present)
Associated acts	Orelsan, Plan B, Ed Drewett, Lily Allen,Maverick Sabre, Example, The Streets, Game, Labrinth, Emeli Sandé, Johnny Truant, Adam Deacon, Tinchy Stryder, Tinie Tempah, Devlin, Giggs, Chipmunk, The Saturdays, Fink, The ThundaCatz, Luciana
Website	professorgreen.co.uk

Stephen Paul Manderson (born on 27 November 1983), better known by his stage name Professor Green, is an English rapper. He was signed to The Beats, a record label run by Mike Skinner and Ted Mayhem, until 12 February 2008, when the label terminated. He rose to success upon winning the inaugural JumpOff MySpace £50,000 battle rap tournament in July 2008. Following this in 2009, Manderson worked with Lily Allen on her 2009 concert tour.

In 2006 he released his first mixtape, Lecture #1. After his first record label, The Beats, went under he produced on his own an EP called The Green EP. After he toured with Lily Allen he was signed to Virgin Records and released "I Need You Tonight", based around INXS's "Need You Tonight" through the label.^[1] He also joined up with Lily Allen in "Just Be Good To Green" which is based around The SOS Band's "Just Be Good to Me".

Green released his debut album, Alive Till I'm Dead, on 19 July 2010, which features guest vocals from Lily Allen, Emeli Sandé, Fink, Labrinth and Example, as well as The Streets, who used to own The Beats.

Early and personal life[link]

Manderson was born in Hackney, East London on 27 November 1983.^[2] and was raised by his grandmother, Patricia, from the age of one on the Northwold Estate. His father, Peter, committed suicide in 2008 in Brentwood, Essex. Green has stated previously he feels his father's death has made him a better person, saying: "I'd had a turbulent relationship with my dad. He was always in and out of my life and I was raised by my grandmother Patricia. Mum, who had me at 16, was there for the most part but my grandmother was the most influential. I last saw my dad alive on my 18th birthday. He came over to see me but after that we just stopped talking. There was no real reason. He hanged himself and I had to go and identify the body in the morgue." Manderson also talked about his father's death in the song "Goodnight" from the album "Alive Till I'm Dead" and about the problems with his family in "Read All About It" from the album "At Your Inconvenience".

Manderson said he "fell in to rapping accidentally" as he was at a party at a friend's house, where everyone was freestyling, and he got put on the spot and he said it worked for him. Then, on seeing a flyer for a freestyle night called LyricPad, he decided to go. Despite having no experience freestyling, he won. After going to LyricPad again the next month, a scout from JumpOff spotted him. From there he battled and won every week, eventually becoming Champion. As of June 2011, he remains the only MC to win seven times in a row, a feat he accomplished twice. At JumpOff, Mike Skinner from The Streets saw and signed Manderson up to his record label, The Beats, although Manderson is never very complimentary when asked about his experiences there. Manderson gained the alias of 'Professor Green', the 'Green' part derives from the slang of cannabis, and he continued to sell cannabis until he was signed to The Beats. He gained the name Professor as he was very intelligent, although dropping out of school; despite having been offered a place at St. Paul's School in Barnes, he decided instead to go to a comprehensive in Tottenham.^[3]

On 23 May 2009 Manderson was attacked with the neck of a broken bottle in the Cargo nightclub in Shoreditch, East London. Ironically, the wound overlapped his tattoo of the word 'Lucky' located on the left of his neck. His assailant was later convicted of the crime and sentenced to eight years in prison.^[4]

It emerged in December 2011 that Manderson is dating Made in Chelsea's Millie Mackintosh.^[5]

Career history[link]

[edit] 2010–11: Alive Till I'm Dead

He confirmed his debut album's title was "Alive Till I'm Dead" on his official MySpace. The first single off the album was produced by The ThundaCatz and called "I Need You Tonight", which was released on 12 April 2010. It samples the 1987 hit from INXS 'Need You Tonight'. It peaked at #3 in the UK, and #15 in Ireland. The single was also certificated silver status in the United Kingdom.

He released his second single 'Just Be Good to Green', on 11 July 2010 in the UK. The single features British singer Lily Allen. It became a top 5 hit in the UK, a top 20 hit in Ireland and on the European Hot 100 Singles. It also peaked at #32 in New Zealand and #49 in Australia. The song samples 'Just Be Good To Me' by the SOS Band.

His album was released a week later, and peaked at #2 in the UK and #18 in Ireland. He released 'Monster' as the third single from the album. The track features UK rapper Example (Elliot Gleave). Released on 3 October 2010 the single became a top 30 hit on the UK Singles Chart. His album has been certificated Gold with sales of over 100,000 in the United Kingdom.

On 10 September 2010, Professor Green joined Lily Allen on stage at Wembley Stadium whilst supporting Muse, to perform her number one hit 'Smile', and 'Just Be Good To Green'.^[6]

On 19 October 2010 Manderson released the video for his next single 'Jungle' which features Maverick Sabre. It was released on 3 January 2011 and reached #33 in the UK Singles Chart.

On 8 December 2010, a feud erupted on social networking site Twitter between Green and fellow grime artist Wiley. The argument arose when Wiley said that Green would not exist if it were not for the success of American rapper Eminem, adding that he himself was a superior artist to Green. In retribution Green responded by saying '"I will always be a fan, but that's not to say I won't s**t all over you. It's not a problem for me." This then escalated into a larger argument before Green attempted to defuse the situation, to little avail.^[7]

Green appeared on Soccer AM where he was challenged to a rap battle by Tubes, after several starting spits, Green said "I'm the Professor, the one that you don't wanna test, Tubes is about as smart as the Soccerette". This got a big reaction from everyone in the studio.

Green is also UK Ambassador for SportLifestyle brand Puma, focusing on the fashion and lifestyle side of the brand.

[edit] 2011–2012: At Your Inconvenience

Professor Green's second album is titled At Your Inconvenience and was released on 31 October 2011.^[8] The title track "At Your Inconvenience" was played by Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 on 13 July 2011.^[9] That track was released as a promotional single only. The first official single "Read All About It" which features vocals from Emeli Sandé was released on 23 October 2011.On 30 October it reached number 1.^[10]. The second single from the album is set to be 'Never Be A Right Time' which has guest vocals from Ed Drewett. The third single released is 'Remedy' featuring Ruth-Anne Cunningham.

[edit] 2012–present: New Album

Professor Green has stated via Twitter he is already recording his third solo album. He has expressed interest to work with Lily Allen, Ed Sheeran and Emeli Sande once more, as well as Lana Del Rey exclusively being asked and agreeing to work on the album with Green. Possible producers so far for the album, includes Mike Skinner, Paul Wilson of Slipknot, Ishi, Pharrell Williams and Skrillex.^[11][12][13]

Discography[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

• BT Digital Music Awards 2010
  • Breakthrough Artist of the Year – Won
  • Best Newcomer – Nominated
• MTV Europe Music Awards 2010
  • Best Push Act
• MOBO Awards 2010
  • Best Newcomer – Nominated
  • Best Song - I Need You Tonight - Nominated
  • Best Hip Hop/Grime Act - Won
• MP3 Awards 2010
  • Radio/ Charts/ Downloads - Just Be Good To Green – Nominated
• Urban Music Awards 2010
  • Best Newcomer – Nominated
  • Best Hip-Hop Act – Nominated
  • Best Song - I Need You Tonight – Nominated
• NME Awards 2011
  • Best Dancefloor Filler - Jungle – Won

References[link]