Center for Dewey Studies
@deweycenter.siu.edu
The Center for Dewey Studies is the home of research, publishing, and archival materials that focus on the life, work, and legacy of John Dewey.
Director: https://bsky.app/profile/thehangedman.com
Website: https://deweycenter.siu.edu/
Director: https://bsky.app/profile/thehangedman.com
Website: https://deweycenter.siu.edu/
“[The] lesson of history is that the forces which limit and restrict the life of individuals and thereby hinder freedom change with every great change in human relations. Consequently, freedom is...
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November 28, 2025 at 5:37 PM
“[The] lesson of history is that the forces which limit and restrict the life of individuals and thereby hinder freedom change with every great change in human relations. Consequently, freedom is...
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“Society means association; coming together in joint intercourse and action for the better realization of any form of experience which is augmented and confirmed by being shared. Hence there are as many associations as...
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November 26, 2025 at 5:04 PM
“Society means association; coming together in joint intercourse and action for the better realization of any form of experience which is augmented and confirmed by being shared. Hence there are as many associations as...
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“Just as ‘individual’ is not one thing, but is a blanket term for the immense variety of specific reactions, habits, dispositions and powers of human nature that are evoked, and confirmed under the influences of associated life, so with the term ‘social.’ Society...
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November 24, 2025 at 5:34 PM
“Just as ‘individual’ is not one thing, but is a blanket term for the immense variety of specific reactions, habits, dispositions and powers of human nature that are evoked, and confirmed under the influences of associated life, so with the term ‘social.’ Society...
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“To say that a man seeks health or justice is only to say that he seeks to live healthily or justly. These things, like truth, are adverbial. They are modifiers of action in special cases....
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November 21, 2025 at 7:10 PM
“To say that a man seeks health or justice is only to say that he seeks to live healthily or justly. These things, like truth, are adverbial. They are modifiers of action in special cases....
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“A moral situation is one in which judgment and choice are required antecedently to overt action. The practical meaning of the situation—that is to say the action needed to satisfy it—is not self-evident....
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November 20, 2025 at 4:26 PM
“A moral situation is one in which judgment and choice are required antecedently to overt action. The practical meaning of the situation—that is to say the action needed to satisfy it—is not self-evident....
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Join us tomorrow at noon for Dr. Harris's talk!
November 17, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Join us tomorrow at noon for Dr. Harris's talk!
“To perceive this fact is to abolish rigid dogmas from the world. It is to recognize that conceptions, theories and systems of thought are always open to development through use. It is to enforce the lesson that we must be on the lookout quite as much for indications to...
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![A photograph of John Dewey with overlaid text reading: “[Notions], theories, systems, no matter how elaborate and self-consistent they are, must be regarded as hypotheses. They are to be accepted as bases of actions which test them, not as finalities.” Citation: Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920, MW 12: 163).](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qzxbt32q5k2p6tuiygwjkymy/bafkreigguxbmnzvh4dcelkzqurvtxdsq2rssmtxxktg3bpkga4pczsbvie@jpeg)
November 17, 2025 at 6:21 PM
“To perceive this fact is to abolish rigid dogmas from the world. It is to recognize that conceptions, theories and systems of thought are always open to development through use. It is to enforce the lesson that we must be on the lookout quite as much for indications to...
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“Each science from mathematics to history exhibits typical fallacious methods and typical efficacious methods in special subject-matters. Logical theory has thus a large, almost inexhaustible field of empirical study....
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November 14, 2025 at 7:19 PM
“Each science from mathematics to history exhibits typical fallacious methods and typical efficacious methods in special subject-matters. Logical theory has thus a large, almost inexhaustible field of empirical study....
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“[Philosophy] cannot ‘solve’ the problem of the relation of the ideal and the real.... It can make it easier for mankind to take the right steps in action by making it clear that a sympathetic and integral intelligence brought to bear upon...
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November 12, 2025 at 5:47 PM
“[Philosophy] cannot ‘solve’ the problem of the relation of the ideal and the real.... It can make it easier for mankind to take the right steps in action by making it clear that a sympathetic and integral intelligence brought to bear upon...
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“When the practice of knowledge ceased to be dialectical and became experimental, knowing became preoccupied with changes and the test of knowledge became the ability to bring about certain changes. Knowing, for the experimental sciences, means...
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![A photograph of John Dewey chopping wood with overlaid text reading “[Philosophy] must also alter its nature. It must assume a practical nature; it must become operative and experimental.” Citation: Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920, MW 12: 149).](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qzxbt32q5k2p6tuiygwjkymy/bafkreigtpcmvwgthri5kcpm43qvgo4xgpeoppxgcrlgvwv62fb5dmrsz2i@jpeg)
November 10, 2025 at 5:09 PM
“When the practice of knowledge ceased to be dialectical and became experimental, knowing became preoccupied with changes and the test of knowledge became the ability to bring about certain changes. Knowing, for the experimental sciences, means...
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“The conceptions that are socially current and important become the child's principles of interpretation and estimation long before he attains to personal and deliberate control of conduct. Things come to him clothed in language, not in physical nakedness, and this garb of...
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November 7, 2025 at 3:10 PM
“The conceptions that are socially current and important become the child's principles of interpretation and estimation long before he attains to personal and deliberate control of conduct. Things come to him clothed in language, not in physical nakedness, and this garb of...
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“The organism acts in accordance with its own structure, simple or complex, upon its surroundings. As a consequence the changes produced in the environment react upon the organism and its activities. The living creature...
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November 5, 2025 at 5:36 PM
“The organism acts in accordance with its own structure, simple or complex, upon its surroundings. As a consequence the changes produced in the environment react upon the organism and its activities. The living creature...
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Join us this Friday for Dr. Ruta's talk, "From Opposition to Intertwinement: Rethinking Tradition and Progress Through Dewey" in the Center for Dewey Studies (Morris Library Basement). Light refreshments will be provided, and you are welcome to bring your own lunch.
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November 4, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Join us this Friday for Dr. Ruta's talk, "From Opposition to Intertwinement: Rethinking Tradition and Progress Through Dewey" in the Center for Dewey Studies (Morris Library Basement). Light refreshments will be provided, and you are welcome to bring your own lunch.
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“Until the dogma of fixed unchangeable types and species, of arrangement in classes of higher and lower, of subordination of the transitory individual to the universal or kind had been shaken in its hold upon...
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November 3, 2025 at 3:58 PM
“Until the dogma of fixed unchangeable types and species, of arrangement in classes of higher and lower, of subordination of the transitory individual to the universal or kind had been shaken in its hold upon...
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“Philosophy starts from some deep and wide way of responding to the difficulties life presents, but it grows only when material is at hand for making this practical response conscious, articulate and communicable.” – John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920, MW 12: 110).
October 31, 2025 at 3:15 PM
“Philosophy starts from some deep and wide way of responding to the difficulties life presents, but it grows only when material is at hand for making this practical response conscious, articulate and communicable.” – John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920, MW 12: 110).
“When William James called Pragmatism a New Name for an Old Way of Thinking, I do not know that he was thinking expressly of Francis Bacon, but so far as concerns the spirit and atmosphere of the pursuit of knowledge, Bacon may be...
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October 29, 2025 at 5:13 PM
“When William James called Pragmatism a New Name for an Old Way of Thinking, I do not know that he was thinking expressly of Francis Bacon, but so far as concerns the spirit and atmosphere of the pursuit of knowledge, Bacon may be...
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“The mind of man spontaneously assumes greater simplicity, uniformity and unity among phenomena than actually exists. It follows superficial analogies and jumps to conclusions; it overlooks the variety of details and the existence of exceptions. Thus it weaves...
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October 27, 2025 at 4:01 PM
“The mind of man spontaneously assumes greater simplicity, uniformity and unity among phenomena than actually exists. It follows superficial analogies and jumps to conclusions; it overlooks the variety of details and the existence of exceptions. Thus it weaves...
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“[Philosophy] did not develop in an unbiased way from an open and unprejudiced origin. It had its task cut out for it from the start. It had a mission to perform, and it was sworn in advance to...
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![A photograph of young John Dewey as a student with several of his peers. Below is text reading: “[Philosophy is] a chapter in the development of civilization and culture” - John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920, MW 12: 93).](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qzxbt32q5k2p6tuiygwjkymy/bafkreiamc2z4x3t7kzjqsaarqgte7ghi33valf3yztfxmdiwjhsbnrol3e@jpeg)
October 24, 2025 at 2:47 PM
“[Philosophy] did not develop in an unbiased way from an open and unprejudiced origin. It had its task cut out for it from the start. It had a mission to perform, and it was sworn in advance to...
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“Man differs from the lower animals because he preserves his past experiences... The revivals of memory are, however, rarely literal. We naturally remember what interests us and because it interests us. The past is recalled not because...
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October 22, 2025 at 4:39 PM
“Man differs from the lower animals because he preserves his past experiences... The revivals of memory are, however, rarely literal. We naturally remember what interests us and because it interests us. The past is recalled not because...
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Happy 166th Birthday to America's Philosopher, John Dewey! 🎉🎂
October 20, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Happy 166th Birthday to America's Philosopher, John Dewey! 🎉🎂
“Were I to write (or rewrite) Experience and Nature today I would entitle the book Culture and Nature and the treatment of specific subject-matters would be correspondingly modified. I would abandon the term ‘experience’ because… the historical obstacles which prevented understanding...
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October 15, 2025 at 6:34 PM
“Were I to write (or rewrite) Experience and Nature today I would entitle the book Culture and Nature and the treatment of specific subject-matters would be correspondingly modified. I would abandon the term ‘experience’ because… the historical obstacles which prevented understanding...
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Join us tomorrow for Dr. Joseph L. Smith’s talk, “On the Black Hand Side: Cornel West and the Black Prophetic Critique of Pragmatism,” in the Center for Dewey Studies (Morris Library Basement). Light refreshments will be provided, and you are welcome to bring your own lunch as well.
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Center Events | Center for Dewey Studies | SIU
deweycenter.siu.edu
October 14, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Join us tomorrow for Dr. Joseph L. Smith’s talk, “On the Black Hand Side: Cornel West and the Black Prophetic Critique of Pragmatism,” in the Center for Dewey Studies (Morris Library Basement). Light refreshments will be provided, and you are welcome to bring your own lunch as well.
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“[A] mind that has opened itself to experience and that has ripened through its discipline knows its own littleness and impotencies; it knows that its wishes and acknowledgments are not final measures of the universe whether in knowledge or in conduct, and hence are, in the end, transient....
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October 13, 2025 at 5:02 PM
“[A] mind that has opened itself to experience and that has ripened through its discipline knows its own littleness and impotencies; it knows that its wishes and acknowledgments are not final measures of the universe whether in knowledge or in conduct, and hence are, in the end, transient....
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“[S]ince reflection is the instrumentality of securing freer and more enduring goods, reflection is a unique intrinsic good. Its instrumental efficacy determines it to be a candidate for...
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October 10, 2025 at 3:20 PM
“[S]ince reflection is the instrumentality of securing freer and more enduring goods, reflection is a unique intrinsic good. Its instrumental efficacy determines it to be a candidate for...
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“Any activity that is productive of objects whose perception is an immediate good, and whose operation is a continual source of enjoyable perception of other events exhibits fineness of art. There are acts of all kinds that directly refresh and enlarge the spirit and that are instrumental...
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October 8, 2025 at 3:52 PM
“Any activity that is productive of objects whose perception is an immediate good, and whose operation is a continual source of enjoyable perception of other events exhibits fineness of art. There are acts of all kinds that directly refresh and enlarge the spirit and that are instrumental...
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