Daniel Tröhler, Jürgen Oelkers (Ed.) - Pragmatism and Education-Sense Publ. (2005)

Pragmatism and Education
Pragmatism and Education
Daniel Tröhler
Pestalozzianum Research Institute for the History of Education, University of Applied

Sciences Zürich: Teacher’s College, Switserland
Jürgen Oelkers
Institute for Education, University of Zürich, Switserland
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Contents
Introduction: Pragmatism and Education in the International

Discussion
Daniel Tröhler / Jürgen Oelkers 1
The Hegelian Roots of Dewey’s Pragmatism

James A. Good 11
William James’ Theory of Religion and Pluralistic World

Meike Sophia Baader 27
Public Intercommunications. Dewey Reconstructs Errant Modernizations

Hans-Peter Krüger 43
The Concepts of Activity and Effectiveness in Dewey’s Aesthetics

Roswitha Lehmann-Rommel 53
Modern City, Social Justice and Education. Early Pragmatism as

Exemplified by Jane Addams
Daniel Tröhler 69
Jane Addams’ and Mary Parker Follett’s Applied Pragmatism.

Social Management and Pedagogy
Birgit Althans 95
George Herbert Mead and the Theory of Schooling

Gert Biesta 117
Some Historical Notes on George Herbert Mead’s Theory of Education

Jürgen Oelkers 133
Dewey And James in Germany – Missed Opportunities in German

Pedagogy for Creative Encounter with American Pragmatism
Philipp Gonon 157
The Perception of Dewey’s Pragmatism in Germany after 1945

Stefan Bittner 173
Dewey’s Optimism
Philip W. Jackson 195
DANIEL TRÖHLER / JÜRGEN OELKERS
INTRODUCTION: PRAGMATISM AND EDUCATION

IN THE INTERNATIONAL DISCUSSION
At the Third International Congress of Philosophy in Heidelberg in September

1908, pragmatism in general and William James’ theory of truth in particular came
under extremely sharp criticism by the philosophers and philosophizing
educationalists attending the congress (Elsenhans, 1909, pp. 711-740). Continental
European philosophers made up the majority of attendees in Heidelberg, even
though it was Josiah Royce who delivered the opening address. Together with Paul
Carus, Royce (1855-1916) was the chief witness against pragmatism, for which in
1908 the philosophical contours had as yet only been sketched out in some
programmatic writings. Nonetheless, almost all of the speakers at the Heidelberg
congress distanced themselves from pragmatism passionately and vehemently. In
disassociating themselves from pragmatism, they went as far as personal
vilification in this public forum.
The flat-out rejection of pragmatism had two consequences. For one, it allowed
the philosophers to accentuate their own position in a seemingly concise manner.
That position can be described – notwithstanding some differences in the details –
as “idealist.” In Heidelberg, even the Marxists and anarchists presented their
arguments based on German idealism, mainly on Kant and Hegel. Philosophical
“truth” was not to be diluted or softened materialistically or pragmatically; its
idealist core was to be maintained. With this, the priority of spirit over matter or
thought over action was a given, the basic assumption being dualistic separation of
these. Kant’s transcendental idealist Critique of Pure Reason was just as
authoritative here as was Hegel’s philosophy of the objective spirit.
The other consequence resulting from the disassociation from pragmatism was
that pragmatism came to be ignored for decades, mainly in Germany and especially
within educational philosophy. This meant the loss of an opportunity to examine an
alternative to one’s own tradition, allowing for the contest among arguments to
serve development of better theories. It was alone the only two speakers in
Heidelberg representing pragmatism that took this opportunity into consideration.
All of the other speakers held the idea of continuous self-correction of theory to be
downright “unphilosophical.” Whereas the European social sciences relatively
early on contributed to the development of the specifically American thinking,
German philosophy took up initial impulses from pragmatism only in the last third
of the twentieth century. Even here, however, German education has as a rule
taken a rather defensive position up to today.
Just prior to the Heidelberg congress, William James’ lectures on Pragmatism:
A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking had been published in German
translation and had already created great unrest. The lectures were translated by the
D. Tröhler, J. Oelkers (eds.), Pragmatism and Education, 01–09.

© 2005 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
Viennese philosopher and educationalist Wilhelm Jerusalem, who had studied

empirical psychology under Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig and was a strong opponent
of the neo-idealism in Austrian philosophy mainly inspired by Franz Brentano.
Jerusalem was a participant at the Heidelberg congress, speaking on pragmatism
certainly not uncritically, but still basically supporting the pragmatist view. The
problem was how truth can be determined philosophically without any empirical
study.
When the English pragmatist Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller stated at the
congress that statements (Aussagen) did not from the start have to be absolutely
true and that it was sufficient for them to be probable and to prove themselves in
experience (Schiller, 1908/09, p. 739), it was a provocation of German philosophy
in its hardly ever reflected but assumed fundaments. At the core of these
fundaments we find the dualistically opposed, contingent so-called phenomenal
world and the timeless and unchanging so-called noumenal world. Therefore,
Schiller’s words amounted to more than an intellectual sideswipe; they were a
frontal attack on the way that the Germans saw not only their philosophy but
themselves.
The self-understanding of the German philosophers was based on the one hand
on a construction of an intellectual, or rather spiritual, history that extended from
Luther and Herder to German idealism, and on the other hand on praise for
Germany’s literary history, its epic poems and sagas (cf. Tröhler, 2004). Thus, the
German national identity as it was understood by many intellectuals and
philosophers around 1900 was based on pure, unadulterated intellectual products
such as the Nibelungs, Luther’s translation of the Bible, Kant’s critical philosophy,
and, especially, Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s (1762-1814) national pedagogy and
assertion of the purity of the German language. This assumption can be found up to
Heidegger’s philosophy of language. In other words, the national identity rested on
transcendentality, historically unspoiled originality, and thus national superiority,
at least in terms of culture and therefore not in terms of the empirical sciences.
The interest of their American colleagues in German thought particularly after
the Civil War did not go unnoticed by German philosophers, but they probably did
not see that at the American universities of the nineteenth century German idealism
became somewhat widespread primarily as a counter reaction to Scottish common
sense realism and English empiricism and biologism (Feffer, 1993). In that
context, Hegel’s idealism was used mainly as an intellectual weapon against
materialist philosophy, that is, against biological and social determinism that
leaves no place for free will. Herbert Spencer’s theory was a test case here. It was
on the one hand anti-state (laissez-faire) and therefore politically liberal, but on the
other hand it was evolutionary and based on sociobiological processes of power
and selection.
Hegel’s concept of “positive freedom” was utilized by some American authors
in order to be able to bring together individual self-realization and organic
community. The prerequisite for this was Hegel’s critique of the “abstract
freedom” (negative freedom), which was understood as the opposite of the
freedom to act and achieve something. Along these lines, William Torrey Harris
2
INTRODUCTION
(1871) distinguished between the abstract and the concrete, a pair of opposites that
Dewey would still use in 1938. When in the secondary literature the significance of
Hegel for the constitution of pragmatism is occasionally emphasized, especially
with regard to John Dewey, it is for the most part overlooked that elements of
Hegelian philosophy were utilized after the Civil War in order to have a way to
reflect upon American democracy without having to use theological concepts.
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the “Metaphysical Club” of William James,
Charles S. Peirce, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Chauncey Wright and others read
Hegel critically, for the entire program of a non-scientific, “pure” philosophy was
viewed with skepticism (Menand, 2001, p. 261ff.) One of the first to take the
opposing view to pure philosophy was Charles Peirce, who had the idea to simply
proceed from the learning of the natural sciences and to view all philosophical
statements as hypotheses that have to be proven on the basis of experience by
means of methods that had to be independent of the philosophy in which the
hypotheses or assertions were generated. This idea is fundamental for today’s
philosophy of science, which no longer claims for itself a superior position. It can
comment on research, but it cannot lay claim to any pure “truth” independent of
that research, as it could still do unchallenged in 1909.
Taking recourse to German idealism did not pay off. Hegel had wanted to found
a Prima Philosophia, or a science of pure thought based on the foundation that first
principles, and thus abstract concepts, determine concrete experience. “Being” is
inherently the opposite of “non-being,” just as “essence” is distinct from
“seeming” and “reality” from “appearance.” But, says Peirce in one of his
inimitable examples, it makes a difference whether I have a hundred-dollar bill in
my pocket or not. The given case, and not the abstract concept, determines being
or non-being. That which “is” and that which “is not” must exclude each other
concretely (Peirce, 1984, p. 145); there can be no ultimate premise for being or
non-being, because no one will ever experience it and thus know it (p. 177).
The response in Germany to examples like this could be none other than
categorical rejection, just as William James’ metaphor of “cash value” had to be
rejected. James (1907) used “cash value” for purposes of evaluating the
significance of proposed problem solutions; solutions are good only if they are of
practical utility and associated with visible consequences:
But if you follow the pragmatic method, you cannot look on any such word
as closing your quest. You must bring out of each word its practical cash-
value, set it at work within the stream of your experience. It appears less as a
solution, then, than as a program for more work, and more particularly as an
indication of the ways in which existing realities may be changed. But if you
follow the pragmatic method, you cannot look on any such word as closing
your quest. You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at
work within the stream of your experience. It appears less as a solution, then,
than as a program for more work, and more particularly as an indication of
the ways in which existing realities may be changed. (p. 21)
3
Examples and metaphors such as these by Peirce or James were quickly seized
upon in Germany as an opportunity to discredit the creative provocation of this
“new” thinking. For example, Konstatin Gutberlet (1908), philosopher and
Catholic theologian and editor for many years of the Philosophisches Jahrbuch of
the (Catholic-oriented) Görresgesellschaft [Görres Scientific Society], wrote the
following in response to William James’ Pragmatism:
We are confronted with a new fashion in philosophy, this time from across
the ocean and the land of the dollar, the dollar which must be seen as the
ideal of this philosophy. (p. 437; freely translated here)
This maligning equating of money and philosophy, however, was but a first step
that was soon followed by another: the American philosophy was deemed
analogous with the utilitarianism of nineteenth century England. Gutberlet (1908)
goes on to say that the American philosophy degraded truth to utility, just as a
similar direction of thought in former times from the land of the petty-minded
shopkeepers (Gutberlet referring here to England) had exported to German shores
the belittling of morality to utility (p. 437). Accordingly, in Gutberlet’s wholesale
judgment, Americans were slaves to material things, industry, and the dollar (p.
455).
Passages such as these, and the dozens of others that could be mentioned, only
poorly conceal the nationalism of German philosophy and German education
theory. The resentment of many German scholars was not directed simply at
pragmatism, but also at the “West” as a whole, meaning France, England, and the
United States – at capitalism and especially democracy. For the self-understanding
of the German thinkers, a philosophy that not only made democracy the subject of
discussion (which was already sufficient to cause displeasure), but instead made
democracy the fundamental assumption, had completely departed the field of
arguments. It upset altogether the German identity, which wanted to rely, so to
speak, on idealism. In 1909, the intellectual field in Germany was dominated by
anti-West cultural critique, the roots of which reached back into the nineteenth
century and which permitted only few alternatives (Oelkers, 2005, pp. 76-92).
The German philosophical identity was grounded first in the opposition between
“outward” and “inward.” This postulate sets in dualistic contrast an outward,
diverse, perceivable, and transitory world and an inward, in itself identical, geistig,
and eternal world. Second, it was assumed that the inward world of Geist was the
more important; the outward world could only have a supporting character. For this
reason it is not surprising that the demand for usefulness was made out to be
“ungeistig.” Geist was man’s true medium, and all efforts of education, which was
conceived of as Bildung, had to be directed to Geist. An examination of the
development of the concept of Bildung yields a paradigmatic illustration of the
direction of German thinking since 1750 (Horlacher, 2004).
Along this philosophical path of Geist and Bildung, dualisms were generated
that had a lasting impact and are perceptible up to today. These dualisms were used
at the end of the nineteenth century to create a contrast between Germany and the
Western world. The following distinctions, for example, served this purpose:
4
INTRODUCTION
- Culture versus Civilization

- Community versus Society
- True freedom versus the banal right to vote
- Geist versus Erfahrung
- Unity versus Plurality
- Inward versus Outward
- Bildung versus Knowledge
It is not surprising, therefore, to find Werner Sombart, a German sociologist and

national economist, describing in 1915 the First World War as a war between the
commercial and the heroic ethos (Sombart, 1915, p. 5) – with the West having the
soul of the petty-minded shopkeeper and Germans having the soul of the warrior.
What is most remarkable is that even though Germany was the leading economic
power in Europe at the time of the First World War, only the states to the West
were reproached with materialism. This discrepancy between real economic
prosperity and the prevailing ideology was not, however, due to a lack of
knowledge about Germany’s national economic potency. Instead, the contradiction
was consciously nullified by another dualism: inward purity and outward
corruption.
This shows up clearly in the work of Rudolf Eucken, New Idealist philosopher
of life (Lebensphilosophie) and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Eucken
(1914) acknowledges that Germany – like France, England, or America – had
experienced tremendous economic growth in the nineteenth century, but he writes
that the crucial difference, however, was that in Germany this development did not
corrupt the true character of the German people:
Did we then fall away from our own selves when we turned to the visible
world, when we developed our forces on land and water, when we took the
lead in industry and technology? Have we thus denied our true, inner nature?
No, and once again no! (p. 8)
That true nature, which according to Eucken differentiates the Germans from all
of the other nations, is an inner spiritual life (geistiges Leben). Following Eucken
(1914) that inner life was originally religious, and through the course of history it
came to characterize the whole of German life and supreme thought (p. 12 f.).
The inward purity, Geist, and Bildung were being correlated within a seemingly
apolitical context; in fact, however, what was being tacitly defended was the
German Empire (see Tröhler, 2003). On March 14, 1915, a young philosopher of
education, Eduard Spranger, wrote a letter to Georg Kerschensteiner, who was a
well-known reform educator who had visited Dewey in New York in November of
1910 and had shown interest in Dewey’s concepts of education at the laboratory
school in Chicago. Kerschensteiner had even offered to translate Dewey’s How We
Think into German – a plan that never reached fruition, however. In his letter to
5
Kerschensteiner, Spranger quite accurately calls Kerschensteiner “Pestalozzi’s true

heir” and continues:
… that being so, I would like to see you disavow and distance yourself from
the pragmatist Dewey. The economical and technical are not able to fill up
the latitude that is foreseen in German education. The German idea of the
state and the German idea of science are much richer than people over there
[the Americans] will ever understand. (Spranger, 1915, cited in Englert,
1966, p. 30, freely translated here)
In a return letter, Kerschensteiner hastens to reassure Spranger by emphasizing
that even reading William James’ some years before had left no impact on him.
However, Kerschensteiner writes that he is indebted to Dewey for increased
clarity, but only in those areas that he himself had been interested in for years: “I
think I’m not a good student; I just learn what I’m driven to learn in any case”
(Kerschensteiner, cited in Englert, 1966, p. 34). In a second letter to
Kerschensteiner a few days later, Spranger appears to be satisfied. He considers
some similarities between Dewey and Kerschensteiner on questions concerning
Lebenstotalität (totality of real life), but pronounces Kerschensteiner to be well
above Dewey’s “kitchen and crafts utilitarianism” (p. 36).
At this same time, John Dewey was working on an extensive critique of
American education theory’s references to German philosophy, stating that
education theory must become independent of the “educational teaching” of the
Herbartians, but also of Pestalozzi’s “parlor education,” and Froebels’ romantic
philosophy of the “kindergarten” and “Menschenbildung.” In all three of those
approaches, writes Dewey, democracy was not a subject for discussion, whereas
the innovation of education theory must start out from precisely that basis (Oelkers
2005a). Recourse to English utilitarianism was out of the question here; Dewey’s
idea of usefulness never referred to the value of man, but to methods of problem-
solving.
It was not only in Germany that nationalism predominated in people’s thinking
around and following 1900, and criticism of pragmatism was formulated not only
by German nationalists (we think, for example, of Émile Durkheim; see Durkheim,
1913-1914/1955). There were also critics of pragmatism in the United States, such
as Royce (Royce, 1912) or Arthur O. Lovejoy (Lovejoy, 1963). Moreover, around
this time Dewey found some positive reception in the Netherlands (Biesta and
Miedema, 2000) and especially in Geneva (Tröhler, 2005). It is almost an ironic
aperçu that the Second International Congress of Philosophy – that is, the congress
preceding the Heidelberg congress – had been organized in 1904 in Geneva by the
two Genevan propagators of pragmatism, namely Théodore Flournoy and Edouard
Claparède, and that neither one of them attended the Heidelberg congress of 1908.
Flournoy remarked in a letter to William James of 20 September 1908:
I have had news of the Congress at Heidelberg only through [Lorenzo M.]
Billia, the philosopher from Turin, who passed through Geneva … He found
the Congress very tedious, much too German and not international.
(Flournoy, 1908, cited in Le Clair 1966, p. 202)
6
INTRODUCTION
Under the sign of the increasing internationalization of educational discussion

within the last ten to twenty years, in which not coincidentally researchers in
smaller European countries have been more active, a conference was organized in
Zurich in 2003 by the Pestalozzianum Research Institute for the History of
Education and the Educational Institute of the University of Zurich. The
conference topic was the relation between pragmatism and education theory. With
a delay of 100 years, so to speak, the aim of the conference was to discuss how the
German theory discussion could profit from thinking about pragmatism, or in other
words, what the “cash value” of international theory discussion would be.
A hundred years’ delay, however, points not only to a deficit, for since the
linguistic turn, reception research as well as discussion within historiography has
after all produced important insights that we did not have 100 years ago and that
stand in critical opposition to traditional assumptions of linear impacts of ideas.
Even though German educational thinking up to the present shows massive deficits
with regard to acceptance of democracy as a fundamental category, the aim at the
Zurich conference was not to become recipients of missionary messages about
democracy, so to speak, for pragmatism 100 years ago was indeed partly shaped by
Reformed (Calvinist) visions of salvation (Tröhler, 2005a). The conference goal
was to discuss outstanding problems of education precisely in connection with
democracy (Oelkers, 2000).
Steven C. Rockefeller (1991) produced what is an impressive biography of John
Dewey, but it is prefixed by an intention of which we take a critical view:
This task is undertaken in the convictions that the greatest relevance of
Dewey’s philosophy to the dilemmas of contemporary American society and
the merging global community is to be found just here in the way he
endeavored to address the intellectual, social, and religious problems of the
age by holding them together and thinking them through together. (p. 5)
As it is described in the preface to Rockefeller’s study, the current relevance of
Dewey is not restricted to Americans, but it is also said – and in a rather
missionary manner as well, and thus in a manner that is really not unproblematic,
as we should realize today – to hold “for all those throughout the world today who
love freedom and seek to pursue the democratic way of life” (Rockefeller, 1991, p.
ix).
In contrast, the goal of the conference was to remove pedagogical motives from
educational thinking, that is, to adapt educational thinking to the standards of
international academic discussion in the humanities and the social sciences.
If pragmatism was correct in its basic ideas, namely, that learning is problem-
solving and that resolved problems in turn always create new problems that must
be solved, then it follows that solution proposals that were drafted around 1900 in
the context of the urbanization of the cities of America cannot simply be applied
one hundred years later to the whole world. The idea of the conference was, one
hundred years later, to make up for the missed opportunities for international
discussion, at the same time considering the new substantive and methodological
findings produced in the twentieth century. We did not expect to achieve
7
completeness in addressing this topic, and the fact that this volume contains no
contribution on Charles Sanders Peirce, whose work in fact needs to be examined
in relation to education, shows that the work is not yet comprehensive. The
contributions to this volume start out from selected examples, concrete cases, and
concrete problem connections in order to discuss, from today’s perspective, what
theory opportunities arise from the positions of pragmatism.
The contributions in this volume appear in a kind of chronological order. First,
James A. Good examines the repeatedly asserted Hegelian roots of Dewey’s
philosophy, while Hans-Peter Krüger, Meike Sophia Baader, and Roswitha
Lehmann-Rommel address specific aspects of pragmatism, such as public
communication, religion, and aesthetics, with the main emphasis of the analysis on
William James and John Dewey. Jane Addams’ and George Herbert Mead’s
education stands at the center of interest in the contributions by Daniel Tröhler,
Birgit Althans, Gert Biesta, and Jürgen Oelkers, while Philipp Gonon and Stefan
Bittner turn to the question of why pragmatism had such a hard time of gaining a
foothold in Germany. The final contribution, Philip W. Jackson’s systematic
analysis of Dewey’s thought, breaks with the chronological perspective of the
volume, shifting the focus to other central and fruitful issues.
The holding of international conferences has become quite common, but if a
conference has been held in a non-English-speaking country, it is as a rule difficult
to then make the discussions available to an international readership. We have
experienced these difficulties firsthand, and we would like to extend our thanks for
support from the United States, most especially to James A. Good and Philip W.
Jackson. We owe special thanks to Thomas S. Popkewitz, who referred us to Sense
Publishers, and to the founder and owner of Sense Publishers, Peter de Liefde, who
kindly took us on. We also thank Michael Geiss, who handled the difficulties of
the layout of the texts with impressive ease. Great thanks are due to Ellen Russon,
who translated a few of the original contributions in German, but mainly provided
highly professional assistance with the great deal of editorial work that preparing
diverse contributions for a conference volume entails, so that we now look forward
with pleasure to the response that we hope our volume will receive.
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Daniel Tröhler
Pestalozzianum Research Institute for the History of Education
University of Applied Sciences Zurich: Teacher’s College
Jürgen Oelkers
Institute for Education
University of Zurich
9
JAMES A. GOOD
THE HEGELIAN ROOTS OF DEWEY’S PRAGMATISM1
The traditional view of Dewey’s philosophical development dates back to Morton

White’s The Origins of Dewey’s Instrumentalism, published in 1943. According to
White, Dewey embraced British neo-Hegelianism as a neophyte philosopher, but
during the 1890s he began to criticize neo-Hegelianism and gradually overcame his
need for transcendent realities. Dewey heroically liberated himself from his
Absolutist chains and proclaimed to the world his newfound philosophical freedom
in the Studies in Logical Theory in 1903.2 For years, subsequent studies debated the
precise timing of Dewey’s development during the 1890s, but accepted the Studies
in Logical Theory as his declaration of independence (Coughlan, 1973; Dykhuizen,
1973; Westbrook, 1991; Rockefeller, 1991). Perhaps few Dewey scholars still read
the Studies in Logical Theory; when I first read it several years ago I was
astonished to discover that Hegel was never mentioned in the book.3 Despite
James’s oft-quoted praise of the book, it is significant that Peirce, who complained
that the book was a Phänomenologie of thought, failed to see it as a clean break
from Hegel (Peirce, p. 8:180).4 Perhaps one reason White located Dewey’s break
from Hegel in 1903 can be found in his autobiography. The Origins of Dewey’s
Instrumentalism was White’s Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia University, which he
defended in the spring of 1942. White (1999) explains:
I followed Dewey’s development only up to 1903…because I had written
enough in my discussion of these early years for a coherent book that could
earn the Ph.D. And since I had to publish my thesis according to the rules
then existing at Columbia—and might have had to publish it at my own
expense—there was a premium on keeping it short. (p. 32)
Regardless of why the traditional view was initially articulated, the issue of
Dewey’s debt to Hegel continues to beleaguer Dewey scholars partly because, in
1930, he acknowledged “that…Hegel ha[d] left a permanent deposit in [his]
thinking” (Dewey, 1981-99, p. 5:154). But Dewey’s vagueness about the content
of that deposit has puzzled scholars ever since. In recent years, John Shook and I
have countered the traditional interpretation of Dewey’s intellectual development
by arguing that he broke from British neo-Hegelianism by 1894, but he did not
abandon Hegel at that time (Shook, 2000; Good, in press). In this paper I do not
attempt to excavate Dewey’s Hegelian deposit, but to show that the traditional
view, conceived at the height of World War II, has outlived its usefulness. The
original purpose of the traditional view, I believe, was to demonstrate that Dewey,
the philosopher of American democracy, had presciently recognized the allegedly
inherent authoritarianism of Hegelian philosophy well before World War I.

JAMES A. GOOD
THE AMERICAN HEGELIAN TRADITION
During the early years of his philosophical development, Dewey was immersed in
an American Hegelian tradition that Dewey scholars have misunderstood. The
story of the American Hegelian tradition is punctuated by war. The American Civil
War (1861-5) and the series of European wars that culminated in German
unification (1864-70) stimulated the growth of a budding American interest in
German culture. During the period between the end of the Civil War and the
outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, the vast majority of American
intellectuals viewed Germany as one of the most advanced nations in the world and
German idealism as a politically liberal philosophy. The American perception of
German culture was abruptly reversed during World War I, however, as many
intellectuals argued that German idealism, particularly the philosophy of Hegel,
was inherently militaristic and authoritarian. Some World War I attacks on Hegel
were republished during the Second World War, and new ones appeared as well.5
Our post World War II perception of Hegel has clouded our understanding of the
way Americans perceived German thought and culture during the nineteenth
century.
Early in the nineteenth century, prominent American educators travelled to
Germany to observe the educational system and a few Americans studied there
(Walz, 1936, pp. 8-19).6 After the Civil War, the trickle of American intellectuals
who travelled to Germany became a torrent, partly because of the unification of the
German states, which was completed in 1870. Americans viewed unification as a
liberal advance that paralleled the unification of the United States during and after
the Civil War.7 Moreover, the fact that German-Americans who fought in the Civil
War overwhelmingly chose to fight for the abolition of slavery associated
Germaness with the advance of liberal politics in the minds of American
intellectuals. At this time, many prominent Americans viewed Germany as the
nation the United States should emulate.8
Perhaps the most significant German contributions to American education were
theoretical. American educators studied the writings of Pestalozzi and Froebel,
both of whom advocated love and respect for the individuality of the child
(Headly, Toth, Günther). Higher education in America was dramatically
transformed by the German concepts of akademische Freiheit, or academic
freedom, Lehrfreiheit, or the freedom of professors to teach “what they believed to
be the truth” without fear of dismissal, and Lernfreiheit, the freedom of students to
choose the academic courses they took (Walz, 1936, p. 51; Hofstadter and
Metzger, 1955, pp. 383-407). Because of its emphasis on respect for the individual
and these freedoms, American intellectuals viewed German educational thought as
a liberalizing influence on American universities.
It is well known that the central motif in Hegel’s philosophy is his concept of
freedom, and during the late nineteenth-century, American intellectuals generally
viewed Hegel’s philosophy as politically liberal.9 This is apparent in the writings of
the St. Louis Hegelians, a philosophical group that began to form before the Civil
War and that coalesced after the War. The primary leader of the group was
William Torrey Harris, a Connecticut Yankee who rose to prominence as a local
12
THE HEGELIAN ROOTS OF DEWEY’S PRAGMATISM
public educator (Leidecker, 1946). Harris served as editor of the Journal of

Speculative Philosophy (JSP) from 1867 to 1893, Superintendent of the St. Louis
Public Schools from 1868 to 1880, and United States Commissioner of Education
from 1889 to 1906. During Harris’s superintendence, the St. Louis public school
system received international recognition for its progressive approach to education
(McIntyre).
Although it is often noted that Harris and his peers in St. Louis were close
students of Hegel’s logic, in fact they studied all of Hegel’s work and were
particularly interested in the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophical
Propaedeutic.10 Some scholars have also incorrectly labelled the St. Louis
Hegelians as right-wing Hegelians, but their reading of Hegel is more comparable
to the German Hegelian center—Eduard Gans, Karl Ludwig Michelet, Karl
Rosenkranz, and Johannes Schulz. The Center Hegelians were pupils of Hegel, or
“Old Hegelians,” who opposed Prussian conservatism as well as the revolutionary
thought of the “Young Hegelians” (Toews, pp. 71-154, 203-42). Michelet and
Rosenkranz were auxiliary members of the St. Louis Philosophical Society, and,
according to Arnold Ruge, Rosenkranz was “the most liberal of all the Old
Hegelians” (Löwith, p. 54). The St. Louis Hegelians corresponded with
Rosenkranz and were particularly influenced by his 1844 biography of Hegel. In
that work, Rosenkranz drew upon Hegel’s short political essays to depict him as a
lifelong advocate of the ideals of the French Revolution.11
During their nation’s sectional crisis, the St. Louis Hegelians were attracted to
Hegel’s thought as a philosophy of cultural and national unification. Napoleon’s
invasions of Germany forced the post-Kantian idealists to grapple with the
unification of individual and societal interests; the Civil War raised the same issues
for the St. Louis Hegelians as they drew explicitly upon Hegel’s political
philosophy (Harris, H.S., 1972; Ripalda, 1977; Kelly, 1987; Dickey, 1987).
Hegel’s criticisms of radical French revolutionaries provided them with the
conceptual tools to argue that radical American abolitionists like John Brown
suffered from a deficient understanding of their relationship to society. Hegel’s
criticisms were motivated by the Reign of Terror which, he argued, arose because
revolutionaries believed they followed a morality that transcended their society and
that gave them license to summarily execute their opponents. Hegel criticized Kant
in the same way, arguing that the notion of an absolute duty to the categorical
imperative disregards our desires and the concrete social limitations in which we
must act. More seriously, Hegel warned that absolute devotion to an abstract ideal
would lead to fanaticism and a disregard for the consequences of our actions
(Kelly, 1969, pp. 301-6). Moreover, Hegel criticized radical French revolutionaries
because they embraced a negative or abstract theory of freedom, the notion that
man is free and equal in the absence of social restraints. Similarly, the St. Louis
Hegelians argued that this one-sided perception of freedom led the radical
abolitionists to mistakenly conclude that the eradication of the institution of slavery
alone, without more profound reform of society, would fully emancipate American
slaves. Hegel’s analysis of the Reign of Terror convinced the St. Louis Hegelians
that negative freedom would inevitably lead to the indiscriminate destruction of
13
JAMES A. GOOD
social, religious, and political institutions as the way to protect transcendent rights.
As institutions were destroyed in the Terror, Hegel argued, restraints upon
individuals were diminished, resulting in an accelerating frenzy of annihilation. In
the same way, the St. Louis Hegelians feared that negative freedom would
inevitably lead to “some sudden eruption…of madness and fury” (Harris, 1898, p.
287).12
The St. Louis Hegelians were also influenced by Hegel’s theory of learning,
which used the Bildung model of education to promote cultural, rather than
national, unity.13 Hegel was critical of the Enlightenment’s fixation on a narrow
conception of knowledge, arguing that Bildung requires self-knowledge, an
accurate perception of one’s talents and abilities. Hegel’s concept of Bildung
entails that knowledge is gained only from experience and from the widest variety
of experience. Furthermore, on the Bildung model, learning involves activity.
Hence Hegel rejected Locke’s passive spectator theory of the mind, according to
which we should restrain our passions in order to gain objective knowledge. For
Hegel, learning involves a passionate search for truth. Hegel’s notion of Bildung
emphasized Selbsttätigkeit, self-activity, self-development, and self-direction. For
Hegel, true education was a matter of conscious self-development that required
arduous individual effort and responsibility (Bruford, 1975; Reid, 2000; Schmidt,
1981; Smith, J.H., 1988; Zammito, 2002, pp. 15-41). Yet Hegel was also critical of
the “beautiful soul”, the person who is so consumed with their own salvation that
they have no adequate sense of the suffering in the world and are unwilling to act
to counter it for fear that they will corrupt their own soul. For Hegel, fulfilment
must come in the activities of real life.14
I have argued elsewhere that the St. Louis Hegelians’ influence on Dewey was
significant (DeArmey and Good, 2001; Good, 2000, 2002). Dewey published his
first article in the JSP and was encouraged by Harris to pursue a career in
philosophy; Dewey corresponded with Harris until Harris’s death in 1909.
Moreover, because for the first fifteen years of its existence the JSP was the only
serious philosophical journal in the English language, all of the philosophers with
whom Dewey studied were well aware of the St. Louis Hegelians’ interpretation of
Hegel as a politically liberal philosopher. Finally, Dewey associated with Harris
and other St. Louis Hegelians at Thomas Davidson’s Glenmore Summer School of
the Culture Sciences throughout the 1890s.15 Among other things, this American
Center Hegelian tradition encouraged Dewey to see Hegel as politically liberal, to
embrace his view of the individual’s relationship to society, and to develop a
theory of learning similar to Hegel’s.
DEWEY AND HEGEL
As a graduate student at Johns Hopkins from 1882 to 1884, Dewey embraced

Hegelianism under the tutelage of George Sylvester Morris, a frequent contributor
to the JSP and a friend of Harris’s. To be sure, during these years Dewey was a
close student of the British neo-Hegelians, especially T.H. Green, but as early as
1886 he distinguished his thought from theirs in “The Psychological Standpoint”
14
and “Psychology as Philosophic Method” (Dewey, 1967-72, pp. 1:123-43; 1:144-

67; 1:168-75). According to Dewey, the neo-Hegelians erred in the same way as
Kant because they attempted to explain experience by introducing elements that
went beyond possible experience when they posited a transcendent absolute self.16
In 1892 Dewey elaborated on this critique in “Green’s Theory of the Moral
Motive.” First, Dewey explained, Green erected a sharp dualism between the ends
that would satisfy the finite, individual self, and those that would satisfy the
infinite, universal self. The ideal self was the goal of the moral life, but it was
ultimately unattainable for the particular self. Second, Dewey argued that ethical
theories based upon standards of moral perfection were impractical because they
remain “the bare thought of an ideal of perfection, having nothing in common with
the special set of conditions or with the special desire of the moment” (Dewey,
1967-72, p. 3:163). Here Dewey is restating Hegel’s critique of Kant’s categorical
imperative. Dewey referred to Green as a neo-Kantian because he transformed
Hegel's immanent absolute into a transcendent absolute for the same reason that
Kant postulated a noumenal realm and the categorical imperative.
To say the least, it is odd to claim that this Hegelian critique of Green’s moral
theory signals that Dewey was progressing toward a definitive break with Hegel. In
my dissertation I have argued that Dewey was developing a non-metaphysical
reading of Hegel, similar to that espoused in recent years by Klaus Hartmann and
the numerous Hegel scholars he has influenced (Hartmann, 1972; Engelhardt and
Pinkard, 1994, pp. 225-229).17 Unfortunately, this shift this been difficult to discern
partly because Dewey articulated it most clearly in a 104-page 1897 lecture that
remains unpublished. We get a sense of this shift near the beginning of that lecture
in a passage that calls to mind Hegel’s infamous claim, “What is rational is actual;
and what is actual is rational” (Hegel, 1991, p. 20; cf. Hegel, 1969, p. 546).
According to Dewey (1897):
Hegel was a great actualist. By this I mean that he has the greatest respect,
both in his thought and in his practice, for what has actually amounted to
something, actually succeeded in getting outward form….Hegel is never
more hard in his speech, hard as steel is hard, than when dealing with mere
ideals[,] vain opinions and sentiments which have not succeeded in
connecting themselves with the actual world. (p. 6)
By this point in his philosophical development, Dewey had come to understand
Hegel’s dictum, not as an admonition to passively accept the actual, the status quo,
because it is rational, but as a critique of ethical theories that provide only abstract
rules, empty ideals, as guides to action. Truly rational moral principles have actual
effects in the world, and the rational does not transcend the world in any way. This
understanding of Hegel’s maxim was common among American Hegelians. In
Lectures on Modern Idealism, Royce wrote that “for Hegel, thought is inseparable
from will, [and] logic exists only as the logic of life…” Royce also stated that the
dialectic possessed, “for Hegel pragmatic significance…illustrating the way in
which men live as well as the way in which men must think” (Royce, 1964, p.
145).18
15
JAMES A. GOOD
Dewey’s lecture also contains a brief intellectual biography of Hegel that

characterizes him as a politically liberal philosopher. At this time only two full-
length biographies of Hegel had been published. The first was that of Rosenkranz,
which I have already mentioned, and the second was Rudolf Haym’s (1857)
biography of Hegel, Hegel und seine Zeit.19 To a large degree, Haym’s biography
instigated the characterization of Hegel as the philosopher of the Prussian state.
Hence, it is significant that at this time Dewey preferred Rosenkranz’s
interpretation of Hegel to Haym’s. There is other evidence in the lecture that
Dewey agreed with Rosenkranz. Although Dewey characterized Hegel’s theory of
the state as artificial, he explicitly rejected the notion that Hegel was an apologist
for Prussian authoritarianism. According to Hegel, Dewey asserted, the central task
of the modern state was the preservation of individual rights (Dewey, 1897, pp. 84-
98). Of Hegel’s philosophy of history, Dewey flatly asserted that it “is absurd” to
claim Hegel forced the particular events of history into an a priori scheme (Dewey,
1897, p. 86).
As late as 1904, Dewey argued that Hegel had opposed the formalism of Kant’s
characterization of moral reason by grounding morality in “an ethical world (as
real as the physical) from which the individual must take his cue...” (Dewey, 1976-
83, pp. 3:55-56). And although Dewey associated himself with the newly forming
pragmatist camp in 1905, in that same year he also acknowledged a continuing
debt to Hegel in his Presidential Address to the American Philosophical
Association (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 3:154). In that address, Dewey complained about
the “purely Anglo-American habit” of “interpreting Hegel as a Neo-Kantian, a
Kantian enlarged and purified.” Unlike Kant, Dewey argued, Hegel emphasized
“life in its own developing movement” over logic (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 3:86). In
“Intelligence and Morals” (1908), Dewey rejected the notion that Hegel’s
identification of the real with the rational glorified the conservative Prussian state.
According to Dewey (1976-83), Hegel’s dictum
gave the pleasant appearance (which Hegel did not strenuously discourage)
of being specifically an idealization of the Prussian nation, and incidentally a
systematized apologetic for the universe at large. But in intellectual and
practical effect, it lifted the idea of process above that of fixed origins and
fixed ends, and presented the social and moral order, as well as the
intellectual, as a scene of becoming, and it located reason somewhere within
the struggles of life. (p. 4:43)
Dewey’s opinion of Hegel changed abruptly during World War I, however.
While it is true that the direct influence of Hegel’s philosophy on Dewey, and on
the English-speaking world more generally, had gradually declined before World
War I, Bruce Kuklick (1984) correctly notes that “the anti-idealist movement
might have been a dubious challenge to Hegel’s place in Modern Philosophy were
it not for the war…. After the war Hegel became, for Americans, a silly, pompous,
and defeated figure, unworthy of the great tradition” (p. 133). Thus, as Americans
deliberated about whether the United States should enter World War I, Dewey
16
prepared his first published criticism of Hegel, German Philosophy and Politics
(GPP). Dewey’s GPP contributed to the defeat of Hegel of which Kuklick speaks.
Dewey’s primary goal in GPP was to reveal the cultural/philosophical roots of
German militarism.20 The book’s main target is Kantian dualism or what Dewey
called Kant’s “two worlds” thesis. Though it may seem odd that Dewey focused on
the advocate of “perpetual peace,” much like Hegel, throughout his career Dewey
criticized Kant more than any other philosopher. Dewey proclaimed that Kant’s
doctrine of “the two realms, one outer, physical and necessary, the other inner,
ideal and free” is the element of German philosophy that has defined German
national character. The German people were not, Dewey added, consciously
devoted to Kantian philosophy, rather “Kant detected and formulated the direction
in which the German genius was moving, so that his philosophy is of immense
prophetic significance” (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 8:152; cf. p. 12:136). In this regard,
GPP is Hegelian intellectual history. Dewey’s claim was that Kant had understood
and was a vehicle for the German Zeitgeist.
In a summary of his objections to Kant, Dewey (1976-83) wrote:
Kant’s decisive contribution [to German philosophy] is the idea of a dual
legislation of reason by which are marked off two distinct realms—that of
science and that of morals. Each of these two realms has its own final and
authoritative constitution: On one hand, there is the world of sense, the world
of phenomena in space and time in which science is at home; on the other
hand, is the supersensible, the noumenal world, the world of moral duty and
moral freedom. (p. 8:147)
Kant’s dualism, Dewey averred, facilitated a “combination of self-conscious
idealism with unsurpassed technical efficiency and organization in the varied fields
of action” (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 8:151). More explicitly, Dewey claimed that
Kantian philosophy fostered an absolute devotion to transcendent ends, ends that
could not be checked by practical and humane considerations, thereby making
possible a preoccupation with technical efficiency at the expense of everyday
decency.21 Dewey scholars have missed the extent to which this is an Hegelian
critique of Kant, and after his discussion of Kant Dewey turned his attention to
Hegel without acknowledging the similarity.
Dewey associated Hegel with the “purely artificial cult of race” in Germany,
which he described as a crucial component of Germany’s geopolitical ambitions
(Dewey, 1976-83, p. 8:188).22 This represents a dramatic shift in Dewey’s
characterization of Hegel and it correlates to a shift in the sources he chose to use.
In his 1897 lecture, Rosenkranz’s reading of Hegel apparently influenced Dewey
as it had the St. Louis Hegelians. But in GPP, Dewey uncritically cited Rudolf
Haym’s biography of Hegel (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 8:193; Haym, 1857). It is perhaps
noteworthy that this is the only place in Dewey’s entire thirty-seven-volume corpus
in which he mentioned or cited Rudolf Haym.
Dewey (1976-83) also quoted, without citation, passages from §258 of Hegel’s
Philosophy of Right to support this reading of Hegel.
17
JAMES A. GOOD
‘The State is the rational in itself and for itself. Its substantial unity is an
absolute end in itself. To it belongs supreme right in respect to individuals
whose first duty is—just to be members of the State.’…The State ‘is the
absolute reality and the individual himself has objective existence, truth and
morality only in his capacity as a member of the State.’ (p. 8:192-93)
Comparison with S. W. Dyde’s 1896 translation of the Philosophy of Right, the
only one then available, indicates that Dewey used his own rather loose translation
of passages from the Philosophy of Right. Dewey chose to ignore a passage just
two paragraphs after the one he quoted that contradict his reading.23 In that passage,
Hegel wrote:
The state is the actuality of concrete freedom. But concrete freedom requires
that personal individuality [Einzelheit] and its particular interests should
reach their full development and gain recognition of their right for
itself….The principle of the modern state has enormous strength and depth
because it allows the principle of subjectivity to attain fulfilment in the self-
sufficient extreme of personal particularity, while at the same time bringing it
back to substantial unity and so preserving this unity in the principle of
subjectivity itself. (§260)
In a discussion of this passage, Allen Wood (1991) writes that it is “a gross
distortion to associate Hegel’s view with the image of individuals having to
sacrifice themselves to the ends of the state. Such sacrifices may be required in
some circumstances, but it is precisely the abnormality of such circumstances
which makes the state an end in itself” (p. xxvi). Despite these evidentiary
problems in his reading of Hegel, and despite the fact that in 1905 he claimed
Hegel did not elevate logic above lived experience, Dewey now claimed that the
problem in Hegel’s political thought arose from the identification of the actual with
the rational, coupled with the conviction that reason drives history with no regard
for individual rights and interests (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 3:86). This is similar to
Dewey’s critique of Kant. Both philosophers, Dewey claimed, subordinated
practical considerations of right and wrong to an overarching rationality, both set
up a “dual legislation of reason.” Dewey went on to state that Hegel equated reason
with both God and the state, thus making it the duty of the individual to completely
subordinate his interests to the state (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 8:147).24
An important element of this shift is revealed in Dewey’s characterization of
Hegel’s philosophy of history, which he reiterated in Democracy and Education,
published in 1916:
But since Hegel was haunted by the conception of an absolute goal, he was
obliged to arrange institutions as they concretely exist, on a stepladder of
ascending approximations. Each in its time and place is absolutely necessary,
because a stage in the self-realizing process of the absolute mind. Taken as
such a step or stage, its existence is proof of its complete rationality, for it is
an integral element in the total, which is Reason. (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 9:64)
18
In GPP, Dewey’s characterization of Hegel is completed in his claim that

Hegel’s necessary teleology is fulfilled through war. Dewey rejected the St. Louis
Hegelians’ perception of Hegel as cosmopolitan, construing Hegel’s philosophy of
history in nationalistic terms. As a rabid nationalist, Dewey contended, it was
inevitable that Hegel would articulate a “philosophical justification of war”
(Dewey, 1976-83, p. 8:197).25 Hegel had become, for Dewey, the bellicose
philosopher of Prussian conservatism.26
Dewey’s reversal in 1915 is further complicated by another apparent reversal in
The Quest for Certainty (1929). In that book, Dewey claimed that, for Hegel, “The
moral task of man is not to create a world in accord with the ideal but to
appropriate intellectually and in the substance of personality the meanings and
values already incarnate in an actual world” (Dewey, 1981-99, p. 4:51).27 It appears
Dewey had returned to his conviction that Hegel did not posit a transcendent
morality and did not elevate logic above lived experience.
But Dewey republished GPP in 1942, one year before the publication of White’s
The Origins of Dewey’s Instrumentalism, with a new introduction that included a
criticism of Hegel. He distinguished Hegel’s concepts of Vernunft (reason) and
Verstand (understanding) in a way that is difficult to defend with reference to
Hegel’s writings, and in fact he provided no defense of his reading. According to
Dewey, Hegel subordinated Verstand, which Dewey defined as “reflection,
inquiry, observation and experiment to test ideas and theory,” to Vernunft.
Dewey’s point was that Hegel denigrated empirical inquiry, valorizing a
transcendent reason instead. Hence Dewey defined Hegel’s concept of Vernunft as
a metaphysical entity or force, the agent that moves world history (Dewey, 1976-
83, p. 8:441).28 Oddly enough, in 1916, Dewey republished his 1900 essay, “Some
Stages of Logical Thought”. In that essay, Dewey characterized Verstand as our
ability to make ideas precise rather than experimentation to test ideas. Moreover, in
that essay Dewey implied that Verstand is a stage of thought, rather than a discrete
faculty. Dewey made no changes to the republished essay although he republished
it during World War I. Nor did Dewey bother to mention in the 1942 edition of
GPP that he had characterized Verstand very differently in previous work (Dewey,
1976-83, p. 1:156).29
In 1994, Tom Rockmore asserted, “Hegel…proposes a new paradigm of
systematic knowledge without foundations with an obvious, but as yet largely
unexplored relation to pragmatism” (Rockmore, 1994, p. 54). Many other scholars
have identified unexplored similarities between Hegel’s thought and pragmatism.30
I have suggested one reason for the lack of exploration. George Eastman (1965)
complained about Joseph Ratner’s need to show “that Hegelianism—and idealism
in general—is an effete, a somehow suspect, if not dissolute philosophy from
which Dewey wisely, and heroically, freed himself” (p. 104).31 I suspect Dewey’s
GPP, and other books like it, some written during and after World War II, have
motivated the need of many Dewey scholars to identify a clean break from Hegel
and to place it at a relatively early date in his intellectual development. I also
suspect it is no accident that the book that inaugurated this trend in Dewey
scholarship, Morton White’s (1943) The Origins of Dewey’s Instrumentalism, was
19
JAMES A. GOOD
written and published during World War II. In order to fully understand Dewey’s
debt to Hegel, scholars must appreciate the American Hegelian tradition in which
he was immersed during his formative years and the pre-World War I sense that
Americans had of Germany as one of the most advanced nations in the world.
Dewey scholars must liberate themselves from the chains of prejudice that were
created by the horror of twentieth-century warfare.
NOTES
1
Good, James. John Dewey’s Permanent Hegelian Deposit and the Exigencies of War. Journal of the
History of Philosophy 68 (2007). © Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc. Reprinted with
permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.
2
According to White, during the 1890s Dewey “continued to hammer away at his [Hegelian] chains”
(1943, p. 106).
3
Dewey’s focus in the Studies is a critique of the assumptions of traditional epistemology,
exemplified in Rudolf Hermann Lotze’s Logic (1884). Because Lotze was known as an idealist,
scholars assume that Dewey attacked Hegelian logic in his critique of Lotze. But Lotze viewed his
logic as an attack on Hegelian logic, and was criticized by Henry Jones, a British neo-Hegelian, in
much the same way that Dewey criticized him (1895).
4
In a letter to F.C.S. Schiller, James excitedly declared that the Studies “was splendid stuff, and
Dewey is a hero. A real school and real thought. At Harvard we have plenty of thought, but no
school. At Yale and Cornell, the other way about” (Perry, 1935, pp. 2:374, 521).
5
For example, Dewey’s German Philosophy and Politics was published in 1915 and 1942. New
books that attacked Hegel during and after World War II were Russell, 1945; Popper, 1950; and
Reichenbach, 1951.
6
Many important American educators, such as Calvin Stowe and Horace Mann, traveled to Germany
and published influential reports in the United States (Jeismann, 1995, pp. 21-42). George Bancroft,
Edward Everett, and Frederic Henry Hedge all spent time studying in Germany during the second
and third decades of the nineteenth century (Good, 2002).
7
Denton Snider (1841-1925), one of the St. Louis Hegelians, compared the American Civil War to
the “European Teutonic Movement”—the Prussian subjugation of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, the
defeat of Austria in 1866, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 (Snider, 1920, pp. 143-44). Cf.
Good (2000).
8
For whatever reason a specific individual might have gone to Germany, Carol Gruber (1975)
estimates that between 1820 and 1920, nearly nine thousand Americans studied at German
universities (p. 17). Cf. Diehl (1978), Herbst (1965), and Jarausch (1995).
9
In this context, “liberalism” means a devotion to the ideals of the French Revolution—liberty,
equality, and fraternity. Although Hegel was a liberal in the context of late eighteenth and early
nineteenth-century Prussia, he was quite critical of the British liberal tradition (Smith, S.B., 1989).
10
The Philosophische Propädeutik was an unfinished manuscript Hegel worked on while he served as
rector of the Nuremburg Gymnasium from 1808 to 1815. Karl Rosenkranz discovered the
manuscript on education seven years after Hegel’s death in 1831. He attempted to impose some
order on the patchy text and published it as a volume of Hegel’s collected works. Some thirty years
later, Rosenkranz recommended the Philosophische Propädeutik to the St. Louis Hegelians. In his
recent translation of the work, A.V. Miller acknowledged a debt to Harris’s partial translation that
was published in the JSP (Hegel, 1986). The St. Louis Hegelians also studied Rosenkranz’s
Pädagogik als System (Rosenkranz, 1872b; Brackett; Harris, 1881).
11
The St. Louis Hegelians published an important essay by Rosenkranz on Hegel’s political thought
under the title “Hegel as Publicist” (Rosenkranz, 1872a). Moreover, 129 pages in the JSP were
devoted to translations of Rosenkranz’s commentary on Hegel. In addition to Rosenkranz, other
important European intellectuals were auxiliary members of the Society, specifically, James
Hutchinson Stirling, Ludwig Feuerbach and J. H. Fichte (Leidecker, 1990). For more on Rosenkranz
and the St. Louis Hegelians see DeArmey and Good (2001), pp. 1: xvii-xviii.
20
12
Harris’s discussions of the “spontaneous or formal will,” and the “moral or rational will,” closely
follow Hegel’s analyses of abstract and concrete freedom (Harris, 1898, pp. 120-34; Hegel, 1977,
§§582-595, §§34-40).
13
Though Hegel’s cosmopolitanism led him to oppose political unification of the German states, it
also made him critical of their excessive localism. These are prominent themes in Pinkard.
14
The Preface to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit centers on a discussion of Bildung, and it is a
central motif throughout the Philosophy of Right. Josiah Royce advocated reading the
Phenomenology as a Bildungsroman much like Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and Friedrich
Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell (Royce, 1964). On the “beautiful soul” see Hegel, 1977, §§632-671;
Schmitt, 1986; Norton, 1995.
15
Davidson was an active member of the St. Louis Philosophical Society from 1868 to 1875. In 1889
he established the Glenmore Summer School of the Culture Sciences in the Adirondack Mountains
of upstate New York at which Harris, Dewey, Royce and Santayana all lectured for several
summers. Harris built a summer vacation cottage for his family at Glenmore. Dewey bought land
across the road from Glenmore where he too built a summer vacation cottage (Good, 2004).
16
Many scholars would agree with Dewey’s assessment of Green as more Kantian than Hegelian
(Passmore, 1966, pp. 55-56; Metz, 1950, pp. 272-73; Thomas, 1987, pp. 40-41). Dewey continued
this critique of the neo-Hegelians in logical writings of this time as well (Dewey, 1967-72, pp. 3:
125-141). Shook (2000) is correct to note that Dewey was, in some ways, moving in the direction of
Edward Caird’s idealism because Caird also criticized Green for making the absolute transcendent.
Yet Shook also points out that Dewey criticized Caird for retaining the view that psychology and
philosophy required different methods (pp. 66-69).
17
Engelhardt and Pinkard (1994) also provide a complete list of the published writings of Hartmann
(pp. 231-241). By claiming that Dewey embraced a non-metaphysical reading of Hegel, I am able to
deflect the apparent force of statements made by Dewey that have been used to indicate that he was
rejecting Hegel. One that is often quoted to that effect, and that I place in a very different light, is in
a letter from Dewey to James Rowland Angell (10 May 1893): “While I continue to get more and
more out of Hegel, I get less and less out of the Hegelians so-called. They seem to be largely
repeating phrases when they ought to be analyzing the subject matter. Metaphysics has had its day,
and if the truths which Hegel saw cannot be stated as direct, practical truths, they are not true”
(Hickman, 2001). I believe this statement bolsters my claim that Dewey was rejecting the British
neo-Hegelians and their metaphysical reading of Hegel at this time, but does not indicate he was
rejecting Hegel per se.
18
Cf. Royce’s claim that “Nothing is true, for them [the post-Kantian idealists], unless therein the
sense, the purpose, the meaning of some active process is carried out, expressed, accomplished.
Truth is not for these post-Kantian idealists something dead and settled apart from action. It is a
construction, a process, an activity, a creation, an attainment” (Royce, 1964, p. 86).
19
Caird (1883) and Luqueer (1896) were partly biographical but could not have provided the sort of
detailed knowledge that Dewey displayed in the 1897 lecture. Further indication that Dewey was
familiar with Rosenkranz is contained in a letter he wrote to Harris in 1882 in which he offered to
translate Rosenkranz’s introduction to “Kirchmann’s ed. of Hegel’s Encyclopädie” (Hickman,
2001). Dewey’s translation never appeared in the JSP. See also, John Dewey to W. T. Harris, 22
October 1881 (Hickman, 2001). Rosenkranz wrote two introductions to Hegel’s Encyklopädie der
philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (Rosenkranz, 1845, 1870).
20
Dewey expressed concern about authoritarianism in German culture as early as 1895:
“Herbartianism seems to me essentially a schoolmaster's psychology, not the psychology of a child.
It is the natural expression of a nation laying great emphasis upon authority and upon the formation
of individual character in distinct and recognized subordination to the ethical demands made in war
and in civil administration by that authority. It is not the psychology of a nation which professes to
believe that every individual has within him the principle of authority, and that order means co-
ordination, not subordination” (Dewey, 1967-72, pp. 5:113-46).
21
Dewey’s criticism of Kant’s moral thought makes the same point as the Frankfurt School’s later
criticisms of “instrumental reason,” reason that could efficiently solve technical problems but could
not critique ends. See especially Horkheimer and Adorno (1996), pp. 81-127. Axel Honneth (2001)
has recently noted this similarity between Dewey and the Frankfurt School (pp. 321-322). In this
21
JAMES A. GOOD
way Honneth highlights the difference between the instrumentalism Dewey championed and what
the Frankfurt School condemned as “instrumental reason.” Despite the similarities in their names,
the two doctrines are subtly different in very important ways. Larry Hickman (2000) clearly reveals
a dualism at the heart of the thought of the Frankfurt School that remains in Habermas’s much more
recent work and that forms the basis of his critique of what he calls “technical activities” or
“purposive-rational action” (Habermas, pp. 91, 92). Hickman demonstrates that Dewey successfully
avoided that dualism (Hickman, 2000, pp. 501-13).
22
In his introduction to Volume 8 of Dewey’s Middle Works, Sydney Hook (1979) claimed Dewey
had committed “an injustice to Hegel, who was free from racialism” (p. xxxi). Hook’s assertion begs
for explanation that he did not provide, however. Hegel is infamous for his argument in the
Philosophy of History that Oriental and African cultures are outside world history because they had
not internalized conceptions of law and morality that are necessary to the attainment of concrete
freedom. Nevertheless, Hegel was highly critical of German anti-Semitism and, although he was
certainly Eurocentric, his negative assessments of other cultures were not based on biological racism
(McCarney, 2000, pp. 140-5).
23
Hegel scholars would certainly find H. B. Nisbet’s 1991 translation less objectionable than
Dewey’s.
24
Contrary to Dewey’s claim, in Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Hegel wrote “the
universal spirit or world spirit is not the same thing as God. It is the rationality of spirit in its
worldly existence” (Hegel, 1975, 213).
25
Cf. Dewey’s remark, “One can only regret that [Hegel] died before his contemplative piety could
behold Bismarck” (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 8: 194). The St. Louis Hegelians’ perception of Hegel as
cosmopolitan is more consistent with recent Hegel scholarship. Terry Pinkard, for example, depicts
Hegel as a neo-humanist, like his good friend Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer, and explains that
neo-humanists “saw themselves as developing a national German culture, which for them did not in
any way necessarily imply a single, national German state” (Pinkard, 2000, p. 269).
26
Cf. Dewey, 1976-83, pp. 12:189-90, 194-5. Also, in a 1904 review of W.R. Benedict’s World Views
and their Ethical Implications, Dewey praised Hegel’s emphasis “upon the positive significance of
conflict and the suffering that attends it, in the constitution of an active and worthful universe,
instead of tending to give a negative interpretation of conflict as due to the ‘finite’ over against the
complete, or to ‘appearance’ over against Reality” (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 3:311). Not only does
Dewey offer a more positive view of Hegel’s perception of conflict in world history in this passage,
he also appears to reject the implication that he made later in GPP that, like Kant, Hegel had a “two
worlds” thesis.
27
Cf. Karl Löwith’s (1964) claim that, with Hegel, “Philosophy becomes an eternally living activity,
excluding any revival of past systems. The philosopher who is to do justice to this transitory nature
must be the most persevering and productive spirit of his age, a man with the surest capacity for
making distinctions in order to be able to differentiate what is valuable from what is worthless, and
what is significant for the future from what is merely topical” (p. 130). For a good discussion of
Hegel’s dictum and the ways it has been misunderstood see Jackson (1996).
28
Cf. Dewey’s definition of “posit” in Baldwin’s Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology (Dewey,
1976-83, p. 2:207). In his definition of “Rationalism,” Dewey indicated that Hegel’s concept of
reason was not opposed to experience (Dewey, 1976-83, p. 2:218). In “Understanding and Reason,”
Dewey depicted Hegel’s concept of reason as “the result of the development of the understanding to
its full implications,” rather than as a faculty opposed to the understanding (Dewey, 1976-83, p.
2:261).
29
Of Dewey’s two explanations of Hegel’s concepts of Verstand and Vernunft, the pre-World War I
version is arguably the easier one to defend. Rather than depict Hegel’s concepts of Vernunft and
Verstand as two distinct and separable entities or mental faculties that could be in a relationship in
which one is subordinate to the other, contemporary Hegel scholars tend to describe Verstand as a
moment, or stage, of Vernunft, the stage of analysis that must be completed in Vernunft. A good
example of this view of Hegel’s concepts of Vernunft and Verstand can be found in Hinchman
(1984), pp. 73-75. Hinchman claims to “dispel the widely held belief that Hegel scorned ‘mere’
understanding for the sake of higher reason which could dispense with the labor of finite thought.”
Cf. S.B. Smith’s (1989) penetrating discussion of Hegel’s concept of rational necessity, in which he
22
casts significant doubt not only on the characterization of Hegel’s concepts of reason and
understanding that we encounter here in Dewey, but also on the notion that Hegel believed in the
sort of necessary historical teleology that Dewey claimed he did in GPP (p. 204-217).
30
For example, according to R. Solomon (1983), to find a concept of experience similar to Hegel’s,
we would need to look at the “practical-minded writings of the American pragmatists William
James and John Dewey.” Solomon also claims that Hegel’s “is a heavily practical conception of
Truth with strong affinities to what has been defended in this century (by William James and others)
as the ‘pragmatic theory of truth’” (Solomon, 1983, pp. 11, 176).
31
See also Ratner (1965), pp. 105-07.
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James A. Good
Department of History
North Harris College
Houston, Texas
26
MEIKE SOPHIA BAADER
WILLIAM JAMES’ THEORY OF RELIGION AND

PLURALISTIC WORLD
INTRODUCTION
“I offer the oddly-named thing pragmatism as a philosophy that can satisfy

both kinds of demand. It can remain religious like the rationalisms, but at the
same time, like the empiricisms, it can preserve the richest intimacy with
facts.” – William James, from a lecture on pragmatism delivered in 1906
(James, 1907/1998, p. 23).
James connects his definition of what pragmatism means directly with his theory of
religion and religious experience. For James, the philosophical dilemma to which
pragmatism responds also stands in direct connection with the question of religion.
For James (1907/1998), in Lecture 1, “The Present Dilemma in Philosophy”, in
Pragmatism. A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, the conflict, or
competition, is between science and religion:
Never were as many men of a decidedly empiricist proclivity in existence as
there are at the present day. Our children, one may say, are almost born
scientific. But our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness.
It is itself almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout. (p. 14)
People want facts; they want science; but they also want religious convictions.
As the kind of philosophy actually offered to meet these needs:
You find an empirical philosophy that is not religious enough, and a religious
philosophy that’s not empirical enough for your purpose.…You find...the
‘conflict between science and religion’ in full blast. Either it is that Rocky
Mountain tough of a Haeckel with his materialistic monism...or it is Spencer
treating the world’s history as a redistribution of matter and motion solely,
and bowing religion politely out at the front door. (p. 15)
At the end of Lecture 1, James announces that the pragmatic philosophy
“preserves as cordial a relation with facts” as it also treats positive religious
constructions seriously (p. 26). As hypotheses, these constructions can be justified
through experience and reflection (James, 1896/1979, p. 8). It is James’ intention
to show that from a scientific perspective, religion can exist as an approach to
reality in its own right. He sees his own contribution to pragmatism in the
application of the principle of pragmatism, developed by Charles Peirce in 1878, to
religion.1
D. Tröhler, J. Oelkers (eds.), Pragmatism and Education, 27-41.

MEIKE SOPHIA BAADER
In this paper I discuss in a first step the essential features of James’ concept of
religion. I focus on his main work on religion, The Varieties of Religious
Experience. In a second step I examine the historical context of his position and
analyze what distinguishes James’ view from other contemporary answers to the
question of the meaning of religion in the scientific age. Here I focus on German
discussion contexts and include consideration of the pedagogical debates as well as
the marginal reception of James in Germany. In a third step, finally, I come to a
brief outlook on current debates in sociology of religion and philosophy and on the
place value of James’ theory of religious experience in those discussions.
JAMES’ VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in Human Nature, published

in 1902, is based on lectures that he gave as Gifford Lecturer at the University of
Edinburgh in 1901/02. James writes in the preface that initially, he had considered
speaking on both ‘Man's Religious Appetites’ and ‘Their Satisfaction through
Philosophy,’ but in the end, due to the wealth of psychological matter that he
wished to discuss, he focused all twenty of the lectures in the series on “man’s
religious constitution” (James, 1902/1985, Preface).
James’ Varieties is regarded as one of the most important works on the
psychology of religion; sociologist Hans Joas (1999) calls it the truly epoch-
making new approach to dealing with religion at the start of the twentieth century
(p. 990).
What is ground-breaking in Varieties is that in developing a theory of religion,
James’ starts out from individual religious experience and not teachings, dogmas,
and belief systems. James is not interested in the social side of religion, as was his
contemporary Emile Durkheim in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life
published in 1912, but rather was interested exclusively in the individual
dimensions apart from all institutionalized forms. Even among the pragmatists,
James is the only one who does not examine religion first and foremost as a social
phenomenon.
James (1902/1985) examines the subject of what he calls ‘personal religion,’
which he describes as more fundamental than either theology or churches, for “the
founders of every church owed their power originally to the fact of their direct
personal communion with the divine” (p. 30). With personal experience preceding
all institutionalized forms of religion, “personal religion should still seem the
primordial thing” (p. 30). James’ approach bases on a subject-oriented,
psychological, and functional concept of religion that examines what it is that
characterizes and distinguishes religious experience from all other experience,
what function it has in the life of the individual, and how it relates to certain
character structures. Here James’ sets out a central distinction between the religion
of the healthy-minded religious person, the sick soul, and the divided self – a
typology that continues to exist in the psychology of religion today (Reck, 1996, p.
374).
28
WILLIAM JAMES’ THEORY OF RELIGION
James defines religion as “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men
in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to
whatever they may consider the divine” (James, 1902/1985, p. 31).2 Thus James
wants us here to interpret the divine in a broad sense, any object being divine that
the individual holds to be ‘godlike’. This would thus encompass also Emersonian
modern transcendental idealism as well as Buddhism (James attaches particular
importance to the latter).3 James writes that in the strict sense Buddhism is
atheistic, as it does not assume a God (p. 31). But he finds that in their effects on
the lives of men, both systems of thought – Emerson’s philosophy and Buddhism –
are comparable to Christian responses: “We must therefore, from the experiential
point of view, call these godless or quasi-godless creeds ‘religions’” (p. 34).
Empirically then, for James the issue is the effects of religious orientations. If their
consequences for the leading of lives and for life’s feelings are comparable, then
whether a person believes in Emerson, Buddha, or Jesus is secondary.
Focusing on individual experiences as the starting point of the scientific study,
James applies the principle of radical empiricism that he developed in writings in
1904/1905 (collected and published in 1912 in Essays in Radical Empiricism).
Radical empiricism is interested in all experiences and thus also in experiences that
appear irrational from the perspective of scientific empiricism. In contrast, as
James criticizes, scientific empiricism takes its orientation from the structure of the
scientific disciplines. It cuts up the world according to the ordering of the
disciplines and does not, indeed, start out from the concrete experiences of
individuals. Individual experience is thus neglected.
James based his analysis of religious experiences on numerous autobiographies
and on survey studies on religious experience conducted by Edwin Starbuck, who –
like James Leuba and William James – was one of the pioneers of empirical
psychology of religion. The Starbuck surveys that James used had gathered
information from 192 American Protestants, including many young people and
many Methodists, concerning their conversion experiences.
Starting out from his pluralistic, individualistic, and broad concept of religion, in
Varieties James is interested in discovering what is common to all religions.4 The
variety of religious belief systems did not seem to him in any way regrettable.
James (1902/1985) could not see:
how it is possible that creatures in such different positions and with such
different powers as human individuals are, should have exactly the same
functions and the same duties. No two of us have identical difficulties, nor
should we be expected to work out identical solutions? (p. 487).
The variety of religious orientations is thus legitimized by the variety of life
problems and the variety of ‘happinesses.’ For James, the various forms are
indispensable, and “we should treat them with tenderness and tolerance so long as
they are not intolerant themselves” (James, 1902/1985, p. 515). In exercising our
individual freedom, “we build out our religion in the way most congruous with our
personal susceptibilities” (p. 514). The choice of the form of belief is for James
connected with our individual dispositions, and the ‘will to believe’ is connected
29
MEIKE SOPHIA BAADER
with a pluralism of happinesses. The most interesting objective to man is the

seeking of happiness (James, 1899/1983).5
Religion contributes to individual happiness and makes life easier. This, in a
nutshell, is the result of James’ study of religious experience, which was
undertaken with the goal to examine the “value” of religious consciousness for life
as a whole and, certainly, from the “biological point of view”. Through religion,
the unavoidable surrenders and sacrifices that life demands of us are accepted in a
positive manner, and “even unnecessary givings-up are added in order that the
happiness may increase. Religion thus makes easy and felicitous what in any case
is necessary” (James 1902/1985, p. 51f.). Here lies for James the specific function
of religion for human evolution, “performing a function which no other portion of
our nature can so successfully fulfill” (p. 52). For the feeling of happiness that a
religious orientation imparts is different than other forms of happiness; it is
“absolute and everlasting” because it contains “that element of solemnity” (p. 48).
The punch line of James’ psychology of religion lies in this specific function that
James assigns to religion for the evolution of the human race. James offers
Darwinistic grounds for the necessity of religion, without, however, elevating
Darwinism and the idea of higher development of the species itself to a religion, as
did his German contemporary Ernst Haeckel, other exponents of monism, or the
founder of eugenics, Francis Galton.
In James’ attempt to demonstrate from a scientific perspective that religion
possesses reality in its own right, the category of the subconscious self, which he
points out as being a recognized psychological entity, plays an important role.
Religion stands in a special relation to the subconscious. James (1902/1985) writes
that the many elements of the self that are not directly accessible to conscious
reflection are a contributory factor in religious life:
Let me then propose, as an hypothesis, that whatever it may be on its farther
side, the ‘more’ with which in religious experience we feel ourselves
connected is on its hither side the subconscious continuation of our conscious
life. Starting thus with a recognized psychological fact as our basis, we seem
to preserve a contact with ‘science’ which the ordinary theologian lacks. (p.
512)
At the same time, James states that the theologian’s claim that the religious
person is moved by an external power is justified, for “it is one of the peculiarities
of invasions from the subconscious region to take on objective appearances, and to
suggest to the Subject an external control” (James, 1902/1985, p. 512).6
In religion, then, we communicate with the hidden, subconscious part of our
own self, which appears to us to be a higher instance. This is the psychological-
scientific answer to the question of the structure of religious experience. James’
personal standpoint, however, is that there is, on the farther side, a higher power
outside of the self that is not accessible to scientific explanation. A functional
conception of religion, it can be noted, has to be backed up scientifically, but a
substantive conception, which seeks to explicate the nature of the divine or the
holy, does not.7
30
James finds belief in a divine ruler about which science can say nothing to be
characteristic of nearly all religions, and the worldview connected with this is not
the same as the materialistic view; it has its very own constitution. The world
viewed religiously is such that results are expected in it and different behavior is
required. This view James calls the “pragmatic view” of religion, which for most
people has been taken as a matter of course. This pragmatic way of viewing
religion gives the world a different constitution that in turn affects human conduct.
And this view gives religion not only a soul, but also a body. For James, the
religions provide people with specific energies that allow them to master their
lives: “the real effects in question, so far as I have as yet admitted them, are exerted
on the personal centres of energy of the various subjects” (James, 1902/1985, p.
517), and we are thus obliged “on account of their extraordinary influence upon
action and endurance, to class them amongst the most important biological
functions of mankind” (p. 506). “But that which produces effects within another
reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had no philosophic excuse
for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal” (p. 516).
All efforts to reconcile religion with science from a functional perspective
notwithstanding, James makes it clear at the end of his examination that he finds
the explanatory approaches of science limited: “the total expression of human
experience, as I view it objectively, invincibly urges me beyond the narrow
scientific bounds. Assuredly, the real world is of a different temperament, – more
intricately built than physical science allows” (James, 1902/1985, p. 519).
According to James (1902/1985), the decisive difference between science and
religion is that:
Religious thought is carried on in terms of personality, this being, in the
world of religion, the one fundamental fact. To-day, quite as much as at any
previous age, the religious individual tells you that the divine meets him on
the basis of his personal concerns. Science, on the other hand, has ended by
utterly repudiating the personal point of view. (p. 491)
Personal experience, however, is the measure of our concrete existence and all
that we suppose to exist; anyone “that should lack such a feeling, or its analogue,
would be a piece of reality only half made up” (James, 1902/1985, p. 499). With
that, religion is closer than science to the actuality of human life for James.
Religion deals with our personal fortunes and remains in this way in connection
with the only absolute realities that we know. Personal and individual experience,
as that which we feel is real, is for James based in feeling, and it is that feeling that
religion addresses, whereas science suppresses “the egotistic elements of
experience” (p. 499).
With this view of religion as a thing of feeling or of the heart (which, therefore,
also differs radically from morals), James stands in the tradition of an
understanding of religion that focuses on feelings and affections.8 Religion, James
writes, frees individuals from “a sense that there is something wrong about us” and
helps us to surrender the unfavorable self; these phenomena “involve the change of
personal centre” and allow “feelings of security and joy” (James, 1902/1985, p.
31
MEIKE SOPHIA BAADER
508). Religion stabilizes individuals by giving them the feeling that they are part of
a larger whole. In this connection, James speaks of the fact that “the conscious
person is continuous with a wider self through which saving experiences come” (p.
515). This “wider self”, as James calls it, is produced by religion.9 The “Darwinian
notion of chance production” (p. 491), however, as the epitome of the scientific
world, does not allow this sense of being taken up in a larger, meaningful whole:
“Nature has no one distinguishable ultimate tendency with which it is possible to
feel a sympathy” (p. 492).
This is also why, in a world shaped by science, the varieties of religious
experience are not an anachronism, but rather continue to survive, and for good
reason (James, 1902/1985, p. 507). In contrast to science, religion appeals to an
affective and motivational dimension that plays an important role in James’ plural
concept of the self, as Joas has shown (Joas, 1995, p. 204).
James’ personal involvement with his subject matter is readily apparent in his
study. The Varieties of Religious Experience is not only a theoretical contribution
to the study of the diverse forms of belief; it itself contains his confession to an
individual, privatized, syncretist, non-institutionalized form of religiousness that,
as does the essay as a whole, doubtless stands in a Protestant tradition. James’
grandfather was an Irish Protestant (Calvinist), and his father, Henry James, Sr.,
was a religious writer and lecturer who adhered to the writings of Swedenborg
(1688-1772), the Swedish philosopher and mystic. In the postscript to Varieties,
James (1902/1985) speaks of “my own inability to accept either popular
Christianity or scholastic theism” (p. 521) and in order to describe his general point
of view, his individual religiosity, he says that he could agree in principle with the
“Buddhistic doctrine of Karma,” as it is “a view that judgment and execution go
together” (p. 521).10
James saw direct connections among pragmatism, his theory of religion, and his
philosophical pluralism. The world as understood pluralistically has its roots in a
religious pluralism. The metaphor that James selects for a pluralistically
understood world, however, stems from politics. In his conclusions in his late
work, The Pluralistic Universe (James, 1909/1977), which contains the series of
eight Hibbert lectures that James delivered in 1907 at Manchester College, Oxford,
James returns to religion and says:
Pragmatically interpreted, pluralism or the doctrine that it is many means
only that the sundry parts of reality may be externally related … Things are
‘with’ one another in many ways, but nothing includes everything, or
dominates over everything. The word ‘and’ trails along after every sentence
… The pluralistic world is thus more like a federal republic than like an
empire or a kingdom. (p. 145)
What in politics is the empire is in the philosophical-religious perspective
monism, which for James stands in contradiction to the pluralistic universe. There
is no greater contradiction that that between pluralism and monism (James,
1896/1979, p. XI), and “pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or
32
distributively. Monism thinks that the all-form or collective-unit form is the only
form that is rational” (James, 1909/1977, p. 146).
From the pluralistic perspective, “God is not the absolute, but is himself a part
when the system is conceived pluralistically … Having an environment, being in
time, and working out a history just like ourselves, he escapes from the foreignness
from all that is human” (James, 1909/1977, p. 143) 11. God thought of as absolute, in
James’ opinion, leaves no room for human action and no room for improvement of
the world, or in other words, no room for what James calls “meliorism,” the
doctrine that the world can be made better through human effort.
His criticism of monism and the assumption that plurality is taken up in a higher
oneness sets James apart from other views of religion and religiosity of his day,
particularly from those that characterized the discussion contexts in Germany,
which were relevant for education and, especially, German Reformpädagogik.
RELIGION AFTER NIETZSCHE AND DARWIN: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN JAMES’

ANSWERS AND THOSE OF GERMAN REFORMPAEDAGOGIK AROUND 1900
The time around 1900 stands out with intensive debate on religion and religiosity.
This is reflected also in the significance that was attributed to the question of
religion for sociology at the turn of the century. James found reception by, for
instance, Durkheim and also Weber. Wilhelm Hennis reconstructs the – as yet not
proven – influence of James on Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism by showing that Weber’s concept of human action was added to this
work only after Weber’s contact with James in 1904 (Schubert & Spree, 2001, p.
22). A whole generation of intellectuals in the German context – Heidegger,
Wittgenstein, Scheler, Simmel, and Troeltsch – was very taken with James’
Varieties and the notion of religious experience (Joas, 1999, p. 990ff; Joas, 2000, p.
237)12
James’ works were translated into German relatively quickly: The Will to
Believe (1896) was published in German translation (Der Wille zum Glauben) three
years later in 1899, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) in 1907 (Die
Vielfalt religiöser Erfahrung), and Talks to Teachers on Psychology (1899) already
in 1900 and in a second edition in 1908 (Psychologie und Erziehung. Ansprachen
an Lehrer).
It is well-known that pragmatism was the subject of lengthy discussion and
controversy at the Third International Congress of Philosophy in Heidelberg in
September 1908.13 James, who did not attend for health reasons, was a presence in
the lectures and debates as founder and representative of pragmatism.14 His
psychology of religion was brought up in contributions to the congress that dealt
explicitly with pragmatism, but it was in addition brought up in the philosophy of
religion section of the congress, such as, for example, by Luigi Visconti of Italy in
his lecture on the nature and limits of religious individualism. However,
pragmatism was not mentioned in lectures that dealt with the relation of
philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy – by Rudolf Lehmann of Poznan and
Lorenzo Billia of Italy, for instance.
33
MEIKE SOPHIA BAADER
The reception of James’ works on religion was marginal within the field of
education in Germany. The foreword to the German translation of The Will to
Believe (James, trans. 1899) was written by the philosopher and pedagogue
Friedrich Paulsen (1846-1908), who was a believing Protestant. In the foreword,
Paulsen puts James in the tradition of Hume, Kant, Fichte, and Carlyle, stating that
James, on a positivistic basis, held to an idealistic view of the world with an
energist tendency and pointed to the limits of materialism, agnosticism, and a
scientifically wrongly measured world (James, trans. 1899, p. VII).15 Paulsen does
not mention the fact that in The Will to Believe James was mainly interested in
belief as a precondition for human action.16
James found reception also by the Swedish writer on progressive education,
Ellen Key (1849–1926), whose works had an impact mainly in Germany (Baader,
2001). Key discussed James’ definition of religion and his positions in a book that
was published in Germany in 1906, Der Lebensglaube, in which she attempted to
develop a new religion following Darwin, Nietzsche, and Haeckel (Key, 1906, p.
129, p. 545; Baader, 2002, 2005).
Key was a convinced follower of the monism of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919).
Haeckel, a biologist and philosopher, popularized Darwin’s work in Germany.
Haeckel held that at the beginning of the world there was one divine power
underlying all phenomena that united with a natural element. Haeckel proposed a
monistic nature religion that linked belief in the principle of evolution with a
political belief in progress. His monistic faith, which leveled all differences
between God and world, spirit and matter, ethics and aesthetics, was to be spread
mainly by the school. He advocated this view in Der Monismus als Band zwischen
Wissenschaft und Religion [Connecting Religion and Science] in 1893. Haeckel’s
monistic religion and his reception of Darwin were key shaping influences on the
German progressive education movement, Reformpädagogik. Reformpädagogik
was characterized by a roaming religiosity (Nipperdey, 1990, p. 121), which –
apart from the Christian tradition – had mystical, nature religious, evolutionary-
monistic, Nietzschean, Buddhist, and national elements (Baader, 2002, 2005).
Reform pedagogues distanced themselves from denominationally oriented
religiosity and the doctrines of the church in connection with the question of the
form that religious instruction in the schools was to take. They held church
doctrines to be no longer appropriate in the scientific age. A reform education
memorandum on religious instruction in the school stated that Nietzsche and
Haeckel and his monism were to be seen as the predominant worldview (Gansberg,
1906). Despite this distancing from a religiosity bond to churches and institutions,
the memorandum nonetheless supported education in religiosity.
Many German reform pedagogy approaches held formation of the religious-
moral personality to be central and the highest goal of education, in spite of
differences in the different religious orientations (Baader, 2002, 2005). In this
regard, James’ position on religion differs from the mainstream in German
progressive education in many respects.
First, James distances himself from monism and Haeckel’s monism.
34
Second, James distances himself from Nietzsche and his cultural pessimism,
speaking of Nietzsche’s ill humor. However, Nietzsche had a shaping impact on
the religiosity of German Reformpädagogik.17
Third, James contradicts strictly the idea of the link between religion and
morals. Precisely that link, however, determined the German reform pedagogy
concept of the “religious-moral personality.” James, in contrast, assigns morals to
the realm of cognition while assigning religion to the realm of feelings and
motivation.
Fourth, for James the religious personality does not outrank others. But for
German reform pedagogy, the moral-religious personality, which is the expressly
stated goal of education, is constructed as a higher-order personality and provided
with a mission. As the spiritual aristocracy formed through Reformpädagogik, the
religious-moral personality is to save the culture. These reform pedagogy ideas on
the religious-moral personality are strongly stamped by Protestant theology and
German cultural Protestantism (Graf, 1989).
Nowhere in James’ Talks to Teachers does James recommend awakening
religious feelings in the child. In German Reformpäadogogik, however, this is
widespread, as is also reference to great personalities who are to serve as role
models with their superior morals. While Talks to Teachers contains a reference to
a master thinker, James puts the emphasis on his productivity and performance.
And for James, what makes a genius is not particular greatness or higher being, but
instead the capacity for unusual perceptions and insights.18 Despite his high
estimation of personal experience, James does not think of “the personality” as a
higher entity.19 James does think of the self primarily as a unity, for also the self is
plural. “The divided self” is for James – as Joas (1995) points out – definitely the
rule.
The starting-out point is similar. For James and for a large part of German
Reformpädagogik, the questions examined have to do with the justification of
religious orientations in a world after Darwin’s theory of evolution, limits of
science, and areas of experience that are not completely accessible to science. The
topics include forms of religiosity that are no longer oriented to the church and that
are individual, privatized, syncretist, and plural. The sources used by James for The
Varieties of Religious Experience are in part identical to those referenced by
supporters of the Life Reform (Lebensreform) movement in Germany, such as
Emerson, Whitman, theosophy, Annie Bésant, Tolstoy, Buddhism.
However, their responses to the issue of the field of tension between science and
religion in the modern age are very different. For James, the religious person is
neither moral nor a higher being, nor is the religious person laden with societal
hopes for redemption. Whereas for large parts of German reform pedagogy
formation of the religious-moral personality is the goal of education, for James
(1899/1983):
Education, in short, cannot be better described than by calling it the
organization of acquired habits of conduct and tendencies to behavior. In the
last analysis it consists in the organizing of resources in the human being, of
35
MEIKE SOPHIA BAADER
powers of conduct which shall fit him to his social and physical world. (p.
27)
The German reception of James on education at the time did not, however, take
up on the central position of the concept of action.
If James is classified as belonging to Reformpädagogik, as does, for instance,
Herman Röhrs in Reformpädagogik (Röhrs, 1980/1998, p. 53), then these
differences are a matter for examination. They can be described as fundamental
differences in the assessment of the human mind and spirit and as a response to
Darwin. For James, the mind is a function of biological adaptation and not, as in
the German philosophical-pedagogical tradition, evidence of a higher entity.
James’ reception of Darwin places the category of “adaptation” at the center of
attention, whereas in the version of the reform pedagogues in Germany, the focus
is on “higher development.”
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JAMES’ THEORY OF RELIGION TODAY
While there clearly was reception of James in Germany at the beginning of the
twentieth century, it was restricted mainly to the period before the First World
War. We have seen a reawakening of interest in James only within recent years. In
the sociology of religion of the last decades, functional approaches, to which James
can be assigned, have come to the fore. Influential examples of this are Thomas
Luckmann’s (1967) The Invisible Religion and Niklas Luhmann’s (2000) Die
Religion der Gesellschaft.20
That religion in the modern age is individualistic, syncretist, pluralistic, and
worldly was not first shown by Luckmann, but already by James in Varieties. In
that he starts out from the assumption that individuals choose their religiosity
according to their own preferences and susceptibilities, James provides proof that
“religious bricolage” is not only a distinguishing mark of postmodernity.21
In the face of a pluralistic, societal, cultural, and religious world, it is obvious
that the trend is towards increasing evidence of James’ “varieties of religious
experience.”
His determination of the limits of religious tolerance also has validity: the limits
lie at that point where religions are themselves intolerant and there is no longer a
moment of volition. With his pluralistic perspective, James even goes so far as to
make a plea for choosing between competing religious options in an “age of
toleration.” This would reveal what religion works best (James, 1896/1979, p. 8).
James’ pluralistic concept of religion and his definition of religion seem to me
to be analytically fruitful also for the reawakened scientific interest in religion that
can be observed in recent years. As in Luckmann and Luhmann, James’ definition
of religion deals with transcendental experiences and how we process them.
Charles Taylor (2002) recently offered a criticism of James from a Catholic
perspective. Taylor accuses James of narrowness, for not being interested in the
church and the sacramentality emphasized in Catholic traditions. For James, in
good Protestant tradition, prayer stands at the center of religious experience. And
36
in fact, James does not make a topic of discussion of the differences between
institutionally accredited and institutionally less accredited forms, also not in their
psychological stabilizing function. Those differences, however, were one of the
main topics of the religious debates around 1900.
The objection that James ignored institutions is legitimate. At the same time, the
actual point of James’ essay is to insist that religion is justified in a scientific
world. Pragmatism and radical empiricism form the bases – against totality claims
of science and religion alike – for insisting on the possibility of both stances. As a
prerequisite, both a broad concept of religion and a concept of science that takes
individual experience seriously are needed. This Taylor overlooks when he
reproaches James, with Durkheim, for neglecting the institutions. Taylor calls
James a philosopher of the threshold, who tells us that we must decide between the
one or the other system. That reading of James is inappropriate in a certain respect,
for pluralism and the “philosophy of the and” refer precisely to the relation
between science and religion: “You can see that pragmatism can be called religion,
if you allow that religion can be pluralistic or merely melioristic in type” (James
1907/1998, p.144), for pragmatism builds a synthesis “between the two extremes
of crude naturalism on the one hand and transcentental absolutism on the other” (p.
144).
James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience is also useful and current for
education debates, since the question of religion in many ways has not disappeared
from education.22 It is especially fruitful for the German discussion, because in
Germany religion is a subject taught in the schools. Of particular explosiveness for
education debates seems to me to be James’ strict separation of morals and
religion. That religiosity plays little role in power of moral judgment has also been
shown by recent empirical investigations on moral judgment (Eckensberger, 1993).
By separating morals and religion, James differs also from Dewey. On Dewey’s
concept of religion, as he developed in A Common Faith (Dewey, 1934), Joas
(1999) writes that in James’ tradition, but also influenced by Durkheim, the leading
pragmatist John Dewey wrote a slim volume on religion, in which he –
significantly less saturated with illustration than James – introduced the pragmatic
theory of religion, digging deep into the formation of the self, the creation of
ideals, and the experience of intersubjectivity and successful communication. Joas
writes, however, that in doing so, Dewey was aiming at de-institutionalization of
religiosity, which is very implausible seen in today’s perspective and which for
Dewey held the promise of common belief in democracy, that is, the sacralization
of democracy (Joas, 1999, p. 997).23
Dewey seeks to put religion under science, to free it of the supernatural, and he
links it with morals, sociality, and politics. What distinguishes James’ view, in
contrast, is precisely the rejection of this connection. James’ strength lies in a
perspective that derives from the plurality of religions a world fundamentally
conceived as pluralistic and an evolutionary concept of truth – a perspective that
finds the basis of democracy ultimately in the plurality of religions.
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MEIKE SOPHIA BAADER
NOTES
1
“It lay entirely unnoticed by anyone for twenty years, until I, in an address...at the university of
California, brought it forward again and made a special application of it to religion” (James,
1907/1998, p. 29).
2
In 1904 Marcel Mauss criticized James for inadequately explaining his concept of experience
(Mauss, 1904/1968; Joas, 1995).
3
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a close friend of James’ father, Henry James, Sr., religious philosopher,
and a regular visitor in the James’ household (Diaz-Bone & Schubert, 1996, p. 18; on Emerson, see
also Baumgarten, 1938). Eduard Baumgarten’s reception of pragmatism during the period of
National Socialism has not yet been reappraised. In the foreword to Die geistigen Grundlagen des
amerikanischen Gemeinwesens, Baumgarten wrote that “his treatise aimed to understand the
Americans on the basis of their strange belief, that is, on the basis of their own energy”
(Baumgarten, 1938, VII, freely translated here).
4
However, his explanations remain rather roughly sketched (Reck, 1996, p. 374).
5
The exact quotation is: “The most natively interesting object to a man is his own personal self and
its fortunes” (James, 1899/1983, p. 63).
6
“In the religious life the control is felt as ‘higher’; but since on our hypothesis it is primarily the
higher faculties of our own hidden mind which are controlling, the sense of union with the power
beyond us is a sense of something, not merely apparently, but literally true” (James, 1902/1985, p.
513).
7
On the conflict between functional and substantive conceptions of religion, see Knoblauch (1991, p.
12).
8
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), for instance, separates religion and morals in his Reden on
religion of 1799 and, with this, takes a firm position against Kant (Schleiermacher, 1799/1999).
9
For James, this is a further difference between religion and morals. Religion, he says, broadens the
individual’s room for action, while morals narrow it down. Joas (1999) describes it this way: For
James, the person guided by morals is a high performance athlete of the discipline, while the
religious person lives out of a passion and excitement that is grounded in exceptional states of life
that have become lasting; James analyzes the belief of religious people not as a cognitive holding-to-
be-true, which could be shaken by a discourse of argumentation, but rather as a stance towards
reality that is supported by the certain presence of a stronger power (Joas, 1999, p. 991).
10
As to his own belief, James called himself a “piecemeal supernaturalist,” a “crasser supernaturalist,”
as opposed to naturalists, on the one hand, and to philosophers that James called “refined
supernaturalists,” on the other. The “piecemeal supernaturalist” does not submit to the type of
naturalism that takes the facts of the natural sciences too much at face value. James also criticized
that in “refined” or universalist naturalism, the question of the existence of God, which he takes as a
name for the higher part of the universe, has no consequences whatsoever for the individual (James,
1902/1985, pp. 521).
11
This is a position that James did not yet discuss in Varieties.
12
Ernst Troeltsch reviewed Varieties in 1904 (Joas, 2000, p. 242).
13
Three lectures in particular gave rise to the debates: lectures by James’ friend, Josiah Royce, on The
Problem of Truth in The Light of Recent Research, by Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller on Der
rationalistische Wahrheitsbegriff, and by A.C. Armstrong on The Evolution of Pragmatism.
14
For example, James was called a literateur, feature writer, and writer of short novels, but not a real
philosopher by Paul Carus, who was originally from Germany and edited the journal The Monist in
Chicago (Elsenhans, 1909, p. 737).
15
In the foreword, Paulsen criticizes James’ treatment of chance coincidence (James, 1899, p. VIII).
16
James is mentioned several times also in Herman Nohl’s Die pädagogische Bewegung (Nohl,
1933/1963).
17
James not only distanced himself from Nietzsche, but on the question of religion also gave a
different answer than Freud: James rejected Freud’s assumption of a connection between sexuality
and religion and did not judge the support that individuals find in religion critically in the sense of
38
regressive needs or unsuccessful detachment processes. James speaks of the widespread fashion of
the times to criticize religious feelings by showing their connection with sexual life (see James,
1902/1985, p. 10, p. 26). James not only doubts in connection with religion that sexuality plays an
important role, but also does not attribute all too much significance to sexuality for the personality
(Rosenzweig, 1994, pp. 115–117). See Rosenzweig (1994) also for very instructive information on
the relationship between Freud and James.
18
“Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way” (James, 1890, p. 80).
19
On the concept of the personality in the German-language context of education around 1900, see
Baader (2003).
20
With “invisible religion”, Luckmann heads up his examination with a theme taken from James’ The
Varieties of Religious Experience. Luckmann holds that a substantive definition of religion, which
seeks to define what is sacred, is beyond the reach of science; also Luhmann declares as failures all
existing attempts to do so.
21
In this respect, too, James proves to be postmodern avant la lettre, as Diaz-Bone and Schubert
describe him (Diaz-Bone & Schubert, 1996, p. 16)
22
Apart from the issue of religious instruction in the schools, the issue of religion is relevant to
education in several respects: for history of education research, in the anthropological perspective, in
connection with the question of formation of the personality, and finally, in connection with the
question of morals and sociality.
23
On Dewey’s religiosity, see Tröhler (2000).
SOURCES
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Elsenhans, T. (Ed.) (1909). Bericht über den III. internationalen Kongress für Philosophie zu
Heidelberg. Heidelberg.
Gansberg, F. (Ed.) (1906). Religionsunterricht? Achtzig Gutachten. Ergebnis einer von der Vereinigung
für Schulreform in Bremen veranstaltete allgemeine deutsche Umfrage. Leipzig: Voigtländer.
Haeckel, E. (1893). Der Monismus als Band zwischen Wissenschaft und Religion. Glaubensbekenntnis
eines Naturforschers vorgetragen am 9. October 1892 in Altenburg. Bonn: Strauss.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt.
James, W. (1896/trans. 1889). Der Wille zum Glauben und andere popularphilosophische Essays. Mit
einem Geleitwort von Friedrich Paulsen (T. Lorenz, Trans.). Stuttgart: Frommanns. (German
translation of W. James (1896). The will to believe)
James, W. (1900). Psychologie und Erziehung. Ansprachen an Lehrer (F. Kiesow, Trans.). Leipzig:
Engelmann. (German translation of James (1889), Talks to teachers on psychology and to students
on some of life’s ideals)
James, W. (1908). Psychologie und Erziehung. Ansprachen an Lehrer. Zweite, leicht überarbeitete
Auflage Leipzig: Engelmann.
James, W. (1912). Essays in radical empiricism. New York: Longmans, Green & Co.
James, W. (1977). A pluralistic universe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (First published
1909)
James, W. (1979). The will to believe and other essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(First published 1896)
James, W. (1983). Talks to teachers on psychology and to students on some of life’s ideals. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press. (First published 1899)
James, W. (1985). The varieties of religious experience. A study in human nature. New York, London:
Penguin Books. (First published 1902)
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MEIKE SOPHIA BAADER
James, W. (1994). Das pluralistische Universum. Vorlesungen über die gegenwärtige Lage der
Philosophie (J. Goldstein, Trans.). Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. (German
translation of James (1909), A pluralistic universe)
James, W. (1997). Die Vielfalt religiöser Erfahrung. Eine Studie über die menschliche Natur (E. Herms,
& C. Stahlhut, Trans.). Mit einem Vorwort von Peter Sloterdijk. Frankfurt am Main: Insel. (German
translation of James (1902), The varieties of religious experience. A study of human nature)
(Translation first published 1907)
James, W. (1998). Pragmatism and the meaning of truth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
James, W. (2001). Pragmatismus. Ein neuer Name für einige alte Denkweisen (K. Schubert, & A.
Spree, Trans.). Herausgegeben und mit einem Vorwort von Klaus Schubert und Axel Spree.
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. (German translation of James (1907), Pragmatism
and the meaning of truth)
Key, E. (1906). Der Lebensglaube. Betrachtungen über Gott, Welt und Seele. Berlin: Fischer
Mauss, M. (1968). Rezension W. James. In Œuvres. Vol. I. (pp. 58-65). Paris: Ed. De Minuit. (First
published 1904)
Nohl, H. (1963): Die pädagogische Bewegung in Deutschland und ihre Theorie. Frankfurt am Main:
Schulte-Blumke. (First published 1933)
Schleiermacher, F. (1999). Über die Religion. Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern. New
York: De Gruyter.
REFERENCES
Baader, M. S. (2001). Ellen Key: Das Jahrhundert des Kindes. Die international bekannte Autorin
eines pädagogischen Bestsellers. In K.-P. Horn & Ch. Ritzi (Eds.), Klassiker und Aussenseiter.
Pädagogische Veröffentlichungen des 20. Jahrhunderts (pp. 139-156). Baltmannsweiler: Schneider
Hohengehren.
Baader, M. S. (2002). Erziehung als Erlösung: religiöse Dimensionen der Reformpädagogik. Zeitschrift
für pädagogische Historiographie, 8(2), 89-97.
Baader, M. S. (2003). Persönlichkeitsbildung als Aufgabe von Schule um 1900. Jahrbuch für
Historische Bildungsforschung, 9, 225-248.
Baader, M. S. (2005). Erziehung als Erlösung. Transformationen des Religiösen in der
Reformpädagogik (1880-1950). Weinheim: Juventa.
Baumgarten, E. (1938). Die geistigen Grundlagen des amerikanischen Gemeinwesens. Bd. II: Der
Pragmatismus: R.W. Emerson, W. James, J. Dewey. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
Curry, L. A. (1996). The impact of William James: A thought process for recognizing truth in an
unprecedented future. Journal of Thought, 31, 9-17.
Diaz-Bone, R., & Schubert, K. (1996). William James zur Einführung. Hamburg: Junius.
Eckensberger, L. H. (1993). Moralische Urteile als handlungsleitende soziale Regelsysteme im Spiegel
der kulturvergleichenden Forschung. In A. Thomas (Ed.), Kulturvergleichende Psychologie. Eine
Einführung. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Graf, F. W. (1989). Rettung der christlichen Persönlichkeit. Protestantische Theologie als
Kulturwissenschaft des Christentums (pp. 103-132). In R. v. Bruch, F. W. Graf & G. Hübinger
(Eds.), Kultur und Kulturwissenschaften um 1900. Stuttgart: Steiner.
Joas, H. (1995). Der amerikanische Pragmatismus und die frühe Religionssoziologie. In V. Krech & H.
Tyrell (Eds.), Religionssoziologie um 1900 (pp. 195-209). Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag.
Joas, H. (1999). Die Soziologie und das Heilige. Schlüsseltexte der Religionssoziologie. Sonderheft
Merkur. Deutsche Zeitschrift für europäisches Denken, 53, 990-998.
Joas, H. (2000). Social theory and the sacred. Ethical Perspectives, 7(4), 233-243.
Knoblauch, H. (1991). Die Verflüchtigung der Religion ins Religiöse. Thomas Luckmanns Unsichtbare
Religion. Preface/Vorwort zu Die unsichtbare Religion (pp. 7-41). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
40
Luckmann, T. (1967). The invisible religion. The problem of religion in modern society. New York:
Macmillan.
Luhmann, N. (2000). Die Religion der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Nipperdey, T. (1990). Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1918. Bd. 1: Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist. München:
Beck
Reck, A. (1996). James, William. In S. Brown (Ed.), Biographical dictionary of twentieth-century
philosophers (pp. 373-375). London, New York: Routledge.
Röhrs, H. (1998). Die Reformpädagogik. Ursprung und Verlauf unter internationalem Aspekt (1980).
Weinheim: Deutscher Studienverlag.
Rosenzweig, S. (1994). The historic expedition to America. Freud, Jung and Hall the king-maker. St.
Louis, MO: Rana House.
Schubert, K., & Spree, A. (2001). Einleitung zu William James: Pragmatismus. Ein neuer Name für
einige alte Denkweisen. Herausgegeben und mit einem Vorwort von Klaus Schubert und Axel
Spree. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Taylor, C. (2002). Die Formen des Religiösen in der Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Tröhler, D. (2000). The global community, religion and education: The modernity of Dewey’s social
philosophy. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 19, 159-186.
Meike Sophia Baader

Institut für Allgemeine Pädagogik
University of Hildesheim
41
HANS-PETER KRÜGER
PUBLIC INTERCOMMUNICATIONS
Dewey reconstructs errant modernizations
1. THIRDNESSES OVERCOME THE DUALISTIC MAINSTREAM
It is very difficult to learn how to understand John Dewey’s philosophy let alone to
be able to practice it. Often one interprets it according to a traditional dualistic self
understanding which it had intended to overcome. According to mainstream
dualism an entity should be either physical (or material) or mental (or ideal). These
mutually exclusive alternatives have far reaching consequences. Whatever is held
to be material or physical can in principle be manipulated or instrumentalized. On
the other hand, that which can be attributed mental or ideal properties should be
considered as an entity conscious of itself. A subject must remain free of
manipulation and instrumentalization for purposes other than its own. This
dualistic semantic is not only a mentality sedimented over a thousand years. Its
habits correspond to the institutional division of labor. The responsibility of proof
is accordingly distributed. Dewey’s realization of this is evident in “Reconstruction
in Philosophy” (1920). Here he sees dualism, arising from the breeding ground of
reason, as the semantic for a kind of truce between the conservation of occidental
spirit on the one hand and the scientific-technological economical and political
revolution on the other (Dewey, 1920/1982).
At the end of the twentieth century Niklas Luhmann spoke empirically aptly of
binary schemes which serve as codes of modern subsystems such as the economy,
law, mass media. These exclusive alternatives not only fail to recognize a third
possibility, but due to their self- referencing ensure, via symbiotic mechanisms,
that the offering is accepted and not rejected thereby increasing the self
reproduction of this exclusion. Whilst Luhmann (1997) hoped that this problem
could be resolved through advanced self observation within one of the subsystems
(model central bank), he also had to concede the possibility that the ecological
dangers of the self-referential blind flight could in fact call for new structural
couplings between the functionally specified systems (Luhmann, 1997, pp. 864 ).
If one proceeds from this assumption of mental and institutional dualism, then
Dewey’s philosophy of living nature and the historical task to resolve how human
beings can specify themselves in its semiotic continuum will be misunderstood. All
third parties – the living, the historical and the semiotic – escape the attention of
the aforementioned dualism: These three forms of “thirdness” (as seen from the
perspective of the failed dualistic alternatives) had been making their mark on
philosophy since Hegel. They had been devised on the other side of the Atlantic by

HANS-PETER KRÜGER
C. S. Peirce and W. James before being elaborated by G. H. Mead and Dewey. On

this side of the Atlantic W. Dilthey, E. Cassirer, and H. Plessner had thematized the
historic, symbolic and living anew, i.e., without a positive absolutism. Today
mainstream dualism is repeatedly condemned to failure by all these forms of
thirdness. Neither the animate phenomena of Lebensführung (the conduct of one’s
life), nor current phenomena related to being involved in a historical challenge, nor
phenomena of the simultaneous participation in semiotic interaction levels of
different practices can be assigned to the errant dualistic alternative. Dualistic
either-or decisions kill off the lively interplay of material and ideal aspects which is
so characteristic for the liveliness of phenomena. They resolve the specific
character of historical challenges – namely the necessity to deal constitutively with
uncertainty and vagueness – through the overbearing assumption of a post
historical self-determination even when this means the preparation of one’s own
Fatum. And they select and block the potential of communication processes in
favor of only such resonances and relevancies which correspond to the self-
affirmation of the respective dualistic prestructuring.
However, as the living, historical and semiotic phenomena have been the
undoing of the dualistic mainstream, the spreading renaissance of the philosophy of
thirdness now has good prospects, especially the philosophy of John Dewey. We
ought not to gamble away these opportunities by interpreting his philosophy back
into dualism rather than emerging out of this latter. Catchwords such as
“pragmatism” and “instrumentalism” have played an unfortunate role in the
mistranslation, with their colloquial fallacious associations influencing the
reception of Dewey’s philosophy by philosophers such as Max Scheler and
continuing through to Jürgen Habermas.
2. THE TWOFOLD MOVEMENT OF INSTRUMENTALIZATION AND

CONSUMMATION OF EXPERIENCES
I will begin with a quintessential quotation by John Dewey which is found at the
end of the famous fifth chapter of his mature work “Experience and Nature” from
1925 and is directed against the “great evil” of the separation of instrumental and
final functions of communication:
When the instrumental and final functions of communication live together in
experience, there exists an intelligence which is the method and reward of the
common life, and a society worthy to command affection, admiration, and
loyalty. (Dewey, 1925/1983, p. 160)
Dewey’s conception of communication advocates overcoming both antisocial
intelligence and the social realm which lacks intelligence by integrating
intelligence within the social and intelligently reconstructing a social framework.
Intelligence means conceiving the consequences of actions through an
observational distance from the actor’s inner hermeneutic in order to determine the
probabilistic rules regulating which consequences occur under which conditions.
Based on these conditions, this correlation of rules can be stabilized and
44
instrumentalized in the context of modern experimental sciences. The question

however – from the beginning to the end of an intelligent reconstruction – is what
its purpose is, and for what finalization does it represent an appropriate
instrumentalization. The procedure of intelligent reconstruction assumes criteria
according to which it can be judged what consequences of actions are
unproblematic and thus not worthy of investigation and what consequences can be
considered problematic and thus in need of the investigation procedure for their
resolution.
This question of the development of criteria for evaluating something as
problematic or as problem-solving is answered by the other side of Dewey’s
conception of communication. To communicate not only means to reconstruct
intelligently, but to participate in the communication process and have objects at
one’s disposal which are generated as valuable in this process. Communication for
Dewey is a simultaneous movement of both the instrumentalization of relations and
their finalization in a common consummation of experience. The concept-complex
“consummation of experience” means, according to the respective phase in the
process, a perfecting or realization of a common experience during the course of its
occurrence, or its consummation in the here and now. As soon as one separates the
instrumental aspect of communication from that of value formation in the shared
“consummation of experience,” the usual dualistic misunderstanding is there again,
which Habermas (1981), by contrasting communicative action on the one hand
with instrumental or strategic action on the other, has also unfortunately
reproduced (see pp. 384, 439, 446).
Communication is uniquely instrumental and uniquely final. It is instrumental
as liberating us from the otherwise overwhelming pressure of events and
enabling us to live in a world of things that have meaning. It is final as a
sharing in the objects and arts precious to a community, a sharing whereby
meanings are enhanced, deepened and solidified in the sense of communion.
(Dewey, 1925/1983, p. 159)
For Dewey a communication process is only present to the extent which the
intelligent instrumentalization of action consequences comprising certain values
also leads to a renewed formation of values in the consummation of common
experience. Instrumentalism does not mean, as misunderstood by dualism, the
abolition of values, but rather their rebuilding in communicatively shared
experience. Without this rebuilding the instrumentalization of certain values as
“ends-in-view” could not make sense as the appropriate means of a new
finalization. The values which are instrumentalized in order to promote or hinder
certain consequences of actions are by no means identical with those values
according to which the new finalization takes place. For this reason Dewey
persistently refuses to speak metaphysically of values and essences as such. Instead
he brings that which is being instrumentalized and that according to which the
finalization takes place into a historically defined relationship. This also makes use
of the difference between direct or spontaneously consummated experience and
mediated or intelligent relational experience. It is only for the latter that the
45
HANS-PETER KRÜGER
experimental scientific procedure performed by intelligence is considered as being

the most developed paradigm; for the cultivation of spontaneous fulfillment in new
experiences, art and literature are emphasized as the procedural mode. New value
commitments are historically generated in dramatic episodes which tear
consciousness away from the habitual commonplace and perpetuate themselves
narratively in role models. Thus Dewey’s pragmatism is by no means a form of
utilitarianism, but rather a challenging twofold movement in the communications
process, which is why he also understands philosophy as both a general theory of
values as well as a general critique of values. Due to problematic outcomes of
actions, certain values must be critically changed in an intelligent learning process;
these are then replaced by new value commitments in a communicatively shared
experience which is conceived in a broad sense ranging from the aisthesis of every-
day culture to the procedure of the artistic-literary expert culture.1
3. SITUATING THE LANGUAGE QUESTION IN DEWEY’S PHILOSOPHY OF

COMMUNICATION
There was and is a lot of criticism of Dewey’s concept of communication, based on

information theory and the philosophy of language. However, in the meantime one
can once more confidently pose the counter question of whether the promises made
by information technology and discourse theory since the 1950s – which led to
Dewey’s philosophy being forgotten right into the 1980s – have been kept (see
Burke, 1994). The old euphoria has given way to a sobriety which calls for a new
consciousness of the philosophically essential. Human communication cannot be
resolved in the bit mass of technical transmissions and memory, even if they can be
thus improved (with new problems of selection). And human beings cannot be
reduced to corresponding to a discourse rule which they could then change
historically, whereby we are back to a phenomenon requiring explanation. On
situating the language question in Dewey’s philosophy of communication, I am
especially unconvinced by two current philosophical positions. One, Derrida’s
deconstruction, is conspicuous due to its ignorance of Dewey’s philosophy,
although its subject matter cannot afford this. Derrida, like no other, advocated the
self-communicating independent life of the written model which marginalizes the
face-to-face communication of human beings of flesh and blood in the here and
now. By contrast, Richard Rorty at least deserves acknowledgement for his role in
the rediscovery of Dewey. At the same time his analytic defense of the linguistic
turn against Dewey’s metaphysic of experience does not convince me at all,
because it still avoids philosophical-anthropological thematization of human beings
(see Rorty, 1994, pp. 26). The contingencies of language, self and community,
allegedly discovered by Rorty, were all known to philosophy long before, in the
first third of the twentieth century. In the meantime, partially excluded from my
criticism of contemporary philosophy – which I have detailed under the title of “the
third path” as taken by classical pragmatism and Plessner’s philosophical
anthropology (see Krüger, 2001) – is Habermas. To be sure in his book Der
philosophische Diskurs der Moderne (1985) Habermas set himself against Dewey
46
and Plessner’s third way for no good reason and once again from a dualistic
perspective. But since the publication of Wahrheit und Rechtfertigung (1999) it
seems that Habermas has done some rethinking, as at least here he considers a
weak, thus not reductionist but rather pragmatic, naturalism in Dewey’s sense. In
his essay “Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur” (2001) he finally goes back in a
positive way to Plessner’s philosophical anthropology – his mind-body
differentiation – in order to ground his own Habermassian moral theory through a
generic ethic without drawing conclusions for his whole concept.
Whatever way the current philosophical discussion is to continue, the
renaissance of Dewey’s philosophy which has begun requires further qualification
of two dimensions. First: How does Dewey himself conceptually categorize
language in his understanding of communication? This question leads to a double
answer, namely, what Dewey understands in a narrower sense as human language
(section 4 below) and how he further understands the connection with non-
linguistic communication (section 5). And the second dimension: How can the
conception of communication, which so far has only been implied, be implemented
as a theory of society? Dewey’s conception of the interpenetration of modern
spheres of action (as Putnam (1994) correctly reminds us) becomes particularly
clear in his model for the public-political reconstruction of errant modernizations.
4. THE SUBJUNCTIVE IN DEWEY’S UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE
What does Dewey understand by human language? He thematizes it as a specific

mode of interaction of at least one speaker and one listener who belong to a group
or who have acquired their speech habits from a group (Dewey, 1925/1983, p.
145). Speech is used cooperatively by the interactive partners in relation to a third
party, a thing or an event which through verbal communication becomes an object
with a particular meaning in the language. Behavior is cooperative in that
the response to another’s act involves contemporaneous response to a thing
as entering into the other’s behavior, and this upon both sides. (Dewey,
1925/1983, p. 141)
Concerning this triadic relational structure of cooperation in the whole, the
interplay of meaning is born in mind. The meaning is a special differentiation to
describe the outcomes of the interaction which no longer occur directly or
coincidentally, but due to their significance are rather stabilized by the conditions
being met. Dewey sees the essential peculiarity of language or sign (in the sense of
Peirce’s three-dimensional sign) in participation, i.e., being able to put oneself in
the standpoint of a situation in which at least two parties could share. This
differentiates the human use of language from the egocentric signaling acts of other
mammals (Dewey, 1925/1983, p. 141). The correlation between means and
consequences does not follow through conditioned reflexes (behaviorism), but
rather from the standpoint of participating in the cooperative situation which
requires the parties to exchange perspectives.
47
HANS-PETER KRÜGER
As more language signs occur between the direct fulfillments of cooperative

experience, the cooperation based on these representatives and surrogates can be
increasingly mediated. Language is the tool of tools in the sense of being
the cherishing mother of all significance. (Dewey, 1925/1983, p. 146)
In a metaphorical sense it is the tool which makes new tools possible through its
self-application. It enables consequences which are significant for indirect
cooperation to be emphatically singled out for finalization and to be lent a
distinctly differentiated meaning. Only linguistic communication can be –
potentially infinitely – applied to itself and continued within itself. Thereby it
enables the instrumentalizing and finalizing twofold movement which we had
proceeded from in our communication. The more profoundly self-referential the
language becomes and the more it continues itself through self application – as in
the written model – the more contingent and subjunctive it becomes. From the
beginning, in his specification of human language as opposed to egocentric
signaling acts of other animals, Dewey makes use of the subjunctive. Part of the
essence of understanding language is that interaction partner B
perceives the thing as it may function in A’s experience
and conversely that interaction partner A sees the thing
as it may function in B’s experience. (Dewey, 1925/1983, p. 141)
Plessner called language the best example of the categorical subjunctive that
specified being human.
Language, in its subjunctive, enables worlds of mediated cooperation which are
possible in modes other than that of our immediately given environment. The
specific character of language, as Dewey frequently insists, can be conceived
neither as the impression of a particular environment (copy theory), nor as the
expression of a mentality which precedes it (mentalism). To the contrary, since the
language sign enables a reversal of the primacy of contact-activity in favor of
distance-activity, its application to itself allows for new worlds (see Dewey,
1925/1983, pp. 135, 152, 200, 206). From the standpoint of these subjunctively
available worlds, e.g., literary or scientific, the empirical environments, always just
given, can be historically changed. Dewey’s frequent comparison of language signs
with traffic, money, or legal signs does not have a reductive sense, but rather
emphasizes that the semiotic mediation of direct cooperation leads in the end to
social realities sui generis (see Dewey, 1925/1983, p. 137, p. 155). The language
correlates of impressions and expressions are not given, but result on their part
through verbal communication when this is habitualized. Dewey thus requires
neither a materialistic reflection nor a transcendental subject as his final principle
of explanation, but rather, to the contrary, can conceive of these phenomena as
cultural-historical intermediate products of communication through language.
48
5. THE LIMITS OF LANGUAGE IN THE TEMPORAL INTEGRATION OF THREE

INTERACTION LEVELS
Although Dewey develops the self-referencing of verbal communication which

overshoots immediate cooperation and leads to its own kind of social realities, at
the same time he also thematizes the limits of the independency of language with
respect to the mediated cooperation of communication. For him, the self
referencing of language is never the exclusive designating feature of human beings,
but is rather that specification which must include the characteristic of humans as
living organism. His specification procedure of linguistic communication is that of
inclusion, not exclusion, of the natural human entity. The analytic linguistic turn
led to the dualism of speech acts and non linguistic behavior, i.e., into a cul de sac,
which Dewey’s conception had guarded against from the very beginning.
Dewey thematizes the connection between inanimate, animate and mental nature
as the special task of human beings to bring about a historical integration between
three kinds of interaction. He speaks of three plateaus of interacting fields:
The first, the scene of narrower and more external interactions, while
qualitatively diversified in itself, is physical; its distinctive properties are
those of the mathematical-mechanical system discovered by physics and
which define matter as a general character. The second level is that of life.
Qualitative differences, like those of plant and animal, lower and higher
animal forms, are here even more conspicuous; but in spite of their variety,
they have qualities in common which define the psycho-physical. The third
plateau is that of association, communication, participation. This is still
further internally diversified, consisting of individualities. It is marked
throughout its diversities, however, by common properties, which define
mind as intellect; possession of and response to meanings. (Dewey,
1925/1983, p. 208)
The historically integrative task of all three levels of interaction which human
beings belong to is expressed in Dewey’s new categorical creation of “body-mind”:
body-mind simply designates what actually takes place when a living body is
implicated in situations of discourse, communication and participation. In the
hyphenated phrase body-mind, “body” designates the continued and
conserved, the registered and cumulative operation of factors continuous with
the rest of nature, inanimate as well as animate; while “mind” designates the
characters and consequences which are differential, indicative of features
which emerge when “body” is engaged in a wider, more complex and
interdependent situation. (Dewey, 1925/1983, p. 217)
Dewey’s historical procedure of self specification through inclusion in the
interaction levels of nature sets clear limits to the exclusive independence of self-
referential sign repertory. The latter remain, both in terms of their emergence and
their phases of inclusion, bound to the other levels of interaction. Significant
symbols are those which bring about the integrative coupling of all three modes of
interaction. In these we find Dewey’s alternative to Luhmann’s (1997) symbiotic
49
HANS-PETER KRÜGER
mechanisms mentioned at the beginning. If human modes of conduct are really to

be historically changed, they must be reconstructed processually and their new
habitualization must then be allowed for. There must then be a feedback from self-
referential language cultures, which enable self consciousness, to immediate
feeling qualities of conduct, which can then be sedimented again as unconscious
habits. This problem is fundamentally misjudged by all philosophies which assess
the specific character of human beings external to nature and opposed to nature as
consisting of pure linguistic or mental self-referencing. Failure is then pre-
programmed with all the consequences which resentment entails. Dewey suggested
an alternative to this grand theme of Nietzsche. If Dewey’s philosophy contains a
lesson, then it must be that human beings cannot take on the role of God or a
godlike substitute external to nature without a terrible boomerang-effect.
6. DEWEY’S PUBLIC INTERPENETRATIONS OF MODERN AUTONOMIES
From amongst the neo-pragmatic Dewey interpretations of the older generation of

philosophers I will try to elaborate those which Hilary and Ruth Anna Putnam
suggested in the 1990s (see Putnam, 1994, p. 216; 1992, p. 180.) In my somewhat
free translation I am thinking mainly of two proposals: the reason Dewey pleaded
for democratic procedure was not because he knew who we human beings are. We
can neither know this through one single determinism nor through one single
metaphysical wisdom. Conversely: Because we do not know it definitely and
because we cannot produce the knowledge concerned without corresponding
practices of action, we must first be able to evolve our self specification
historically and be capable of repeating this ever and anon. The least dangerous,
comparatively, are democratic procedures and those qualified by expert cultures;
such procedures are most likely to be capable of living with uncertainties and
vagueness enabling learning feedback loops through political experiment. In this
context the Putnams have already mentioned the key word of interpenetration, i.e.,
the mutual pervasion of modern spheres of action and modes of action. Dewey did
not in fact continue the old modernisms of pure science, pure art, pure economy,
pure politics, pure law and so on. He rather concerned himself with the problematic
consequences of this cult of purity for certain self-references, and thereby
recognized a fallacious modernization. He is the pioneer of a reflexive modern – an
answer to the problems ensuing from the first half of the modernization wave.
His alternative conceptional suggestion consists briefly in the following. The
political, enabled by empirical politics, is ignited through a public process of
intercommunication between relevant expert and lay cultures. In as far as this is
unsuccessful we are confronted with world crises such as the world economic crisis
or world wars as Dewey explains in his 1946 introduction to the second edition of
his book The Public and Its Problems (see Dewey, 1927/1984, pp. 375). Dewey’s
conception of the public derives from no pious desire for harmonious beauty or a
morally powerless “should”, but rather opens a channel which creates facts and is
equally legitimate. A public is born negatively, that is to say as the community of
all those who are affected by the indirect outcomes of actions in problematic
50
(including obstructive or supportive) ways. Thus direct outcomes of actions, whose

generation and regulation is dealt with in established communities or private
associations, are dropped as a public subject. Dewey is not concerned with a
substitute public sphere of intimacy, privacy or the unproblematically trivial such
as is commonplace today. However, whoever is affected in a problematic way, by
indirect outcomes of actions, as the Lapps were by the radiation contaminated
clouds from Chernobyl, has no other choice, if the problem is ever to be confronted
and resolved, but to participate in the development of an appropriate public. If one
calls to mind the consequential problems of the first and pure, i.e. self-referential
modernization of mediated cooperation, the perception alone, not to mention the
assessment of problematically indirect action outcomes, is not achievable without
intercommunication of lay cultures with the relevant expert cultures.
Now a public sphere not only has to be capable of posing a problem through
intercultural communication. The problem must also be attributed and imputed to
its unknowing creator and in as far as it concerns a matter which can be regulated
be provided with a regular solution. This means a political battle over the
responsibility of proof and, in order that it can evolve efficacy, an initially diffuse
or occasional public must be stabilized through its own political organization. The
hypotheses on the problem and its solution proposed within intercultural
communication introduce political conflict not only with the alleged or probable
originators, but also concerning the appropriate organization and representation of
the affected public itself. Here the political is kindled, which, in a factual and
legitimate manner, enables empirical politics as solution hypotheses. Thereby
Dewey discusses all possible state forms as the organization forms of the public,
bearing in mind the self-interest of its experts and representatives. A democracy
based on separation of powers emerges as comparatively the most favorable
procedure.
The degree to which the public justification of the political and its state-run
forms of organization succeeds is the degree to which politics and the state are
rediscovered historically. There is no determinism for them to follow and no super
historical essence to be fulfilled, but rather they must solve the publicly elicited
problem of indirect outcomes of action. Empirically defined politics should then be
conceived as a solution hypothesis in a constant experimental learning process. The
consequence would be the development and stabilization of interpenetration. Thus
in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry Dewey (1938) formulated the interpenetration of
three fields of action. In what he terms an investigation process in six phases,
scientific research processes are interwoven with operative technologies and
judicial procedures for adjudicating precedence cases (see Krüger, 2000, pp. 194-
234). These investigation procedures complement his conception of the public,
providing the necessary expertise. From the standpoint of the interpenetration
which Dewey also mapped out in his book Art as Experience the traditional
opposition between cooperative communities and liberal society disappears. The
borders between the private, the community, and the social are redrawn in the
public learning process. A publicly produced “great community” stands up to the
“great society.”
51
HANS-PETER KRÜGER
NOTES
1
On the specific character of whole experiences (adjustment) as opposed to the more passive
accommodation and the more active adaptation, see Joas (1997), pp. 175-187.
REFERENCES
Burke, T. (1994). Dewey’s new logic. A reply to Russell. Chicago/ London: University of Chicago
Press.
Dewey, J. (1982). Reconstruction in philosophy. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The collected works of John
Dewey: The middle works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, Vol. 12. Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press. (First published 1920)
Dewey, J. (1983). Experience and nature. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The collected works of John Dewey:
The later works of John Dewey, 1925-1953, Vol. 1. Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern
Illinois University Press. (First published 1925)
Dewey, J. (1927). The public and its problems. In J. A. Boydston (Ed), The collected works of John
Dewey: The later works of John Dewey, 1925-1953, Vol. 2. Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press. (First published 1927)
Habermas, J. (1981). Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Bd. 1: Handlungsrationalität und
gesellschaftliche Rationalisierung. Frankfurt/ M. Suhrkamp.
Joas, H. (1997). Die Entstehung der Werte. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp.
Krüger, H.-P. (2000). Prozesse der öffentlichen Untersuchung. Zum Potential einer zweiten
Modernisierung in John Deweys “Logic. The Theory of Inquiry”. In H. Joas (Ed.), Philosophie der
Demokratie. Beiträge zum Werk von John Dewey. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp.
Krüger, H.-P. (2001). Zwischen Lachen und Weinen, Vol. II: Der dritte Weg Philosophischer
Anthropologie und die Geschlechterfrage. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
Luhmann, N. (1997). Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, Vol. 2. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp.
Putnam, H. (1992). Renewing philosophy. Cambridge, MA/ London: Harvard University Press.
Putnam, H. (1994). Words & life. (J. Conant, Ed.). Cambridge, MA/ London: Harvard University Press.
Rorty, R. (1994). Hoffnung statt Erkenntnis. Eine Einführung in die pragmatische Philosophie. Wien:
Passagen.
Hans-Peter Krüger
Department of Philosophy
University of Potsdam
52
ROSWITHA LEHMANN-ROMMEL
THE CONCEPTS OF ACTIVITY AND EFFECTIVENESS

IN DEWEY’S AESTHETICS
INTRODUCTION
Dewey emphasizes repeatedly in his writings that he does not regard art and
aesthetics as special disciplines. Rather, he suggests that experience and activity
must be basically understood in terms of aesthetic experience:1
We should know it [aesthetic experience] for what it is – simply experience
itself, having experiences at their best and at their fullest. (LW.13.368)
Every experience is at its core an art (LW.10.25). The aesthetic aspect of
experience becomes evident to the extent that we regard each situation as unique
and that our experiencing and perceiving are not automatically something that can
be subsumed under ideas and concepts (LW.10.301).
Here Dewey is arguing on two levels – a theoretical and a programmatic: on the
one hand by giving primacy to situations he proposes a philosophical concept of
experience and activity that makes it possible to eliminate traditional dualistic ways
of thinking (dichotomies, for example, between theory and practice, idealism and
realism, everyday and scientific experience), and to introduce new conceptual
approaches (e.g., transactions, habits, experience) which do more justice to the
complexity of our thought processes (e.g., emphasizing recursive instead of causal
thinking). On the other hand, he emphatically argues for increased attention to the
‘aesthetic quality’ of everyday and scientific thinking and action. In the following I
will discuss the above mentioned theoretical level.
I interpret Dewey’s later writings on aesthetics, especially Art as Experience
(1934), less as a theory of art(works) and more as a theory of experience. In this
work Dewey sketches a philosophical concept of activity and effectiveness that is
based on the primacy of ‘actual’ situations. This beginning point allows him to
think about activity and effectiveness from the perspective of the unexpected, the
contingent, and not from the primacy of purposes. Here a basic difference to the
thought patterns which have determined the mainstream of Western philosophy,
and especially pedagogical discussions, will be evident. This traditional model of
thought is described by Francois Jullien (1999) as follows:
We have developed an ideal form (eidos) that we posit as a goal (telos), and
than we act to make it a reality. ...our eyes directed at the model (that we have
designed, that we have projected onto the world and for which we have

developed a detailed plan), we decide to intervene in the world and to give

form to reality. (p. 13)
When action is thought of as something projected from the perspective of a
rationally acting subject, intentions become the essential way of relating to the
world. Intentions take center place in our understanding of effectiveness: the
subject “intendiert einen Zustand, den es herbeiführen möchte; seine Handlung
besteht dann in der Organisation der Mittel, die geeignet sind, den intendierten
Zustand herbeizuführen” (Habermas, 1984, p. 311). It is assumed from the
intentional, autonomous rational subject that it is free or rather can determine its
objects without presupposition, that it is transparent to itself and in discourse with
other intentional subjects can establish a consensus. This supposes a rationality
continuum (Luhmann & Schorr, 1988, p. 193) from thoughts to actions. Actual
situations, real interactions are regarded under the primacy of the aims set by
thought. Here, the subject is looked upon qua intention as the cause.
In educational discourse this form of thought has found differing forms of
expression:
On the one hand, there is the idea of education as a utopian project which
implies a rhetoric of promises (Oelkers, 1999, p. 61) and a permanent fixation on
what-should-be (Ziehe, 1996, p. 928). They ensure that the connections between
intention and result are left systematically diffused and that the ‘imperfect’ reality
is thematized in the form of a crisis rhetoric and a discourse of complaint. On the
other hand, and seemingly moving in the opposite direction, detailed circles of
reflection are suggested: for example, visions and aims for processes of school
development, reaching down to and including plans for concrete actions are to be
completely thought out. Their results are then to be measured against the planned
partial goals. Here the intention is to work against the non-obligatory and vague
nature of the already mentioned utopian ideas.
Both tendencies are, in my opinion, variations of the above described pattern of
thought that takes as its basis the primacy of a rational determination of the ought-
to-be. In the following I will investigate to what extent Dewey in his aesthetic has
conceived of an alternative possibility of thinking (even if he has not always been
consistent in following it).
In the following I will reconstruct the theoretical implications of Dewey’s
concept of activity and effectiveness, not from the primacy of ideals and goals, but
rather to think about them from the point of view of ‘situations.’ In doing so I
would like to investigate to what extent Dewey has exhausted the possibilities of
this way of thinking and what implications this might have. In first part of this
paper I will sketch Dewey’s basic idea of aesthetics and art, and in second part will
discuss Dewey’s theory of temporality and its importance in the consideration of
artistic creation. In the third part I will inquire into the relevance and meaning of
these considerations for pedagogical discourse.
54
ACTIVITY AND EFFECTIVENESS
I. BASIC ASSUMPTIONS IN DEWEY’S UNDERSTANDING OF ART AND

AESTHETICS
(1) Dewey’s understanding of aesthetics as ‘attention to situations’

Dewey defines aesthetics as that experience in which we direct our “attention to
situations” and their “pervasive qualities”:
Esthetic experience, in an emphatic sense, is mentioned as a way of calling
attention to situations and universes of experience. (LW.12.75)
The opposite of this (aesthetic) attention or sensitivity to situations Dewey calls
absentmindedness (LW.16.328). Routine experiences or a fixation on ‘correct’
experience as well as over-intellectualized or sentimental attitudes prevent our
attention from orienting itself to the situation and bring about the death of aesthetic
experience. “Anything that hardens an experience in certain lines as if they were
the proper lines in which it should run becomes a burial to genuine esthetic
experience” (LW.13.362). To the extent that a situation is subsumed under fixed
concepts it looses its unknown and vivid quality. Sense perception and body
consciousness thus take on a central role in the communication with our
environment. According to Dewey, our more consciously perceptual attention to
our surroundings constitutes a counter weigh to the overemphasis on thinking and
concepts as the dominant link to situations. By the qualities of the senses “we get a
direct, first hand, and original communication with the world about us”
(LW.13.366).
Attention to situations is for Dewey the key not only to understand his aesthetics
but also his logic, ethics and social theory. Dewey defines ‘situation’ as a part or
section of the continuous and highly networked activities and happenings of
everyday life. He characterizes it as ‘transactive,’ meaning that it can be
understood neither from the side of the subject nor from the side of the world, but
rather as the process that goes on between them. Situations come about as
continuous activities of a given organism-environment-system. Thus they have, in
addition to the transactional aspect, an essential temporal dimension.
Dewey furthermore characterizes “situation” as an “immediately pervasive
quality” of experience (LW.5.254; LW.12.73ff). In their immediacy, however,
situations are at the same time both mediating and mediated since they also reflect
earlier interactions.2
From one angle, almost everything I have written is a commentary on the fact
that situations are immediate in their direct occurrence and mediating and
mediated in the temporal continuum constituting life-experience. (LW.14.30)
By calling them immediate Dewey is referring to the essentially irreducible
temporal quality of the situation (as being present) – in distinction to the discourse
about it. As actual fields of activity between organisms and their environment,
situations can become the objects of empirical investigation (Burke, 2000, p. 53;
Krüger, 2000). These, along with aesthetic perception, form the basis of what
55
Dewey calls intelligence. The essence of aesthetic perception – in contrast to

observations of a logical nature – lies in its receptive, rather rambling way of
attentively perceiving a situation as a whole (Dewey speaks of ‘attentive
perception’ or ‘attentive observation’, and not in its focusing on specific aspects.3)
This approach for Dewey does not only mean that looking for general – in the
sense of being independent of situations - solutions to philosophical questions and
paradoxes, or the search for universal pedagogic knowledge should be regarded as
dead-ends. For Dewey the investigation of individual situations has shown itself to
be indispensable for attaining universally valid knowledge and is closely connected
to a fundamental perspective of the unknown with respect to what is new in each
situation. In every moment we can experience more and learn more than we can
possibly know explicitly - this is a point that Dewey emphasizes in opposition to
the Cartesian tradition of the primacy of the res cogitans:
The principles which we have found are of such importance and productivity
that much more follows from them than can be contained in the visible world
(Descartes 1644/1955, p. 65, freely translated here).
By this shift in his philosophical starting point Dewey has made a new kind of
attention relevant, in which the quality of the immediate, incomparable, and
possible can unfold. This quality endows the relational structure of perceived
things and events with an ‘aesthetic’ quality that cannot be completely expressed in
concepts. Decisive for this point of view is whether the projections of non-
conscious cognitions (categories, expectations, evaluations etc.) are automatically
imposed on situations, or whether they are broken up by the observations and
distanced from these processes of projection and subsumation.
In this respect the unknown in concrete situations becomes for Dewey the
source of both aesthetic experience and for learning in general. To locate learning
in situations does not mean for Dewey to fall back behind the universally accepted
accomplishments of an institutionalized modern education or the accumulated
knowledge of educational science. Just the opposite, his understanding of ‘situative
learning’ relies on the continuing discovery of more articulate and secure
knowledge (what Dewey calls ‘warranted assertibilities’). This knowledge,
however, must in Dewey’s view never automatically be (ab)used to reduce
moments or situations to already known qualities.
(2) Creativity in art as conscious balancing of activity and receptivity

Dewey characterizes artistic activity first of all in negative terms: action,
communication and thinking can be considered arts to the extent that they are not
carried out automatically, that they don’t overcome obstacles merely by resorting
to routine skills and practices. Artistic creation is based on attentiveness to
situations in the double sense of ‘doing’ and ‘undergoing’ (LW.10.254). In
Dewey’s view neither doing (also understood in the sense of feasibility) nor
undergoing can be placed exclusively in the foreground. Nor is their relationship
one of reciprocal jumping back and forth. In its heightened attentiveness to both
56
sides of experience, art work always also includes an active ‘letting something
happen.’
There is a very peculiar union of passivity, of receptivity, and of activity
involved in this sensitivity of the eye and the ear and the body to the scene
around us. ... a large part of the power of the work of art ... is its ability to let
loose. (LW.13.367)
The balance of receptivity and activity (Dewey calls this ‘responsiveness’)
makes it possible to integrate the surprising, the unexpected, the non-conscious
aspects of a situation into the routine, rule-like, and the beforehand determined
ought-to-be and established knowledge. The creation of artworks does not,
according to Dewey, close the gap between present and past (i.e., the habitual)
experience automatically, and thus in an accidental way, but rather with conscious
rambling attention to the emergent aspects and meanings of a situation.
(3) Unity, consummation and fulfillment in aesthetic experience

Dewey frequently describes the quality of aesthetic experience (for example, when
distinguishing it from kitsch) as an experience, or rather as a feeling, for unity,
wholeness, fulfillment or consummation:
A situation... is so rounded out that its close is a consummation and not a
cessation. Such an experience is a whole and carries with it its own
individualizing quality and self-sufficiency. It is an experience. (LW.10.42)
This experience is only possible, according to Dewey, when someone shows an
unprejudiced interest in the things and situations that are met along the way, that
they answer to the hindering or helping function of the conditions that they
attribute to them, and that they can relate the results of their actions to what went
before as the culmination of a continuous movement in space and time (LW.10.46).
The aesthetic experience of unity, consummation and fulfillment emerges from a
receptive, open orientation toward the world and requires a decentralization of the
self and its self-confirming world of ideas and beliefs. Dewey emphasizes that this
experience is neither dependent on obtaining a desirable result nor in reaching a
goal. An experience (in Dewey’s sense) which results from the conscious
integration of a moment into the larger stream of experience is something that
cannot be brought about by thought alone.
Dewey links the establishment of relations to an immediate and conscious
awareness of individual things in the context of their (particular) space and time.
Space thus becomes something more than a void in which to roam about
dotted here and there with dangerous things and things that satisfy the
appetite. It becomes a comprehensive and enclosed scene within which are
ordered the multiplicity of doings and undergoings in which man engages.
Time ceases to be either the endless and uniform flow or the succession of
instantaneous points which some philosophers have asserted it to be. It, too,
57
is the organized and organizing medium of the rhythmic ebb and flow of
expectant impulse, forward and retracted movement, resistance and suspense,
with fulfillment and consummation. (LW.10.28)
Everyday experience frequently does without this aesthetic trait and can be
characterized by its mechanical and automatically produced connections of things
and occurrences, by the habit of placing them in seemingly self-evident contexts,
and by the unspecific, and apparently, timelessness and spacelessness of its
beginnings and endings (LW.1.385; LW.10.49).
For in much of our experience we are not concerned with the connection of
one incident with what went on before and what comes after. (LW.10.47)
Developing awareness for the temporality and spatiality of situations and not
letting oneself become dependent on routine projections demands a slowing down.
If we move too rapidly, we get away from the base of supplies – of accrued
meanings – and the experience is flustered, thin, and confused. (LW.10.62)
Only when the realization that things and occurrences are continuously in a
process of change has an effect on our habits of perception will we be able to take
the uncertain and vibrant aspects of experience instead of our habitual ways of
perceiving as the organizational basis for our relationship to the world.
Unity, wholeness and fulfillment can be experienced, according to Dewey, only
to the extent that situation-based fragmentation, differences, ugliness, tensions,
contradictions and oppositions which make up their material content, stand in
communication with one another, and at the same time remain individually visible
in a whole which invites us to dwell upon it (LW.10.208). This situational
experience of wholeness is always fleeting and cannot be maintained by active
efforts.
The unity of fulfillment must be thought of as a process which at the moment
of fulfillment already deconstructs itself and passes over into the stream of
the next experience, which pushes us in the direction of the unknown and
places us before the challenge to create from the fragments of past
experiences and the resistance of our surrounding circumstances a new, but
always short-lived and changing unity. (Fluck, 2000, p. 176, freely translated
here)
Dewey, however, has not been able to consistently carry through his efforts to
find a principle connection between his concept of unity and the temporal process
underlying experience and situations, and thus to see them, not as a safe haven, but
rather as something fragile and constantly changing. There are various tendencies
in his thought to fixate, or rather to separate, them from experience and thus to give
up the primacy of the situation. This can be seen in his reference to an “existing
harmony” that is independent of experience and forms the base of our knowledge.4
58
But, through the phases of perturbation and conflict, there abides the deep-
seated memory of an underlying harmony, the sense of which haunts life like
the sense of being founded on a rock. (LW.10.23)
In addition, Dewey tends to turn his understanding of potential aesthetic
experience into a normative concept and thereby to narrow it into something
standardized, complete, dissolved of tensions. He frequently only allows
recognition for the non-integrated, the different and the contradictory on the
condition that they submit to some sort of resolution and standardization, thus
reducing them to something they are not. Dewey partly takes back his stated
primacy of situations in favor of an ideal aimed at producing a synthesis. His
notion of awareness as an attention to situations that does not involve intentions (in
the sense of a distinction between perception and recognition; see next section) is
in places again turned into an intentionally directed awareness aimed at closing
differences. In spite of these inconsistencies and incoherence, Dewey’s theory of
temporality and its application to an understanding of effective action based on
situations is especially illuminating and opens new perspectives. This will be
discussed in the following.
II. ACTIVITY IN THE CONTEXT OF DEWEY’S THEORY OF TEMPORALITY
Dewey has stated that question of time and temporal understanding is one of the
most fundamental problems of philosophy. For him experience is intrinsically and
irreducibly temporal. Herein lies one of the central differences of his thinking from
the philosophical tradition in which movement in space and time is regarded as
something external to the substantial being of the subject (LW.14.103).
Aesthetic perception is characterized by Dewey in such a way that time is
recognized as an integral element of thinking, acting and communication. To the
extent, however, that individuals act within a strict framework based on routine,
time ceases to be an essential part of their experience. Their behavior is
predictable, old constellations are simply rearranged – old forms in new clothing.
The recognition of the temporality of experience first begins, according to Dewey,
with a conscious attention to situations and their qualitative immediacy. The
present will then not be reduced to being a qualitatively indistinguishable point in a
linear temporal succession.
The tremendous task to be undertaken is to grasp the present – not as an
immediate, isolated bare occurrence, as an indefinitely fleeting ‘now’, but as
the dynamically insistent occasion for establishing continuity or growth of
meaning. (Alexander, 1987, p. 269)
A linear understanding of time – according to Dewey – sees to it that things and
situations in the present are subsumed under past experience or under anticipations
of the future. Attentiveness to the present as the place of uncertainty and
emergence also means for Dewey being able to see a situation in its dynamic
relation to the past and its potential for further developments. Herein it acquires the
fullness of its meaning. In the following I will explain three points which are
59
central to Dewey’s concept of the present and are basic for his understanding of
aesthetics and art in general. (1) A present-oriented perception is based on a
distancing from intentions and prejudice. (2) The present is essentially mediated
with the past. (3) Every present situation contains within it possibilities, tendencies,
and directions for further happenings.
(1) Present-oriented perception

According to Dewey perception normally occurs in the form of recognition.
Perception nods and goes on; it labels things and occurrences as such and such and
reduces them to a mere succession (LW.10.30). Our attention at most takes fleeting
notice of the present and the qualitative immediacy of situations. It is for the most
part occupied with cognitions about these perceptions. But, as Dewey, emphasizes
“to see, to perceive, is more than to recognize. It does not identify something
present in terms of a past disconnected from it” (LW.10.30). Aims and goals as
well as routine ways of thinking frequently control and dominate our attention.
They inhibit our ability to observe the present to a large extent.
It is extraordinary how much we lose our powers of direct observation, more
than observation I mean our sensitiveness, our responsiveness, to the world of
persons and objects and natural events about us because we fall into certain
routines or because of our occupations we have certain ends more or less
remote that control our thought and attention, and we become oblivious to a
great deal of the human scene around us. (LW.13.366)
Perception gains aesthetic quality to the extent that habitual ways of seeing and
thinking are suspended and things are seen in relative independence of the role that
they play in personal interests, needs and preferences.5
A central characteristic of Dewey’s concept of art is that this form of intention-
free perception constantly accompanies the creative act.
The artist embodies in himself the attitude of the perceiver while he works.
(LW.10.55)
Perception is the crystallization point where the aesthetic and the artistic are
joined. Dewey assumes that the present moment is both conditioned and
conditioning. Every happening stands in connection with past happenings and
every present situation has unpredictable effects for future developments. To the
extent that the present situation (and not ideals, goals or plans) remains the main
reference point of the respective act of attention, the activity (also a goal-directed
activity) can be called an ‘art’. To choose an ideal or a goal and to realize it means
for Dewey that all events and acts which comprise it are carried out with the same
love and care (LW.1.274). In this respect, Dewey emphasizes the importance of a
conscious choice of means.6 The logic of the linear succession of time
recommends, on the other hand, setting aims and regarding the effects of the means
as secondary, since they are not seen as consequential components of a system of
activities.
60
Aesthetically effective communication with our surroundings can first come

about when the identification with the idea or intention which gives direction to our
productive work can be repeatedly dissolved. Otherwise the activity becomes
mechanical.7 To the extent, for example, that a painter consciously experiences his
brush strokes, he can take into account the unexpected, the element of surprise in
his actions.
An experience has pattern and structure, because it is not just doing and
undergoing in alternation, but consists of them in relationship. ...The action
and its consequence must be joined in perception. This relationship is what
gives meaning; to grasp it is the objective of all intelligence. (LW.10.50f)
To frame our pursuit of aims within an attitude of receptive attentiveness
directed toward the situation as a whole is, according to Dewey, the central
characteristic of any form of aesthetic and experimental activity. Since the manner
of our perception is a matter of habits that are both bodily and mentally anchored,
quality of perception can only be changed by a lengthy and laborious process of
restructuring and modifying patterns of experiencing. Changing habits is not
possible only by means of pure rationality or an arbitrary act of will.
(2) The past in the present

The past, according to Dewey, effectively determines the present – though, for the
most part, not consciously – by means of individual and collective habits and
customs. Our active coming to terms with these habits is for Dewey absolutely
necessary if we hope to have any kind of intentional influence on situations.
Concerning the pedagogical reform discourse I would like to accentuate Dewey’s
insight that existing habits constitute the material for innovation.
In Construction and Criticism Dewey makes use of the following metaphor: Our
lives are an accidental mixture of museum and laboratory and we cannot simply
declare the museum to be null and void by means of a gesture of rejection
(LW.5.142). The release of creative energy demands an active stance in our
relationship to the ‘museum’. Innovation and creativity do not begin at a zero
point. They first begin when already existing ways of thinking are interrupted and
investigated. For Dewey this is the task of critique. It includes both observation and
reconstruction of the respective habitual patterns of thought and behavior and their
implicit structures. ‘Spontaneity’ – which is not guided by an attention that is
present-oriented – only reproduces, according to Dewey, an all-to-familiar pattern
and still has something of an unquestioning dogmatism about it. It is often the case,
as Dewey says, that “extreme intuitionalism and extreme conservatism often go
together” (LW.7.267).
The creation of the new requires differentiated observation and a deeper
understanding of what has gone before. Creativity, as Dewey understands it, can
not have any substance without a reconstruction of existing habits. Creativity is
never a ‘genial’ creation out of nothing (as, e.g., the German tradition of the genius
in literature and art has suggested). The new is always made up of the old, by
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citations from and references to tradition, from modifications and interpretations of

what already exists. The past is needed in order to interpret the present situation.
Old habits (of thought and behavior) are not just something that we can get rid
of by declaring them to be bad or worthless. This is what makes them so effective
(in the existing patterns and structures) because they remain stable. Old habits
require observation, study, and deeper understanding if something new is be made
out of them. Only in the particular continuity with existing structures and patterns
can innovations be effectively introduced. In this respect Dewey points to a
paradox of change: it is a necessary requirement for innovation that we first of all
pay conscious open-minded attention to the undesirable aspects of the “old.”
(3) Grasping the potential of situations

Activity can be regarded as a form of art to the extent that it grasps the tendencies
and potentialities of a situation. The perception of present situations moves within
the tension between actuality and potentiality. “The conscious adjustment of the
new and the old is imagination” (LW.10.276). To grasp events as associated with
their potential and inherent tendencies is for Dewey the authentic source of an
aesthetic creation of meaning and the intelligent finding of ways and means.
Potentiality – in contrast to possibility – is along with actuality a dimension of
actual situations. Pure possibility lacks a status in reality, whereas “(p)otentiality is
a category of existence” (LW.14.109). Going back to Peirce, Dewey assumes that
ideas, as imaginative acts and ‘sensuous forms of thinking,’ enter through the door
of perception. As such they appear at first unfocused and vague. Their discursive
elaboration and reflective examination by means of inquiry is a necessary further
step. Ideal future possibilities are presented as potential in a situation. As
potentialities they are mediated by the situation. Abstract possibilities can have no
decisive effect during a crisis or a problematic situation. Potentialities, on the other
hand, can be relevant to actual situations in as much as they are included in the
present meaning of the situation and its contingencies (LW.12.288f).
With his concept of a feeling for potentialities (Möglichkeitssinn) oriented to
situations Dewey is expanding the two-valued logic in favor of a triadic form of
thought.8 When Dewey characterizes imagination as a sensuous, situation-based
understanding of ideals, the “chief instrument of good,” he is criticizing the
traditional polar oppositions that are made between good and bad, true or false as
problematic ways of thinking (LW.7.275) that miss ideals as potentialities of
situations. The latter is a fundamentally different activity of thought than setting up
an ‘is-ought’ comparison, or the claims of the should-be with respect to reality. It is
based on the recognition, observation of and incorporation into an emerging
dynamic.
Regarding the role of innovation in the success of various organizing activities,
recent empirical studies of innovative business enterprises have shown results
which confirm Dewey’s theory to a high degree. An empirical study done by
Geppert (2000) on the preconditions of innovation in business enterprises in
(former) East Germany has shown, for example, that initial intentions were not so
62
important for the achievement of successful innovation. The determining factor

was rather how well they were able to change with the times and whether this led
to new or recombined intentions, and whether they were able to make use of
unforeseen opportunities for learning.
The emergence of creative learning modes was not planned, nor was it the
result of better designing or decision-making. Instead, the openness for novel
tasks appeared to be rather a secondary effect of the intended reorganization
of goals. ...Learning was solution driven, not driven by a particular problem
and the requirement to develop a perfect output. Planning was more difficult
and experiences of past learning appeared to be less sufficient for new
emerging tasks. (Geppert, 2000, p. 179f.)
In the cases studied by Geppert (2000), the traditional approach to initial
planning and designing frequently led to just the opposite: a systematic
underestimation of unforeseen learning modes. In addition, learning processes were
especially promoted by the aim of finding plausible solutions for problems which
at the beginning were not well defined – which is also a central point of Dewey’s
theory of inquiry.
III. SUMMARY AND CONSEQUENCES FOR THE PEDAGOGIC DISCUSSION
(1) Summary
I have presented Dewey’s understanding of activity and effectiveness in his
aesthetic in contrast to the traditional model of the eidos-telos-planning-realization
model. In the following I will summarize the main points.
(a) Effectiveness occurs as communication or rather as the “rhythmic dance”
with our environment (Alexander, 1998, pp. 6-12). Effectiveness as the direct
control of situations by means of a rationally acting subject is for Dewey an
illusion und produces systematic blindness towards the situation.
In the traditional model the controlling factor in our interactions with the
environment has been thought to be primarily based on the intentions of the acting
subject – with little attention paid to the actual situation in which these interactions
occur. Dewey, on the other hand, understands effectiveness not as something
independent of time (situations), and not as something one-sidedly controlled by a
rational subject, but rather as responsiveness to the transactional interplay of a
situation. The attentive observation of situations in their double aspects of doing
and undergoing is the core of (aesthetic) experience and (artistic) activity. The
prerequisite for this is that we suspend all ideas of what-should-be and integrate
them into a perspective which opens up for the unknown in situations. The
assumption that situations can be directly controlled (by means of ideals, aims,
plans, realizations) leads - as Dewey shows again and again - to the reinstatement
of already existing habits and routines. Here thinking has no influence on the
dynamics of the situation, and as a result its potential aspects are completely
neglected.
63
(b) The activities of artists, scholars, scientists, citizens and educators are
controlled “by the unseen” (LW.9.17) – by something which they cannot see nor
which is open and obvious to them Not only are environments and the emerging
effects of our interactions with them not foreseeable. The subject is also something
that is not transparent to itself. In many varied ways it is conditioned by its earlier
interactions, which find their expression in ways of thought and interpretation that
it takes to be obvious and natural. Because of the power of existing habits and
routines, incoherence in conscious thinking, speaking and doing is the normal state
of affairs, even though this is hardly noticed. Observing them in concrete situations
is an essential prerequisite for effective action, reflection and organization. To the
extent that we assume self-transparency and self-consistency, our thoughts and
actions are not accessible to effective controls.
We rarely recognize the extent in which our conscious estimates of what is
worthwhile and what is not are due to standards of which we are not
conscious at all...But in general it may be said that the things we take for
granted without inquiry or reflection are just things which determine our
conscious thinking and decide our conclusions. (MW.9.22)
(c) The possibilities of intentionally influencing or having an effect on situations
develop only to the extent that personal actions are somehow open to the unknown
and unforeseeable powers in situations, and their ideals and aims are placed in a
context of not knowing and count on complex, non-transparent presuppositions. In
Dewey’s view the decisive point is to allow for non-conscious, uncertainty,
mystery, and doubt in a way that this structures our perception, thinking, and
actions implicitly (LW.10.41). He sees in this, likewise, the prerequisite for
(aesthetic) pleasure and satisfaction in individual experience as well as a way out
of the wide-spread inability to have an effective and intelligent influence on
individual and social processes.
(2) Relevance for pedagogical discourse

Pedagogical discourse can be characterized by its predominate focus on what-
should-be; on the one hand, in the form of an emphasis on ideals, utopias, dreams;
or, on the other, in demanding exact plans (for curriculum, school programs) and
evaluations (is-ought comparisons) ‘quality management,’ measurements of
performance. At the same time, a thinking that advocates ‘feasibility’ has been and
continuous to be criticized, and an acceptance of the unexpected is claimed to be a
central component of professional pedagogical activity. However, these aims have
frequently not been much more than a desideratum, or have been theoretically
inconsistent and ineffectual when applied in concrete cases of reform.
It should be noted in referring to the distinctions elaborated above that
suspending the concepts of ideals and aims in education is an unfamiliar move in
pedagogical discourse. Here we can name three widely accepted ways of thinking
as examples in the context of school development. (1) As far as pedagogical
practice has been subject to systematic observation, this has frequently happened as
64
an is-ought comparison and is oriented in advance on previously defined aims and

purposes. (2) There is a tendency to see quality attributes in an isolated context-
free manner or as a developmental ideal to be prescribed to others. Studies of
‘good’ or ‘innovative’ schools, for example, have been used for the purpose taking
individual positive findings (e.g., consensus among teachers regarding educational
aims) and regarding them as standards for a reform process that can be simply
applied to other schools. This frequently does not lead to the hoped for success, but
has profound (undesired) side-effects (e.g., larger burdens on teachers and
increased production for appearance sake). They are seldom the focus for teacher
observations, as suggested in the most recent developments in the theory of
organizations. (3) The rigid fixation of models and aims by educators and even by
educational scientists (as being the only correct ones) goes hand in hand with a
strategy of ‘externalization,’ which attributes all adversity and failure to problems
of ‘application’ and the educational environment instead of making the actual
problematic situation the object of further investigation.9 In the literature on
educational-science dealing with school development the following pattern of
thought is frequently found: the model is correct, but its application by individual
schools or teaching staffs leaves a lot to be desired. Disruptions are seldom used as
an occasion to deepen one’s own theoretical understanding, but rather in most
cases guides and recipes to overcome disruptions and resistance are sought – that
are in keeping with one’s model.
Dewey emphasizes the importance of philosophy for pedagogical practice and

organization as well as pedagogical theory. He sees its task in the explication and,
when necessary, the modification and complication of habit beliefs which are taken
to be normal and obvious in concrete situations (LW.8.77f). The reach of these
habit beliefs can for Dewey be hardly overestimated. Implicit philosophical beliefs
(concerning effectiveness, for example) form, for Dewey, the pathways of our
everyday as well as our scientific perceptions, our thinking, behavior, and
communication LW.12.501). They guide and structure the tacit conclusions and
choices which we constantly make and which we regard as completely natural
(Colapietro, 2002, p. 59ff.). They are the basis on which it is decided which of the
theories under discussion only bear superficial treatment or have a reflective
potential to develop. These habits of thought and association are acquired in
interaction with other persons and our environment and are anchored in practices,
institutional structures and in the corresponding certainties of our culture.
There exists at any period a body of beliefs and of institutions and practices
allied to them. In these beliefs there are broad interpretations of life and the
world. These interpretations have consequences, often profoundly important.
(LW.6.18)
Philosophical assumptions (habit beliefs) about activity and effectiveness have
profound effects in pedagogical practices and discourses. Dewey’s suggestion to
think about activity and effectiveness on the basis of the unexpected and the
contingent in situations opens, in my opinion, on the one hand new possibilities for
65
inquiring into the scope of the dominate implicit model of rationality (eidos-telos-
planning-realization) and, on the other hand, a field - not yet investigated - for
experiments involving our understanding of activity and effectiveness. Dewey has
shown that this includes to a great extent questions concerning organizations. This
kind of experimental perspective demands a modification of habitual attitudes
which according to Dewey have a physical and emotional dimension and are
anchored in institutional processes. To the extent that any concept of reform
implicitly remains committed to controllability, self-transparency and a linear
understanding of time, it will be unable to adequately grasp the significance of
Dewey’s concept of effectiveness and activity as related to the priority of situations
.Not only for practical interests but in order to attain a deeper theoretical
understanding it would be of great value to further investigate this new quality of
attention which emphasizes the transactional and temporal dimension of situations
in pedagogical interactions and reflections.
NOTES
1
Scientific investigations, everyday interactions, social communication as well as ethical and
pedagogical actions can be regarded as art. Statements to this effect can be found in various phases
of Dewey’s work: “...all communication is like art” (MW.9.8f); “science is an art” (LW.1.268f);
“Art is a quality of doing and of what is done. ...it adheres to the manner and content of doing, it is
adjectival in nature” (LW.10.218); “Thinking is preeminently an art; knowledge and propositions
which are the products of thinking are works of art, as much so as statuary and symphonies.”
(LW.1.283).
2
Compare Burke 2002, as well as the discussion on ‘Erstheit bei Peirce’, for example in Oevermann
2001 and Folden et al. 1987.
3
Observation as a component of investigations is, in contrast to this, guided by a hypothesis and is
related more strongly to things as signs. “If curiosity is aroused and is satisfied as to why the thing
seen or touched has the peculiar conformation it presents to view, then perception becomes
observation; mere noticing becomes noting” (LW.16.327). Dewey uses the terms ‘perception’ and
‘observation’ in many earlier passages, however, as having the same meaning (LW.12.153;
LW.15.78; LW.13.364; here Dewey also speaks of ‘aesthetic observation’).
4
See criticism by Shustermann (2000). In the same time it has been pointed out repeatedly by
different commentators that Dewey’s vocabulary here in no way leads to the “tyranny of totalizing
experience” and thus has to be freed from a naive organistic misunderstanding. Fluck (2000)
criticizes Dewey’s aesthetic on this point (from the perspective of contemporary literary theory). He
points out that Dewey places integrating experiences at the center. In doing so Dewey reproduces
systematic reconstruction effects and cannot properly comprehend fragmentation and neglects taking
into consideration the “possibilities of negation, distancing and self-thematization which have
become characteristic elements of modern and postmodern art.” (Fluck, 2000, p. 188, freely
translated here).
5
“Perception is born when solicitude for objects and their qualities brings the organic demand for
attachment to consciousness” (LW.10.260). Jackson (1998, p. 57ff) has shown that the importance
of perception for the whole of Dewey’s philosophy cannot be overestimated. At the same time he
has pointed to enormous difficulties and unfamiliar challenges with respect to widespread habits of
perception. Experiences of disruptions, breakdowns or crises have an important function in the
interruption of routines and established ways of thinking. Here we cannot go into this matter more
deeply (cf. Oevermann, 2000). Dewey’s well-known definition of rationality as the transformation
of casual relationships (cause and effect) into relationships of ‘means and consequences’ is relevant
here. When Dewey objects to understanding the connection of means and consequences as simply a
succession in time, what he is concerned to point out is that every interaction that is used as a means
66
continues to work – regardless of whether it attains its aim or not. They are active processes that
develop in time and leave residues at every step that enter into the result in a cumulative and
constitutive way. The characteristic trait of art is that in it aims and means form a unity
(LW.1.274ff).
6
Dewey emphasizes that we do not see with our eyes alone but with our whole organism. “As we
manipulate, we touch and feel; as we look we see; as we listen, we hear. The hand moves with
etching needle or with brush. The eye attends and reports the consequences of what is done. Because
of this intimate connection, subsequent doing is cumulative, and not a matter of caprice nor yet of
routine. In an emphatic artistic-esthetic experience, the relation is so close that it controls
simultaneously both the doing and the perception. Such vital intimacy of connection cannot be had if
only hand and eye are engaged. When they so not, both of them, act as organs of the whole being,
there is but mechanical sequence of movement, as in walking that is automatic. Hand and eye, when
the experience is esthetic, are but instruments through which the entire live creature, moved and
active throughout, operates” (LW.10.56).
7
Dewey here is taking up Peirce’s idea that potentialities exist in everything regardless of whether they
are actualized or not (LW.11482).
8
The central insight that Dewey takes over from Peirce’s concept of ‘abduction’ is the view that
(scientific) ideas are acts of individual imagination and not of induction. Ideas are not initially
discursively worked out, but rather they arise as embodied meanings. Peirce insists that ideas must
be ‘felt and perceived’ like a scent or a color before they can be conceptually grasped. Inquiry as the
instrument of imaginative mediation between what is real and what is possible is not only related to
perception but rather encompasses the whole process of the interplay of creating ideas, making
observations and drawing conclusions. The imagination has an intrinsic role in the emergence of the
structured phases in developing experience; it marks the “point of transition between the background
of inquiry (disrupted habits, needs, cares, desires, selective interests, and socio-cultural tradition that
go into concepts, essences, identities, and logical rules)” (Garrison,1997, p.97).
9
This has been shown, for example, in a study by Fried (1998). Educators regard ‘education’ as their
proper task, for which they orient themselves on the aims and goals of pedagogy. In doing so they
largely ignore the tensions between their function of making selections and educational or learning
tasks in schools. They identify themselves with their pedagogical tasks and do not pay much
conscious attention to dealing with performance requirements, although they, to a large degree,
constantly make demands and selections. “Man richtet sich vorwiegend an der Erziehungsfunktion
von Schule aus, versteht sich demzufolge vor allem als Pädagoge, fühlt sich aber immer wieder von
dieser ‘Bestimmung’ abgehalten; und zwar vor allem durch Organisations- und Umweltsysteme”
(Fried, 1998, p. 292f.).
REFERENCES
Alexander, T. M. (1987). John Dewey’s Theory of art, experience, and nature: The horizons of feeling.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Alexander, T. M. (1998). The art of life: Dewey’s aesthetics. In L. A. Hickman (Ed.), Reading Dewey:
Interpretations for a postmodern generation (pp. 1-21). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Alexander, T. M. (2002). The aesthetics of reality: The development of Dewey’s ecological theory of
experience. In F. T. Burke, D. M. Hester & R. B. Talisse (Eds.), Dewey’s logical theory: New
studies and interpretations (pp. 3-26). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Burke, T. (1994). Dewey’s new logic. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
Burke, T. (2000). What is a situation? History and Philosophy of Logic, 21, 95-113.
Colapietro, V. (2002). Experimental logic: Normative theory or natural history? In F. T. Burke, D. M.
Hester & R. B. Talisse (Eds.), Dewey’s logical theory: New studies and interpretations (pp. 43-71).
Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Descartes, René (1955). Die Prinzipien der Philosophie, übers. u. erl.. von A. Buchenau. Hamburg:
Meiner Verlag. (Original work published 1644)
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Dewey, J. (1981-1999). The later works of John Dewey, 1925-1953 (LW, Vols. 1-17) (J. A. Boydston,
Ed.). Carbondale & Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dewey, J. (1976-1983). The middle works of John Dewey, 1899-192 (MW, Vols.1-15) (J. A. Boydston,
Ed.). Carbondale & Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Fluck, W. (2000). John Deweys Ästhetik und die Literaturtheorie. In H. Joas (Ed.), Philosophie der
Demokratie. Beiträge zum Werk von John Dewey. (pp. 139-159). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Folden, R. E., Buchmann, M., & Schille, J.R. (1987). Breaking with everyday experience. Teachers
College Record, 88(4), 485- 506.
Fried, L. (1998). Professionswissen und Schulentwicklung. Zur Erklärungskraft von Reflexionsdefiziten
im Professionswissen von SchulpraxisexpertInnen – eine systemtheoretische Analyse.
Habilitationsschrift Universität Koblenz-Landau, Fachgebiet Erziehungswissenschaft.
Geppert, M. (2000). Beyond the learning organisation. Paths of organisational learning in the East
German context. Burlington, VT: Gower.
Habermas, J. (1984). Intention, Konvention und sprachliche Interaktion. In J. Habermas, Vorstudien und
Ergänzungen zur Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (pp. 307-331). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Jackson, P. W. (1998). John Dewey and the lessons of art. New Haven and London: Yale University
Press.
Jullien, F. (1999). Über die Wirksamkeit. Berlin: Merve.
Krüger, H.-P. (2000). Prozesse der öffentlichen Untersuchung. Zum Potential einer zweiten
Modernisierung in John Deweys ‘Logic. The Theory of Inquiry’. In H. Joas (Ed.), Philosophie der
Demokratie. Beiträge zum Werk von John Dewey (pp. 194-234). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Luhmann, N., & Schorr, K.E. (1988). Reflexionsprobleme im Erziehungssystem. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Oelkers, J. (1999). Gibt es eine ‘Mitte’ der Erziehung? Überlegungen zum Zentralbegriff der Pädagogik.
In T. Fuhr & K. Schultheis (Eds.), Zur Sache der Pädagogik. Untersuchungen zum Gegenstand der
allgemeinen Erziehungswissenschaft (pp. 55-67). Klinkhardt: Bad Heilbrunn.
Oevermann, U. (2001). Die Philosophie von Charles Sanders Peirce als Philosophie der Krise. In H.-J.
Wagner, Objektive Hermeneutik und Bildung des Subjekts (pp. 209-246). Weilerswist: Velbrück
Wissenschaft.
Shusterman, R. (2000). Dewey über Erfahrung: Fundamentalphilosophie oder Rekonstruktion? In H.
Joas (Ed.): Philosophie der Demokratie. Beiträge zum Werk von John Dewey (pp. 81-115)
Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Ziehe, T. (1996). Vom Preis des selbstbezüglichen Wissens. In A. Combe & W. Helsper (Eds.),
Pädagogische Professionalität. Untersuchungen zum Typus pädagogischen Handelns, (pp. 924-
942). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
I would like to thank Philipp Gonon and Johannes Bellmann for their critical
comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper.
Translated by John Svitek
Roswitha Lehmann-Rommel
Institute of Educational Science
University of Education Freiburg
Germany
68
DANIEL TRÖHLER
MODERN CITY, SOCIAL JUSTICE, AND EDUCATION

Early Pragmatism as Exemplified by Jane Addams
1. REPRESSION AND MISREPRESENTATION
When in 1903 John Dewey dedicated Studies in Logical Theory to William James,
James responded with a short review in Psychological Bulletin titled “The Chicago
School” (James, 1904), by which he referred to and praised the innovative potential
of the philosophy department at the University of Chicago in general, and John
Dewey as the leader of this “School” in particular – and this, just at that point in
time when Dewey had had a dispute with the president of the University of
Chicago and resigned his position. By subsuming the Chicago pragmatists into a
“School of Thought” and narrowing the core down further to one main exponent,
James helped – not likely consciously, but upon the contemporary background not
entirely coincidentally – to construct a way of looking at things that up to today –
and now not limited only to Chicago – continues to be more or less dominant. It
finds expression, for instance, in Israel Scheffler’s Four Pragmatists (1974), in
which American pragmatism is focused on Peirce, James, Mead, and Dewey,
whereby the sequence does not represent the chronology of their years of birth, but
rather a genealogical line tracing the emergence, development, variation, and
dignity of an idea, or way of thinking, of American Pragmatism with a capital P.1
Traditional historiography as it still predominates in the field of education
science as a rule proceeds with the necessary selection of material in such a way
that it defines “ideas,” “schools,” or “epochs” and traces these back to individual
persons or groups of persons or views these persons at least as typical
representatives of a particular time or movement. In the process, quite marked
distinctions are lost or differences smoothed over, such as differences between
Harvard and Chicago in the case of pragmatism, but also disappearing from view is
the individual distinctness of individual authors that is fundamental for the
discursive development of a “school,” such as points of divergence between Peirce
and James, but also among the Chicagoan authors themselves. What disappears
from sight is, for instance, the fact that both Dewey and Mead were called to
Chicago only on the recommendation of James Hayden Tufts, who was already
working in the philosophy department and later, after Dewey’s departure, headed
the department of philosophy at Columbia University. Through this, it also skips
over James Rowland Angell, who had attended Dewey’s classes at the University
of Michigan at Ann Arbor, then built up a course of study in psychology within the
philosophy department at Chicago, and later still became president of Yale
University. Overlooked generally in this connection is that pragmatism initially

DANIEL TRÖHLER
emerged primarily out of an international discussion on psychology, within which

a distinctively American psychology – that is, a psychology essentially
emancipated from the German model – only caught on with the overcoming of the
dualistic concept of the reflex arc (see Angell, 1896; Dewey, 1896). And what is
most forgotten is that in general, as compared, say, to the culture of German
scholars, the academic discussion in the United States was more open to real
political, social, and economic problems and that on the south side of Chicago, the
specific Midwestern culture (Jensen, 1971) intensified this difference. The
proponents of pragmatism were socially and politically committed, and they had
close ties with people in non-academic professions, such as with the recently
rediscovered Ella Flagg Young, who was a doctoral candidate under Dewey and a
school superintendent (Oelkers & Horlacher, 2004), and, perhaps most of all, with
non-academician Jane Addams.
That Jane Addams and her works have been to a large extent ignored as a
scientifically relevant field of research stands in diametrical opposition to her
popularity. It can be said that Jane Addams was the most renowned woman of her
day in America, whose fame was certainly helped along by her very effective,
skillful writing in her immensely successful autobiography, Twenty Years at Hull
House (1910) (Brown, 2004, pp. 4-12). What is remarkable is how the mixing up
of biography, social commitment, and theoretical dignity had a lasting effect –
certainly comparable to that of Pestalozzi – so that Addams scholarship is strongly
dominated by hagiographical descriptions that in recent years have set off a regular
Addams cult. In addition to new editions of all of Addams’ writings, collections of
essays, a reader (Elshtain, 2002b), and the huge undertaking of the Jane Addams
Papers Project to publish an annotated edition of selected Addams papers of at least
six volumes, of which the first was published in 2003 (Bryan, Bair, & De Angury,
2003), more than 10 biographies of Addams have been published in the last seven
years. Five recently published biographies written for adults are:
– 1999 Gioia Diliberto: A Useful Woman. The Early Life of Jane Addams
– 2000 Allen F. Davis: American Heroine. (Reissue of the standard biography
written in 1973)
– 2000 James Weber Linn: Jane Addams: A Biography
– 2002 Jean Bethke Elshtain: Jane Addams and the Dream of American
Democracy
– 2004 Victoria Bissell Brown: Creating a Self. The Education of Jane Addams
And five recent biographies written for young readers are:
– 1997 Jane Addams. Pioneer Social Worker. (In the series Community Builders;
for ages 9-12)
– 1999 Jane Addams. Nobel Prize Winner and Founder of Hull House. (In the
series Historical American Biographies; for middle school)
– 2000 Jane Addams. A Photo Biography. (24 pages, 12 of which are
photographs, in the series First Biographies; for very early readers)
70
– 2002 Jane Addams. (In the series People Who Made a Difference; for grades 1-
4). Also available in Spanish (in the translated series, Personas que
cambiaron la historia) for bilingual education in the public schools.
– 2003 Jane Addams and Chicago’s Hull House Activity and Coloring Book. (For
pre-elementary school children; published by the University of Illinois at
Chicago, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum)
Jane Addams has evidently become a national identification figure in the United
States for young and old, for whites and Latinos.2 The first volume to appear of the
Selected Papers of Jane Addams, published by the University of Illinois Press
(Bryan, Bair, & De Angury, 2003), achieves academic quality in questions of
edition theory, although the subtitle, Preparing to Lead, 1860–1881, once again
suggests an idealizing or idolizing motivation. In 2004 the first work to examine
the development of Jane Addams’ concept of education up to 1895 was published,
and it explicitly does not seek primarily to reinforce the cult (Brown, 2004).
2. THE MODERN AMERICAN CITY AND ITS PROBLEMS
The repression and misrepresentation of Jane Addams are possibly connected

dialectically, inasmuch as scientific research does not want to work off popular
admiration literature and misrepresentation is a reaction to scientific abstinence. In
any case, it forfeits the possibility of viewing Jane Addams as an historical actor
who succeeded (even if also thanks to a mythologizing autobiography) in
becoming almost as important a public figure as Dewey later was. Reflected in this
is also the reaction to public expectations, which in turn arose out of dealing with
the contemporary historical context, in the first place out of the problem of the
American cities, but more precisely, out of the specific situation of Chicago after
1880, as it was revealed, for example, on May 4, 1886, in the famous Haymarket
Square Incident, when a rally in protest of brutal police action on the previous day,
during a strike by the labor unions for an eight-hour work day, erupted in violence
and deaths. The Chicago population data are impressive on their own and can serve
to illustrate the intensifying urban atmosphere (source: Philpott, 1978, p. 6).3
1840: 4,470 1890: 1,099,850

1850: 29,963 1900: 1,698,575
1860: 102,260 1910: 2,185,283
1870: 298,977 1920: 2,701,705
1880: 503,185 1930: 3,376,438
In other words, in a period of ninety years, from 1840 to 1930, the urban
residents of Chicago increased 800-fold, increasing 20 times over between 1860
and 1910. The economic boom underlying the growth of the city led in a certain
sense to a permanent state of crisis, which is evident in, for instance, 20,783
workers’ strikes reported to the police in a period of only 20 years (1881-1900)
(Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1902, pp. 496-500). The urban development
71
DANIEL TRÖHLER
problems that resulted from the population explosion4 are sheer unimaginable; the
numerous and in part contradictory strategies for tackling the problems led only
after 1910 to the development of an identifiable discourse on rational urban
planning (Boyer, 1983).5 Among other reasons, the pressure for urban development
became so strong, because people in the city feared moral degeneration of the
masses and social unrest connected with it; this was to be countered by building up
stability: “And stability, no doubt, is a good thing. (…) Moreover, a constantly
shifting population is not as easily governed, or as well fitted to govern itself, as
one which has such permanency of habitation that civic affection and civic pride
has a chance to take root” (Robinson, 1916, p. 295). The numerous reform
proposals included also the building of playgrounds (Anonymous, 1894) and city
parks and recreational parkland at the water’s edge (Diggs 1902; Crawford 1905) –
these phenomena are interpreted today as attempts to transpose the “agrarian myth”
of rural America into the new, urban context (Schmitt, 1969).
The political tasks that arose out of these rapid developments in Chicago were
not only hardly to be conquered for quantitative reasons, but rather also due to the
ethnic and religious diversity 6 and generally lower education level of the
immigrants as well as the “great migration” of African Americans from the South
to take the industrial jobs offered. From a historical perspective today, the question
arises, evolutionarily and pragmatically, as to what the response to the challenge
was and how that which James in 1904 called The Chicago School, focusing too
strongly on Dewey alone, could develop. In that process Jane Addams played an
important role that is profitable to reconstruct not only for the reason that women
have received fundamentally too little attention in the various historiographies.
Jane Addams was in Chicago many years before Dewey, Tufts, and Mead arrived,
and she developed her settlement idea without taking note of the German
philosophy of idealism or academic discussions in psychology. Her favorite
readings were Shakespeare, but especially George Eliot; her political role models
were the “nation-uniters” Abraham Lincoln and Giuseppe Mazzini; for religion, the
two-volume edition of Schimmelpenninck’s Selected Memoirs of Port Royal
(1853) was a central influence. This work by Schimmelpennick was intended to
throw light on the closeness of Jansenism to Calvinism, whereby
Schimmelpenninck “omitted … passages which appeared irrelevant to Protestant
readers” from the collected and translated original documents, such as passages on
“miraculous interpositions” (Schimmelpenninck, 1853, p. xivf.).
The reconstruction of Jane Addams’ motivation, work, and reflection – that is,
her (forgotten) contribution to Chicago pragmatism – diverges from the traditional
drawing of lines of development, such as “from Hegel to Dewey,” and reveals that
as a rule, the geographically concentrated conditions and traditions of thought were
long underestimated. Thus Chicago pragmatism can be understood as an attempt
developed in the local context of Chicago to respond to massive immigration and
industrialization. In the process, the solutions proposed were influenced by certain
religious, ethical, and political premises, which in turn – to a certain extent – were
subjected to a process of reflection and thus modification. This flexibility as to the
premises was possible mainly because the exponents of pragmatism did not lose
72
themselves in dualistically constituted world views, in which transcendental ideals

suggest supreme truths and timeless values that should guide practice. Instead, they
viewed practical realization of social justice as a more or less open process. What
they found this to mean precisely will be examined in the present contribution.
The realization of social justice was, of course, not exclusively the demand of
the circle around Addams, Tufts, Dewey, or Mead. The demand for social justice
was woven into American life at the turn of the twentieth century in the most
varied ways, and it took on tangible form, for instance, in the broad-based social
gospel movement (Hopkins 1940), in the widely varied and established
organizational infrastructure for philanthropy by the wealthy, or in the
development of the social sciences at the universities (Haskell, 1977; Ross, 1991).
Most of the strategies for actively coping with the contemporary problems had an
implicit educational character, and some had an explicit one, as did Chicago
pragmatism. The present contribution does not aim to examine the progressive
“school” of education of Dewey from his My Pedagogic Creed (1898) to the
second (enlarged) edition of The School and The Society (1902), which – although
reduced to certain catchwords – found broad international reception (see
Oelkers/Rhyn, 2000; Popkewitz, 2005). And it will not examine the internationally
little considered (too little considered) adaptation of the education system to the
new economic framework conditions in the form of vocational education (Cohen,
1968; Hogan, 1985; Gonon, 2004), in which George Herbert Mead played a
prominent role (Mead, 1908-1909). The focus here is on reconstructing the social
philosophical context and its educational implications for the exponents of Chicago
pragmatism – namely, the social understanding of education processes in the
context of an industrialized democracy. In a certain sense, this is about what in
Germany is called “Sozialpädagogik,” a field that is a kind of combination of
education and social work, but more precisely still it is about a valid alternative to
the dominant theories in Sozialpädagogik, which up to today either aim to be
politically and philosophically neutral or base on the skepticism towards
democracy of Paul Natorp or Herman Nohl.
In order to reveal the specific character of Jane Addams’ thinking on education
more clearly, in section 3 below I will first contrast it to two other educational
concepts grounded in social philosophy that were discussed prominently in the
United States at the time. One of these concepts was what is called here “education
as enlightenment” and propagated by socialists such as Upton Sinclair; the other,
propagated by patriots such as Theodore Roosevelt, delivered more of a political
procedural idea of democracy. In section 4, discussion of the social ethical
foundations of Addams’ pragmatism will make particularly clear how it differs
from the second concept of the time, the procedural understanding of democracy.
In a next step, I will show the extent to which the experiment and science were
seen as fundamental principles of social reform, in order to bring out the difference
from the first alternative concept, Sinclair’s political philosophy of history (section
5). Then, in section 6, I reconstruct Addams’ pro-suffrage argument that does not
take recourse to natural rights, and finally, I attempt to answer the question of how
the solution approach of the pragmatists can be considered to be the tertium datur
73
DANIEL TRÖHLER
(a third given) beyond Sinclair and Roosevelt’s discussion. In the concluding

section (section 7), I present a thesis as to why it was so much more difficult for
socialism to gain acceptance in the United States than in Europe.
3. SOCIALISM OR POLITICAL DEMOCRACY: SINCLAIR VERSUS ROOSEVELT
A remarkable encounter took place in the summer of 1906 in the White House in
Washington, D.C. The president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt (1858–
1919), invited to lunch the socialist writer and later politician,7 Upton Sinclair
(1878–1968). Sinclair had written a letter to President Roosevelt on March 10,
1906, in which he advised the president to send a trustworthy man to inspect the
conditions in Packingtown, the Chicago neighborhood “back of the yards” of the
meat-packing district, to live as a working man, live with the men, and get a job in
the packing yards.8 Sinclair had published The Jungle, his exposé of the lives of the
people of Packingtown, most of them foreign-born, in the neighborhood
surrounding the giant, industrially organized slaughterhouses, in serial form in
1905 and in book form (a bestseller) in January 1906.9 The story, based on
Sinclair’s research using the methods of undercover journalism (he lived for seven
weeks in the stockyards of Chicago in 1904), is about the tragic hero, Jurgis
Rudkus, and his Lithuanian immigrant family members, who find work in the
slaughterhouses of Chicago. Under the horrifying working conditions and the
massive political corruption, their lives disintegrate; Jurgis’ wife Ona is raped by
her foreman, and Jurgis, who attacks the man, becomes black-listed and thus
unemployed and can keep his head above water only through criminal activities.
Following Dürrenmatt’s dictum of the worst possible turn of events, the story runs
its fateful course: every member of the family dies except Jurgis; he can get work
again only as a scab. When the strike ends, he is let go. Impressed by the miserable
life of his only surviving relative, Marija Berczynskas, who now earns a living as a
prostitute and bears it only with the aid of morphine, he ends up by chance at a
meeting of socialists, with whom he finds a new home. Hired as an unskilled
worker by socialist hotel owner Tommy Hind, he becomes more deeply introduced
to socialist doctrine and learns, among other things, that the United States is in
reality not politically governed, but ruled by the Railroad Trust, Beef Trust, and
Standard Oil, which were at war with each other “‘for the prize of the mastery and
ownership of the United States of America!’ Such was the new home in which
Jurgis lived and worked, and in which his education was completed” (Sinclair,
1906/1985, p. 384). This socialist education takes place through conversation with
shining examples, such as former Swedish professor of philosophy and socialist
Nicholas Schliemann, who sacrifices his life to the revolution and even rejects
marriage under capitalist rule. Schliemann gives Jurgis the hope that – with
sufficient enlightening and educating of the people – socialism could triumph. In
the elections of 1904, Jurgis works for the Socialist Party, which in Packingtown
alone gets 6,300 votes, coming very close to the results (8,800 votes) obtained by
the radical Democrats so very hated by the socialists. At the election meeting,
however, the speaker reminds the attendees that the voters are not yet real socialists
74
and that their job is to organize the masses. The last lines of the book are “And we
shall organize them, we shall drill them, we shall marshal them for the victory! We
shall bear down the opposition, we shall sweep it before us – and Chicago will be
ours! Chicago will be ours! Chicago will be ours!” (p. 412).
In this socialist milieu, education meant enlightening, thus raising awareness. To
this purpose Upton Sinclair, together with author Jack London,10 Clarence
Darrow,11 and Hull House resident Florence Kelley, called for the founding of the
Intercollegiate Socialist Society in 1905. This organization had the stated purpose
to familiarize people with “the inherent evils of American economic and social
system based on laissez-faire policies, and to promote the establishment of a
socialist order.”12Around 1920 the Society enlarged its scope to encompass society
at large and took the new name of League for Industrial Democracy in 1921. Its
stated purpose was of “educating Americans about the need to extend democracy
to every aspect of our society,”13 and it described itself as “a membership society
engaged in education toward a social order based on production for use and not for
profit.”14 In 1941 John Dewey served as president of the League. In 1906, the same
year in which Sinclair’s The Jungle was published in book form, an article by Jack
London, What life means to me, appeared, in which London complains of the
mental and moral corruption of the upper classes and expresses sympathy for the
working class (London, 1906). Both Sinclair’s and also London’s works belonged
to the canon of socialist enlightening education (Intercollegiate Socialist Society
Study Course on Socialism, 1916).
Whatever it was that Theodore Roosevelt and Upton Sinclair discussed over
lunch in the summer of 1906, certainly they would not have reached agreement on
that version of a socialist education of immigrants for the purposes of the
revolution. Roosevelt himself advocated a completely different concept of
democratic education of the immigrants. Nine years earlier, in 1897, while still
serving as police commissioner of New York City, he had participated in a “school
republic” experiment with 1,100 Russian Jewish immigrant children sponsored by
the Patriotic League (Gill, 1909). Its stated goal was to “improve Citizenship
through training in Citizenship.” The didactic principle of training meant student
self-government in schools organized like small republics: “The following studies
in city problems were prepared with the idea of presenting in simple form and in a
way that would appeal to school children a few of the main problems of
government in large cities. Co-operation is the watchword of practical city
government, and the efficiency of the city administration depends very largely
upon the spirit of co-operation developed in the young citizens by means of the
public schools” (Gill, 1909, p. 7). The first experimental school republics
apparently enjoyed overwhelming success, for after 1898 school republics were
introduced in many cities in the United States, in US-administered Cuba, and
finally, as an exported concept, also in Great Britain and in Asia. The
schoolchildren elected leaders, a school council, and legal authorities, and they had
the right to petition (see photographs). A manual of advice on school republics was
published in 1901 (Gill, 1901).
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DANIEL TRÖHLER
Counting votes in a Cuban School

In: Wilson L. Gill (1909). City Problems. New York/Philadelphia: The Patrotic League.
The newly elected mayor addresses his electorate

In: Wilson L. Gill (1909). City Problems. New York/Philadelphia: The Patrotic League.
With the school republics, the Patriotic League aimed to teach citizenship by
giving children, while they were still impressionable, practice in the civic
responsibility “to make laws, to observe and enforce laws and to be judicial” (Gill,
1909, p. 74). This political education, that is, republican, program was also
76
legitimized psychologically. Teacher of psychology Jeannette E. Graham and

normal school principal Myron T. Scudder made the plea that “students have a
voice in the management of the school” as “actual practice,” because the ultimate
goal was not only political-collective self-government of the republic, but also the
self-regulation of the individual, which was to be rehearsed in practice
(Graham/Scudder 1901, pp. 2-3)
It is with this legalistic understanding of republic or democracy that Roosevelt
will have countered Sinclair’s socialist utopia. Even though Roosevelt found the
products of the investigative journalists, for whom he coined the term
muckrakers,15 unpleasant, in 1906 he did indeed send his own agents to Chicago to
investigate whether Sinclair’s charges could be confirmed. This led to the passage
of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in the same year. With
these actions, Roosevelt snatched the problem described by Sinclair out of the jaws
of the ideology of the Marxist philosophy of history, reduced it to locally
contingent production factors, and created a solution to the problem in the form of
laws and regulations that referred exclusively to those production factors:
henceforth, no animals that died during transport to the slaughterhouses were to be
processed and canned. The socialist ideal of democracy thus lost out to the idea of
procedural democracy, which had a weakening effect on the “argument” of public
outrage, which in part grounded in socialist education efforts.
4. THE SOCIAL ETHICAL BASES OF ADDAMS’ PRAGMATISM: SOCIAL VERSUS

POLITICAL DEMOCRACY
With Sinclair and Roosevelt as representatives, two concepts stood opposite each
other that aimed to provide answers to the massive problems in urban America,
leaving a third concept unconsidered that was developed essentially in Chicago.
For this reason, I focus in the following on the solution possibilities and strategies
that were discussed by those close to the Chicago School, in which democracy was
seen neither as a victory (in the vote) towards a classless society nor primarily as a
procedural matter. Instead, a democracy was that which Dewey called “more than a
form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint
communicated experience” in 1916 (Dewey, 1916/1980, p. 93). It was this concept
that explains why, among the political philosophers, Dewey preferred Thomas
Jefferson to Locke, Bentham, and Mill, for, as he says in 1939 in Freedom and
Culture, “Jefferson’s formulation [of democracy] is moral through and through: in
its foundation, its methods, its ends” (Dewey, 1939/1988, p. 173). In this
connection, Dewey himself refers to his earlier book of 1927, The Public and its
Problems, and quotes a lengthy passage from that work that says: “Democracy
must begin at home, and its home is the neighborly community” (Dewey,
1927/1954, p. 213). None other than precisely this was Jane Addam’s aim with
reference to the problems of urbanization when she, together with Ellen Gates
Starr, opened the doors of her social settlement house, Hull House, in Chicago’s
19th ward in 1889 – years before Dewey began to think about this subject.
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DANIEL TRÖHLER
The founding of numerous settlements in the United States led the American
Ethical Union to ask Henry C. Adams, a colleague of John Dewey at the University
of Michigan, to head its six-week summer school, the School of Applied Ethics in
Plymouth, Massachusetts, for the year 1892.16 Adams was a professor of political
economy. Like many of his colleagues in the sphere of the social sciences of the
day, he had devoted himself to the task of putting together economy, democracy,
and religion (Rockefeller, 1991, p. 170, p. 186) or, in his own words, to the realize
“idea of social progress” in the context of a society that was being decisively
transformed by industry (Adams, 1893, p. vif.). The third week of the summer
school addressed the topic of “Philanthropy and Social Progress,” and several
people representing the settlement movement, who had “devoted their lives to the
realization of the principles which they advocate” (p. viii), were invited to speak.
Jane Addams gave two talks.
In her first talk, on the “subjective necessity for social settlements,” Addams
sketched out the motives underlying her settlement. She later came back to these
explanations many times in her talks and writings, and this talk, published in 1893,
appeared in 1920 almost word for word in Twenty Years at Hull-House (1910).
“Hull House endeavors to make social intercourse express the growing sense of the
economic unity of society. It is an effort to add the social function to democracy”
(Addams, 1893, p. 1). Addams says that democracy is essentially characterized by
a social dimension and function, which she sees as not fulfilled most particularly in
those districts of the cities in which a high proportion of working immigrants are
concentrated in certain neighborhoods. She derives the social function of
democracy from the premise of the dependency of the social classes on each other.
She explains: “Hull House was opened on the theory that the dependence of classes
on each other is reciprocal; and that as social relation is essentially a reciprocal
relation, it gave a form of expression that has peculiar value” (pp. 1-2). She
explains this social-ethical premise on the basis of three underlying motives, which
together reveal how strongly Hull House – like all the settlements in the United
States – had a religious motivation. The three motives underlying the settlement
movement that Addams analyzes – the desire to realize democracy as a social
organism, the natural impulse to put social energy into the progress of humanity
(which is impeded by the wrong kind of education), and a certain renaissance of
Christianity towards its early humanitarian aspects – show how towards the end of
the nineteenth century, liberal Calvinism saw itself as capable, aided by the
findings of evolutionary theory, of offering to the urban problems a response that
seemed, at least, modern.
Democracy as a social organism

While Americans may be pledged to the ideal of democracy, says Addams (1893),
the realization of democracy has not gone much beyond the right to vote for men:
“We have refused to move beyond the position of its eighteenth-century leaders,
who believed that political equality alone would secure all good to all men” (pp. 2-
3). As clearly illustrated by the abolishing of slavery, giving the right to the ballot
78
is alone no protection from social ostracism; whereas the democratic ideal is

followed as a procedural and political ideal, it is not pursued “as our ideal in social
intercourse” (p. 3). The widespread practice of buying votes for drinks in the
barrooms and the system of “bossism” in politics, which ultimately strives for a
hierarchical feudal system by means of corruption, have demonstrated the
limitations of a democracy that builds only on the franchise. But it is precisely the
manifestations of this undemocratic process, says Addams, that have made it plain
to people how greatly lacking democracy is in social terms. In contrast to
Roosevelt, Addams does not believe that this public outrage can be countered
simply by passing better laws, nor that it can be countered with socialism, but
instead only by a new understanding of democracy that builds upon and at the
same time corrects the first understanding of democracy of the French Revolution.
Democracy based on the theory of natural rights is a product of the eighteenth
century and bears the insignia of French thinking emerging from anti-monarchism:
“We are perhaps entering upon the second phase of democracy, as the French
philosophers entered upon the first, somewhat bewildered by its logical
conclusions” (p. 4).
Whatever may have been clear and convincing to the French philosophes, in
Addams’ view, is not applicable to modern conditions of urbanization, because in
reality there is no interaction in large districts of the cities between people and
between the various groups of immigrants. People live side by side without
knowledge of one another, without fellowship, without local tradition or public
spirit, and especially, without “social organization of any kind” (Addams, 1893, p.
4). No one makes efforts to remedy this lack of social contact, and the people who
might do it live in other parts of the city, far away from the immigrant quarters.
Clubhouses, libraries, and galleries are for most residents of Chicago unreachably
far away, so that often their only place for social life is the saloon, “their only host
a bartender; a local demagogue forms their public opinion” (p. 5).
The division of the city into rich and poor, into the favored – who express their
sense of social obligation by giving gifts of money – and the unfavored – “who
express it by clamoring for a ‘share’” (Addams, 1893, p. 5f.) – must not be
mistaken for the democratic ideal of social interaction and cooperation, and it is, as
Addams says at a later time, unAmerican: “I object to the word class. It is
unamerican. There are no classes in this country. The people are all Americans
with no dividing line drawn” (Addams, 1899, as cited in Elshtain, 2002a, p. 124).
However, Addams does not moralistically attribute the lack of social interaction to
the ‘evil city’, but instead to inadequate adaptation to the new given conditions,
which was an expression of the wrong kind of education.
Critique of contemporary education

It is incomprehensible, says Addams, that children during their education are
deliberately exposed to knowledge of the distress of the world, sent to hear talks by
missionaries on the famines in India and China and to lectures on the sufferings in
Siberia and in London’s East End, fostered from babyhood on in their altruistic
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DANIEL TRÖHLER
tendencies (Addams, 1893, p. 14) and taught to be self-sacrificing, self-forgetting,

and to “consider the good of the Whole before the good of the Ego” (p. 14) – only
to then, precisely at that time in their lives when social service as self-education
and as a contribution to social progress are possible for them, namely after college,
be prevented by society and their parents from putting these ideas into active
practice. Society and their parents call their longings and zeal for social justice
“unjustified” and “ill-advised”: “These young people have had advantages of
college, of European travel and economic study, but they are sustaining this shock
of inaction” (p. 15). Particularly young women are as a rule excluded from all
meaningful work, even though that is what they strive for: “They feel a fatal want
of harmony between their theory and their lives, a lack of co-ordination between
thought and action” (p. 6). But the schools in America serve the political aspect of
democracy only, and not the social aspect, not least because in the public schools
“in the poorest and most crowded wards of the city” there are too many pupils and
the teachers are insufficiently trained (p. 7).
Addams interprets young people’s longing to perform social service not as an
ethical postulate, but as an expression of a kind of shared memory of humans’ long
survival past, a trace of the “starvation struggle of humanity which for so long
made up the life of the race” (Addams, 1893, p. 10) that is still to be found among
the contemporaries (p. 11). “There is a heritage of noble obligations which young
people accept and long to perpetuate. The desire for action, the wish to right wrong
and alleviate suffering, haunts them daily” (p. 13). Their feeling that the things that
make us all alike are stronger than the things that make us different and their
feeling that all people are united in their needs and sympathies, their notion of
human brotherhood (p. 14) are destroyed, if young adults are shut off from the
possibility to help the other part of humanity – at the cost that they themselves
remain only half educated.
Renaissance of early Christianity

Addams identifies the third motive propelling the founding of settlements, living in
underprivileged neighborhoods, and social service as the need to express the spirit
of Christ. There is no proof from the records, says Addams, who had briefly visited
the catacombs of Rome, that the early Christians called themselves a religion, just
as “Jesus had no set of truths labelled ‘Religious.’… His teaching had no dogma to
mark it off from truth and action in general” (Addams, 1893, p. 17). The early
Christians had understood that “action is the only medium man has for receiving
and appropriating truth” (pp. 17-18). The fellowship of the early Christians was a
true democracy, now in the service of social progress, help for the poor, children,
and the aged: “The Settlement movement is only one manifestation of that wider
humanitarian movement which throughout Christendom, but pre-eminently in
England, is endeavoring to embody itself, not in a sect, but in society itself” (p.
19); “I believe that this turning, this renaissance of the early Christian
humanitarianism, is going on in America, in Chicago, if you please, without
80
leaders who write or philosophize, without much speaking, but with a bent to
express in social service, in terms of action, the spirit of Christ” (p. 20).
This humanitarianism is not aimed at homogeneity, but at mutual exchange; it is
what makes it at all possible to form out of insurmountable differences a plurality,
which ultimately does create a kind of unity. But the reason why homogeneity is
not viewed as a goal is that it is – basically – presumed. In other words, the people
living and working in the settlements are therefore not so much social workers as
they are committed and active citizens, who want to fulfill their duty of “good
citizenship” in a particularly exemplary manner: “They are bound to regard the
entire life of their city as organic, to make an effort to unify it, and to protest
against its over-differentiation” (Addams, 1893, p. 23). They were attempting to
develop and realize a social ethic based on the given situation, knowing well that
the given situation would change once again.
5. EXPERIMENT, SCIENCE, AND CONTINGENCY: REFORM AS ADAPTATION OF

ETHICAL LEITMOTIFS TO REAL-WORLD CONDITIONS
Improving on Roosevelt’s political-procedural understanding of democracy with

the ideal of a social democracy, as is contained in Sinclair’s philosophy of history,
stands opposite, on the other side, Addam’s discriminating skepticism of Sinclair’s
philosophy. According to Addams, in agreement with the findings of evolutionary
theory known at the time, there is no final salvation at the end of history, but
instead only steady attempts to improve the conditions of life in the direction of
social democracy. This reform has an experimental character, as Addams
expressed clearly in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1892: “The Settlement is … an
experimental effort to aid in the solution of the social and industrial problems
which are engendered by the modern conditions of life in a great city” (Addams,
1893, p. 22).
Social justice is thus not an eternal and transcendental teaching of salvation, but
instead something that is possible only as real and contextualized – not as a theory
of values at the end of history, but as awaited concretely in specific situations of
realization. It is not necessary to claim this fact, or circumstance, on the basis of
ideologies, such as for instance on the dichotomization of capital and proletariat or
individual and society, but it is instead something to be researched scientifically.
To this purpose, some of the residents of the Hull House Settlement investigated
conditions in their Near West Side neighborhood in 1893 and 1984 and compiled
comprehensive statistical material, including housing situation, family, nationality,
and wage levels (Holbrook, 1895, p. 7), and they meticulously chronicled the work
in the factories and its medical and social consequences. They compiled the results
in Hull-House Maps and Papers, published collectively in 1895 carrying the
subtitle A Presentation of Nationalities and Wages in a Congested District of
Chicago, together with Comments and Essays on Problems growing out of the
Social Conditions.
In the Appendix to Maps and Papers, Addams affirms that the residents came to
Hull House guided by a conviction, namely, “that social intercourse could best
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DANIEL TRÖHLER
express the growing sense of the economic unity of society” (Addams, 1895, p.
207). The repeated emphasis on the economic unity of society must be understood
in the context of the great Pullman Strike in Chicago that had shaken America few
months previously. This was a strike by industrialist George Pullman’s workers in
Pullmantown, an entire town that Pullman built for the manufacture of his famous
railway sleeping cars.17 The comfort and hygienic standards of the company-owned
town led Pullman to be praised and celebrated as a great philanthropist among
major industrialists. However, in the economic crises of the 1880s and 1890s, the
company cut wages a number of times, but failed to reduce the rent in the
company-owned housing accordingly. As a result of this double squeeze, the
Pullman workers came into dire economic circumstances, and they went on strike
in May of 1894. Sympathetic railway workers decided to support the Pullman
workers by boycotting trains carrying Pullman cars nationwide. Federal troops
were called in to break the strike and keep the trains moving across the nation,
which prompted violence and looting in Chicago. Subsequently, many union
members turned to socialism in the conviction that only political power of workers
could make social justice possible.18
Addams compared Pullman to Shakespeare’s tragic King Lear. Addams wrote
that Pullman, like King Lear, had confounded the familial and political dimensions
and failed to notice that Pullmantown had become more and more commercial in
its purpose: “Unfortunately, the end to be obtained became ultimately commercial
and not social, having in view the payment to the company of at least 4 percent on
the money invested” (Addams, 1895/1912/2002, p. 166) – and this independently
of the wages that the company had cut. Addams reproaches Pullman mainly for not
recognizing the signs of the times, namely, the social consequences caused by
industry, which after all Pullman so inimitably represented. Like Lear, she writes,
he had not been able to “catch the great moral lesson which their times offered
them” (p. 168). Pullman did not see the growing social and political consciousness
of the workers. He had continued to hold to his idea for them of cleanliness,
decency of living, thrift, and temperance, “but he suddenly found his town in the
sweep of a world-wide moral impulse” – contemptuously called the “Labor
Movement” by his colleagues (p. 169). “Outside the ken of this philanthropist, the
proletariat had learned to say in many languages that ‘the injury of one is the
concern of all.’ Their watchwords were brotherhood, sacrifice, the subordination of
individual and trade interests to the good of the working class; and their persistent
strivings were toward the ultimate freedom of that class from the conditions under
which they now labor. Compared to these watchwords, the old ones which the
philanthropic employer had given his town were negative and inadequate” (p. 169),
and the industrialist came to be seen as the expression of repression. Pullman
“stood throughout pleading for the individual virtues … Of the new code of ethics
he had caught absolutely nothing” (p. 170). What he failed to do was to adapt the
system of virtues to the changed circumstances – that is, to a work force that had
become more enlightened through industrialization: “The virtues of one generation
are not sufficient for the next, any more than the accumulation of knowledge
possessed by one age are adequate to the needs of another. (…) A task is laid upon
82
each generation to enlarge their application, to ennoble their conception, and,

above all, to apply and adapt them to the peculiar problems presented to it for
solution” (p. 171).19 The social ethical power of Puritanism still dominated in the
industrial life in the cities, as Addams writes in The Spirit of Youth and the City
Streets (Addams, 1909, p. 108).
6. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AS A DEMAND OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
Addams’ rejection of the modern theory of “natural rights” (eighteenth-century

social contract theory) as the basis for democracy and her high estimation of
tradition could easily have led her to take a reactionary position on the woman
suffrage issue, particularly because she did not distance herself from women’s
traditional domestic role. On the contrary, however, she took a clear position in
support of women’s voting rights – at the Second Conference of the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom in Zurich in 1919 she was made
international president of the organization – but her argumentation strategy is based
on the premises of Chicago pragmatism. She says that it is quite natural and logical
that in the ancient city-states, which were largely concerned with protection and
defense, the franchise was given only to those who bore arms (Addams, 1907, p.
180). In contrast, however, “the modern city fears no enemies, and rivals from
without and its problems of government are solely internal” (p. 182), and the
problems to be overcome include “insanitary housing, poisonous sewage,
contaminated water, infant mortality” (p. 182). It had always been the women in
the family who fought those problems, therefore: “Logically, its electorate should
be made up of those who can bear a valiant part in this arduous contest, of those
who in the past have at least attempted to care for children, to clean houses, to
prepare foods, to isolate the family from moral dangers, of those who have
traditionally taken care of that side of life which, as soon as the population is
congested, inevitably becomes the subject of municipal consideration and control”
(p. 182) and yet, the representatives are still those who in earlier times bore the
weapons: the men. But a modern city administration is no longer a warring city-
state, but rather in many respects “a great business corporation” and “in other
respects it is enlarged housekeeping” (pp. 182-183). “It is difficult to see what
military prowess has to do with the multiform duties, which, in a modern city,
include the care of parks and libraries, superintendence of markets, sewers, and
bridges, the inspection of provisions and boilers, and the proper disposal of
garbage” (p. 183).
The urban transformation of formerly domestic feminine activities into public
masculine activities was the reason why the centuries-long experience of women
no longer carried weight and the reason why the problems were not being
sufficiently solved (Addams, 1907, pp. 184-185) – which is the reason for
introducing woman suffrage at the local level, not in order to give them more rights
or to grant them as many rights as men, but in order to restore and maintain that
thing lost that they had always had, a voice in their most traditional area of activity
and influence. Addams hopes for two results if women participate formally in
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DANIEL TRÖHLER
municipal life: “First, the opportunity to fulfill their old duties and obligations with
the safeguard and the consideration which the ballot alone can secure for them
under the changed conditions, and, second, the education which participation in
actual affairs always brings” (p. 207). Therefore, woman suffrage is not necessary
on the basis of a natural rights construction of the equality of women’s and men’s
social tasks, but instead due to the changed conditions of life, which led women to
have their traditional tasks taken away from them. George Herbert Mead, who
reviewed Addams’ Newer Ideals of Peace shortly after its publication in 1907,
reinforced the critique of the social isolation of both the workers in the labor
unions and the political establishment in their villas, the reduction of politics to
“purely repressive and legal” foundations, and the subsequent lost chance of a
“more organic community control”. He joins in support of Addams’ thesis, which
he calls the “social point of view” that is “the expression of enlightened social
intelligence in sympathetic contact with men, women, and children” and which he
sums up as follows: “that social control, that government, must arise out of these
immediate human relations” (Mead, 1907, pp. 123-124, p. 128).
Only eight years later in 1915, Jane Addams repeats her concern in a pamphlet,
but more clearly this time. Her appeal, Why women should vote, begins: “This
paper is an attempt to show that many women to-day are failing to discharge their
duties to their own households properly simply because they do not perceive that as
society grows more complicated it, is necessary that woman shall extend her sense
of responsibility to many things outside of her own home if she would continue to
preserve the home in its entirety” (Addams, 1915, p. 2). She refers to the
complexity of life in the big cities and the impossibility for women to keep their
families healthy, to even secure untainted foods. “In short, if woman would keep
on with her old business of caring for her house and rearing her children she will
have to have some conscience in regard to public affairs lying quite outside of her
immediate household. The individual conscience and devotion are no longer
effective” (p. 2). She writes that even if women follow only their traditional
activities, there are “certain primary duties which belong to even the most
conservative women, and which no one woman or group of women can adequately
discharge unless they join the more general movements looking toward social
amelioration through legal enactment. The first of these, of which this article has
already treated, is woman’s responsibility for the members of her own household
that they may be properly fed and clothed and surrounded by hygienic conditions.
The second is a responsibility for the education of children: (a) that they may be
provided with good books; (b) that they may be kept free from vicious influences
on the street; (c) that when working they may be protected by adequate child-labor
legislation” (pp. 5-7).
It was precisely because of the changed, male world of industry – as it appears
in Addams’ interpretation – that women were now required in the procedural
politics, so that through politics, or social democracy, economics could be
prevented from completely dominating society and so that social intercourse, that
core of a social democracy, could be made possible. Not natural rights, but instead
84
the liberal Calvinistic vision of salvation in the world defined the necessity of
woman suffrage.
7. OUTLOOK
Addams had understanding for political democracy and sympathies even with the
social-ethical motive of socialism, but she showed resistance to the reduction of
democracy to procedures and to the historical premise of socialism that the free
market economy went hand-in-hand with the dualism of capitalist and proletariat,
which existed solely in order to be overcome by the classless society (Addams,
1910/1935, p. 186). Particularly with regard to the immigrants, her completely
different concept of democracy stands in clear contrast to, for instance, Theodore
Roosevelt’s: “In the induction of the adult immigrant into practical citizenship, we
constantly ignore his daily experience. We also assume in our formal attempts to
teach patriotism to him and to his children, that experience and traditions have no
value, and that a new sentiment must be put into aliens by some external process”
(Addams, 1907, p. 75). But she could have also criticized the fact that the school
republics, as precursors to the later “Americanization” program in the United
States, were used to assimilate not all children, but only immigrants (Kellor, 1916)
and were then also used as such in occupied countries, such as Cuba, and for the
integration of Native Americans (Gill, 1913). That program was grounded not least
in the assumption that American values – that is, white and Protestant-political
values – were the right values and had seen their light of day within the American
institutions and could be reinforced and handed down through rehearsal.
Jane Addams was not at all far away from these values, except for the fact that
she was greatly skeptical of institutions. Her ideal – like that of Mead or Dewey –
was in the end the Protestant congregation, which ultimately worked towards
realization of the idea of the Kingdom of God on Earth.20 Institutions, however,
regulate differences and distinctions, which runs precisely contrary to the idea of
an interest community embracing all people. In a lecture at Ann Arbor prior to his
call to the University of Chicago, George Herbert Mead had said this about the
community of interests: “I think it must a fair though perhaps abstract statement,
that Jesus’ principle was the recognition of the identity of interests in all social life
– Figured by him constantly in Kingdom of Heaven in which men were the
children of the Father of all. – A principle so general that failure to recognize it
meant death and partial recognition brought necessary war. Think not I am come to
send peace on earth. I came not to send peace but a sword [this is virtually identical
to Matthew 10:34]” (Mead ca. 1893, p. 25).
Not artificial, meaning institutional, but rather people’s everyday experiences
build the foundations for democracy, under the condition that these experiences are
“complete.” That is the actual aim of education that Addams, certainly under the
influence of the conceptual clarity of Dewey’s The School and Society, demands:
“The democratic ideal demands of the school that it shall give the child’s own
experience a social value; that it shall teach him to direct his own activities and
adjust them to those of other people” (Addams, 1902/1964, p. 180). This, in turn,
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DANIEL TRÖHLER
requires a new and different interpretation of the role of the teacher: “It is at last on
behalf of the average workingmen that our increasing democracy impels us to
make a new demand upon the educator. As the political expression of democracy
has claimed for the workingman the free right of citizenship, so a code of social
ethics is now insisting that he shall be a conscious member of society, having some
notion of his social and industrial value” (p. 192). Only this makes possible that
which has up to now been the theoretical possibility of political democracy – that
the children of workers one day could participate actively in social, political, and
economic life (p. 195). For this reason, Mead demanded, some years later: “In an
industrial democracy the citizen must sufficiently understand the tools and the
processes to comprehend and criticize the tool and its use. This is not only
necessary for the technical efficiency of the industry. It is equally essential for the
social control of the conditions of labor” (Mead, 1808/09, p. 380). And this
demanded the harmonization of scholastic and industrial education: “The school
and the shop must go hand in hand in modern artisanship. Their lack of connection
in the old system spells the disappearance of the old-time system as the old-time
artisan has disappeared. There can be no question that the modern artisan demands
schooling if he is not to be a mere creature of the machine” (p. 372).
Upon this background, the commercial view of the school, which already had its
proponents at the time and saw education mainly as a form of investment, was
rejected (Addams, 1902/1964, p. 198), because the aim of the harmonization of
industry and democracy was not commercialization of the school, but rather
humanization of industry (p. 190), to be achieved through general education. The
division of labor in industry made an even stronger demand on the school for
general education that transmitted a sense of social and economic responsibility:
“If the shop constantly tends to make the workman a specialist, then the problem of
the educator in regard to him is quite clear: it is to give him what may be the off-set
from the over-specialization of his daily work, to supply him with general
information and to insist that he shall be a cultivated member of society with a
consciousness of his industrial and social value” (p. 211f.). Ultimately – and this
was the deepest conviction – redemption must arrive through social democracy
(Tröhler, 2005): “We must learn to trust our democracy, giant-like and threatening
as it may appear in its uncouth strength and untried applications” (Addams, 1895,
p. 198).
It was Addams who encouraged in Dewey this fundamentally Protestant idea
when he was wavering due to the events of the Pullman Strike. Already in 1886,
the changes within the industrial society had led him to examine the economic and
socialist literature: “This morning I spent in the laboratory (lapsus calami – I mean
library) trying to find something on the effects of machinery, and woe be to me, I
found so much I wished I hadn’t found any. I found a number of French and
German histories of laboring class that I didn’t know anything about before”
(Dewey, Letter to Alice Chipman Dewey, dated March 29, 1886). A few days later,
he wrote: “My forenoons now are spent in the library reading up on machinery &
wages &c. (…) It has opened up a new field to me. I almost wish sometimes I was
in pol[itical] ec[onomy], it is so thoroughly human” (Dewey, Letter to Alice
86
Chipman Dewey, dated April 1, 1886). The Pullman Strike occurred just as Dewey
moved to Chicago. Churned up by the events, Dewey went to see Jane Addams. As
he wrote in a letter to his wife that autumn, Alice Chipman Dewey, Addams
explained to him “that antagonism was not only useless and harmful, but entirely
unnecessary; that it lay never in the objective differences, which would always
grow into unity if left alone.” Dewey (at first) did not agree with this
characterization, as he told his wife in the same letter, for he after all defended the
idea of the difference of the classes. But upon waking in the night, Dewey took up
the letter again and wrote: “I guess I’ll have to give it all up & start over again. I
suppose that’s the subjective nature of sin; the only reality is unity, but we assume
there is antagonism & then it all goes wrong” (Dewey, Letter to Alice Chipman
Dewey, dated October 18, 1894). Two days later he apologized to Addams: “I wish
to take back what I said the other night. Not only is actual antagonizing bad, but
the assumption that there is or may be antagonism is bad” (Dewey, Letter to Jane
Addams, dated October 12, 1894).
Semantically, the reformed Protestant (Calvinist) idea of unity could not be
better suited in a republican country that saw itself as a melting pot, through which
at the practical level, however, essentially assimilation and not cooperation
predominated. It is not a coincidence that the program of Americanization emerged
out of the school republic movement (Tyack, 2003). However, visions such as the
socialist one had no chance of acquiring greater popularity, because although
socialism shared the claim to redemption of Calvinist Protestantism, it contradicted
its fundamental values. When the German sociologist Werner Sombart attempted
to explain in 1906 why there was no socialism in the United States, he pointed to –
somewhat reluctantly – the American workers’ love of the political system, the
almost religious admiration of the Constitution, and the sovereignty of the people,
which had “a number of far-reaching consequences,” such as political self-
awareness and, especially, that thing hardly comprehensible to Sombart called
“public opinion” (Sombart, 1906, p. 76ff.). Particularly this last, he wrote, made
class differences invisible (p. 79), and “groveling and crawling before the ‘higher
classes’” was unknown; the American worker “associates with everybody – really
and not just in theory – just like he associates with his own kind” (p. 128), so that
he “can never become aware of his true position” (p. 131). Sombart believed in the
socialist thesis according to which social position formed consciousness, and as he
could not find confirmation of this in the United States, it was left to him only to
reproach the Americans for having lost the “sense of the immeasurable uniqueness
of the personhood for the scent of that which is individual” – thus speaking as if
the socialist vision of the collective were particularly individual (p. 19).
After a brief boom in the 1880s, socialism appeared in the United States at most
as a movement in the form of Christian socialism,21 which rejected precisely the
idea that consciousness is attributable to the economic situation, as Paul Monroe
wrote: “Some forms of socialism, especially communistic types, are based on
things; Christian socialism is based on personality” (Monroe, 1895, p. 65). But also
this mode of thinking could never predominate over the Protestant concept of
harmony: “The relation between the individual and society as an organism has not
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DANIEL TRÖHLER
been harmonized by the Christian socialists, though their perception is nearer the
truth of this mutual relation than either individualism or other socialism” (p. 68).
Sombart did not understand that the Protestantism that dominated in the discourse
in the United States rejected differences per se and assumed harmony. But it was
only this that made it possible to emphasize “social” democracy so strongly as
distinct from “political-procedural” democracy and to see the mission for
democracy as American and reformed Protestant. The first president of the
University of Chicago, William Rainey Harper – biblical scholar, one of the
foremost scholars of Hebrew in the United States, and a Baptist – explained in his
talk, America as a Missionary Field, that with the dawn of the new century, the
fourth part of world history had begun, with its center in the United States: “The
history of civilization has been synchronous with the development of a pure and
true conception of God, and of his relation to man” – meaning the Baptist
Protestant interpretation of God and His relation to man (Harper, 1904, p. 175).
The mission enjoined on the people by God demanded a double orientation: “What
is needed? The gospel and education” (p. 180f.). Gospel and education together
empowered the United States to do missionary world: “In this work of educating
humanity to understand God and itself, America is the training-school for teachers”
(p. 184).
That the mission concept can still serve as a scientific motivation – particularly
in the research on pragmatism focusing on Dewey – is shown by the stability of
this language, even though this state of affairs is rather unsettling (and not only
from a European point of view). Steven Rockefeller’s comprehensive study on
Dewey, for instance, starts out with the following declaration of belief: “This task
is undertaken in the conviction that the greatest relevance of Dewey’s philosophy
to the dilemmas of contemporary American society and the merging global
community is to be found just here in the way he endeavored to address the
intellectual, social, and religious problems of the age by holding them together and
thinking them through together.” And as stated in the Rockefeller’s preface,
Dewey’s relevance is not restricted to America, but rather holds “for all those
throughout the world today who love freedom and seek to pursue the democratic
way of life” (Rockefeller, 1991, p. 5; p. ix).
This shows how a specific form of religious belief is still able to shape the social
and political discourse, how it even survived the civil rights movement of the 1960s
(Marsh 2005), and, at present, has led to the Faith-Based and Community
Initiatives by executive order of the president of the United States, a policy that has
eliminated the regulatory and policy barriers that kept faith-based organizations
from receiving federal funding for social and educational programs that are under
the control of religious organizations instead of the government (Wuthnow, 2004).
These developments cannot be blamed on Dewey, Addams, or any other
intellectuals of their time and probably not even to current research, although by
now one should be able to expect that research no longer focus on individual
(male) heroes. There is no good reason for the exclusion of Jane Addams in the
research on pragmatism, and not only because she is interesting per se, but rather
also because it is when Addams’ arguments – together with those of the other
88
exponents – are considered that the discursive dynamics of a specific network of

thinkers becomes visible. It is true that through this, statements of theories become
historicized and contextualized and “ideas” are traced back to particular modes of
thought, or discourses, which in turn leads to a relativizing of the common topoi of
pragmatism research and also (probably) to the need for popular admiration
literature. But only in this way can the issues and arguments of pragmatism be
compared internationally and, through this careful consideration and weighing up,
be evaluated as to their theoretical validity (today).
NOTES
1
Hans Joas also starts out from “four representatives” of pragmatism, whereby his account – perhaps
because of his unmistakable sympathy for George Herbert Mead – follows a chronology of the years
of birth of Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead (Joas, 1992, p. 7; 11; et passim). Gert Biesta and
Nicholas Burbules likewise start out by mentioning Peirce, James, and Dewey as founding fathers,
with Mead further developing their positions; in addition, they mention the younger Clarence Irwing
Lewis (1883-1964) (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 4). However, they then focus their analysis
exclusively on Dewey.
2
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) celebrates Jane
Addams as one of the founding members; see http://www.africanamericans.com/JaneAddams.htm
(Retrieved June 21, 2005). Apparently, she and John Dewey, among many others, signed the
manifesto “Call for the Lincoln Emancipation Conference in 1909”; see
http://www.glencoe.com/sec/socialstudies/btt/celebratingfreedom/pdfs/181.PDF (Retrieved June 21,
2005). But there still remain some problems of racism among the Chicago pragmatists; see Deegan
(2002).
3
See the interesting animated version of Chicago growth maps at
http://tigger.uic.edu/depts/ahaa/imagebase/chimaps/mcclendon.html (Retrieved October 20, 2004).
4
On the connections among sociology, Sozialpädagogik, and architecture in Chicago, see Althans
(2003). The developments also led to broad reception of the public debate on urban architecture, in
which especially Montgomery Schuyler could make his mark, whose works appeared in new
editions in 1961 (Jordy & Coe, 1961). Impressive evidence of the architectural strategies for dealing
with the urban situation is available at the Boston College Digital Archive of American Architecture
at http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/chicago.html (Retrieved October 20, 2004).
5
Public anger over the urban developments in the United States and the demand for professional
handling of the problems are illustrated especially clearly in, for example, Lamb (1897).
6
In the year 1900, 77% of the residents of Chicago were first or second generation immigrants; see
Creesey (1938).
7
In 1934 Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California. Although he got 900,000 votes, he lost the
election, mainly because of a smear campaign by the Los Angeles Times. (Information retrieved
October 20, 2004, at http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/sinclair.htm).
8
Letter from Upton Sinclair to President Theodore Roosevelt, March 10, 1906, available at National
Archives and Records Administration,
http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/american_originals/meat.html (Retrieved October 20, 2004).
9
Originally, The Jungle appeared in serial form in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason in 1905,
from February 25, 1905, until November 4, 2005. I thank Ellen Russon for this information.
10
Jack London, who descended into London’s East End to chronicle the life of the poor in The People
of the Abyss (1903) has often been considered Upton Sinclair’s literary predecessor and was a great
influence on Sinclair’s political development.
11
Clarence Darrow had (unsuccessfully) defended Eugene V. Debs, president of the American
Railway Union, when Debs was arrested for contempt of court over difficulties arising from the
Pullman Strike of 1894 (see note 18).
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DANIEL TRÖHLER
12
Information provided by “Upton Sinclair starts the Intercollegiate Socialist Society Information”,
History of Education Web site, edited by Daniel Schugurensky at
http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~daniel_schugurensky/assignment1/1905sinclair.html (Retrieved October
20, 2004).
13
Information provided on the Stony Brook University Libraries Web site at
http://www.sunysb.edu/libspecial/collections/manuscripts/leagueforindustrial.html (Retrieved June
14, 2005).
14
Source: see note 12 above.
15
“President Theodore Roosevelt responded to investigative journalism by initiating legislation that
would help tackle some of the problems illustrated by these journalists. This included persuading
Congress to pass reforms such as the Pure Food and Drugs Act (…) and the Meat Inspection Act
(…). Roosevelt was seen to be on the side of these investigative journalists until David Graham
Phillips began a series of articles in Cosmopolitan entitled The Treason in the Senate. This included
an attack on some of Roosevelt’s political allies and he responded with a speech where he compared
the investigative journalist with the muckraker in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress” (Spartacus
Educational Web Site at http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jmuckraking.htm, retrieved October
20, 2004).
16
The social settlement movement neither originated in the United States nor did Jane Addams found
the first American social settlement. The first settlement house, Toynbee Hall in East London, was
founded by Samuel Barnett in 1884; in 1886 the first settlement in the United States was founded in
New York City by Stanton Coit. Jane Addams, however, can pride herself upon opening the first
mixed-sex settlement (see overall Woods and Kennedy, 1911).
17
The information on the Pullman Strike in this paragraph is taken from the Chicago Library Web site
at http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/disasters/pullman_strike.html (Retrieved June 15, 2005).
18
For example, Eugene Debs, leader of the American Railway Union. Debs was sentenced for having
violated the injunction against the Pullman strike to a year in jail, where he began to read Karl Marx.
In his description of his life, he writes: “The Chicago strike was in many respects the grandest
industrial battle in history, and I am prouder of my small share in it than of any other act of my life.
Men, women and children were on the verge of starvation at the ‘model city’ of Pullman. (…)
President Cleveland says that we were put down because we had acted in violation of the Sherman
Anti-Trust law of 1890. Will he kindly state what other trusts were proceeded against and what
capitalists were sentenced to prison during his administration?” (Debs, 1908, pp. 204-205).
19
Addams wrote this text drawing an analogy between Pullman and King Lear about a year after the
Pullman Strike and gave it as an address, possibly in 1896, to the Chicago Woman’s Club and the
Twentieth Century Club of Boston. She submitted it for publication to The Review of Reviews (New
York), The Forum (New York), The North American Review (New York), The Century Magazine
(New York), and The Atlantic Monthly (Boston). None of these periodicals was prepared to publish
the article, most of them giving as their reason for rejection (between January 18 and April 18, 1896)
that the issues for the coming months had already been planned and that the article would no longer
be of interest at the next available publication date (source: Bryan, 1984). John Dewey praised
Addams’ analysis of the Pullman Strike, which had troubled him so much just after his arrival in
Chicago, in a letter to Addams dated January 19, 1896: “It is quite impossible to say anything in the
way of ‘criticism’ or even of remarks upon the Pullman paper – – save that it is one of the greatest
things I ever read both as to its form & its ethical philosophy.”
20
Ellen Gates Starr, who co-founded the Hull-House with Addams, was a member of the Anglican
Church, in contrast to the predominantly (liberal-) Protestant residents of Hull House, but she
became increasingly dissatisfied with the Episcopalian structures of the Anglican Church in America
and converted to Roman Catholicism in 1920. “The beginning of Starr’s official life as a Catholic
was also the end of her long affiliation as a resident of Hull House” (see Bryan, Bair, & De Angury,
2003, p. 559f.).
21
For an informative overview, see Hogan (1985), pp. 1-25.
90
SOURCES
Adams, H. C. (1893). Introduction. In H. C. Adams, Philanthropy and social progress: Seven essays by
Miss Jane Addams, Robert A. Woods, Father J. O. S. Huntington, Professor Franklin H. Giddings
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JANE ADDAMS’ AND MARY PARKER FOLLETT’S

APPLIED PRAGMATISM
Social Management and Pedagogy
This paper aims to investigate three main hypotheses:
1) The making of social pedagogy and social work’ is not a result of pedagogy; it is
an outcome of the discourse of nineteenth-century economics.
2) The theoretical background of economics should provide a better perspective on
the women who founded social pedagogy and the process of professionalization
of social pedagogy than does the transfigured essentialist, misrepresenting
positioning of woman as natural educator as articulated by Pestalozzi, Froebel,
and female social reformers themselves.
3) Chicago pragmatism transformed contemporary criticism of classical economics
and a critique of laissez-faire-capitalism and its poor social outcome – which
was put forward not only by academic theorists but also by social reformers like
Jane Addams – into a new process-oriented- theory of the social as dynamic
progress and creative democracy. The theory came to inform not only
educational theory, but management theory as well.
This paper aims to present the life and work of three women who founded social
work and social pedagogy in Germany and the United States in a new context: as
originated in the discourse of economics and pragmatism. This means no longer
viewing them as they were positioned in the discourse of social education by
Pestalozzi, Froebel, Nohl, Natorp, and even the women themselves, which was to
place them, as some sort of female offshoot, far away from the mainstream of
pedagogical discourse. Another main focus will be the development of Chicago
pragmatism and a dynamic social theory as a result of the discursive innovation
prompted by the practical experience of social reform projects.
This will be illustrated by the life and work of two American social reformers:
the well-known Jane Addams and the less known but nonetheless influential Mary
Parker Follett. After a brief introduction of both women this paper will (1) examine
the connections between the discourse of economics, social problems, women’s
liberation, and the professionalization of social work in Germany and the United
States, (2) present Jane Addams as manager and performer of social work with
relations with liberal businessmen, her influence on John Dewey’s pragmatist
theory of education and Charles Horton Cooley’s concept of the social self, and (3)

BIRGIT ALTHANS
show the connection between Mary Parker Follett’s theory and pragmatism and her
influence on early organizational and management theory.
Jane Addams (1860-1935) – and her social settlement Hull House – is perhaps
the best known woman social reformer in the United States. With her social survey
Hull House Maps and Papers published with Florence Kelley in 1895, Addams is
one of the founders of the Chicago School of Sociology and American sociology.
Her influence on pragmatist education theory has been reconstructed by
philosopher Charlene Haddock Seigfried (1996, 2002) and education theorist Ellen
Condliffe Lagemann (1985), but it is also documented in Louis Menand’s best-
selling The Metaphysical Club (2001). Addams’ main publications in education
theory are Democracy and Social Ethics (1902), Spirit of Youth and the City
Streets (1909), Twenty Years in Hull House (1910), and The Second Twenty Years
at Hull-House (1930).
Mary Parker Follett (1858-1933) was a social and civic worker for more than
twenty years. She established evening schools, further training programs,
vocational counseling and placement at evening centers situated in public school
buildings and founded community centers for her work with Boston immigrants.
Follett had a different academic background than Addams, and she was successful
with her social theory in early management studies, impressing progressive
businessmen like Seebohm Rowntree. Follett studied European and American
history, political economics and political theory at Harvard’s annex for women
(later Radcliffe) and Cambridge (U.K.) and had received a profound training in
philosophy during her school years. In her doctoral thesis, The Speaker of the
House of Representatives (1896), she reconstructed the evolution of power
structures in British and American democracy and prevailing methods of political
manipulations. In a short biographical note on Follett, Joan Tonn (1999), who went
on to write the first intellectual biography of Follett – Mary P. Follett. Creating
Democracy, Transforming Management (2003) – points out that Follett had made
“the first comprehensive historical study of the evolution the Speaker’s political
and institutional power. Contemporaries favorably compared Follett’s book with
Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government, and modern scholars have called
it one of the best books ever written about the United congress” (Tonn, 1999, p.
174). In Follett’s (1918) second book, The New State – Group Organization, The
Solution of Popular Government, she used her practical experience in social work
to define a new concept of social philosophy and the meaning of groups for a new
theory of democracy, among other things picking up the thread of William James’
Principles of Psychology. This second work, like Follett’s first book, was broadly
reviewed and compared to pragmatism,1 among other things. In her third book,
Creative Experience (1924), Follett combined her social theory with various
contemporary topics and theoretical concepts such as legal pragmatism,
behaviorism, Gestalt theory, and psychoanalysis and found unexpected response in
management studies. She presented her ideas on leadership, cooperation, “power
with” instead of “power over,” constructive conflict resolution, and teacher-student
relations in front of the exclusive Taylor Society of Mechanical Engineers in New
York, at conferences in Oxford and at the London School of Economics (published
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JANE ADDAMS AND MARY PARKER FOLLETT
in Dynamic Administration, 1973). To this day Follett is considered a classic in

organization studies and is sometimes called the “prophet of management”
(Graham, 1995).
PRODUCTS OF DISCURSIVE ENTANGLEMENTS: ECONOMICS, SOCIAL

PROBLEMS, WOMEN’S LIBERATION, AND THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF
SOCIAL WORK IN GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES
As mentioned above, one main thesis of this paper is that the professionalization of
social work and social pedagogy is not a result of pedagogy, but an outcome of the
discourse of nineteenth-century economics (which in the United States was partly
religiously motivated). I will start with similarities but will also look at differences
between the German historical school of economics and the institutional school in
American economics. Both schools of thought tended to support social reform.
Gustav Schmoller’s ethical economics and Alice Salomon’s economically

motivated professionalization of social work
In Germany, economists of what was called the historical, ethical school, such as
Gustav Schmoller (but also his critics, such as Alfred and Max Weber in the Verein
für Sozialpolitik) – worked on the social problems resulting from industrialization.
Schmoller also censured the classical British school. Phenomena such as slums,
growing criminal rates, and infant mortality could not be handled by classical
economics. It looked as though they defined the lack of the usual social standards
of most of the people – what sociologist Emile Durkheim had addressed as anomie
– as entropy, as an unavoidable product of modern production. Schmoller, who
liked to view social problems “from the top of the little hills, where the big lines of
historical continuities and the background of the driving forces would become
clear” (Schmoller, 1874/1998), interpreted the function of economics as
Kulturwissenschaft as it was founded by Dilthey. In Schmoller’s point of view,
economics had to inform the state about its duties and the need for social reforms.
In the end, he could refer to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations2 when he encouraged
the state to offer workers greater participation in society and more effective
representation of their interests through better education:
The working class is today like it always was – a product made by its school,
home, workshop and work, its family-life and surroundings. It is the result of
the model of the upper class, of the ideas, ideals, and vices of the time. Is it
the fault of the working-class, the single workman alone, that makes him live
in holes, which degrades him into a beast or criminal. Is he to blame for the
fact that women and child employment affects the family life in these classes
more and more; is he to blame for the fact that the repetitive mechanical work
makes him learn less than the apprentice and the journeyman in the workshop
in former times; is he to blame for never becoming autonomous, that he is
usually without any hope for the future, and does not teach any psychology
that a lack of any future prospect makes man lax and bad-tempered and
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BIRGIT ALTHANS
subversive? Is the working-class to blame for its lack of schooling and

technical education, which does not make it fit enough for competition?
(Schmoller, 1874/1998, p. 92)
Schmoller pinned his hopes of eliminating these social injustices on the Prussian
state and what he found to be its proven qualities and on continuation of the
administrative reforms of the Prussian monarchy, “starting out from the existing
form, and remodeling, reforming and making it better step by step” (Schmoller,
1874/1998, p. 90)
For Schmoller the economic organization of a society was not a natural product
but a product of the mental atmosphere of the whole, of the particular moral
concept and of “whatever could be fair and right in proportion of each class to one
another” (Schmoller, 1874/1998, p. 90). What seemed essential to him were a free
press, liberal clubs, and right of assembly, but not woman suffrage.
Nevertheless, Schmoller and his colleagues enabled women social reformers
like Alice Salomon to complete studies in economics before women were officially
allowed to attain university degrees. They offered women the chance to publish
their research on the working-conditions of female workers in industry as well.
Alice Salomon was even allowed to base in her doctoral thesis, Causes of Unequal
Payment of Men and Women, on the arguments of the marginal
theory/Grenznutzentheorie,3 which had been always heavily attacked by Schmoller
and his supporters. They turned out to be valuable allies in Alice Salomon’s
successful fight for permission to complete a doctorate, which had been rejected
several times by the dean of Humboldt University (Kuhlmann, 2000, p. 96).
Salomon utilized the theory of economics when analyzing the social poverty of
women that she got to know from her social work practice in the Berlin groups of
social workers that were called Mädchen- und Frauengruppen für soziale
Hilfsarbeit [Girls’ and Women’s Groups for Social Aid Work]. In Salomon’s
opinion, this poverty was caused in part by the unconsidered situation of women in
the labor market. In her doctoral dissertation, she argued that unequal payment of
men and women was a result of the excessively rapid increase of unqualified work
done by women caused by the late Prussian industrialization. The resulting sudden
surplus of goods reduced the demand and lowered both men’s and women’s wages.
The low wage claims of female workers were due to their attitude towards their
employment as temporary extra income; this attitude together with the
undeveloped condition and organization of female workers resulted in inadequate
payment. Salomon (1906/1997) attributed this recursive loop, as did Schmoller, to
the societal mentality, cultural customs and way of life, and habits created by
education, which should all be changed:
Women remain uneducated because mental habits, customs and way of life,
but economic, legal and social circumstances until have now never
encouraged a full vocational training and sometimes even made it impossible.
… The economic upheaval of the nineteenth century pushed women out of
their homes and into the workforce. They, however, found them unable to
take serious interest in their jobs, had no loyalty to or enjoyment from their
98
strange new jobs. Customs and ways of life, habits, and education still does
not create any move in them toward a job, which could fulfill the whole
personality and could lead toward higher wages. One does acquire little
skills, minimizing the demand and leaving a mark on the professional female
work that is not alone caused by the young age and brief employment of
women. In most cases the young man looks for a job and the young girl for
an earning and this difference is unjustifiable at times and circumstances
where a marriage is impossible for a lot of women and is a result of the
undeveloped opportunities of employment for women. It has been pointed out
already that the reasons of unequal payment may show some regular
symptoms following a set of economic, legal and social patterns but that they
are not laws of nature without any possibility to change. (p. 293f.)
Like Schmoller Alice Salomon rejected the argument of classical British
economics referring all economical phenomena to natural law and pointed out like
him the historical genealogy of economic conditions together with ethical
responsibilities toward intervention and reform. Salomon shared with him and her
American colleagues in social reform Schmoller’s demand of social justice (Sklar,
Schüler & Strasser, 1998). So Salomon (1906/1997) argued, like the economist
Elisabeth Gnauck-Kühne, from a clear (national-) economic perspective when she
combined the surveys in the social conditions of women with higher female
education and professionalization of social work:
It was perhaps quite lucky at the beginning of university studies for women
that women were uneducated, had lower needs and could not ask for higher
wages. These conditions made it easier for women to come into employment.
The competitive edge even to get a job was their willingness to work for
lower wages. After they found jobs and their place in the workforce, new jobs
were created suitable for women where women proved even better than men.
In these jobs they should establish conditions which should enable them to
ask for the same wages, should proceed not because of their cheapness but
because of their suitability. (p. 296)
This was not only an argument for the lower class but for the upper class and the
professionalization of social work and social education as well. The founders of
social work and social education always relied on the interaction of different needs
of women in the nineteenth century. It was justified “economically” in the context
of psychoanalysis and its new concepts of a psychic economy in mental life.
Sigmund Freud and his colleague Josef Breuer had found in their Studies on
Hysteria (1895) that some of their female clients suffered psychically from their
unemployment:
The adolescents that become hysterics later on are before they become ill
mostly lively, talented, full of intellectual interests, their energy of will is
remarkable. The young girls of this group stayed up at night secretly
studying, which was prohibited by their parents in fear of over exertion. …
Their liveliness and restlessness, their longing for sensations and intellectual
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BIRGIT ALTHANS
activity, their inability to cope with monotony and boredom could be pointed
out like this: they belong to that kind of people who have a nervous system
which releases an excess of excitement in states of rest and demands action.
(Freud & Breuer, 1985/1990, p. 194)
Experiences like these during their youth had been reported and addressed as the
cause of their motivation for social work by women like Alice Salomon, Bertha
Pappenheim, Jane Addams, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.4 They made no “career”
as hysterics but were promoted as social reformers. Women of the lower classes,
on the other hand, suffered physically from the double load of housework and
employment. Salomon and others pointed out that social work as a female
profession came forth from the reciprocal relation (Simmel) between a surplus and
a lack of time and work capacity. In Germany, the ideal of “social education” and
social work was articulated in connection with this reciprocal relation. National
economics together with civic and political science, social ethics, and pedagogy
became part of the curricula of social women’s schools. They represented the
“scientific” subjects next to the “practical” subjects such as domestic science,
hygienic science, and welfare for the poor and youth. A strong hierarchy existed
between scientific and practical subjects, which was not the case in the United
States. It is remarkable as well that Germany established a more passive reception
of economics in women’s schools and that the surveys and research work by
female social reformers were pushed more and more into the background. That was
different in the United States, where the role of the female consumer was also
conceived differently.
The American economy at the turn of the century: corporate capitalism and
consumer society, the new woman, and the social self
In the United States liberal economists such as Richard T. Ely and institutionalists
like Thorstein Veblen held positions similar to Gustav Schmoller’s historical
ethical school against classical British economics and neo-classical marginalist 5
theory, which was represented in the United States by marginalist economics. But
the theoretical reconstruction of economics in the United States has been less
influenced by the German school of historical economics – as David Noble (1958)
and Henner Schellschmidt (1997) pointed out – than by the completely different
economic development in the United States, as Hans Joas (1995) but first of all
James Livingston (1994) has shown in his detailed analysis of connections between
pragmatism and political economy in the United States between 1850 and 1930.
During the Civil War, the American economy became rid of traditional
transatlantic ties and grew due to the domestic demand. The settlement of the
American West during the Reconstruction era produced an increased demand for
steel not only due to the extension of transportation, but even more due to the
demand for farm-machinery for big farms in the West (Livingston, 1994).
Consumer demand led to an immense growth in production for the domestic
market in the United States, the missing control by the state to trustism and
fusionism – into corporate capitalism. The resulting reliance on consumer
100
demands made attractive the turn toward the theory of subjective value production
presented by the marginalist economics but was unable to explain enough. The
mathematical calculability of human desires and needs proclaimed by the
marginalists was strongly criticized even by the new American social psychologists
and doubted as well by the young American economists who studied in Germany.
But there was a demand for necessary social reforms. They relied on one hand on
the strong Puritan tradition to control the appropriate behavior of the class of
owners and on democracy to control the new financial aristocracy and its
increasing power – but there was no call at all for intervention by the state like in
Germany. This was pointed out in statements like:
‘The capitalist performs no productive labor himself,’ a striking telegraph
operator explained to a Senate committee in 1883. A young machinist who
testified before the same committee was more pointed: ‘Jay Gould never
earned a great deal, but he owns a terrible lot’. Capitalists somehow invaded
and inverted the proper relationship between personality and property by
making the personalities of producers the means to the unlimited
accumulation of property. (Livingston, 1994, p. 44f.)
But growing capital and increased production as a result of more machines and
merging trusts destroyed this growth. As journalist Walter Lippman stated in 1914
in his highly influential Drift and Mastery: An Attempt to Diagnose the Current
Unrest about the ‘Age of Surplus’:
The trust movement is doing what no conspirator or revolutionist could ever
do: it is sucking the life out of private property. For the purposes of modern
industry the traditional notions have become meaningless: the name
continuous, but the fact is disappearing. You cannot conduct the big
industries and preserve intact the principles of private property. And so the
trusts are organizing private property out of existence, are altering its nature
so radically that very little remains but the title and the ancient theory.
(Lippman, 1914, cited in Livingston, 1994, p. 72)
Increased entropy on the side of capital, so to speak. When the big captains of
industry, the robber barons of the Gilded Age lost their credit as representatives,
new models of moral representation were needed. As Livingston (1994) points out,
referring to contemporaries like Walter Lippmann, Thorstein Veblen, and
Theodore Dreiser, that gap was filled by the idea of the New Woman. At first, as
Veblen has shown in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), the New Woman had
been incorporated by wives and daughters of the financial aristocracy in their
function as “sensible consumers”: they spent and represented their fathers’ and
husbands’ money not only for private consumption but also to support
kindergartens and social and educational projects (such as Jane Addams’
settlement or Mary Parker Follett’s evening and community centers) and helped to
create new values like the “social self” or a “sense of social property.”
But even the socially subordinated woman became important for the new
consumer culture in the United States. Differing from her ancestors in eighteenth-
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BIRGIT ALTHANS
century English literature, the protagonist in Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie

(1900) is a social climber in the world of money circulation and commerce; she
climbs up and not down like Defoe’s Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana (1724).
The factory worker Carrie creates her desires and never-ending self-constructions
in the surroundings of the modern city and the new consumer culture of department
stores and hotel lobbies and brings it up to professional stage performance. She
becomes a celebrated star in the theater and can get anything she wants. In James
Livingston’s (1994) reading of Sister Carrie, Carrie demonstrates not only the
potentials of the political economy of the self constantly to re-create itself anew to
fulfill the needs of others but also that capitalism and its cultural economy could
produce credible characters (p. 153).
But there is still another argument for the New Woman as cultural representative
and another opportunity to get ahead socially: the organization of cooperative
family life within the domestic discourse as presented by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
in her best-selling Women and Economics (1898). And even pragmatists such as
George Herbert Mead, John Dewey, and Charles Horton Cooley saw women in
their new moral function as consumers who could as with the labor movement,
contribute a new theory of values – a theory of values that includes the democratic
production of cultural and social values and influenced consumption and demand at
the same time. And last but not least there were economists such as Richard T. Ely
who took the same position as Addams, Dewey, and Mead against Chicago’s
Pullman Strike (1894). Ely, head of the department of political economy at the
University of Wisconsin, one of the founders of the American Economic
Association but of the Christian Socialist movement as well, moved Addams to
publish the first book of her own, Democracy and Social Ethics (1902). This leads
us now at last to Jane Addams.
JANE ADDAMS AS MANAGER AND PERFORMER OF SOCIAL WORK, HER

INFLUENCE ON DEWEY’S PRAGMATIC EDUCATION THEORY AND CHARLES
HORTON COOLEY’S SOCIAL SELF
Jane Addam’s domestic discourse and social management

As everybody knows, Jane Addams’ influence on the rise of professional social
work in the United States took a different shape than Alice Salomon’s in Germany
even when there were a lot of similarities. Addams founded her settlement in 1889
in the Chicago slums enabling middle-class women to live a collegiate life on the
one hand and to share the life of their neighbors and to better their situation on the
other. In this paper I would like to present her managerial qualities more than her
religious, cultural and esthetic motives. As Dorothy Ross (1998) and George
Herbert Mead had pointed out Addams acted as social reformer behind a mask of
deliberated womanhood and within a domestic discourse. Even in the slums she
kept a middle-class house, and she expanded housekeeping along with the needs of
her neighbors into the discourse of civic housekeeping, a lifelong attempt to come
to terms with local politics and government:
102
A woman's simplest duty, one would say, is to keep her house clean and
wholesome and to feed her children properly. Yet if she lives in a tenement
house, as so many of my neighbors do, she cannot fulfill these simple
obligations by her own efforts because she is utterly dependent upon the city
administration for the conditions, which render decent living possible. Her
basement will not be dry, her stairways will not be fireproofed, her house will
not be provided with sufficient windows to give light and air, nor will it be
equipped with sanitary plumbing, unless the Public Works Department sends
inspectors who constantly insist that these elementary decencies be provided.
(Addams, 1910b)
Addams’ early publications show that she could not ignore the question of labor
when she saw the problems of her neighbors. In The Settlement as a Factor in the
Labor Movement, published in Hull House Maps and Papers (1895), she outlines
the problems of neighbors with the sweat shop system of Chicago’s textile industry
like Alice Salomon (1906) as a problem resulting from untrained working women
and a lack of organization. From her point of view, it was the duty of the settlement
to organize the cooperation and unionization of her female working neighbors but
she never took sides in labor disputes. Her position is documented in her
commentary on the Pullman strike, A Modern Lear (published in 1912). As in The
Settlement as a Factor in the Labor Movement (1895), her creed is:
We must learn to trust our democracy, giant-like and threatening as it may
appear in its uncouth strength and untried applications. When the English
people were demanding the charter, the English nobility predicted that the
franchise would be used to inaugurate all sorts of wild measures, to overturn
long-established customs, as the capitalist now sometimes assumes that
higher wages will be spent only in the saloons. In both cases there is a failure
to count the sobering effect of responsibility in the education and
development which attend the entrance into a wider life. (Addams, 1895,
cited in Elshtain, 2002, p. 56)
This sequence not only shows the influence of Richard T. Ely on Addams’
Social Ethics (Levine, 1971, p. 168). According to Daniel Levine, Addams
demonstrated like Rousseau a mystical faith in the idea of government as
representation of collective will and as guarantor of a cooperative society (Levine,
1971, p. 169). But the government had to be informed and pushed forward and it
had to be guaranteed that everybody had the opportunity to articulate his problems
in public. Hull-House operated as public stage and the cultural center of Chicago,
like Frank Lloyd Wright, who had his first public lecture in Hull House The Use of
Machinery in Architecture (1902), certified Jane Addams (Althans, 2003).
The ground plan of Hull House shows how the house expanded constantly
around the needs of its neighbors.6 Addams was very good in selecting the best
people for the different jobs that had to be done, not only for practical and
domestic work but also for the scientific analysis of Hull House activities and their
presentation in public. Lawyer Julia Lathrop established during her time in Hull
House the first juvenile court in Illinois, founded the Immigrant’s Protection
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BIRGIT ALTHANS
League, and became the head of the Children’s Bureau and president of the
National Conference of Social Workers. In 1895, the social scientist Florence
Kelley, Addams, and other Hull House settlers organized the research on and
publication of Hull House Maps and Papers.
Apart from the selection of the best assistants – one of the main principles of F.
W. Taylor’s Scientific Management – Addams was a charismatic leader
commensurate with Max Weber’s definition.7 She was an exceptionally gifted
performer of her interests (Jackson, 2001), which helped her to achieve her goals
and convince her benefactors. The perfect performance and the power of
persuasion were main parts of the early discourse of management as well. This is
documented in reports describing the performance which made management
popular overnight in 1910. In the suit of the consumers against the cost of railroad
fares representatives of scientific management had been asked to present their
methods of efficiency in front of the court. Frank Bunker Gilbreth, expert on
motion studies, gave a practical demonstration that made members of the
commission “hang over their desks and watch in a sort of fascination, as he seized
law books and illustrated his points about the motion study of bricklaying”
(Kanigel, 1997, p. 434). Gilbreth became famous for his performances with his
family in the newsreels, as well, and even F. W. Taylor himself was known as a
talented performer and had been an active member of a drama club in his youth.
The Hull House surveys on the home conditions of female factory workers and
immigrants had an impact not only on the Chicago school of sociology but also on
the change of paradigms in management – the transition from scientific
management towards human relations discourse. The main experiments of the
human relations movement, which enabled this shift in management theory, had
been done in Hawthorne, Chicago, in Hull House’s neighborhood (Althans, 2000).
The reports of the daily output of the famous first test-groups8 contain information
about the home conditions of the female workers, their contribution to the family
budget, and their participation in housework which were usually investigated by
social workers and their methods of sympathetic inspection.
Addams’ influence on Dewey’s theory of education and Cooley’s social self

Jane Addams’ veiled influence on pragmatist’s theory of education has already
been shown by Charlene H. Seigfried and Ellen C. Lagemann. Her suggestions to
change curricula along the situation of immigrants and conditions of factory work
are presented in Educational Methods (1902). The strongest influence of her
methods can be found in Dewey’s combination of studies in his laboratory school
in Chicago, which he and his wife Alice led from 1896-1904. The social dimension
of learning and the interpretation of learning as co-product of actions become clear
with his obsession on cooking as part of the curriculum: In preparing a lunch a
child could learn arithmetic (weighing and measuring ingredients), chemistry and
physics, biology (digestion), and geography (natural environment of plants and
animals). Making cereal had so much curricular potential that it became a three-
year continual course of study for the children (Menand, 2001, p. 323). This
104
concept of learning was close to Addams’ educational offers in housekeeping

(Jackson, 2001).
Another interesting connection between Hull House activities and the
production of pragmatic theory is to be found in Charles Horton Cooley’s theory of
the social self in Human Nature and the Social Order (1902). Cooley was an
economist but also studied philosophy with Dewey and transmuted slowly toward
sociology and social psychology after reading William James and George Herbert
Mead. He holds a key position in the making of American social psychology even
if he later on referred to his roots in economics and developed a new theory of
values in Social Progress (1918). For Cooley there is no identity without a social
other. The self is a social self, a further development of William James’ term of the
empirical self created in Principles of Psychology (1895). From Cooley’s point of
view, the self is not constructed by adoption of the perspective of the other but
created by communication and interaction and – in terms of his famous looking
glass self – by sympathetic introspection.
Cooley’s concepts and theory appear to some of Addams’ methods as
aufgehoben (picked up, kept, transformed and lifted up) in Hegel’s sense. The need
of identity construction in relation to others was a main idea of social reform and
presented by Addams in The Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements (1893) and
A Function of the Social Settlement (1899). Even the transformation of identity
caused by constant perplexity – Addams’ method of inquiry as Charlene Haddock
Seigfried interprets it – about everything that happened during sympathetic
inspection is conserved in Cooley’s theory. This daring reconstruction of Cooley’s
theory production becomes more plausible considering the fact that Cooley visited
Hull House several times to watch their work. Even Cooley’s complex theory of
the meaning of the primary group for creative development in society, social rules,
and democracy itself is close to Hull House statements and practices. Shannon
Jackson (2001) described Hull House as “lived performance of homosociality” as a
“set of practices” and an alternative family that influenced their neighborhood, the
community, and the public in their way of living and in their habits (p. 171).
Similar ideas like Cooley had been developed at the same time by another social
reformer in Boston: Mary Parker Follett.
MARY PARKER FOLLETT AND HER APPLIED PRAGMATISM IN MANAGEMENT

THEORY
It is unfair to present Mary Parker Follett as a mere receptor of pragmatism.

Organizational psychologist Joan Tonn (2003), presenting Follett’s life and work in
her detailed intellectual biography Mary Parker Follett – Creating Democracy,
Transforming Management, points out that Follett came to terms about her twenty
years of social work just at the same time as Addams, Dewey, and Cooley. In
addition Follett was able not only to relate her insights to contemporary theoretical
trends but also to whet the appetite of businessmen for her theories and proposals.
Because of their willingness to try her ideas in practice, they became her favorite
clients:
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BIRGIT ALTHANS
One of the most interesting things about business to me is that I find so many
business men who are willing to try experiments. I should like to tell you
about two evenings I spent last winter and the contrast between them. I went
one evening to a drawing-room meeting where economists and M.P.’s
[Members of Parliament] talked of current, of our present difficulties. It all
seemed a little vague to me, did not seem really to come to grips with our
problem. The next evening it happened that I went to a dinner of twenty
businessmen who were discussing the questions of centralization and
decentralization. Each of them had something to add from his experience of
the relation of branch firms to the central office, and the other problems
included in the subject. There I found hope for the future. There men were
not theorizing or dogmatizing; they were thinking of what they had actually
done and they were willing to try new ways in the next morning, so to speak.
Business, because it gives us the opportunity of trying new roads, of blazing
new trails, because, in short, it is pioneer work in the organized relations of
human beings, seems to me to offer as thrilling an experience as going into a
new country and building new railroads over new mountains. (Follett, cited in
Urwick, 1973, XIX)
Pragmatist and the world of business – James and Dewey and the language of
money
Follett shared this point of view on the world of business with John Dewey and
William James, as Livingstone (1994) has shown. Especially the young John
Dewey showed his sympathies for the world of business. In Outlines of a Critical
Theory of Ethics (1891) Dewey praised Hegel for his concept of conflicting desires
as founder of a social theory based on experiences in the real world, and not like
Kant’s ethics separating the things which “ought to be” from the “what is” of the
real world. Dewey made the world of business and factory life a topic of discussion
in order to clarify the terms moral and moral community:
‘The term moral community can mean only a unity of action,’ he claimed,
‘made what it is by the cooperating activities of diverse individuals.’ It
followed that ‘there is unity in the work of the factory, not in spite of, but
because of the division of labor.’ (Dewey, 1891, cited in Livingston, 1994, p.
188)
From 1889 to 1892 Dewey was absorbed with the political economy of trusts
and the opportunities of credit economy as the new phenomenology of the market,
as he demonstrated in 1891 in two papers: The Present Position of Logical Theory
and The Scholastic and the Spectator. Here again he criticized the distance between
scholastic philosophy and social reality and emphasized the epistemological
potentials of capitalism.
Similar statements came from William James in his conception of pragmatism
published in Pragmatism: A New Name for some Old Ways of Thinking (1907).
Here James made use of financial metaphors in an excessive way – the height of
106
cheek from the perspective of German philosophy was his rhetorical question
“what is the cash-value of truth.” Choosing this language James demonstrated his
opinion that ideas are be constantly shaped by the outer world, always
reformulated, always in motion. Money in particular, newly defined by the modern
world of business, seemed to him the adequate metaphor to describe classical
philosophical terms like mind, truth, and thought as exchangeable, fluid, and
discursive:
All human thinking gets discursified; we exchange ideas; we lend and borrow
verifications, get them from one another by means of social intercourse. All
truth thus gets verbally built out, stored up, and made available for everyone.
… Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and
beliefs ´pass,´ so long as nothings challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so
long as nobody refuses them. But this all points to direct face-to-face-
verification, somewhere, without which the fabric of truth collapses like a
financial system with no cash-basis whatever. You accept my verification of
one thing, I yours of another. We trade on each other’s truth. (James, 1907, p.
579, pp. 576-577)
Let’s stop here with James and Dewey and their perceptions of modes of
transitions in the new world of business and money and their financial metaphors
to explain their new ways of thought. Let’s move back to Mary Parker Follett who
operated quite pragmatically in this world.
Mary Parker Follett on the plus-value of difference, managing of social groups,

and the teacher as entrepreneur
As did Cooley in 1909, Follett presented in her second book, The New State Group
Organization the Solution of Popular Government (1918), the social group as
engine of democratic progress. In this book she presented her philosophical
reflections on the effects of social work in the context of William James’
pragmatism, and she was compared with sociologists with a pragmatist bent (for
example, in Bodenhafer, 1920; see note ii). This applied particularly with regard to
her analysis of the plus value of group processes and their integration of difference.
Follett had learned from her work with different groups of immigrants that even
their difference, their otherness, could become productive. For her, difference was
not only an aspect of the plurality of ways of living in democratic societies, as
William James judged it, but also a creative moment which could lead to
unexpected new solutions following the classical Hegelian dialectics of thesis, anti-
thesis, and synthesis:
If I go to a committee meeting in order to get an idea that all together we
create a group idea, an idea which will be better than all of our ideas added
together. For this group idea will not be produced by any process of addition,
but by the interpenetration of us all. This subtle psychic process by which the
resulting idea shapes itself is the process we want to study. (Follett, 1918,
p.24)
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BIRGIT ALTHANS
Follett had learned from disadvantaged young people in boys’ clubs, in diverse
evening and community centers in Roxbury, and in committee meetings with
members of differing social contexts as well that the individual creates, forms, and
educates itself in cooperation and contact with and in difference to others. Only
there does it come to terms with itself and become more than it could expect as
something, which started as something ‘thrown into the world.’ Follett (1918)
described this phenomenon of the productivity of human interaction, which she
called ‘interpenetration’, as a game of tennis:
A serves the ball to B. B returns the serve but his play is influenced as largely
by the way the ball has been served to him as it is by his own method of
return. A sends the ball back to B, but his return is made up of his own play
plus the way in which the ball has been played to him by B plus his own
original serve. Thus in turn action and reaction become inextricably bound up
together. (p. 25f.)
This principle of human interaction, the never-ending process of action and
reaction in group process, the constant reliance of individuals on each other –
which is described as “circular response” even more detailed in her following
book Creative Experience (1924) – she found not only in immigrant neighborhoods
but also in schools, prisons, business relations, in the relations between work and
capital, the naturalization process of immigrants, in urban planning, and in the
British Labor Party. Follett’s main idea in The New State is to involve the
processes of integration and cooperation in neighborhoods step by step into
decision-making processes on a local and national level. Follett’s new social
philosophy was welcomed enthusiastically not only by British Neo-Hegelians like
Bernard Bosanquet and American philosophers like Charles A. Ellwood, H. A.
Overstreet, and James H. Tuft (Tonn, 2003, p. 590f.). Her ideas about the nature of
unities, reciprocal activities in human interactions, and the importance of relations
were discussed on December 20, 1926, during a year-long graduate seminar titled
Social Ethics organized by Richard C. Cabot, dean of the department of Social
Ethics at Harvard University. Follett lectured in front of an audience that included
Alfred North Whitehead, Lawrence J. Henderson, a professor of biological
chemistry who was involved in studies of worker fatigue and had just become
director of the Rockefeller-funded Laboratory of Industrial Physiology at Harvard
Business School, and Elton Mayo, an industrial psychologist who soon after
became famous with his involvement in the industrial research project at the
Hawthorne plant in Chicago and his pioneering studies on the effects of human
relations in industry, which I mentioned above. The transcription of the lively
discussion that followed Follett’s presentation of her ideas could be seen as a
document of her – later by Mayo neglected – input on Elton Mayo’s thinking and
her forgotten influence on the discourse of human relations in industry, the second
mental revolution in management studies in the twentieth century. Mayo
commented on Follett’s presentation as follows:
‘I still feel that I am pursuing rather breathlessly Miss Follett’ … ‘I am afraid
that in industrial investigation our only notion was to discover whether there
108
was a possibility of stating some of the industrial disputes, in terms of the

effects of fatigue … I suppose one might say that the idea, so far we have an
idea, in getting these very crude and elementary beginnings of an
investigation is very much the idea that you have been expounding us as a
leading idea for social investigation.’ Mayo then challenged Follett by asking
whether ‘empirical investigation is not more important really than the
principle, because at the present time one cannot assume that interaction will
lead to unification ad emergence.’ That question led to the following
exchange. Follett: ‘I thought everything I said in favor of empirical
investigation.’ Mayo: ‘I understood you to imply that out of interaction
emerged unification.’ Follett: ‘I said it would be wise for us to learn the kind
of interaction that does lead to it, that empirical investigations of social
situations had let me to think that we could perhaps deal with a kind of
interaction that might produce unification…’Mayo: ‘… I really feel that I
have not considered at all the sort of problem you have stated tonight. I
should like time.’ (Mayo and Follett, cited in Tonn, 2003, p. 435)
In this dispute Follett’s theoretical demand – that theory is a form of practice or
result of and not an input for empirical investigation – comes out as very close to
William James’ Pragmatism. But apart from this academic discussion an
unexpected clientele became interested in Follett’s ideas as well. The world of
business, management, and progressive industrialists became interested in Follett, a
world far away from the academic world and the committees of social work she
used to know.
But Follett became more and more acquainted with businessmen through her
work in vocational bureaus and her service on the minimum-wage board in Boston.
She had learned to admire their willingness for active action and began to study
management more and more. It may be that she was still occupied with political
studies and interested to have the opportunity to “teach princes,” as Merkle (1983)
puts it. So she started to teach her ideas about efficient leadership in managing the
productivity of difference to the Taylor Society of Mechanical Engineers – and was
successful. The world of business became to her a Creative Experience, as she
wrote 1924 in her book of the same title. From 1925 to 1932 Follett was a member
of Henry C. Metcalf’s Bureau of Personnel Administration in New York. Henry
Metcalf, professor of political science at Tufts University and author of a textbook
on personnel administration, founded this bureau as an organization to provide
employment management consulting services and education programs to firms. His
members were personnel managers, vice presidents or presidents of firms like R.H.
Macy, U.S. Rubber Company, Standard Oil Company, General Motors Company,
and American Telephone & Telegraph. Among Follett’s co-lecturers in the first
section, “The Scientific Foundations of Business Administration,” were Otis W.
Caldwell, professor of education at Columbia University and Thomas Nixon
Carter, the Social Darwinist economist from Harvard and Harlow S. Person,
managing director of the Taylor Society. Metcalf published the 1924-25 conference
papers in a book that he described as a “serious attempt to analyze the
philosophical, biological, economic, psychological foundations of business
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BIRGIT ALTHANS
administration and its basic administrative principles; and to apply them to

practical business affairs” (Metcalf, 1926, cited in Tonn, 2003, p. 393). Follett’s
lectures of that time present an elegant but sometimes biting criticism of Scientific
Management as the dominant discourse of that time. From the beginning she
distanced herself, sometimes ironically, from the main management ideology of
that time and pointed out seriously that not only the output of the workers but also
of the efficiency of managers should be proved with Taylor’s methods of scientific
management. The results should be used to train managers in the art of decision-
making and leadership with scientific methods.
In 1928, she transferred these managerial skills to schools in her lecture The
Teacher-Student Relation. From her point of view managers and teachers had
similar aims: to free the individual, to expand the range of movement of teachers
and students to make experiences, to release their way of thinking. The teacher
should do this referring to Dewey, with control of the learning conditions:
Some years ago a teacher told a class of little boys who were beginning clay
modeling that they were to express themselves in clay. They of course began
throwing clay at each other, which was perfectly proper; that is the natural
way for little boys to express themselves in clay. Professor Dewey said in his
last book: ‘No man and no mind was ever emancipated merely by being left
alone’. Removal of formal limitations is but a negative condition; positive
freedom is not a state but an act which involves methods and
instrumentalities for control of conditions. (Follett, 1928/1973, p. 304f.)
With his knowledge of laws and methods of group-activity and group-control,
the teacher should release potentials for learning.9 The teacher should have
personality; he not only represents tradition but real life as well, and he ought to
have some experience of modern work life. His authority should be functional and
proved by constant work on his knowledge and competent presentation of his
subjects. Like the modern business-man, he should learn to modify and prevail his
position in cooperative processes of decision-making. But even the students as well
should make experiences in businesslife-like processes of decision-making or the
organization of their own experiences.
Follett’s theoretical concepts were very effective. Her interpretation of
cooperation, constructive conflict, and negotiation are still classical teaching
material in management studies. Her concept of constructive conflict became the
foundation of the world’s famous concept of negotiation: the win-win-model of
Harvard Law School, presented in Fisher, Ury, and Patton’s (1981) Getting to Yes.
Follett can be called a “founder of discourse,” as Foucault puts it, but she acted –
again with Foucault – as a “masked author”:10 She hides back behind her own
discourse – actually like all female founders of social work and pedagogy.
CONCLUSION
As we could see up to now, the influence of the discourse of liberal economics on

the making of social pedagogy and social work and the New Woman in Germany
110
and the United States was quite strong. Historical economists like Schmoller in
Germany and Ely in the United States supported the careers of social reformers like
Alice Salomon and Jane Addams in the public sphere – even if they never offered
them academic careers. We have learned that there were reciprocal relations
between economics and social reform by women during the period from 1890 to
the 1920s – economists knew about home conditions and living situations of
working mothers and children from the industrial research and social surveys done
by women who were engaged in the woman question, and woman social reformers
got the opportunity to graduate and to publish their investigations in economist
journals. We have seen the great impact of social reform projects founded and led
by women on Dewey’s educational theory and Cooley’s social psychology and
how Follett’s experience in social work led to a new social philosophy, a new
concept of human relations and group processes in democracy, and its influence on
organizational and management theory. We could see that these projects and
theoretical concepts should be judged not only as a mere outcome of pragmatist
philosophy. They were much more; they were “applied pragmatism,” theory as an
outcome of empirical social investigation. But this “golden age of expanding the
domain of social sciences by women social researchers” (Silverberg, 1998) ended
in Germany and the United States in the 1920s with the turn of the social sciences
to a more rigid scientific approach (Silverberg, 1998; Weyrather, 2003). The
growing interest in “scientific” methods, the pose of neutral expertise helped
consolidate social science as male terrain. Female economists and women social
reformers got their special fields of work. Academic faculties like home economics
for women were established at universities (Folbre, 1998) or female domains like
schools for social work outside of the universities. This institutional segregation
helped to control the discourse of social sciences, to “forget” – as in Follett’s case
– the female authorship of ideas and theoretical concepts and to exclude the
discourse of reform and the perspective of women that had been so creative at the
turn of the century. But the “lines of activity” of women social reformers are still
active in the discourse and the terms of the social sciences; they only need
reconstruction.
NOTES
1
Bodenhafer, W. (1920/21). The comparative role of the group concept in Ward’s dynamic sociology
and contemporary American sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 26, 273-314, 425-474, 583-
600, 716-74.
2
Even Smith, the founder of modern economics and the laissez-faire-principle of liberal markets
warned against some outcomes of the division of labor: the workman becomes dull doing repetitive
work all day without any moral sentiment and as a result could lose his suitability as a soldier. Smith
pleaded for that reason for public education that in a developed and commercialized society “the
public should be more interested in the education of the people than of the upper class” (Smith,
1776/1996, p. 664).
3
The marginal utility theory/Grenznutzentheorie postulates that the strength of a need diminishes
with it additional satisfaction. The available part quantities are getting less valued by increased
saturation so that the value of a product is defined by the guessed profit of the last available part
quantity of the product (marginal utility). This will define price, wage, and interest.
111
BIRGIT ALTHANS
4
It should be noted that Addams was diagnosed as neurasthenic, and Pappenheim and Perkins Gilman
had hysterical symptoms before they started their social reform careers and even belonged to the
famous hysterics: Bertha Pappenheim was Breuer’s patient Anna O. They shared the destiny of
neurasthenia with scholars such as William James, F.W Taylor, founder of Scientific Management,
and other celebrities of the Gründerzeitalter and in Gilded Age (Radkau, 1998).
5
The marginalists differed from the traditional position of classical political economy that the value
of a product was defined through the quantity of labor necessary to produce it and took the more or
less utility value of the product for the consumer as main criteria for value addition. Neo-classical
economics saw the utilitarian point o view of man as foundation of the equilibrium of the society at
optimal distribution of goods. This could be mathematical calculated compared with all expended
resources: “The institutionalists around Veblen maintained instead that the proportion between an
individual aim, the available resources and the produced utility could not be represented in statistical
statements because the whole process of valuing is determined by social and cultural institutions.
The meaning of individual demand could be revealed only by historical interpretation and
reconstruction of social action and not by application of mathematical formula” (Schubert, 1995, p.
395f.).
6
At the start of the settlement they had a Froebel kindergarten for the most urgent needs to look after
the children of the neighbors who had to work all day. Then there was a nursery, a coffeehouse, a
community kitchen, a hostel for female workers, a gym, and a playground. A growing need to
expand resulted from all of these activities. In 1963 when the settlement was pulled down there had
been sixteen buildings – form ever follows function.
7
“Jane Addams had a tubercular spine, which made her stoop-shouldered and pigeon-toed, and she
was coddled as a child and depressive as a young woman. But she had her father’s qualities:
righteousness, formality (in college she annoyed her friends by asking them to address her as Miss
Addams), and ambition. She was also, particularly to women, fantastically charismatic. People
thought she was a saint. To some extent this was the nineteenth-century way of explaining the aura
of authority and integrity surrounding a person who happened to be female. Still, she had the aura”
(Menand, 2001, p.307)
8
The first test-group, five young female workers in the Relay-Assembly Room, were the first to
become famous. Their motivation to work and their efficiency had to be proved under laboratory
conditions. It was the big ‘enlightenment’ of the Hawthorne experiments that efficiency rose not
because of better light conditions or better food but because of communication.
9
“I suppose most teachers to-day think, the chief part of their job is to show students to meet
circumstances, how to handle situations, how to solve daily problems of selves. … To train his
students to translate experience into action and character … We can teach something of human
relations in three ways: (1) through the subject we are occupied with, (2) through activities devised
for the classroom group, (3) through using outside group activities for our student to experiment
with, observe and report on in class” (Follett, 1928/1973, p. 309, 311, 313).
10
Foucault argues that an author just has the function to establish a discursive field and then, as an
ideal solution, to hide behind it like behind a mask (Foucault, 1969/1988). The case of Follett fits
another criterion that Foucault presents as typical for the phenomena on the masked author as
discourse-founder: He has constantly become forgotten and rediscovered again. Follett had been
forgotten up to the 1970s of twentieth century, and then many enthusiastic Follett ‘rediscoveries,’
‘reactualizations,’ and ‘back-to’ movements happened in management studies. The discursive
movement of ‘back to’ is obvious in Pauline Graham’s Mary Parker Follett – Prophet of
Management (1995) where Follett’s lectures were read and discussed by the world’s leading
authorities on management at that time.NOTES
112
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Gilman, C.P. (1994). Women and economics. A study of the economic relation between women and
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Freie Universität Berlin
Institut für Erziehungswissenchaften und Psychologie
115
GERT BIESTA
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD AND THE THEORY OF

SCHOOLING
INTRODUCTION
For most of his career George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) worked in the shadow of
his friend and colleague John Dewey. Mead and Dewey were close colleagues
from 1891, the year in which Mead obtained a teaching position in Dewey’s
philosophy department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, until 1904,
when Dewey left the University of Chicago, the place where he and Mead had been
since 1894 (see Cremin, 1988, p. 168; p. 171). Mead and Dewey entertained a
lifelong personal friendship and both in Ann Arbor and Chicago their family lives
were interwoven to such an extent that, as Dewey recounted, “there was hardly a
day we did not exchange visits” (Dewey, 1985, p. 22). Dewey became a world-
famous philosopher and educationalist; a status Mead never achieved and
presumably also never aspired to achieve (see Dewey, 1985, p. 22). This was not
for lack of quality of his work. Mead was a meticulous thinker who pursued his
intellectual interests with much tenacity. As a result, Mead’s writings are marked
by an extraordinary lucidity, depth and attention to detail; qualities often lacking in
Dewey’s work. It could well be argued that Mead was the better theorist of the two,
although the breadth and scope of Dewey’s work are, of course, unparalleled. With
regards to their intellectual relationship, there is ample evidence of the influence of
Dewey on Mead (see, e.g., Cook, 1993). But Mead was also formative for Dewey’s
thinking. In his eulogy at a memorial service for Mead in 1931, Dewey declared
that Mead’s ideas on social psychology and the social interpretation of life and the
world had worked “a revolution” in his thinking (Dewey, 1985, p. 27), and that he
disliked to think what his own thinking would have been were it not for the seminal
ideas which he derived from Mead (see Dewey, 1985, p. 24).
In this paper I want to take a closer look at Mead’s theory of education which,
as I will argue, is primarily a theory of schooling. I will refer to this theory as a
semiotic theory, that is, a theory which has meaning as its central concept. The
reason for this is that the question that guides Mead’s educational thinking is how
meaning can be communicated, while the answer he develops to this question relies
upon a view which conceives of human action and interaction in terms of meaning.
For Mead, human action and interaction are not only guided by meaning (a line of
thinking expressed in the idea of ‘symbolic interactionism,’ the label that was
given to Mead’s work by Herbert Blumer; see Blumer, 1969). Mead also argues
that through our actions and interactions we are constantly engaged in the creation
of meaning.

GERT BIESTA
A major difficulty with writing about Mead’s theory of education is that he

never published a systematic treatment of his ideas. This is why his theory of
education needs to be inferred from his work. A further problem for Mead-scholars
is that not all of the writings published under his name are equally reliable. There is
especially a problem with Mind, Self, and Society (1934), the book for which he
became most renowned. Mind, Self, and Society is based upon student notes of
lectures given by Mead. Yet, as Hans Joas has argued, Charles Morris, the editor of
this book, has supplemented these notes to such an extent and with so much liberty
that apart from Mead’s self-characterization as a social-behaviorist and some
classical quotations, the book expresses the ideas of Morris rather than those of
Mead (see Joas, 1985, p. 88; 1989, p. 91; see also Cook, 1993, p. 65). This is why I
will base my reconstruction of Mead’s theory of education on writings that were
published during his lifetime, particularly the texts published between 1900 and
1925, with special emphasis on a series of articles that appeared between 1909 and
1913 which, as Cook has shown, contain almost all the major ideas of Mead’s
mature position (see Cook, 1993, p. 66). Besides these articles, I will also make use
of a unique unpublished source in which Mead does discuss his educational ideas
in a fairly systematic way. This source is a typescript of 196 pages of student notes
of Mead’s course on philosophy of education, given in the Department of
Philosophy and the College of Education of the University of Chicago in 1910-
1911. This typescript gives a unique insight in the way in which Mead translated
his more general ideas about human action and interaction into a theory of
education. Given the consistency between the ideas expressed in this typescript and
the ideas Mead published in the period leading up to his lectures (see Biesta, 1998;
1999), I believe that the typescript is a reliable source for an understanding of
Mead’s theory of education.
The theory of education that emerges from Mead’s writings centers around the
claim that meanings cannot be handed down to the learner, but arise “only through
the reaction of the learner” (Mead 1910/1911, p. 190). The learner, in other words,
is the one who makes meaning in the educational process and the learner does this
through his or her response. Since education is a social process, a process in which
meanings are communicated, the response of the learner is fundamentally a
response to this social situation. According to Mead, “(t)he attitudes we take in
response to other persons are the processes in getting meaning” (Mead 1910/1911,
p. *96), which means that the learner “must get the meaning thru [sic] his own
response to certain social situations” (Mead 1910/1911, pp. *95-*96). This in turn
implies, that the “material” of education is itself “the product of a social
relationship” (Mead 1910/1911, p. 191). Meanings, in other words, do not exist
objectively, but “grow out of social intercourse” (Mead 1910/1911, p. *95) and
only exist in social intercourse. From this is follows that the communication of
meaning is not a process of imitation. For Mead education is a process of the
creative transformation of meaning. We must acknowledge, Mead writes, that “the
very process of acquiring, changes the things acquired” – “the very process of
acquiring causes change” (Mead 1910/1911, p. 156).
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MEAD’S THEORY OF SCHOOLING
Mead depicts education as a thoroughly social process in which, through the

responses of the learner, meanings are created, communicated and transformed.
This view is based upon a theory of human action and interaction which Mead
developed in a series of articles that were published between 1900 and 1925, with
most of them dating from the period up to the time he gave his lectures on
education (1910/1991). In what follows I will provide an overview of this more
general theory in order then to discuss in more detail the theory of education that
emerges from these ideas. In the concluding section I will give an answer to three
questions: (1) To what extent is Mead’s approach different from Dewey’s? What,
in other words, is special about Mead’s theory of education and warrants further
attention? (2) What are the implications of Mead’s views for a contemporary
theory of schooling? (3) To what extent are Mead’s ideas still valid, interesting and
perhaps even important today? What, in other words, might a Meadian view
contribute to contemporary debates and practices?
THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: THE SOCIAL ORIGIN OF REFLECTIVE

CONSCIOUSNESS
Most, if not all of the theoretical articles Mead published between 1900 and 1925
can be seen as an elaboration of the central claim in Mead’s work, which is that
reflective consciousness – which includes both the ability for conscious reflection
(thinking) and the ability to make oneself the object of one’s own attention (self-
consciousness) – has a social or intersubjective origin (see Mead, 1909, p. 97, p.
102). Because Mead rejects the idea that reflective consciousness is an original
datum, that is, something we are born with, his account of the origin of reflective
consciousness cannot rely upon a conception of social interaction in which the
existence of reflective consciousness is already assumed. He writes:
We cannot assume ... that reflection has arisen through social interaction and
that social intercourse has arisen because human individuals had ideas and
meanings to express. (Mead, 1909, p. 97)
Mead finds his way out of this dilemma by means of an account of social
interaction which locates the beginning of human communication in co-operation,
that is, “where the act of the one answered to and called out the act of the other”
(Mead, 1909, p. 101). He uses this account to explain how reflective consciousness
has arisen out of social interaction. His ideas can be reconstructed in the following
four steps.
The Intersubjective Origin of Self-consciousness

Mead takes his point of departure in an understanding of human action as
meaningful action and in a behavioral conception of meaning in which it is claimed
that the meaning of an object “is derived entirely from our reaction upon it, or, in
other words, our use of it” (Mead, 1900, p. 8). Mead argues that as long as our
action towards an object proceeds uninterruptedly, we are unaware of the meaning
119
GERT BIESTA
or content of this object. But when an object calls out conflicting tendencies of
action, we are, as he writes, “thrown back upon an analysis of [our] spontaneous
acts” (Mead, 1900, p. 8). As long as the conflict has not been resolved, as long as
no appropriate line of action emerges, our tendencies towards the object express
possible meanings. But when we focus our attention on these tendencies which
express possible meanings, a conscious solution of the conflict becomes possible.
In his earliest texts (dating from 1900 to 1903; see Biesta, 1998, p. 78) Mead
simply seems to assume that human beings possess the ability to direct their
attention towards their own tendencies to act. According to Joas (1989, pp. 88-89)
this reveals that Mead was still in a “monological” phase in which he assumed that
reflective consciousness emerges in the interaction between individuals and
physical objects. A more charitable interpretation would be that Mead simply left
the issue undecided in that he paid attention to the function of self-consciousness
without giving an answer to the question of the origin of this capacity. In later
texts, most explicitly his “Social Consciousness and the Consciousness of
Meaning” (Mead 1910c), Mead put forward his claim that the occasion for
directing one’s attention to one’s own attitudes emerges in the field of social
interaction.5
Mead’s understanding of social interaction follows directly from his
understanding of individual action. He assumes that in general we respond to the
acts of others just as we respond to physical objects. There is, however, one crucial
difference. While our reaction towards physical objects has no influence upon
these objects – “a man’s reaction toward weather conditions has no influence upon
the weather itself” (Mead, 1910c, p. 131) – our reaction towards the acts of others
is a stimulus for the other to (re)act in a different way, which, in turn, is a stimulus
for our (re)action, and so on. Mead’s point here is that social interaction must be
“continuously readjusted after it has already commenced, because the individuals
to whose conduct our own answers, are themselves constantly varying their
conduct as our responses become evident” (Mead, 1910c, p. 131).
The reason why this is the situation in which our own attitudes become the
“natural objects” of our own attention, is because these attitudes are the stimuli for
the other to (re)act. They are responsible “for the changes in conduct of other
individuals” (Mead, 1910c, p. 131). If we want to co-operate successfully, it is
helpful – or to be more precise: it is functional – to focus our attention on the cause
of the (re)actions of our partners in interaction. Our adjustments to the changing
reactions of others take place, in other words, “by a process of analysis of our own
responses to their stimulations” (Mead, 1910c, p. 131). “Successful social
conduct,” Mead therefore concludes, “brings one into a field within which a
consciousness of one’s own attitudes helps toward the control of the conduct of
others” (Mead, 1910c, p. 131).
This, in outline, is Mead’s functional account of the social origin of reflective
consciousness. Mead’s account implies a rejection of the idea that reflective
consciousness belongs to the original ‘make-up’ of human beings; he rejects, in
other words, the idea that reflective consciousness is part of human nature.6
Instead, he provides an understanding of human interaction which is not based
120
upon the assumption that human beings are reflective beings who seek to express
their thoughts and feelings to others, but one that conceives of human interaction as
a process of co-ordination and co-operation. Mead uses the same framework to
explain the social origin of the other dimension of reflective consciousness:
thinking or reflective thought.
The Intersubjective Origin of Thought

Mead’s claim that our actions are meaningful, that is, that the meaning of an object
is derived entirely from our reaction upon it, does not imply that we are or must be
conscious of this meaning. It only suggests that we respond in a certain way and
that this response will change over time as a result of previous experiences. Using
what he calls the “well-worn” example of the child and the candle – an example
used both by James and Dewey – Mead argues that as a result of a previous
disaster the child will subsequently avoid putting his hand too close to the flame.
We might say, therefore, that for this child as a result of this experience, the flame
now has the meaning of ‘drawing back the hand.’ Or, to be more precise, the
meaning of that to which the child responds is drawing back the hand (see Mead,
1910c, p. 127).
While this response is definitely meaningful for the child – or, to use the phrase I
used above: the response is ‘guided’ by meaning – the child is not (or not
necessarily) consciously aware of the flame having this meaning. An external
observer can make the distinction between the flame and its meaning (viz., drawing
back the hand), and can note that the flame has now become a symbol for drawing
back the hand. But for the child – or the actor in the situation more generally –
there is only the immediate response and hence no conscious distinction between
“the thing” and “what it means.” There is, in other words, no consciousness of
meaning. It is, however, not too difficult to see what ought to happen for the actor
to become able to present “the thing” and “what it means” separately. The meaning
of what Mead calls the “object-stimulus” is to be found in the actor’s attitude
towards it. As soon, then, as the actor is able to direct his attention towards his own
attitude, he is in a situation in which he can make the distinction between the thing
(the object-stimulus) and its meaning (the actor’s own attitude). Once this has
occurred – and we know that it is social interaction which makes this happen – “the
thing” has become a symbol and the actor has entered the realm of symbolic
meaning. Since this makes it possible to use things as meaning other things, it
opens up the possibility of conscious reflection, that is, “the possibility of thought”
(Mead, 1909, p. 102).
Social Objects and the Conversation of Gestures

Although the foregoing provides the basic structure of Mead’s account of the social
origin of reflective consciousness, there is one complicating factor. The point is
that since Mead holds that the situation in which reflective consciousness emerges
is the social situation, the first objects with respect to which the distinction between
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“the thing” and its meaning can be made are not physical objects but what Mead
refers to as social objects.7 This raises the crucial question how we can become
consciously aware of the meaning of social objects. Or, in less technical language,
how we can become consciously aware of the meaning of the actions of others and,
even more importantly (see below), the meaning of our own actions.
The first step in Mead’s answer to this question lies in his contention that social
interaction is not of a sequential but of an anticipatory nature. It is in this context
that Mead introduces the notion of gesture, which he defines as the first overt
phase in a social act, and where a social act is defined as an act “in which one
individual serves in his action as a stimulus to a response from another individual”
(Mead, 1910c, p. 123). Mead argues that the co-ordination of action requires
appropriate and valuable responses from the partners in action. Such an adjustment
naturally leads to the earlier stages of an act, because, as Mead writes, “the more
perfect the adaptation of the conduct of a social form the more readily it would be
able to determine its actions by the first indications of an act in another form”
(Mead, 1910c, p. 123).
What Mead is saying here, is that in the “conversation of gestures” individuals do
not adjust themselves to each other’s actions as such (which would be the
sequential account in which one individual would wait until the other individual
had finished his or her action); the adjustment takes place on the basis of what the
one expects that the beginning act of the other will lead to. The reaction is based, in
other words, on an interpretation of the emerging acts, the gestures of the other. It
is based, in other words, on the meaning of these emerging acts. It is in this respect
that Mead’s account of social interaction can be termed symbolic interaction,
although this is not a phrase Mead himself used during this period.
But what do gestures mean? Unlike Wilhelm Wundt, who had maintained that
gestures were expressions of emotions, Mead argues that the meaning of gestures is
not ‘expressive’ or subjective, nor do gestures have an objective meaning. The
meaning of our gestures, the meaning of our actions is fundamentally
intersubjective. The following quotation aptly summarizes Mead’s views.
It is evident that but for the original situation of social interaction ... gestures
could never have attained their signification. It is their reference to other
individuals that has turned expressions as a mere outflow of nervous
excitement, into meaning, and this meaning was the value of the act for the
other individual, and his response ... gave the first basis for communication,
for common understanding, for the recognition of attitude which men
mutually held toward each other within a field of social interaction. (Mead,
1909, p. 102)
Social interaction, according to Mead, is therefore not the expression of
individual, pre-social meanings. It is a meaning-making, a creative and therefore an
undetermined event.
Against this background we can now see that the question of the emergence of
consciousness of meaning in a social situation consists of two questions. The first
question is how we can become aware of the meaning of the gestures of our
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partners in interaction; the second question is how we can become aware of the
meaning of our own gestures. In the first case, the “thing” is the other’s gesture,
and the meaning is to be found in my attitude towards that gesture. In the second
case, the “thing” is my own gesture, and the meaning lies in the response of the
other. (This implies, that in Mead’s theory gestures have a double status. They are
both a stimulus to the response of the other, and an interpretation of the other’s
gesture.)
Taking the Attitude of the Other

The answer to the first question – How can we become aware of the meaning of the
other’s gestures? – follows the pattern that I have discussed above. As soon as we
direct our attention towards out own attitude, we are in a position to consider “the
thing” (the other’s gesture) and its meaning (our attitude) separately. The other’s
gesture then has become a social object, which Mead defines as “the early
indications of an ongoing social act in another plus the imagery of our own
response to that stimulation” (Mead, 1910c, p. 132). In the social situation, Mead
concludes, we therefore find both the opportunity and the means for analyzing and
bringing to consciousness our responses “as distinguished from the stimulations
that call them out” (Mead, 1910c, p. 132). This, as I will discuss below, is crucial
for the process of education.
The second question – How can we become aware of the intersubjective meaning
of our own gestures, that is, the meaning as it emerges and develops in the ongoing
interaction? – is more difficult to answer.8 The first step in Mead’s answer is his
claim that in order to make a distinction between our gesture and its meaning, we
need to have “an image ... of the response, which the gesture of one form will bring
about in another” (Mead, 1910a, p. 111). The meaning can only appear, Mead
writes, “in imaging the consequence of the gesture” (Mead, 1910a, p. 111). But
how can we get an image of the response that our gesture will (possibly) bring out
in the other? Mead tries to develop an answer to this question through the notion of
the vocal gesture (see Mead, 1912). What is characteristic of the vocal gesture is
that it is perceived by the individual who produces it in the same way as it is by the
one who listens (see Mead, 1912, p. 137). Both perceive the vocal gesture – a
sound – as an external stimulation.9 This, so Mead argues, is why the vocal gesture
makes it possible to take the attitude of the other, which, then, is the way in which
we can get an image of the response that our gesture will bring about in another
(see Mead, 1913, p. 146).
While it is true that the vocal gesture can be perceived by the actor as an external
stimulus so that he can respond to it as someone else can respond to it, there is, of
course, no guarantee that one’s own reaction to the vocal gesture is identical to the
reaction of someone else. Or to put it differently: the only situation, in which this
would be the case, is the situation in which all our responses are pre-programmed.
But as we have seen, this is not the way in which Mead conceives of social
interaction. It appears, therefore, that the vocal gesture cannot perform the function
that Mead suggests it can perform, for the very reason that social interaction is not
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a process of pre-programmed imitation, but a process of undetermined meaning-

making.10
In another publication (from 1922) Mead tries to solve the problem by
introducing the notion of the generalized other. He argues that we need to acquire
attitudes “which all assume in given conditions and over against the same objects”
in order for meaning to become “general” (Mead, 1922, p. 245). But this answer
again denies the intersubjective character of the meaning of gestures (and seems to
revert to a rather narrow theory of socialization). It is only in 1924/1925 that Mead
finally recognizes that “in a complex social act ... the stimulus to another individual
to [someone’s] response is not as a rule fitted to call out the tendency to the same
response in the individual himself” (Mead, 1924/1925, p. 279) – or, in everyday
language: there is no guarantee and no reason to assume that my response to my
gestures (including my vocal gestures) will be identical to someone else’s
response.11
Surprisingly enough, Mead does not utilize the approach that played such a
central role in his earlier texts, that is, to ask in which situation and under what
conditions it would be functional and helpful that the way in which we respond to
our own (vocal) gestures is similar to the actual response of the other. This, as
Mead seems to recognize, is of course the situation of social co-ordination and co-
operation. He writes that “if we are to cooperate successfully with others, we must
in some manner get their ongoing acts into ourselves to make the common act
come off” (Mead, 1924/1925, p. 279). What the vocal gesture can do, is helping is
to anticipate possible responses of the other to our gesture. This means that there is
a functional preference – we could also say: functional pressure – for those
responses we make to our own gestures that are similar to the responses that others
will make. We are more successful in our anticipations, in other words, if our
responses to our own gestures are closer to the actual responses of the others. There
will, of course, never be certainty since social interaction remains an undetermined
and creative process. But the success of co-operative action crucially depends, as
we have seen, upon our ability to successfully anticipate the response of others to
our own gestures.
MEAD’S THEORY OF EDUCATION
If the foregoing suffices as a reconstruction of Mead’s theory of human action and

interaction and, more specifically, of his account of the emergence of reflective
consciousness in social interaction, then we can now turn to the question how these
ideas ‘translate’ into a theory of education.
It is, first of all, important to acknowledge, that Mead’s interest in education is
primarily focused on the question how meaning can be communicated, both from
one person to another or from one generation to the next. Mead is interested, in
other words, in “the gradual socialization of the child, and the part which education
plays in this” (see Biesta, 1999, p. 483). This is not to say that Mead sees the
purpose of education as the simple insertion of the next generation into the existing
social order. Not only does he acknowledge that the communication of meaning is
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a process in which meanings necessarily change. The question how education can
introduce a method of thought is for Mead an integral part of his views about
education as the communication of meaning.
The first, and to my mind most fundamental and most important aspect of
Mead’s theory of education lies in the simple claim that in education meanings
only arise through the response of the learner. This idea goes back to Mead’s
behavioral conception of meaning in which it is argued that the meaning of an
object – physical or social – is derived entirely from our reaction upon it. Mead’s
point here is, that objects do not have a meaning as such; they don’t have an
objective meaning. Their meaning lies in what they mean to us, which is how we
respond to them. To ‘get’ the meaning of an object is, in other words, not a process
of discovery but a process of construction. This is not to say that any meaning will
do. Both with respect to physical and social objects some responses will be more
adequate, more appropriate, or more functional than others.
The recognition that meanings only arise through the response of the learner,
marks a clear distinction between what Mead calls “old education” and his own
approach. Old education, he argues, has neglected and even wiped out the attitude
of the child (see Mead, 1910/1911, p. 92). But this attitude is indispensable,
because in education “the whole of the technique of the process ... does not turn on
the material provided by elders, but falls around the response of the child to this
material” (Mead, 1910/1911, p. 92). Lessons, books, lectures, materials only mean
something to the extent that they mean something to the learner. It is not only the
learner’s ‘task’ to make sense of what is presented to him in the educational
situation; the meaning of what is presented totally depends upon his or her
response.
In one sense one could argue, that this is all there is to say about the process of
education. But the point of course is that the purpose of education is not simply to
evoke any response from the learner; the purpose of education is to communicate
meaning and for that reason the key-question is how and to what extent the
response of the learner can be ‘organized.’ Moreover, the purpose of education is
not simply to organize the response of the learner; the purpose of education is to
facilitate the emergence of consciousness of meaning, since this is what makes
conscious reflection (thinking) possible. This is why Mead stresses the importance
of acknowledging that education is – and should be – a social process. Education
cannot simply consist of presenting learners with artefacts such as books, objects,
materials. Learners will undoubtedly respond to such artefacts and in doing so will
give meaning to them. But this response, and the ensuing meaning, will be
completely idiosyncratic.
The reason why simply presenting the learner with artefacts does not count as a
case of the communication of meaning, is because the meaning of artefacts is not to
be found in the artefacts themselves, but in how people respond to and use these
artefacts. The meaning-to-be-communicated is to be found, in other words, in the
social practices in which objects and artefacts have their meaning. This is why
Mead holds that “meanings grow out of social intercourse” (Mead, 1910/1911, p.
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*95) and, even more importantly, that the child must get the meaning through his
response to “certain social [italics added] situations” (Mead, 1910/1911, p. 128).
From this it first of all follows that for Mead the most important, if not the only
possible ‘mode’ of education is that of participation. For Mead the communication
of meaning takes place in the process of social co-operation and co-ordination, and
the only way in which meaning can be communicated is if the learner participates
in this process of co-operation and co-ordination. We must realize, Mead writes,
“that meaning arises only through the reaction of the learner” (Mead, 1910/1911, p.
190). If education is not social, then “we can simply give a lesson” – and “this
latter has been the point of view” (Mead, 1910/1911, p. 127). “Shall we assume,”
Mead asks rhetorically, “that the mind is an organ in the body like the stomach or
the intestines and that it works over what it is given? This is an easy way to take
and then teaching will be the furnishing of material” (Mead, 1910/1911, pp. 127-
128). But once we acknowledge that meanings grow out of social intercourse, that
is, that “they are not there and then expressed,” we have to recognize that “what the
child requires is not poured into a receptacle” but that “meaning must arise in the
child’s consciousness in some sort of intercourse with others” (Mead, 1910/1911,
pp. *95-*96).
This further implies that the process of “the conveying of meanings” (Mead,
1910/1911, p. 37) is not “a reproduction of the acts of another.” It is not, in other
words, a process of imitation, but a process of action and reaction, of social
stimulation and response. It is, in other words, a creative process, a process in
which meaning is constantly made, rather than reproduced. The upshot of this is, as
I have already alluded to, that “the very process of acquiring, changes the thing
acquired” (Mead, 1910/1911, p. 156). If meaning can only be communicated
through the response of the learner to a social situation, then it means that the very
‘mechanism’ of education is itself transformative. Change of meaning is the rule,
so we could say, and identity of meaning the exception.12
Mead’s account also has important implications for our understanding of the
curriculum, since for Mead the meaning of the curriculum is not to be found in
educational artefacts but in educational practices. This is what he has in mind,
when he writes that the “material” of education is itself “the product of a social
relationship” (Mead, 1910/1911, p. 191) – a relationship, so I want to emphasize,
of which the child or the learner is a constitutive part and not simply the passive
recipient. This view has far-reaching consequences for educational practice since it
suggest that education should not be organized around the teaching of specific
subjects, but around the ‘presentation’ of practices in which learners can take part.
Instead of teaching mathematics, for example, Mead would argue for creating
opportunities for participation in the practice of ‘mathematizing’. Instead of
teaching history, education should provide opportunities for participation in the
practice of ‘historizing,’ and so on.
Although in this respect we could say that Mead’s theory of education is a theory
of practical co-operation and co-ordination, he does emphasize the importance of
reflection and abstraction. The problem of education, according to Mead, is not
only that of the communication of meaning but also “that of introducing a method
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of thought” (Mead, 1910/1911, p. 186). He acknowledges that this method “is not a
thing that can be transferred only, it is a thing which one must gain for himself”
(Mead, 1910/1911, p. 175). It is a method in which the learner must be trained, but
the training must arise out of his own experience ... It must arise out of
problems with the child himself, for he is responsible for making his own
abstraction ... He can’t take over abstractions ... For a child to make use of
abstractions they must have been made by himself. (Mead, 1910/1911, p.
178).
The abstractions, in short, must arise in the child’s own thought process (see
Mead, 1910/1911, p. 181). Yet the thought process is not something that takes
place in the privacy of the child’s mind; “before the child can get the meaning of
any thought,” Mead writes, “he must get it in a social situation” (Mead, 1910/1911,
p. 130). This has everything to do with Mead’s account of the emergence of
consciousness of meaning which, as we have seen before, “appears as a response to
the conduct of another” (Mead, 1910/1911, p. 86). It is the social situation, in other
words, which ultimately occasions consciousness of meaning and hence abstract
thinking.
What emerges from this discussion of Mead’s theory of education is that he again
and again returns to the social situation, the situation of social co-ordination and
co-operation, as the ‘matrix’ of all education. It is the matrix through which he
understands education as a process of the communication of meaning. It is also the
matrix which accounts for the emergence of reflective consciousness. In all this,
we can see a theory of education in which the child is not simply on the receiving
end. Education is not the transfer of meaning from the teacher to the learner, from
the parent to the child, from the current generation to the next generation.
Education is a process of communication through participation in which the child
is as much a meaning-maker as the adult is. For Mead, the child is not an empty
vessel that has to be filled; the child ultimately is a source of new meanings and of
the eternal renewal of meaning. This does, of course, point towards a different way
for organizing schooling, one which no longer focuses on the transmission of
tradition, but one in which communication, participation, co-ordination and
creation of meaning are real opportunities. Mead’s theory of education is an
antidote to any theory of education which views imitation as the highest virtue.
Partly because he shows that imitation is not possible; partly as well because in
doing so he suggests that imitation may also not be educationally desirable.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
In this paper I have provided an overview of Mead’s theory of the social origin of
reflective consciousness and his ideas about social interaction as a process of co-
ordination and co-operation. Against this background, I have provided a
reconstruction of the educational theory that follows from these ideas. In
conclusion, I want to make some remarks in relation to three questions: (1) To
what extent is Mead’s approach different from Dewey’s? What, in other words, is
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special about Mead’s theory of education and warrants further attention? (2) What
are the implications of Mead’s views for a contemporary theory of schooling? (3)
To what extent are Mead’s ideas still valid, interesting and perhaps even important
today? What, in other words, might a Meadian view contribute to contemporary
debates and practices?
I began this paper by noting that Mead has always worked in Dewey’s shadow.
We may well want to conclude, that with respect to a pragmatist theory of
education, this is precisely where Mead should stay, if, that is, we would believe
that Mead doesn’t provide any new insights into the process of education, different,
that is, from Dewey’s theory of education. In one respect, I am inclined to conclude
that Mead’s theory of education is quite close to what Dewey has to say about
education as a process of communication, most notably in the first three chapters of
his Democracy and Education (1916) and, with respect to the theory of
communication, in chapter 5 of Experience and Nature (1925) (see Biesta, 1994;
1995). What Mead’s adds to the pragmatist understanding of education as
communication, is a high level of theoretical detail and sophistication, especially
with respect to the way in which consciousness of meaning – especially the
meaning of social objects – is achieved. Mead is also, so I want to argue, much
more aware of the intersubjective nature of meaning, that is, the fact that meaning
is located in social practices. In this respect I want to reiterate my belief that Mead
is the better theorist of the two, and this is one important reason to pay attention to
his work as part of an exploration of a pragmatist theory of education.
Is there anything to learn from Mead for a contemporary theory of schooling? As
I have suggested in the introduction, Mead provides us with a semiotic perspective
on schooling, a perspective which focuses on schooling as a process of the
communication of meaning. He suggests a framework for understanding schooling
which centers on the idea of participation, since for Mead participation is the
‘mode’ through which communication of meaning becomes possible. Mead also
emphasizes, however, the importance of the introduction of abstraction, and hence
reflection and thinking; the introduction, in other words, of a method of thought.
This, as I have tried to make clear, is not something that ‘naturally’ emerges in the
communication of meaning, for which reason Mead argues that the introduction of
a method of thought requires us to go “beyond the natural” (Mead, 1910/1911, p.
183). One could argue that precisely here we find a special task, and maybe even a
special responsibility for schools and schooling in that schools can be conceived as
those contexts which explicitly aim at the introduction of a method of thought, the
introduction of reflection and abstraction. But this task can not be achieved by
simply trying to put abstractions into the minds of the learners. The challenge is to
develop social situations which allow for the emergence of abstractions in the
child’s own though process.
This brings me to my third and final question: to what extent are Mead’s ideas
still valid, interesting and perhaps even important today. In a general sense, I
believe that Mead’s work on the social origin of reflective consciousness is
extremely relevant today. While there is an increasing tendency in research and
theory about consciousness and reflection to focus on what goes on inside the
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brain, Mead offers a robust alternative which again and again points us back to the
social situation as the site were meaning is made and consciousness of meaning
emerges. Mead’s alternative view, so I believe, would lend itself very well to a line
of empirical research which is radically different from much extant work in this
area. While this may not be of direct importance for education, we know all too
well that psychological theories are very influential in shaping debates about
education and learning.
But Mead also has a lot to offer for educational theory proper. He provides a
compelling argument against the idea that the child is the recipient of education
and, instead, emphasizes the role of the child as a participant in the creation and
renewal of meaning though educational communication. This is not a process in
which the child “internalizes” pre-existing meanings. Mead helps us to see
education as a process in which the child brings new meanings to the educational
conversation. As I have shown, Mead also helps us to understand where meaning is
located: not in artifacts and objects, but in social practices. In doing so, Mead shifts
the attention, both analytically (in that he can help us to see what it actually is that
children and student learn from), and programmatically (in that he suggest new
ways to conceive the curriculum). His theory of education also challenges the idea
that identity of meaning should be the norm and the normal situation in educational
communication. In all these respects I not only believe that Mead poses a radical
challenge to the way in which schooling in many countries around the world is
currently organized. I also believe that there is still much to learn from a pragmatist
theory of education like the one Mead has put forward.
NOTES
1
Dewey scholars will agree that the foundation for much if not all of Dewey’s work was laid in the
early 1890’s, culminating in the publication of the landmark 1896-article “The Reflex Arc Concept
in Psychology” (Dewey, 1972) (see, e.g., Biesta & Burbules, 2003, pp. 31-35). Yet, as has for
example been shown by Tiles (1988 pp.36-48), this article brings to a head a line of thought which
began to take shape in his treatment of emotion, which he documented in articles published in 1894-
1895. In a footnote to one of the central pieces, “The Theory of Emotion,” Dewey credited Mead for
some of the most crucial insights. “Being unable to do anything with these cases, I called them to the
notice of my friend and colleague, Mr.G.H. Mead. The explanation given, which seems to me
indubitable, is his. The relation between the vegetative and the motor functions, given above in
discussion of the pathological emotion, and to be used again below, I also owe to him. While I have
employed the point only incidentally, Mr. Mead rightly makes it essential to the explanation of
emotion and its attitudes, as distinct from the identification and description which alone I have
attempted. I hope, therefore, that his whole theory may soon appear in print.” (Dewey, 1971, p. 167).
Apart from an abstract of a paper on emotions (Mead 1895), Mead did never publish his theory.
2
Mead writes that he wants to look at education from the point of view of “the conveyance of
meanings” (Mead, 1910/1911, p. 37)
3
The existence of Mind, Self and Society therefore constitutes a real problem, not only for Mead-
scholars more generally, but also for those in education who base their understanding of Mead’s
theory of education on this source. The main difference between the reconstruction of Mead’s theory
of education that I will put forward in this paper and the remarks on education that can be found in
Mind, Self and Society is that in the latter book education is mainly presented as a process of
adaptation, that is, a process through which the child learns to respond in a way identical to how the
community responds to the child. Mead – or to be more precise: the author of Mind, Self and Society
– writes: “The getting of [the] social response into the individual constitutes the process of education
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which takes over the cultural media of the community in amore or less abstract way. Education is
definitely the process of taking over a certain organized set of responses to one’s own stimulation;
and until one can respond to himself as the community responds to him, he does not genuinely
belong to the community.” (Mead, 1934, pp. 264-265) Elsewhere Mead writes that the self “is made
possible through the identical [italics added] reactions of the self and the others” (Mead, 1934, p.
317) and that it is this kind of the organisation of the responses which “makes the community
possible” (Mead, 1934, p. 266). My intention here is not to claim that this is all there is to say about
Mind, Self and Society, but just to highlight the fact that a certain reading of this book can result in
an understanding of Mead’s theory of education that is significantly different from what emerges
from Mead’s earlier writings. There is at least one line of thinking in Mind, Self and Society which
thinks of education as the process through which the child becomes part of a community that already
exists. This is unlike one of the key ideas of Mead’s earlier writings, where he emphasizes again and
again that community only exists in interaction and communication, and not independent of it. This,
as I will argue below, results both in a different understanding of the ‘locus’ of meaning and of the
dynamics of the process of education itself. Although more research is needed into the origins of
Mind, Self and Society, it is perhaps not insignificant that in a footnote on page 265 the editor makes
reference to Mead’s notes, editorial and articles on education, but only to some more practical
papers and not to the range of theoretical papers on which I base my reconstruction of Mead’s theory
of education. In this respect there is a clear difference of perception as to where Mead’s theory of
education can be found.
4
Philosophy of Education. Typescript of Student Notes by Juliet Hammond, 1910-1911 (196 pp.).
George Herbert Mead Papers, Box VIII, Folder 9. The University of Chicago Library. The typescript
consists of 196 numbered pages, containing 37 Lectures, and three added pages with some
summarizing remarks (to which I will refer as *95, *96 and *97). It was compiled by Juliet
Hammond, who was a student in the Graduate School of Arts, Literature, and Science (see the
Annual Register 1910-1991 of The University of Chicago, p. 495).
5
In one of his articles from 1910 Mead does acknowledge that his earlier attempts to develop his
point of view were still “somewhat obscurely and ineffectually” (Mead, 1910a, p. 106)
6
One important question which Mead, as far as I know, does not address is why ‘human animals’ do
develop reflective consciousness as a result of the dynamics of their interaction, and other animals
do not.
7
Elsewhere Mead writes: “experience in its original form became reflective in the recognition of
selves, and only gradually was there a differentiated reflective experience of things which were
purely physical” (Mead, 1910a, pp. 112-113).
8
Cook has argued that Mead’s remarks and suggestions do not really add up to one consistent account
(see Cook, 1993, p. 90). I agree with Cook, but do believe that everything that is needed for an
answer can be found in Mead’s writings. In what follows I will rely on the reconstruction I put
forward in more detail in Biesta (1998).
9
“The human animal can stimulate himself as he stimulates others and can respond to this stimulation
as he responds to the stimulation of others.” (Mead, 1912, p. 139)
10
Another solution Mead tries is to argue that we have “memory-images of the responses of those
about us,” and that in responding to ourselves these images “naturally” flow into our reaction (see
Mead, 1913). This, however, still does not explain how we acquire these memory-images, nor does
it account for the fact that others may respond quite differently to our actions from how they have
responded in the past.
11
At this point I want to remind the reader of what I said in footnote 3, in that Mead’s remarks here
clearly imply a rejection of the idea that social interaction relies on identity of meaning and that it
henceforth would be the task of education to impart objective meaning into the minds of children.
Therefore Mead’s 1924/1925 article stands in clear contrast to some of the ideas that were published
10 years later in Mind, Self and Society
12
Another way of looking at this is to say that if participation is the mode of education, the very
practice through which the learner is supposed to learn, changes as soon as the learner starts to take
part. This is another reason why the communication of meaning results in change.
130
REFERENCES
Biesta, G. J. J. (1994). Education as practical intersubjectivity. Towards a critical-pragmatic understanding
of education. Educational Theory, 44(3), 299-317.
Biesta, G. J. J. (1995). Pragmatism as a pedagogy of communicative action. In J. Garrison (Ed.), The new
scholarship on John Dewey (pp. 105-122). Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Biesta, G. J. J. (1998). Mead, intersubjectivity, and education: The early writings. Studies in Philosophy
and Education, 17, 73-99.
Biesta, G. J. J. (1999). Redefining the subject, redefining the social, reconsidering education: George
Herbert Mead’s course on Philosophy of Education at the University of Chicago. Educational Theory,
49(4), 475-492.
Biesta, G. J. J., & Burbules, N.C. (2003). Pragmatism and educational research. Boulder, CO: Rowman
& Littlefield.
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interaction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Cook, G.A. (1993). George Herbert Mead. The making of a social pragmatist. Urbana and Chicago:
University of Illinois Press.
Cremin, L. (1988). American education: The metropolitan experience 1876-1980. New York: Harper &
Row.
Dewey, J. (1971[1894/1895]). The theory of emotion. In J.A. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey. The early
works, 1882-1898. Volume 4, 1893-1894 (pp. 152-188). Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern
Illinois University Press.
Dewey, J. (1972[1896]). The reflex arc concept in psychology. In J.A. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey.
The early works, 1882-1898. Volume 5, 1895-1898 (pp. 96-109). Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press.
Dewey, J. (1985[1931]). George Herbert Mead as I knew him. In J.A. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey. The
later works, 1925-1953. Volume 6: 1931-1932 (pp. 22-28). Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL:
Southern Illinois University Press.
Joas, H. (Ed.) (1985). Das Problem der Intersubjektivität. Neuere Beiträge zum Werk George Herbert
Meads. Frankfurt an Main: Suhrkamp.
Joas, H. (1989). Praktische Intersubjektivität. Die Entwicklung des Werkes van G.H. Mead. Frankfurt an
Main: Suhrkamp.
Mead, G. H. (1895). A theory of emotions from the physiological standpoint (Abstract of a paper read
to the third annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, 1894). Psychological
Review, 2, 162-164.
Mead, G. H. (1900). Suggestions toward a theory of the philosophical disciplines. Philosophical
Review, 9, 1-17. Reprinted in Reck (1964), pp. 6-24.
Mead, G. H. (1903). The definition of the psychical. In The decennial publications of the University of
Chicago. First series (pp.77-112). Chicago: Chicago University Press. Partly reprinted in Reck
(1964), pp. 25-59.
Mead, G. H. (1907). Concerning animal perception. The Psychological Review, 16, 383-390.
Mead, G. H. (1908). Review of W. McDougall, An introduction to social psychology. Psychological
Bulletin, 5, 385-391.
Mead, G. H. (1909). Social psychology as counterpart to physiological psychology. Psychological
Bulletin, 6, 401-408. Reprinted in Reck (1964), pp. 95-104.
Mead, G. H. (1910a). What social objects must psychology presuppose? The Journal of Philosophy,
Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 7, 174-180. Reprinted in Reck (1964), pp. 105-113.
Mead, G. H. (1910b). The psychology of social consciousness implied in instruction. Science, 31, 688-
693. Reprinted in Reck (1964), pp. 114-122.
Mead, G. H. (1910c). Social consciousness and the consciousness of meaning. Psychological Bulletin,
7, 397-405. Reprinted in Reck (1964), pp. 123-133.
Mead, G. H. (1910/1911). Philosophy of education. Typescript of student notes by Juliet Hammond, 1910-
1911. George Herbert Mead Papers, Box VIII, Folder 9. Chicago: The University of Chicago Library.
Mead, G. H. (1912). The mechanism of social consciousness. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology,
and Scientific Methods, 9, 401-406. Reprinted in Reck (1964), pp. 134-141.
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GERT BIESTA
Mead, G. H. (1913). The social self. The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Philosophic Method,
10, 374-380. Reprinted in Reck (1964), pp. 142-149.
Mead, G. H. (1922). A behavioristic account of the significant symbol. The Journal of Philosophy, 19,
157-163. Reprinted in Reck (1964), pp. 240-247.
Mead, G. H. (1924/1925). The genesis of the self and social control. International Journal of Ethics, 35,
251-277. Reprinted in Reck (1964), pp. 267-293.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Edited, with an
introduction, by C. W. Morris. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Reck, A. J. (Ed.) (1964). Selected writings. George Herbert Mead. Edited, with an introduction, by
Andrew J. Reck. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Gert Biesta
University of Exeter, England, School of Education and Lifelong Learning
Örebro University, Sweden, Department of Education
132
JÜRGEN OELKERS
SOME HISTORICAL NOTES ON GEORGE HERBERT

MEAD’S THEORY OF EDUCATION
Modern science is research science, writes George Herbert Mead in Movements of

Thought in the Nineteenth Century,1 and that raises problems for traditional
philosophy, calling its concepts and doctrines into question. Research science is
hypothetical learning; concepts must be tested and cannot be assured; theories are
not dogmas, but rather temporary working hypotheses in the light of existent,
present experiences and facts. This means that every postulate can turn into a
problem; all assumptions are valid only “from the point of view of the science of
the time” (Mead, 1936, p. 265).2 Scientific inquiry in this sense begins with the
Renaissance and finally gains ascendance in the nineteenth century. The
consequences for philosophy are grave: “truth” is now a “working” truth that is
temporal and transitory; the philosophy of “being” becomes history; and “society”
can no longer be understood on the basis of feudal theories. Philosophy can
interpret scientific results (p. 343), but it can neither replace them nor offer
alternatives to them.
One solution to this situation, says Mead, was the philosophy of pragmatism as
developed by William James and John Dewey at the turn of the century (Mead,
1936, p. 344f.). One of its central insights relates to the theory of scientific
experimental or hypothetical learning, which Mead expands to develop a general
model of education. “Research science” and “education” are not two separate
areas. They both refer to an identical experience. Pragmatism, writes Mead (1936),
calls upon two sources:
The sources of the pragmatic doctrine are these: one is behavioristic
psychology [italics added], which enables one to put intelligence in its proper
place within the conduct of form, and to state that intelligence in terms of the
activity of the form itself; the other is the research process [italics added], the
scientific technique, which comes back to the testing of a hypothesis by its
working … If we connect these two by recognizing that the testing in its
working-out means the setting-free of inhibited acts and processes, we can
see that both of them lead up to a doctrine …, and that perhaps the most
important phase of it is this: that the process of knowing lies inside of the
process of conduct. (p. 351f.)
For this reason, pragmatism has been spoken of as a practical sort of philosophy,
a sort of “bread-and-butter philosophy” (Mead, 1936, p. 352). It does not
distinguish between thought and being or between knowledge and action; “it brings

JÜRGEN OELKERS
the process of thought, of knowledge, inside of conduct” (p. 352). The theory is
warranted on the basis of the research process or learning through hypotheses on
the one hand, and on the psychology of Behaviorism as understood by John Dewey
and William James (p. 392ff.) on the other.3 This is not John Watson’s theory of
conditioned learning based on his “behaviorist manifesto” of 1913,4 but rather a
theory of intelligent adaptation that sees experience as a temporal sequence (p.
392) and consciousness as emerging from public communication, without
rigorously rejecting intentionality (p. 399ff.).5
One of the main influences on the development of pragmatism was the shift in
the nature of work in the rapidly developing industrial society. The growing
division of labor was concurrent with the processes of urbanization and the
attendant new formation of the public consciousness. It was only in the modern
city that the individual could free himself from feudal control, as a worker
receiving money in return for his services. The wage belonged to him in terms of
his own effort, under no feudal conditions at all (Mead, 1936, p. 175). With the
city, new forms of social control had to be built up (p. 176) that could be neither
feudal nor ecclesiastical. This description had one of its roots in Georg Simmel’s
Philosophie des Geldes,6 which Mead had reviewed in the 1900/1901 volume of
the Journal of Political Economy.
In that work, Simmel (1989, p. 379ff.) had laid out how the historical departure
from an agrarian economy and the manorial system brought with it the “freeing of
the individual” (p. 138) under the conditions of the “non-determined existence of
the city” (p. 596). For Simmel, fundamental to the public forms of the urban
existence is individual and social “differentiation” (p. 631). The classical view of
society, as a closed entity or political “body” that incorporates individuals in a
lasting grip, no longer holds. We can also no longer view individuals as ultimate,
indivisible “monads” that are untouched by the process of their experience. Simmel
sees differentiation as both spatial and temporal; it occurs both in coexistence and
in succession (p. 369), which can be observed in the division of labor as well as in
the phenomena of fashions.
Similarly, Mead holds that the gradual and continuous emergence of capitalistic
industrial society fundamentally changed the social situation. Society, and thus
education, can longer be understood according to the pattern of the “ancient house”
(Mead, 1936, p. 185), meaning closed experience and static social forms. Social
dynamics entered not only with industry, but also with the modern economy
oriented towards an unlimited market. The new “economic community” of the
nineteenth century was more universal than any church, and it had no need for
metaphysical justifications (p. 187f.). “Also, it brought together people who were
separated nationally, in language, in customs” (p. 188).
“Society,” however, is not the same thing as “market.” In contrast to Malthus,
Mead makes it clear that freedom of exchange is not based on “natural laws” of
economy. Work and capital do not follow the simple tendencies of unceasing
growth of wealth as well as increasing impoverishment, but instead must be seen
upon the background of increasing differentiation and ongoing problem solving
(Mead, 1936, p. 194ff.). “Societies develop … by adjusting themselves to the
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HISTORICAL NOTES ON MEAD’S THEORY OF EDUCATION
problems they find before them” (p. 365f.). Social adaptation is always intelligent
adaptation and therefore a process of continuous learning.
When we reach the human form with its capacity for indicating what is
important in a situation, through the process of analysis; when we get to the
position in which a mind can arise in the individual form, that is, where the
individual can come back upon himself and stimulate himself just as he
stimulates others; where the individual can call out in himself the attitude of
the whole group; where he can acquire the knowledge that belongs to the
whole community; where he can respond as the whole community responds
under certain conditions when they direct this organized intelligence toward
particular end; then we have this process which provides solutions for
problems working in a self-conscious way. (p. 366)
Mead is trying to connect the entire evolutionary process with social
organization (Mead, 1936, p. 372) and adaptation with intelligence.7 Modern
society requires intelligent forms of social control that must go beyond simple
historical habits and patterns. Society is thus cooperation, which is to be
understood as a highly complex activity based upon humans’ ability to take the
attitude of the group to which they belong, and it is not merely based upon gain or
loss (p. 375). “Thinking” refers to “public consideration”; “it is taking the attitude
of others, talking to other people, and then replying in their language. That is what
constitutes thinking” (p. 375f.).8
A central focus of this theory, and the subject of the present paper, is the
question of how education, democracy, and society are connected. There has been
little reception of Mead in the field of education internationally, and practically no
investigation of his theory of education.9 The linking of Mead with Symbolic
Interactionism10 prevented for the most part attention to Mead’s theory of education
or placed it in the field occupied by John Dewey, namely the relation between
education and democracy. In the following, I attempt to reconstruct the
contemporary context of these issues (section 1) and then discuss some aspects of
social theory as they were treated in the intellectual context of which Mead was a
part (section 2). Finally, I will examine Mead’s peculiar theory of education, which
- like many areas of his work - exists only in fragments and nevertheless is far
more deserving of attention than has been realized to date (section 3). Mead dealt
intensively with pedagogical problems. His first publication relevant to education
goes back to the year 1896, and it is not coincidentally devoted to the relation of
“play” to “education” (Mead, 1896).11
1. SOCIETY, DEMOCRACY, AND EDUCATION
Educational reform has been a public issue in the United States since the mid
nineteenth century. Charles William Eliot spoke of “new education” as early as
1869, the year of his inauguration as president of Harvard University.12 Eliot
demanded a broadening and deepening of higher education in the United States
that would have a place for the natural sciences, foreign languages, and political
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JÜRGEN OELKERS
economy.13 Eliot, president of Harvard for 40 years, held to a concept of higher

education that would leave the European conception of “the cultivated man” and
“educating the self” behind and focus instead on efficiency and usefulness for
society (Eliot, 1903). He criticized the state of the field of education: “The history
of education if full of still-born theories; the literature of the subject is largely
made up of theorizing; whoever reads it much will turn with infinite relief to the
lessons of experience” (Eliot, 1869, p. 204). The speculative science of education
was not in a position to deal with the question of how a democratic education could
be developed.
John Dewey referred to Eliot in his contributions to Paul Monroe’s14 Cyclopedia
of Education,15 the first large summary and lexical organization of the field of
American education, and with it, the “new” education.16 Monroe’s Cyclopedia
(published 1911 to 1914) was the first education encyclopedia to use in print the
term “philosophy of education” and to include the entry “democracy and
education,” which Dewey (1985) understood as follows: Democracy and education
are connected in two ways. Not only does a democracy require educated citizens
for purposes of self-perpetuation, but also democratic ideals themselves shape
education, namely the form and methods of the public schools (p. 417f.). For
Dewey (1985) the prerequisite is respect of the individual, which means that feudal
authority must be overcome in the process of societal differentiation:
Democracy inevitably carries with it increased respect for the individual as
individual, greater opportunity for freedom, independence and initiative in
conduct and thought, and correspondingly increased demand for fraternal
regard and for self-imposed and voluntarily borne responsibilities. (p. 418)
Eliot’s influence included outlining the central concerns of the “new education.”
They were intended to highlight the differences between American and British or
European pedagogy, such as with regard to freedom in education, the greater
individualization of teaching, and particularly the function of education in a
democratic society.17 The first two volumes of the Cyclopedia appeared in 1911,
one year after the publication of How we think, Dewey’s examination of the
cognitive psychology basis of the “new education.” Eliot is one of the sources of
the famous formula that states that education is the continuous reconstruction of
experience (Dewey, 1985, p. 431).18 Dewey (1985) describes the basis for this
formula, which also derives from Mead’s hypothetical learning, as follows:
So far we have considered education from the standpoint of its place and
function in societies that make use of it to secure the conservation and
expansion of their own ideals. We may, of course, also regard the process
from the standpoint of the immature beings who at a given time are being
transformed into social members, to sustain the community type of life. So
viewed, education may be defined as a process of the continuous
reconstruction of experience [italics added] with the purpose of widening and
deepening its social content, while, at the same time, the individual gains
control of the methods involved. (p. 431)
136
Later, Mead (1938) examines just wherein this “reconstructive” activity of the
individual in a democratic society lies. The single individual cannot oppose society
and impose his will upon it; society therefore restricts free will. But there is no
problem that has not been defined by individuals, just as there are no research
problems that did not originate with individual researchers.19 All problems of
relevance are communicated socially, but worked out individually. No project to
find a solution emerges simply right out of the “middle of society,” which exists
only in a metaphorical sense.
Here is a certain situation. We all agree to that. What can be done about it?
The step which can be taken under those circumstances is some project which
can meet that particular problem. That, then, becomes a basis for social
reaction. It has to be accepted by the community. The individual puts his
problem in universal form. The thing he presents is essentially a social affair
which arises through his thinking, his idea. (Mead, 1938, p. 662ff.)
Individuality is no longer the “inner” counter-world to “external” society, as in
the European tradition of personal self-cultivation. The dualism of individual and
society itself comes into question, for society is not a “thing” confronting the
individual, but rather complex interactions between individuals and groups. All
social institutions or methods are solutions to problems. They can be changed as
new problems and new solutions arise. This means that it is impossible to relate
education to inner cultivation. This is the essential stepping off point of the
Pragmatist theory of education; education refers to social interaction, which is not
something that can see itself as an unquestioned authority.
Eliot criticized the great rift between self-cultivation and usefulness to society.
He saw society as the natural setting for all educational concerns (Eliot, 1909, p.
39) and urged that the concept must change: namely, there must be an end to the
overemphasis on the great texts of cultural history and thus the search for values in
the past. New education must include modern languages, specialization,20 and
finally, encourage innovative problem-solving or “constructive imagination” (p.
40ff.).21 At the same time, education must address the students’ own self-activity
and individuality, he wrote in 1894.22 “In school and college alike the really
effective teaching … is what is addressed to each individual pupil” (Eliot, 1909a,
p. 318). Instruction, wrote Dewey in 1900,23 should not merely conserve
knowledge, conveying the idea that there are no doubt, no difficulties, and no
necessity to think further (Dewey, 1916, p. 189ff.).
In January 1896 the University Elementary School of the newly founded
University of Chicago opened under the direction of Alice and John Dewey. The
school was also called the Laboratory School, to indicate the school’s character of
a “laboratory” in which the child was to take an active part, learning through doing
and discovering. Although he had not coined the term,24 Eliot (1909a) had placed
the expression “laboratory method” quite prominently two years previously in an
essay on “The Unity of Educational Reform” in connection with science
instruction:
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JÜRGEN OELKERS
The old-fashioned method of teaching science by means of illustrated books

and demonstrative lectures has been superseded, from the kindergarten
through the university, by the laboratory method [italics added], in which
each pupil, no matter whether he has been three years old or twenty-three,
works with his own hands, and is taught to use his own senses. (p. 318f.)
One of the opponents of this theory of education was Matthew Arnold, whose
“humanistic” theory of the forming of the mind and the cultivation of man -
developed 1869 in Culture and Anarchy25 - was to be rejected in favor of a concept
of education that has room for industrial training and scientific research and
technology as well as languages and history, thus departing from the self-
understanding of the humanities as the “true bearers” of culture. The humanities,
wrote Dewey (1985, p. 406), were typically blind to the fundamental importance of
knowledge of nature “as a necessary condition of reaching both all-round
individual development and an equable social improvement.”
Eliot had written in 1894 that effective power in action is the true end of
education rather than the storing up of information, or the mere cultivation of
faculties which are mainly receptive, discriminating, or critical, i.e., an education
that does not address the practical at all (Eliot, 1894/1909a, p. 323). This would
require very extensive changes in curricula and teaching methods, changes that
made up what was called the “new education.” Dewey presented a proposal for this
change in his article on the course of study for Monroe’s Cyclopedia.26 According
to Dewey (1985, p. 396), curriculum construction 27 must master three main
problems:
- the significance of subject-matter in general;

- its relation to experience;
- its classification.
The contents of instruction must be of demonstrated significance and not base

merely upon the traditional canon. Curriculum contents must also be able to be
connected to the students’ experience, and they must be based upon a convincing
classification that does not simply reproduce traditional curricula. Teaching
materials and lesson plans - the instruments of instruction and learning - should not
take on autonomous importance, but must remain linked to the experience context.
They are social products, not school media exclusively. Children are also not
empty slates with none of their own experience, learning simply what the school
offers:
The experience of pupils is already more or less socialized. It has been built
up through suggestions and interpretations derived from the social groups of
which the child is already a member. It is already saturated with social values
that are akin to these presented in the studies of the curriculum. (Eliot,
1894/1909a, p. 400)
138
This understanding of the socialized child, who does not enter school as a
“tabula rasa,”28 goes back to Charles Cooley’s (1902, 1909)29 theory of the primary
group, which was later developed further by William Thomas. “Primary groups”
are all groups or social associations in which and through which the child builds up
his first and fundamental experiences. These experiences are essential in forming
the social nature, ideals, and worldview of the adult person. A person’s first
learning does not take place in the school; children are from the start enmeshed in
social contexts. Cooley also developed further the idea of the “social self,” which
would overcome the Cartesian gap between inner and external world. Children are
not, as according to Rousseau, first nature and then society; they are from the start,
and always, active learners, society-minded, if society is understood as their
primary social relationships. Children thus learn democracy within their primary
culture.
The facts of this matter demanded a theoretical explanation. In 1916, in
Democracy and Education, John Dewey accused the theoretical tradition in
pedagogy in its entirety, not only the German tradition, of lacking a democratic
basis. According to Dewey, it presupposed a feudal society based on paternal and
timeless principles, justifying a hierarchical education that was inappropriate for a
developing democratic society (Oelkers, 2004). Mead (1964, p. 210) called it
“philosophic servitude” that was inappropriate for free communities, which can
choose their own philosophies and need not rely upon sacrosanct traditions (p.
374). Here Mead (1964) took peculiarities of the American experience into
account:30
Popular education and economic opportunity sprang naturally from its
[American] social attitude and its geographical situation. It was the
distillation of the democracy inherent in Calvinism and the Industrial
Revolution at liberty to expand and proliferate for a century without the
social problems which beset it in Europe. The American pioneer was
spiritually stripped for the material conquest of a continent and the formation
of a democratic community. (p. 374f.)
The examples chosen by Dewey in Democracy and Education are highly
pertinent: neither Herbart and Hegel, nor Pestalozzi, nor Froebel present a
democratic theory of education. Instead they speak of “The Education of Man,”31
which can be applied in any type of societal system. The main problem for the
authors in the Pragmatist school was the formulation of a democratic theory of
education independent of these traditions that would correlate with the experiences
of democratic society. Modern in contrast to ancient democracy is based upon
interchange between groups and individuals (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 286ff.). The
issue is thus how education can become interchange of ideas, conversation,
belonging to a “universe of discourse” (p. 284) without following an agenda of
political propaganda (p. 287).
The American literature as well often overlooks the fact that Dewey’s
Democracy and Education did not mark the beginning of the discussion on
democratization. From the time of Eliot’s plea for the “new education,” there were
139
JÜRGEN OELKERS
continuous references to the necessity to adapt programs and experiences of

schools at all levels to democracy and, more specifically, to democratic forms of
life. “New education” (Palmer, 1887) was not seen only as a change in methods,
but - in a much broader sense - as a change in the political structure of education.
Well-known examples of the political discourse include Booker T. Washington’s32
address (1896) on equality of black pupils as a precondition for democratic
development of the school (Washington, 1932), Charles Eliot’s plea in 1897 for
general and equal school standards that would be necessary if education was to
qualify as a function of a democratic society (Eliot, 1909a, pp. 399-418), and
Charles Cooley’s (1918) utilization of the primary group as a foundation of a
democratic school culture. The fundamental idea of public education for all
children under republican circumstances goes back to the founding of the United
States (Tröhler, 2001). The idea typically combines equal access to education with
strong normative convictions that assume political democracy.
Authors like George Herbert Mead (1899, 1910), John Dewey (1903), or Ella
Flagg Young (1903) very early related the theory of education to the democratic
form of life, that is, to social exchange and free interaction. Mead formulated the
idea that all social reform can be seen as a political and educational “working
hypothesis” that must stand the test of experience without guarantees on the basis
of metaphysics or philosophy of history like in Hegelian or Marxists theories. The
effect of pedagogical reforms becomes evident in the process of experience and not
as the result of a plan of history that laid out the route prior to or independently of
experience. Dewey in 1903 saw democracy as a condition for education, and Ella
Flagg Young voted for the application of the “scientific method,” or controlled
learning through experience also (and precisely) in education.
The demand that education for democracy must itself be democratic can be
traced back to reform pedagogy experiments that were conducted not only within
the American progressive education movement, but also in the English radical
schools between the wars (Blewitt, 1934). Democratic procedures, such as voting
and public discussions or criticism, were realized in the schools. Closely related is
Dewey’s idea that the school should be an embryonic society, anticipating on a
small scale that which would be demanded later on the larger scale, particularly
social behavior and a democratic attitude (Tanner, 1997). A democratic education
must also be based upon a democratic theory of education that is no longer fixated
upon traditional authorities, but instead is capable of responding to the open
process of democratic experience. Like all experience, therefore, the theory must
be correctable and can no longer be formulated independently of the time or
context.
A theory of education thus requires a social theory. The question of how society
is possible brings us back to Georg Simmel.33 Socialization [Vergesellschaftung],
writes Simmel (1968, p. 24), is processes of interaction; society is nothing more
than “the interactions arising among individuals” (p. 25). If education is also seen
as cooperation, it can no longer be conceived of as “influencing,” as was the case
up to Herbertianism.34 Mead (1938, p. 137) responded to Simmel’s question and
utilized it in order to develop a strictly social theory of education with the
140
following basic tenet: “What has made human society possible has been a co-
operation through communication and participation.” The goals and means of
human life must be realized under the condition of social differentiation, and it is
the “raison d’être of the co-operative process” that individual goals cannot simply
be transformed into social goals, but instead require negotiation. Otherwise,
democracy would have no basis.
2. PRAGMATISM AND SOCIAL THEORY
Mead described in 192335 the ideal that underlies democracy: Democracy implies a
highly complex social situation that is not simply given, but instead must be
determined or socially tuned again and again. The theory calls for the development
of an intelligent public sentiment upon the issues before the community:
This is what democratic government means, for the issue does not actually
exist at such, until the members of the community realize something of what
it means to them individually and collectively. There cannot be self-
government until there be an intelligent will expressed in the community,
growing out if the intelligent attitudes of the individuals and groups in those
experience the community exists. Our institutions are insofar democratic that
when a public sentiment is definitely formed and expressed it is authoritative.
(Mead, 1964, p. 257f.)
Of course, in practice this is quite rare; democracy cannot be seen as a social
situation free from obstacles (Mead, 1964, p. 259) and full of harmony as in
Owenite theories of society at the beginning of the nineteenth century. On the
contrary, the ideal and reality of democracy must step apart to allow for
continuous, cautious attempts to bring them into closer alignment. Mead (1964)
sees the necessary condition for this as an education problem:
The real hope of democracy … lies in making the issues so immediate and
practical that they can appear in the minds of the voter as his own problem.
(p. 263)
The complexity of the social situation does not make this impossible; high
differentiation does not contradict simplicity insofar as it affects what might be
called the didactics of politics and thus the development of the public sentiment.
The advance in the practice and theory of democracy depends upon the
successful translation of questions of public policy into the immediate
problems of the citizens. It is the intensive growth if social interrelations and
intercommunications that alone render possible the recognition by the
individual of the import for his social life of the corporate activity of the
whole community. The task of intelligence is to use this growing
consciousness of interdependence to formulate the problems of all, in terms
of the problem of everyone. (Mead, 1964, p. 263f.)
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The weakness of the classical theory of society was that its basic concepts were
bound to static elements. Organic or juristic metaphors, like “community” or
“institution,” were often used to illustrate these elements. If “society” is
understood, however, as social interchange and thus transitory communication
between individuals and groups - an idea also of Dewey (1985a, p. 92ff.) - then
continuous learning and the adapting of action to ever-new circumstances becomes
the fundamental task, provided that the social world surrounds what is problematic
(Mead, 1938, p. 55). Inclusion and exclusion, the two basic tasks of drawing social
boundaries, are now no longer viewed as static, but rather as continuous problem
solving. In this sense, experience and education are no longer different things, and
the social is no longer a special condition for education, but is education itself. The
fine-tuning of experience to ever-new situations of learning and acting is
“education.”
In pragmatism, three main concepts were definitive for social theory:
- the theory of society as a learning process,

- the theory of time as uninterrupted continuation of experience,
- and the theory of evolution as continuous adaptation as intelligently as
possible.
Philip Wiener (1949) pointed out early on that social evolution informed the
pragmatist theory of society, in the sense that the pragmatists related Charles
Darwin’s concept of adaptation to social intelligence. Beside that it was Mead in
particular who developed a theory of time that owes much to Henri Bergson 36 and
starts out from the problem of continuity. Society is possible only insofar as it can
perpetuate itself. If, however, social intelligence is possible only as constant new
adaptations, then the fundamental question arises as to how continuity can be
reconcilable with change.
“Society” was understood at the end of the nineteenth century as social
differentiation - a concept to which, in addition to Simmel, Emile Durkheim also
contributed. For Durkheim social differentiation arises with the division of labor,
growing mobility, and the heightened dynamics of culture. Durkheim wanted this
process to be seen as an irrevocable fact, similar to the way that physics describes
the laws of nature. Durkheim’s idea of faits sociaux was challenged by Georg
Simmel (1968) in particular, through the concept of social groups and identity-
differentiating interfaces and transitions, although he did not connect this to an
actual social learning theory. But indeed we can understand processes of social
differentiation only when we relate them to learning, and not just view them as
“facts.”
The French sociologist Gabriel de Tarde37 developed a fundamental theory of
social learning. In 1890 he conceived of social interaction as similitudes, as the
construction of similarity through imitation. The key learning process is imitation;
innovation requires that there are enough imitations in the culture that society can
never begin at ground zero (De Tarde, 1993, p. 48ff.). The prerequisite of
innovation is always la stérilité relative d’imagination (p. 50), or the impeded
142
power of imitation. This is the only way that the issue of temporal
continuity/contingency, which has been a problem not only since Luhmann,38 can
be handled. Learning involves association in temporal succession and therefore
does not consist simply in enduring internalizations, as predicated for example by
psychoanalysis. Association succeeds, says De Tarde, when social imitation 39 is
directed towards that which is “utile, raisonnable ou belle” (p. 53). Useful,
rational, and beautiful things invite imitation and in this way determine the social
learning process.
De Tarde is not known in the field of education, even to experts in the history of
pedagogy. However, he was a significant influence on the pragmatist theory of
society, particularly on Dewey and Mead. Mead made various references to De
Tarde, in particular to his concept of the “social self” (Mead, 1982, p. 155ff.),
which Mead took over and developed further. In De Tarde’s (1999) Logique social
[Logic of the Social] he describes how reciprocity and the opposition between
various imitations creates the social facts, which therefore do not simply exists as
facts of a “second Nature.” This society is not, it cannot be understood analogous
to one “primary nature” as again Marxist theories are suggesting. “Society” must
be conceived of as fundamentally different than nature; society is namely the effect
of social interactions and the condition of differences. Heterogeneity always
precedes homogeneity.
The relation to De Tarde’s theory of social learning is less obvious, but for
pragmatism learning is also first that as understood by De Tarde, namely, “suivant
la nature des habitudes d’imitation déjà formées” (De Tarde, 1990, p. 55). This is
the only way to achieve what Mead (1938, p. 26ff.) called in the Philosophy of the
Act the “limits of the problematic.” Sociality can not be understood as a single field
of problems, which also means that the psychology of problem solving has social
limitations: “Our experience is not simply an experience of color at this moment
and color at the next moment; our experience is of something that is taking place ...
there is such a thing as passage in experience” (p. 85ff.), and therefore experiences
are related and thus never only isolated points. It is social interchange that makes
“determinism” impossible (p. 153). The social world itself cannot become
problematic; therefore, we must distinguish between “world” and the problematic
areas of data of observation, both in the research process and in society alike (p.
31).
Social learning is never mere imitation, but it is rather, as Mead says, a “meeting
of minds” (Mead, 1938, p. 52) or a universe of discourse, in which the interrelation
and thus collective intelligence are determined ever anew.
The universe of discourse which deals simply with the highest abstractions
opens the door for the interrelationship of the different groups in their
different characters. The universe of discourse within which people can
express themselves makes possible the bringing-together of those organized
attitudes which represent the life of these different communities into such a
relationship that they can lead to a higher organization. (Mead, 1934/1970, p.
284)
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In this way, society is relation and interaction, and not inclusion through
descent. Ultimately, everyone belongs to the universe of discourse through which
the intelligence of social relationships is organized. The prerequisites are
reciprocity and feedback: “The elaboration, then, of the intelligence of the
vertebrate form in human society is dependent upon the development of ... social
reaction in which the individual can influence himself as he influences others”
(Mead, 1934/1970, p. 243).
In general, experience can be understood as “passage” in spatiotemporal change
(Mead, 1938, p. 331).40 The process of experience implies a chain of events that
must be linked, or in other words, that do not in themselves provide continuity.
Mead (1938) understands “process” generally as follows:
What is involved in a process is not simply a continuity. This is given in
extension. One event extends over other events. A process involves the past
as determining the fixed conditions of that which is taking place, and it
involves that which is taking place as maintaining itself by adjustment to the
oncoming event - the future. Every process [italics added] can be resolved
into a mere series of events [italics added] which determine one another, if
we regard them as past [italics added but at the future edge of experience
[italics added] there is content which reaches out ready to accept the control
of that which is taking place, in still maintaining itself. (p. 343f.).
For Mead social life is more than life as it is defined by the chemist and
biologist, namely, not maintaining, but rather breaking through the causal chain
(Mead, 1938, p. 344). Habit is always historical causality that can and must be
changed through new events. Social experience is continuous adaptation under the
condition that the unknown in the future can be utilized intelligently.41 A loss of
time, as in Rousseau’s Emile,42 must be rejected, for otherwise the flow of events
could not be brought into the fragile stability that makes learning possible.
However, duration is not an ultimate dimension: “It is only the process that lasts”
(p. 345).43
In The Quest for Certainty Dewey pointed out that “learning” means mastering
the indeterminate nature of uncertain situations (Dewey, 1988, p. 199). “Society” is
simply the present given sum of problem solutions from which - at the future edge
of experience - new problems arise. The social is thus always at the same time both
order and process; what is seen as a datum at a particular point in time can become
problematic directly afterwards; it is only that not all social facts can become
problems simultaneously. Mead expressed this as follows in 1917:44
The conception of a world of existence, then, is the result of the
determination at the moment of the conditions of the solution of the given
problems. These problems constitute the conditions of conduct, and the ends
of conduct can only be determined as we realize the possibilities which
changing conditions carry with them. (Mead, 1964, p. 209)
As conditions change, the problem solutions are called into question, but new
conditions are at the same time new opportunities for learning. From the
144
perspective of the individual, learning is thus a process of researching, or

discovering:
The individual in his experiences is continually creating a world which
becomes real through his discovery. Insofar as new conduct arises under the
conditions made possible by his experience and his hypothesis the world,
which may be made the test of reality, has been modified and enlarged.
(Mead, 1964, p. 209)
The “future edge of experience” is not simply an unknown, but rather an event
that is influenced by the given situation. Only in this way is the future more than
mere fate, and only in this way can we make a serious assumption that experience
can correct itself (Dewey, 1988, p. 188). If knowledge is the basis for social
interchange, then it must be in a dynamic form (p. 222), for otherwise, democracy
would not be possible. Democracy demands continuous adjustment to ever-new
situations that must be communicated intelligently and publicly. This already by
itself makes learning fundamental especially learning that cannot rely on
fundamental principles, dogmas, and the like. This does not mean that ideals are
superfluous, but ideals provide aspirations rather than reality. And all ideals must
in the end be confronted with realities that test them.
That the political form of learning should be democracy is simply the
consequence of accepting the theory of evolution (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 281ff.). In
the light of the theory of evolution society can no longer be seen a closed identity
outside any process if adjustment. Society must “learn” its developments, and
because if this it cannot be ruled in an authoritarian manner. For social
developments there should be a fair exchange among the interests of the various
groups, also participation in the common good is essential and there must be
provisions for continuous new adjustments of institutions (Dewey, 1985, p.
102ff.).The best political frame to these purposes is democracy, “democracy”
understood not simply as competition of different groups with each other, but as a
universal social form, or what Mead (1934/1970, p. 282) called “universal society.”
Dewey and Mead attempted to reach an understanding of education that is not
pedagogy as an independent world outside society, which had been the case in the
pedagogy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From Rousseau to Froebel,
education was not related to “society” but instead to “nature” and to a space of
experience as determined by nature and under control of educators (Oelkers, 1993).
This meant that society was seen with a pedagogical reservation, and as a
consequence, education was attributed with the ability to give rise to the ultimate
or “true” society of the future, not with the realities of the present. Society was
construed in such a way that it accorded with pedagogical purposes. Dewey and
Mead start out from the assumption of a democratic society and then relate
education to it, not the other way round. The pragmatist social theory does not
point to a world that is external to education. Instead, it includes education in that
social world, indeed as one of its conditions. A theory of this kind would not have
been possible without a concept of time and process, of situation and intelligent
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JÜRGEN OELKERS
adaptation, of experience and reconstruction, and therefore of learning and acting

that does not regard these relations as dualisms.
3. MEAD’S THEORY OF EDUCATION
For Mead as for Dewey, we must take into consideration that their ideas on
education were gained from practical experience and put into theory parallel to
experience. Mead followed Dewey in many of his educational and reform ventures
and wrote a number of articles on progressive educational matters between the time
he joined the Philosophy Department at Chicago and the First World War. He
addressed in particular the topics of occupational training and industrial education.
From that his term “industrial democracy” is originated. It does not overstate the
case to say that Mead’s educational experiences informed his social psychological
theory. Theory and practice do not constitute contradictory elements that later must
be set in relation to one another. Instead, what can be applied here is what Mead
(1938, p. 50ff.) in general called scientific reflection, or learning by discovery
(compare Franzosa, 1984). Social or education reform is for Mead, once again,
dependent upon working hypotheses that are tested by experience and thus can
succeed or fail. There is neither a general law of reform nor a pre-established
optimum environment for education; every reform is nothing other than the attempt
to reshape experience through working hypotheses.
This holds for all of the practical problems that Mead examined, namely, for:
- social learning of children (Mead, 1898),

- the basis for parents’ associations (Mead, 1903/04),
- the teaching of science in college (Mead, 1906)
- the development of industrial education (Mead, 1907/08),
- the policy of educational journals like the Elementary School Teacher (Mead,
1907/08a),
- the educational situation in the public schools (Mead, 1907/08b),
- relations between industrial education, the working man and the school (Mead,
1908/09; Mead, 1909)
- and not at least moral training in the schools (Mead, 1908/09a).
Shortly after the Public Education Committee of the City Club of Chicago,
chaired by Mead, had submitted its Report on Vocational Education in 1912, Mead
wrote his major essay on The Social Self (Mead, 1913), which sets out clearly the
central idea of Mind, Self, and Society (Biesta, 1996). This idea generalized the
educational experiences and linked them with very extensive changes to education
theory. One fundamental issue concerns how “mind” emerges, without - as in
European pedagogy - placing it in opposition to “society.” Mead’s thesis starts
from the premise that:
146
Mind arises through communication by a conversation of gestures in a social

process or context of experience - not communication through mind. (Mead,
1934/1970, p. 50)
Mind is not a given, as for Descartes or Leibniz. It also does not develop
according to a logical or epistemological schema as for Piaget. Instead, mind is the
temporary result of social communication. Only in this way can mind be
democratized, removed from all elite theories that understand the “mind” as an
insulated Platonic space where ideas are passed down or revealed, which presumes
that there is an ultimate “authority.”
The influence of Wilhelm Wundt, under whom Mead had studied briefly, is
most readily apparent in Mead’s treatment of the notion of the gesture (Mead,
1934/1970, p. 42ff.).45 In Mead’s theory, the gesture, which Wundt defined as a
symbol, becomes a “significant symbol” (p. 47). Gestures are stimulations for the
conduct of other individuals and give rise to communication, for they are
irresistible stimuli to which everyone must react. Gestures demand response and
learning.46 Mead (1934/1970) calls this mode of learning internalization which is
not to be understood in a psychoanalytic way:
The internalization in our experience of the external conversations of gestures
which we carry on with other individuals in the social process is the essence
of thinking; and the gestures thus internalized are significant symbols
because they have the same meanings for all individual members of the given
society of social group, i.e., they respectively arouse the same attitudes in the
individuals making them that they arouse in the individuals responding to
them: otherwise the individual could not internalize them or be conscious of
them and their meanings. (p. 50)
Mead refers to Gabriel de Tarde’s laws of imitation (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 53),
which assumed on the part of the person merely a tendency to do what other
persons do. Interaction thus is the continuous attuning of actors. Also from the
perspective of education, “sociality” for Mead is essentially cooperation; behavior
is controlled through social connection and imitation, but not through simply
imitating persons or role models or through lasting internalization. Internalization
is itself a process, not merely duration. The theory refers to the winks and gestures
that stimulate the conduct of others.
The cry of a child, in Mead’s example (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 54) calls out the
response of the care of the mother; the one is fear and the other protection, or
solicitude. The response is not in any sense identical with the other act, and neither
is determined by the physiology of the cry alone. The “cry” is always at the same
time a symbol; without this additional symbolic content, the mother’s response of
care would be a conditioned reflex. With the symbol “care,” what occurs is
cooperative behavior (p. 55). The mother has to take on the attitude of the child in
order to be able to react to the individual “child.” The child, on the other side, must
learn to take on the attitude of the particular significant other in order to be able to
detach itself from itself, get outside itself.
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JÜRGEN OELKERS
In a second stage, the behaviors of others are generalized (Mead, 1934/1970, p.

158). Education is the process by which the self reaches its full development by
organizing these individual attitudes of others into organized, or generalized, social
or group attitudes and learning from them, dependent upon social interaction. The
child learns neither alone nor “more” nor “less” than the adult; its development is
instead functional (p. 288) for purposes of adaptation to society:
In so far as the child does take the attitude of the other and allows that
attitude of the other to determine the thing he is going to do with references
to a common end, he is becoming an organic member of society. (p. 159)
“Organic” should not be misunderstood. What is meant is not a kind of fitting
into a community that passively allows it; it is instead a process of “effective
adjustment” (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 368), without which the child could not develop.
Through learning to react to others, the child also learns at the same time to react to
the self, in a continuous differentiation of its abilities (p.137). “The child has
become, through his own impulses, a parent to himself” (p. 369).
Our “modern education”, says Mead, does not by coincidence emphasize the
central role of the game, or (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 159f.), which is social
interaction. The game is at the same time the model of social learning, an
illustration of the situation out of which an organized personality arises:
What goes on in the game goes on in the life of the child all the time. He is
continually taking the attitudes of those about him, especially the rôles of
those who in some senses control him and on whom he depends. He gets the
function of the process in an abstract sort of a way at first. It goes over from
the play into the game in real sense. He has to play the game. The morale of
the game takes hold of the child more than the larger morale of the whole
community. The child passes into the game and the game expresses a social
situation in which he can completely enter; its morale may have a greater
hold on him than that of the family to which he belongs or the community in
which he lives. (p. 160)
The notion of “games” is not specified; Mead explains the logic of the game not
according to the cultural difference in children’s games, but rather from the
perspective of their socializing effect. Because of this, Mead can reach a general
and abstract definition of “education”:
Education is definitely the process of taking over [italics added] a certain
organized set of responses to one’s own stimulation; and until one can
respond to himself as the community responds to him, he does not genuinely
belong to community. (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 265)
The child must be able to adjust to the group to which it belongs as it is being
brought up; its “self” responds without pause to the social responses the
community offers and with which the child handles in the sense of inquiry (Mead,
1934/1970, p. 265). In other words, the self arises through “co-operative activity”
148
(p. 317): “it is made possible through the identical reaction of the self and the
others”.
At the same time, it is important to clarify the addressee in the process of
education, which is not the “child” but which Mead calls the “me” or “I”. For
Mead the self does not consist simply in the bare organization of social attitudes;
there is an “I” which is aware of the social “me”. The self takes over sociality; the
“I” in this relation of the “I” and the “me” is something that, so to speak, responds
to a social situation that is within the experience of the individual. Now, the
attitudes the individual is taking toward others are present in his own experience,
but his response to them will contain a novel element. The “I” gives the sense of
freedom, of initiative (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 177). No longer do we see children as
“little adults” (p. 318), because (and to the extent that) adults can enter into the
experience of the child - take on their role. This is valid ubiquitously, meaning
independently of culture or mentality. “Modern education” is thus a fundamentally
new and a historically unique mode of interaction and relating. It bases upon the
fact that children and adults are distinguished from each other, which necessitates
cooperation:
Such a distinction ... does lie between the infant and the human society in
which he enters He cannot have the whole self-consciousness of the adult;
and the adult finds it difficult, to say the least, to put himself into the attitude
of the child. That is not, however, an impossible thing, and our development
of modern education rests on this possibility of the adult finding a common
basis between himself and the child [italics added]. (p. 317)
A workable relationship emerges through a social process - it is not part of
nature. It does not arise out of maternal love or out of paternal duty, but rather is
formed through social coordination or cooperation, whereby the child must be a
participant having increasing equality. As a consequence of this theory of
education, democracy would lie at the basis of the process. It cannot be viewed
merely as one “goal” among others. The pedagogical relationship is negotiated and
realigned continuously. It is not characterized by a structural difference in which
the authority, slowly and unforeseeably to the child, makes itself superfluous.47
Again, the child does not “internalize” authorities, but instead learns to interact
with the personalities in his social environment. It is in this way that both the social
field and the social self structure themselves, if we assume that for small children,
other persons only gradually take on distinctness:
As social objects, the others with whom the child plays are uncertain in their
outlines and shadowy in their structure. What is clear and definite in the
child’s attitude is the reaction in either rôle, that of the self or the other. The
child’s earliest life is that of social activities, including this reflexive
stimulation and response, in a field, in which neither social nor merely
physical objects have arisen with definiteness. (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 376)
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JÜRGEN OELKERS
The social self is thus not the recipient of education in the sense of a thing that
confronts the child from the outside. It is much more a process of the child utilizing
the quality of social experience in order to form the self. With regard to experience,
and the experience of children in particular, the following holds: “The Self exists
only in relationship with other selves and cannot be reached except through other
selves” (Mead, 1982, p. 155). We can experience with others only if our selves can
not only enter into the experience, but also learn and develop from it. Others must
necessarily be a part of children’s learning field, for the self cannot relate to itself
directly (p. 155). That would mean that we would have to ascribe to the child a
primary recognition of its “self,” an inner core of identity that exists prior to any
experience (p. 156).
That very assumption, says Mead, is the general predicate to many education
theories, which are so structured that they require a solid addressee that can express
itself without yet having the structure of self. However, this would mean that
children would have to be able to understand experience from the inside and
independently of the social context – which is an assumption that must be rejected.
The self cannot arise in experience except as there are others there. The other
is essential to the appearance of the self. We do not approach the organism
from within. There are pains and pleasures within the organism, but the child
does not delimit its organism from inside its own skin. The actual process
begins at the periphery and goes to the center. The child experiences sound,
etc. before it has the experience if its own body; there is nothing in the child
that arises as his own experience and then is referred to the outside thing.
There are hurt fingers, but they are not referred to the self until the child
enters into relationship with others. (Mead, 1982, p. 156)
Mead’s metaphor for education, a “meeting of minds” (Mead, 1938, p. 52), is
thus aptly chosen. Education consists in processes of continuous adjustment and
intellectual cooperation under the condition that we reject the idea of “a one to one
correspondence” (p. 52). In education, as in social life altogether, the
correspondence theory of truth is not valid, because it would exclude the fact that
new elements can determine the interaction. But it is from this very fact that the
theory must start out. Education, too, and particularly, must work out “problematic
situations,” and do this permanently.
In any education that is worthy of the name, what is acquired does go toward
the solution of the problems that that we all carry with us, and is the subject
of reflection, and leads to the fashioning of new hypotheses and appearance
of new objects; but this takes place after the communication which is the
mutual indication of objects and characters by the use of gestures which are
common symbols, that is, symbols with identical references. (p. 156)
This holds at any age and for all forms of human behavior. Even the most
absurd (from the adult’s point of view) constructions of small children are attempts
at intelligent problem solving (Mead, 1938, p. 90f.). Children want to explain
things, test ideas and hypotheses “by its fitting into their experience so that it can
150
become a part of this world” (p. 91). In this way children research their world, and
they must learn to improve their methods. The small child learns to maintain
balance, control himself and his environment “in getting the proper adjustment for
his own ultimate response” (p. 109). This “mapping of environment” (p. 134)
would not be possible without the understanding cooperation of adults, who share
the same realm of experience. Education can thus be seen as democratic
cooperation that excludes “opposition” (p. 656) between children and adults,
because opposition would rob it of its basis.
NOTES
1
Movements of Thought, published after Mead’s death, is based for the most part on stenographic
notes from Mead’s lectures for undergraduate students at the University of Chicago. Mead never
prepared these lectures for publication. The standard lecture on Movements of Thought in the 19th
Century was held nineteen times between the summer of 1901 and spring 1930 (Lewis & Smith,
1980, App. 1, 2). Mead’s keen historical interest found one of its roots in Wilhelm Dilthey’s lectures
on “History of Philosophy,” which Mead attended in Berlin in the summer semester of 1891. In the
winter semester of 1890/91 Mead also attended Friedrich Paulsen’s lectures on education. Mead
studied in Leipzig and Berlin from 1888 to 1891.
2
“Science starts with certain postulates, but does not assume they are not to be touched. There is no
phase of the world as we know it in which a problem may not arise, and the scientist is anxious to
find such a problem. He is interested not merely in giving a systematic view of the world from a
science already established but in working out problems that arise. This is the attitude of research
science” (Mead, 1936, p. 265f.).
3
Starting with: James, W. (1884). On some omissions of introspective psychology. Mind, 9, 1-26.
(Wozniak, 1993a).
4
Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20, 157-177.
(Wozniak, 1993a). Watson’s manifesto was based on animal psychology of the nineteenth century as
well as on experimental psychology as represented, for example, by the work of Baldwin.
5
The space about us is public, while intentions are private: “The intent which the person has is not
evident to the other person. He may make a guess at it, but it is only the person … who knows
definitely what he intends to do” (Mead, 1936, p. 401).
6
The first edition was published in 1900 by Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig; a second expanded edition
appeared in 1907. An English translation was published in 1990, co-translated by David Frisby (The
philosophy of money (2nd edition), New York: Routledge 1995). One of the main chapters was
published in English as early as 1900 (Simmel, 1899-1900).
7
The basic idea of “general intelligence” has its roots in animal psychology of the nineteenth century
(Lubbock, 1882, Chapter 9; see also Thorndike, 1898).
8
On the construction of the social mind, compare Valsiner & Van der Veer (2000).
9
In contrast to Dewey there is astonishingly little research on Mead. No recent dissertations are
available on Mead’s education theory. Only one of four older dissertations, by Paul Ringer III
(University of Carolina 1977), has been published in part (Ringer III 1980 and 1980a). There have
appeared occasional purely apologetic papers (such as Misumi, 1933). Even the relation between the
education theories of Mead and Dewey has been little discussed (Wynne, 1952; Dennis & Stickel,
1981). The work of Gert Biesta (1996) alone meets current standards of research.
10
Ensuing from Anselm Strauss’ Mead edition (1956); see also Rose (1962), Manis & Meltzer (1972),
and similar readers.
11
This paper was originally presented as an address at the Chicago Commons on May 1, 1896. Mead’s
many works on education were never published separately as such. But all of Mead’s published
works, as well as unpublished essays and fragments and student notes on Mead’s courses held in
collection but not prepared for publication, are available on the Internet at George’s Page:
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JÜRGEN OELKERS
A Mead project site at Brock University’s Sociology Department:

(http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~1ward/mead/mead_biblio.html)
12
In Atlantic Monthly (February, March 1869).
13
First outlined in: What is a liberal education? (The Century, June 1884) (Eliot, 1909a, pp. 87-122).
14
Paul Monroe (1869-1947) completed his Ph.D. in 1897 at the University of Chicago. At Teachers
College, Columbia University, Monroe was professor of education from 1902 until his retirement in
1938. He also served as director of the School of Education at Teachers College (1915-1923) and of
the International Institute after 1923. In both functions, his work served to disseminate the
American “new education.”
15
Monroe, P. (1911-1914). A cyclopedia of education. Vol. 1-5. New York: Macmillian Co. Compare
Brickman & Cordasco (1970).
16
The key role in the public campaign for new education was played by the Committee of Ten,
appointed in 1892 by the National Education Association (NEA) to address the question of high
school education (Cremin 1961, p. 92ff.). The committee was chaired by Eliot. Between 1893 and
1911, “new education” became a much-cited catchword, and it was interpreted variously also
independently of Eliot’s or Dewey’s conceptions.
17
Liberty in education (Speech before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York 1886); Undesirable
and desirable uniformity in schools (Address given to the National Educational Association,
Saratoga, July 12, 1892); The function of education in democratic society (An address delivered
before the Brooklyn Institute on October 2, 1897) (Eliot, 1909a, pp. 123-148; 271-300; 399-418).
18
Article on “Education” in the first volume of Monroe’s Cyclopedia (Dewey, 1985, pp. 425-434).
19
“Observation, hypothesis, and experiment lie … in the biographies of the individual, and, … so do
the emphases of attention which mark analysis and the process of so-called logical thinking” (Mead,
1938, p. 67).
20
“Culture … can no longer imply a knowledge of everything – not even a little knowledge of
everything. It must be content with general knowledge of some things, and a real mastery of some
small portions of the human store” (Eliot, 1909, p. 45).
21
“Constructive imagination is the great power of the poet as well as of the artist; and the nineteenth
century has convinced us that it is also the great power of the man of science, the investigator, and
the natural philosopher. What gives every great naturalist or physicist his epoch-making results is
precisely the imaginative power by which he deduces from masses of facts the guiding hypotheses
or principles” (Eliot, 1909, p. 48f.).
22
Eliot, C. W. (1894). The unity of educational reform. Educational Reform. (Eliot, 1909a, pp. 313-
339).
23
Some stages of logical thought. Philosophical Review, 9(5), 465-489. (Dewey, 1916, pp. 183-219).
24
Dewey defined “laboratory” in 1900 in the essay Some stages of logical thought as follows: “In the
laboratory there is no question of proving that things are just thus and so, or that we must accept or
reject a given statement; there is simply an interest in finding out what sort of things we are dealing
with. Any quality or change that presents itself may be on object of investigation, or may suggest a
conclusion; for it is to be judged, not be reference to pre-existent truths, but by its suggestiveness, by
what it may lead to. The mind is open to inquiry in any direction” (Dewey, 1916, p. 208).
25
Matthew, A. (1869). Culture and anarchy: An essay in political and social criticism. London
26
“Theory of Course of Study” (Dewey, 1985, pp. 395-404).
27
Discussed at the end of Dewey (1902), The Child and the Curriculum.
28
The tabula rasa doctrine of perception was replaced by Mead (1938, p. 135) with a theory of
symbolic socialization.
29
Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) studied and taught at the University of Michigan (Ph. D, 1894),
which he never left for any significant length of time. His papers include student notebooks from
1893-1894 on lectures given by John Dewey. Dewey had been appointed an instructor in philosophy
and psychology, and with the exception of the academic year 1888–89, when he served as professor
of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Dewey spent the next 10 years at Michigan. Cooley
taught in the sociology department at the University of Michigan from 1892 onwards.
30
The philosophies of Royce, James, and Dewey in their American setting. International Journal of
Ethics, 40 (1929/1930, pp. 211-231) (Mead, 1930; Mead, 1964, pp. 371-391).
152
31
Fröbel’s major theoretical work, Die Menschenerziehung [The Education of Man] of 1826, develops
a romantic, highly speculative view of the child and the cosmos that is not amenable to empirical
testing and, at the same time, takes no reference to social context. Dewey rejects wholeheartedly
Froebel’s idealistic and romantic view of development and symbolism.
32
Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), educator and reformer, was born a slave in Virginia, but after
the Emancipation received an education at Hampton Institute in Norfolk, working as a janitor to help
pay expenses. In 1881 he was selected to head the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), an
industrial institute for rural African Americans. The institute became a monument to Washington’s
life’s work in education, and he became the national spokesmen of the black minority. A study on
character building appeared in 1902: Washington, Booker T. Character building: Being addresses
delivered on Sunday evenings to the students of Tuskegee Institute (New York, 1902).
33
How is society possible? (Simmel, 1910).
34
Pedagogical “influencing” or “Einwirkung” should be understood as one-way process in which the
adult influences the child, with no feedback loop (Oelkers, 1994).
35
Scientific method and the moral sciences. International Journal of Ethics, 33 (1923), pp. 229-247.
(Mead, 1964, pp. 248-266).
36
Mead reviewed Bergsons L’évolution creatrice (Mead, 1907) and examined his theory of time,
which was in opposition to Kant, in many papers, most intensively in The philosophy of the present
(Mead, 1932) and in Movements of thought in nineteenth century (Mead, 1936, pp. 292-325). At the
end of that work he wrote, “Bergson’s attack upon science represents a misconception of its method
and ideal. His flight to irrationalism is unnecessary” (p. 510) (compare here Moran 1996).
37
Gabriel de Tarde (1843-1904) was schooled at the Jesuit Collège in Sarlat and studied law in Paris.
Up to 1894 he served as juge d’Instruction in Sarlat. From 1894, he directed the criminal statistics
bureau at the Ministry of Justice in Paris. In 1900 de Tarde was appointed professor of modern
philosophy at the Collège de France, where he taught until his death. De Tarde’s scientific work
began with a sociological critique of the extreme biological-causation theories of Cesare Lombrosos
(1836-1920) and his school, pointing out the importance of environment in criminal behavior (La
criminalité comparée, 1886). De Tarde became known in the United States in 1890, when Les lois
de l’imitation [The laws of imitation] was published. Robert Park’s and Ernest Burgess’
Introduction to the science of sociology, the definitive work for the first half of the twentieth
century, ranks de Tarde’s influence as equal to that of Emile Durkheim.
38
Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998), German sociologist and social systems theorist. Luhmann’s famous
formula of “reduction of complexity” relates to de Tarde, for whom “evolution” means deriving
simplicity from complexity rather than the opposite process.
39
L’imitation est chose sociale (De Tarde, 1993, p. 54).
40
“Passage does not involve a content that does not pass It involves simply happening, a coming into
being and going out. Change involves departure from a condition that must continue in some sense
to fulfil the sense of change from that condition” (Mead, 1938, p. 331).
41
Only in this way is social creativity possible (compare here the contributions in Gunter, 1990).
42
“Oserai-je exposer ici la plus grande, la plus importante, la plus utile régle de toute l’éducation? Ce
n’est pas de gagner de tems, c’est d’en perdre” (Rousseau, O.C. IV/ p. 323).
43
“What distinguishes a process from a mere duration is that at the future edge of experience it merges
with the emerging events in adjustment or control so that as a whole it is continuous with the future.
What introduces the lasting character, as lasting, into experience is the inhibition within the process
which exhibits the characters of the field of stimulation that are spatiotemporally distant. They are
characters which answer to alternative responses when the individual has reached them” (Mead,
1938, p. 345).
44
“Scientific method and individual thinker”. In Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic
Attitude (176-227). New York: Henry Holt and Co. 1917. (Mead, 1964, pp. 171-211).
45
Wundt, W. (1900). Völkerpsychologie, Vol. 1: Die Sprache, Erster Teil. Leipzig: Kröner-
Engelmann. This is Volume 1 of ten volumes that appeared between 1900 and 1910.
46
“Gestures become significant symbols when they implicitly arouse in an individual making them the
same responses which they explicitly arouse, or are supposed to arouse, in other individuals, the
individuals to whom they are addressed; and in all conversations of gestures within the social
process, whether external (between different individuals) or internal (between a given individual and
153
JÜRGEN OELKERS
himself), the individual’s consciousness of the content and the flow of meaning involved depends on
his taking the attitude of the other toward his own gestures” (Mead, 1934/1970, p. 47).
47
This was discussed in German philosophy of education, most intensely und influentially by Herman
Nohl in his famous theory of “educational relationship” (Oelkers, 2005a).
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Institute for Education
156
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DEWEY AND JAMES IN GERMANY – MISSED

OPPORTUNITIES IN GERMAN PEDAGOGY FOR
CREATIVE ENCOUNTER WITH AMERICAN
PRAGMATISM
“Owing to the fact that all experience is a process,
no point of view can be the last one” (James, 1909, p. 55).
John Dewey and William James were duly noted in German educational circles
already shortly after 1900. However, Dewey gained fame largely as a school
reformer, while James’ renown initially lay in his work as a psychologist. Their
shared pragmatism as a philosophical view was only acknowledged with a certain
hesitation. And where recognition was in fact there, as at an early point in the
reading and reception of James, pragmatism was roundly rejected. The present
paper argues that this distorted and abbreviated perception of American
pragmatism in the first decade of the twentieth century constructed a lasting barrier
to reception. The general rejection of pragmatism in the realm of philosophy in the
German-speaking countries also impacted on the way educators dealt with it.
Education theorists either ignored pragmatism or were satisfied with a non-
pragmatic perception of its ideas.
I. PRAGMATISM AS A CHALLENGE AND ANSWER TO MODERNITY
In German academe, Anglo-Saxon pragmatism led to a kind of minor tumult at the

beginning of the twentieth century. At the Third International Congress of
Philosophers in 1908 in Heidelberg, its few adherents, along with the presenters A.
C. Armstrong and the British pragmatic humanist Ferdinand C. S. Schiller, who
referred to William James, found themselves in a difficult corner.
Armstrong argued that pragmatism was not metaphysics but rather method, and
thus compatible with an array of diverse philosophical convictions (see Armstrong,
1908, p. 721). Schiller went more on the offensive. He stressed a comprehensive
bond between truth and human life and its goals: a “useless truth” that was
“independent of us” and unchanging was, in his view, a childish illusion (see
Schiller, 1908, p. 711). It was this concept of truth, described by another American
speaker, Josiah Royce, building on Dewey, as instrumental and practical (see
Royce, 1908, p. 75), which sparked heated debate. The philosopher, psychologist
and educator Wilhelm Jerusalem attempted in vain to show the affinity many of his
German colleagues actually entertained for this seemingly impertinent relativism,

PHILIPP GONON
which in its way problematized theoretical knowledge and knowing (see Jerusalem,
1908, p. 728). Several years later in a “self-description” Jerusalem noted:
“Philosophy for me is not a complete and closed system of knowledge but rather
the ever continuing work of thought,” which should be related to social
organizations and to the world as a whole (Jerusalem, 1924, p. 90 f.). Schiller too
defended himself eloquently against a suffocating majority of adversaries in
Heidelberg.
Jerusalem argued that precisely because the rationalist – the declared opponent
of pragmatism – never encountered absolute certainty in the attempt to derive truth
from absolutely certain reasons, the criterion of utility in the sense of a limiting of
endless series of reasons ad infinitum ought to be accepted. This view of truth was
in itself useful, it did not lead to an infinite regress but rather to a “progressus in
infinitum.” In his view, truths did not have to be absolutely true right from the
start. Such a truth must be viewed as an unattained ideal. Rather, it was enough for
truths to be probable, “passing the test of experience” (see Jerusalem, 1908, p.
739).
Anglo-Saxon pragmatism here not only challenged rationalism, whose Cartesian
fundamental dualism Peirce believed was present in a large segment of modern
philosophy (see Peirce, 1979, p. 40 ff.). It also threw down the gauntlet to the
critical apriorism of the neo-Kantians. At the same conference, in his paper
“Apriorism and Evolutionism,” Jerusalem accused the neo-Kantians of “a surfeit of
latent metaphysics” (see Jerusalem, 1908, p. 807 f.).
The standpoints mentioned here marked a different approach in particular to
questions of truth and knowledge which under the impact of comprehensive new
developments in society were being posed anew. That could be reduced to the
following fundamental question: how should philosophy view modernity?
Louis Menand, in his portrait of the American intellectual landscape, accords
James, Dewey, Holmes and Peirce a decisive role in respect to modernization. As
the first modern thinkers and pragmatists, they helped to “put Americans into a
better relation with the conditions of modern life” (Menand, 2001, p. xi). Despite
all the at times substantial differences between these thinkers, Menand stresses
something they share in common. In respect to ideas, they had a single idea: “They
all believed that ideas are not ‘out there’ waiting to be discovered, but are tools –
like forks and knives and microchips” (Menand, 2001, p. xi).
In addition, pragmatists such as Holmes, James, Dewey and Peirce believed that
ideas were not produced by single individuals but rather by groups of individuals in
interaction. Ideas do not spring and develop from some sort of internal logic but are
dependent on human exponents and their environment. Accordingly, ideas are
always provisional and depend on specific or particular circumstances. How long
they last and whether they survive does not depend on whether they are
unchangeable but rather quite the opposite. It depends on their adaptability: “They
taught a kind of skepticism that helped people cope with life in a heterogeneous,
industrialized, mass-market society [...] But skepticism is also one of the qualities
that make societies like that work” (Menand, 2001, p. xii).
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DEWEY AND JAMES IN GERMANY
The notion of ideas as tools related to the demands of real life and as provisional
constructs was certainly a view not in keeping with the customary conceptions of
knowledge embodied in the dominant idealistic systems, in Hegelianism or
continental Kantianism. Social modernization and interrogating of the traditional
view which philosophy had of its role, or the new attitude to change, were the
elements that pragmatism helped to reconfigure.
II. ANGLO-SAXON PRAGMATISM: BETWEEN CAUTIOUS ACCEPTANCE AND

VEHEMENT REJECTION
This controversy over the largely American brand of pragmatism was, as Pape
underscores (see Pape, 2002, p. 33 ff.), the first truly international debate in
philosophy. However, pragmatism in Germany after 1900 was viewed principally
as a problem in the sphere of academic philosophy. It had to grapple not only with
a whole series of disputes inside the field of philosophy but also with the problems
of psychology seeking to demarcate and liberate itself as a separate discipline (see
Schmidt, 1995) and problems in the field of educational theory and practice as
well. At that same congress, Rudolf Lehmann argued for pedagogy to break free
from the apron strings of philosophy. After all, he stressed, philosophers, given
their limited time and energy, were fully occupied in dealing with their own and
most pressing tasks. They could not bother to immerse themselves in real depth in
a field lying far from their own terrain of main concern (see Lehmann, 1908, p. 970
ff.).
One man at the 1908 congress in Heidelberg was conspicuous by his absence.
Pragmatism up until that time had largely been associated with a name and
personality well-known in Germany: William James. He had a close bond
especially with Germany as a result of long stays there, was familiar with the
current state of discussion in philosophy and psychology there, and was a member
of almost all European academies.
William James’ fame rested on his first larger publication, his Principles of
Psychology published in 1890. Thus, for example, Ernst Mach dedicated his
popular scientific lectures to William James: in the 1910 edition, “in sympathy and
esteem,” in later editions in his memory (see Mach, 1987). Mach’s Erkenntnis und
Irrtum (1903) also refers positively at many points to James’ psychology (see
Mach, 1991, p. 427).
Shortly after James published the lectures he had given in Boston and New York
with the simple title Pragmatism (1907), Wilhelm Jerusalem prepared a German
translation, in explicit agreement with the author a “free” translation – this in order
to enhance understanding of the content among a German-speaking readership. In
his German edition, Jerusalem stressed the relevance of pragmatism for the future,
because he saw in the thought of Wilhelm Ostwald, Georg Simmel, and especially
Ernst Mach a certain affinity to this cast of thinking.
So the interest in pragmatism was already present after the turn of the century.
In 1911, Rudolf Eisler translated Ferdinand Schiller’s works Humanism (1903) and
Studies in Humanism (1907) into German. Schiller contributed a new foreword in
159
PHILIPP GONON
which he noted the perception in Germany of this new approach. Eisler himself
regarded Schiller’s pragmatic humanism as a special species of psychologism and
relativism which avoided many of the one-sided features of empiricism and
apriorism (see Eisler, 1911, p. VI). James proposes pragmatism as a “mediating
system” (see James, 1907, Lecture I) between rationalism and empiricism, what
came to be known as “radical empiricism” (see James, 1909 & James, 1912).
The same year James’ Pragmatismus appeared in Germany, Ludwig Stein,
teaching in Berne, published an article in the Archiv für Philosophie in which he
reported at the beginning about the debates over pragmatism in America and
England, while at the same time justifying the need for a focus on James:
“Pragmatism stands and falls with William James” (Stein, 1908, p. 5). He went on:
“James’ book hit like a dialectical bomb. This book reverberated across the Old
World at a breath-taking clip. […] We think and work at a speed as if we could
telegraph or phone our ideas, a kind of wireless philosophy” (Stein, 1908, p. 7).
Stein’s attitude to pragmatism is perhaps more ambivalent than these rather
distanced and ironic comments may lead the reader to suspect. The touchstone for
him and many others is Kant. With certain restrictions, he recognizes pragmatism.
It is useful as an ensemble of wise rules for a “physics of morals” or, in modern
terms, for sociology and anthropology. But it should not be applied to the critique
of Practical Reason, and most especially not to the critique of Theoretical Reason.
James as a relativist was well-placed in the realm of the relative, but not on the
terrain of categorical imperatives or the Absolute (see Stein, 1908, p. 152). James
is a voluntarist, as was especially evident in his Der Wille zum Glauben (The Will
to Believe). The core of pragmatism consisted in carrying back what is logical to
its teleological wellspring (see Stein, 1908, p. 156).
By contrast, Theodor Lorenz, who also promoted James in the German-speaking
countries (see James, 1899), saw a closer link with Kant. In 1910 in the journal
Kant-Studien, he published an article entitled “Das Verhältnis des Pragmatismus zu
Kant” (Pragmatism’s Relation to Kant). Here he presents pragmatism as a new
phase and developing level of empiricism, a movement of intellectual reaction to
Hegelianism, and generally a reaction against the “heavy pressure of fossilized
traditions” (Lorenz, 1909, p. 9). In his view, the achievements of modern
psychology lead to a modern Kantianism that includes both Practical and
Theoretical Reason. James’ “will to believe” is close to the tenets of Practical
Reason while Schiller’s writings deal with Kant’s epistemology in a conscious and
explicit confrontation with Kant’s thought. Schiller’s pragmatism, stresses Lorenz
redefines Kant’s pure forms of contemplation and categories of understanding,
prior to any experience, into time-tested and unusually successful hypotheses,
borne out by the extended praxis of human history (see Lorenz, 1909, p. 17).
In addition, Hans Vaihinger’s philosophy of the “as if” was explicitly regarded
as being akin to pragmatism, something Vaihinger himself was aware of (see
Jacoby, 1909). Vaihinger himself distinguished between a “critical pragmatism,” a
current near to his own thinking which he saw reflected in Schiller and Peirce, and
an uncritical, epistemological-utilitarian pragmatism “of the worst kind,” probably
160
referring to William James, though he did not mention him by name (see
Vaihinger, 1922, p. XV).
Pragmatism was also accorded a warm welcome in Jacoby’s inaugural lecture
on the occasion of his habilitation in Greifswald and later published (see
Mecklenburg, 2002, p. 600). He stressed that pragmatism was not a doctrinal
system of set of theories but a demand “to behave in all actions of thought in a very
specific way. In this sense you can say that pragmatism wishes to be treated
pragmatically” (Jacoby, 2002, p. 605). Truth is not some sort of facsimile but an
instrument. The most important thing is that it fulfills some function; we form truth
keeping in mind a hands-on application in the future (see Jacoby, 2002, p. 612).
Essentially pragmatism was concerned with “providing the material of reality with
the armament of truth” (Jacoby, 2002, p. 617).
Enough then of this cautious to quite resolute agreement with pragmatism. Far
more widespread was a skeptical view of the current, extending to unmistakable
rejection. Pragmatism was classified as a fad, its threat to academic discipline was
believed to lie, as in connection with the popular vogue of the philosophy of life
(Lebensphilosophie), in the danger of irrationalism, the banalizing of fundamental
philosophical questions or even their exclusion or effacing. Pragmatism was
accused of a whole series of ingredients which in their cumulative association were
bundled to brand this mode of thought in particular, though not exclusively: as
positivism, empiricism, evolutionism, psychologism, voluntarism and anti-
metaphysics. Though such adversaries were to be found across international
arenas, they were especially present in Germany. Even the German colleague of
Josiah Royce on the staff at Harvard, Hugo Münsterberg, staunchly defended an
idealism of values, and regarded pragmatism as a component in an “illusory world
of relativism” (see Münsterberg, 1908, p. 29 ff).
In Rudolf Eisler’s Handwörterbuch der Philosophie, pragmatism is praised for
having stressed the element of will and purpose in knowledge, though its concept
of truth is deemed too vague (see Eisler, 1922, p. 494 f.). Others such as Fritz
Mauthner considered pragmatism “capable of virtually anything,” which was
doubtless meant in a pejorative sense (see Mauthner, 1924, p. 571).
In this first phase, pragmatism was associated primarily with the name of James.
He was not only the most prominent propagator of a philosophical current
perceived to be new, he also offered the broadest canvas to attack with his book on
pragmatism based on his lectures. His descriptions became a philosophical bugbear
and easy practice target. It was principally his views on truth which irked academic
philosophers and their guild in the German-speaking lands, as he dared to draw a
close connection between truth, utility and usefulness. Truth as a tool was
apparently left to arbitrary whim. And the bold transposition from the realm of
logic also led to discrepancies between him and Peirce (see Pape, 2002; see also
Kempski, 1952, p. 4 f.). Every truth was acceptable to the degree it could best
guide us, demonstrate its worth in experience and be successful, most appropriate
for each part of our lives, most compatible with the totality of our experiences,
most infused with a kind of “cash value”:
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PHILIPP GONON
In brief then, pragmatism expands the field in which God can be sought.
Rationalism sticks to logic and is glued to the heavens. Empiricism is stuck to
our external senses. Pragmatism is prepared for any and everything, it follows
logic, the senses, and also has room for the most modest personal experience
and its validity. It would likewise sanction mystical experience if this had
practical consequences. (James, 1908, p. 51)
In James’ view, pragmatism was democratic in its approach, a mediator and
agent of reconciliation. Drawing on the Italian pragmatist Papini, James notes that
it loosens up all our theories (see James, 1908, p. 50).
These exaggerated statements, directed against overly hasty dualisms and
dogmas, engendered more than suspicion among enemies. And sowed seeds of
doubt even amongst those more favorably inclined to listen. They almost pushed
his clearly formulated criteria of pragmatism into the dimmer background. It was
his theory of truth, oriented to need and not further explicated, which for some
facilitated a veritable boon of misunderstanding. It was dubbed by some the
“philosophy of the dollar” and by others the “philosophy of life,” which
accentuated joy in one’s own creations and an abiding faith in a hugely ample
human creativity (see Jacoby, 2002, p. 173).
III. PRINCIPLES OF JAMESIAN PRAGMATISM
If we look at James’ lectures on pragmatism translated into German, he

characterizes these at least just as clearly as a method. Three principles mark
pragmatism, and can be summed up in my own formulation as follows: 1.
Consequentialism: truth is not given a priori, but is bound to human actions. It is
manifest primarily in the results or consequences that follow. 2. Verification:
pragmatism builds on evidence, it talks about truths that have a temporary validity,
not Truth. 3. Meliorism: there is hope that through such a dynamic transforming of
knowledge, morality and society can also be improved (see James, 1908). As
James stresses: “Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events”
(James, 1909, p. 97).
These criteria can be found among all pragmatists. They are also present in
Peirce’s “How to Make Our Ideas Clear,” where he notes that there is no absolute
difference between something hard and soft if the qualities have not been put to the
empirical test (see Peirce, 1979, p. 195). The preferred means is the experiment.
Truth here also contains a social dimension (see Wartenberg, 1971).
All three principles are linked with the emergence of the natural sciences and in
particular with the theory of evolution. James was concerned to reduce the
discrepancy between philosophy and cultural, scientific and social change. To that
extent, his theory of truth also mirrors an approach geared to change and difference
and which does not build on a rational view of the world or the construction of a
systematic weltanschauung. As he stated:
A pragmatist … turns away from abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal
solutions, from bad a priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems,
162
and pretended absolutes and origins. He turns toward concreteness and

adequacy, towards facts, towards action and towards power (James, 1907, p.
51).
Pragmatism was problematic for German philosophy because it historicized the
concept of truth in evolutionary terms and oriented to empirical reality, as
“expedient thinking,” setting it additionally into a web of relations to human
interests. For James, “True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate,
and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot” (James, 1907, p. 97).
It was thus not centrally important to determine the conditions of the possibility
of knowing, as in much of epistemology. There was a similar problematic in
connection with the anthropological perspective. Here more latitude was accorded
to will and the discipline of psychology. Only few representatives were prepared to
engage in an unconditional examination of such assumptions. It was not until the
second decade of the century that more comprehensive and sober descriptions of
American pragmatism began to appear, such as Waibel’s (1915) Studien zum
Pragmatismus.
IV. AMERICAN PRAGMATISM AND WRITERS IMPORTANT FOR GERMAN

EDUCATIONAL THEORISTS
In order to better describe the reception of American pragmatism among educators

in the German-speaking lands, it is useful to look briefly at a few more
philosophical authors who came to grips with pragmatism and whose work was of
interest to the educational sciences in Germany.
Friedrich Paulsen, well-known author of Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts
and the mentor of Eduard Spranger, was surprisingly open-minded in his attitude
toward pragmatism:
In his Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Paulsen also discusses James and relativistic
empiricism. He has praise for James’ Der Wille zum Glauben, but at the same time
criticizes Kant by commenting that he proved unable to break free from a
rationalistic-dogmatic mode of thinking (see Paulsen, 1899, p. 407). In the preface
to the German edition of James’ Der Wille zum Glauben, he underscored James’
“skepticism toward dogmatic absolutism” (Paulsen, 1899, p. V).
Thus, in later editions of his Einleitung in die Philosophie, in the final chapter
entitled “A Critical Assessment of Kant’s Epistemology,” he criticizes an
intellectualism and dogmatism that tends toward speculative hubris, noting that
knowledge is a function of the subject and “given to us for practical orientation in
the world” (Paulsen, 1924, p. 449 f.)
By contrast, the neo-Kantian Wilhelm Windelband had an unmistakably
negative attitude. In his so-called “Preludes,” the chapter “Critical or Genetic
Method” also contains a clear rejection of pragmatism. In his view, any empiricism
necessarily leads to relativism. Encyclopedism, positivism, and pragmatism are a
contemporary and tailored copy of Protagoras’ view (see Windelband, 1903, p.
116). He was more positive in his assessment of a “Critique of Historical Reason”,
promoted by philosophers like Dilthey (see Windelband, 1903, p. 120).
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PHILIPP GONON
Heinrich Rickert, like Windelband an important reference for Kerschensteiner’s

theory of education and directly criticized in James’ book on pragmatism,
classified pragmatism under the rubric of Lebensphilosophie. Rickert’s polemical
treatise Die Philosophie des Lebens – Darstellung und Kritik der Philosophischen
Modeströmungen unserer Zeit calls James a biologist whose so-called
“pragmatism” is part of the epistemology of the philosophy of life: it seeks to
measure the truth of a thought not in terms of its theoretical significance but rather
in respect to its use-value for life and its utility in enhancing living (see Rickert,
1920, p. 25). In Rickert’s critique, the pluralistic metaphysics of pragmatism was
not in essence original but rather showed surprising similarities to Bergson und
Nietzsche. Lebensphilosophie was a strongly relativistic current at the time
associated inter alia with Bergson, Simmel, Klages and others. By way of further
qualification he adds: “Of course we are dealing here only with the philosopher of
life and not with the psychologist, who is probably superior in terms of scientific
importance to the Lebensphilosoph” (Rickert, 1920, p. 25).
Another important significant figure for Spranger, his academic predecessor
Alois Riehl, had a clear position. He regarded the concern to preserve knowledge
from being alienated from life as laudable. In his Einführung in die Philosophie der
Gegenwart, he denounces pragmatism in the chapter “Present and Future of
Philosophy” as a subjectivistic and anti-philosophical false path, akin to sophism.
In Riehl’s eyes, pragmatism is a variant of positivism – not a positivism guided by
factuality but a “positivism of pure utility” (see Riehl, 1919, p. 212). Pragmatism
lets itself be led astray by the literal sense of verification as a psychological
dimension. It was not a matter of verifying wishes or feelings. No, natural science
verifies or realizes laws by means of facts, independently of the desires of the
subject. Truths are discovered, not made. In approaching Nature, it is, Riehl
advises, better to stick with Goethe than Ferdinand Schiller (see Riehl, 1919, p. 214
f.). James’ definition of pragmatism as a method, his will to believe and his interest
in practical effects even in the case of metaphysical and religious questions tended
to push aside the “will to knowledge.” In this way, Riehl argued, an incurable
skepticism bedded down with a utilitarian spirit in an unfortunate liaison. And that
is why, in his opinion, attempts to import pragmatism into Germany had enjoyed
such limited success: “rather we ourselves could well export this item, and in even
better quality (‘made in Germany’)” (Riehl, 1919, p. 218).
V. PEDAGOGY AND PRAGMATISM
This rather lengthy prelude or philosophical excursion was of interest since the
field of pedagogy, insofar as it interested itself in pragmatism, was strongly shaped
by the reception of philosophical ideas. This tension-laden international dialogue
on philosophical terrain can also be quite easily transposed to the arena of the
educational sciences. We can proceed from the assumption that pragmatism was
not looked on favorably because it was too strongly viewed as seen in perspective
through the narrow gate of philosophy. The same epistemological reservations and
national philosophical traditions play a major role here too. In addition, the niche
164
that pragmatism might have been allocated was already prominently occupied by
Lebensphilosophie and its corresponding array of reception within academic
pedagogy. Reform pedagogy was able to look for serviceable ideas far more
readily in the thought of Nietzsche and Bergson.
The 1914 Lexikon der Pädagogik states that the catchword (sic)
“Pragmatismus,” already used by Kant, did not come into currency until toward the
end of the 19th century. Although there were similar tendencies beginning to
emerge in France, pragmatism was primarily associated with the American current.
James and Dewey espouse the view that theories become instruments, which is in
keeping with an instrumental theory of truth. Pragmatism is associated here with
the tradition of sophistry. “Naturally p. denies the existence of an absolute and
unshakable truth.” By equating truth with what is practically useful for human
beings, “boundless relativism was the final word of pragmatism” (Switalski, 1914,
p. 1350). These characterizations mirror precisely the main reservations of
philosophy. Yet from today’s perspective it is rather astonishing that in a lexicon of
pedagogy Dewey is hardly mentioned, yet there is repeated reference to William
James.
Pragmatism could also be positioned within the field of pedagogy and
educational theory in terms of existing lines of conflict. However, pragmatism was
considered by Herbartianism, then on the defensive, more as a kind of “secondary
contradiction.” Theodor Vogt, editor-in-chief of the Yearbook of the Association
for Scientific Pedagogy (Verein für wissenschaftliche Pädagogik, VWP), focused
in an article entitled “Questionable Views of the Day” more on reform pedagogy
and educational thinkers who were closer to Wundtian psychology or the
experimental approach, such as Ellen Key, Robert Rissmann, Wilhelm August Lay,
and Oskar Messmer.
Indirectly though, a dispute with pragmatism was fostered by defining logic as a
theory of truth which did not permit any psychological relativizing in the sense of
Wundt (see Vogt, 1906, p. 280, 284). “Evidence and Logic” was also the title and
topic on an article in the same Yearbook a few years later that led to a direct
confrontation with pragmatism. Again it is William James and his remarks on truth
at which the author takes aim. Fortified by the “inconsistencies of pragmatism,” he
insists on its autonomous truth in the realm of the logical (see Schmidkunz, 1914,
p. 2).
There was but meager express reference to pragmatism and certainly little
intensive grappling with its meanings and method. Ernst Meumann mentioned it in
passing in the first volume of his Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die
Experimentelle Pädagogik (1911), buried in a footnote, where he calls pragmatism
a recent American direction in philosophy and singles out James as its actual
founder (see Meumann, 1911, p. 588 f.).
Only much later, in his Theorie der Bildung published in 1926, does Georg
Kerschensteiner take an explicit stand on pragmatism. He admits there are
numerous similarities in pedagogical practice with pragmatism, against his own
position. But he criticizes pragmatism, since it does not accept a hierarchy of
values. It thus develops a theory of education differing from his own, an edifice of
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PHILIPP GONON
theory moored on absolute values, what he terms “critical realism” (see

Kerschensteiner, 1926, p. 59). He dubs pragmatism a variety of utilitarianism (see
Kerschensteiner, 1926, p. 254).
VI. THE RECEPTION OF DEWEY AND JAMES BY GERMAN EDUCATIONAL

THEORISTS IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
There have been numerous references to the correspondence between Spranger and
Kerschensteiner in 1915 where Spranger expresses his concern: Kerschensteiner
alas is allowing himself to be influenced too much by the American pragmatist
Dewey. Kerschensteiner’s reply is very clear: “Although three or four years ago I
read William James’ book on pragmatism very carefully, it had no effect on me.
But I owe much clarity to Dewey in regard to some other questions. […] I guess
I’m not a very docile pupil. I only learn what I feel an inner inclination toward”
(Kerschensteiner, [1915] 1966, p. 34).
It is significant that even Georg Kerschensteiner, the most prominent and
persistent exponent of Dewey in the German-speaking countries, initially links
pragmatism with James, and only thereafter mentions his contact with the thought
of Dewey. For educational theorists, as a rule there was no need to take a position
on pragmatism. Most were unfamiliar with this body of thought or did not wish to
bother with it, influenced by the echo of the debates in philosophy. In this respect,
Kerschensteiner and Spranger were more the exception. By contrast, James and
Dewey were perceived and valued far more as psychologists and school reformers.
Dewey probably had sparked the first interest in German educational discourse
through his University Laboratory School founded in 1897 at the University of
Chicago. School reformers and proponents of manual dexterity pointed to
Dewey’s experiments. Stress was placed on learning by doing and the testing of
new curricula, as reflected in the report on a trip to the 1904 Word’s Fair in St
Louis by government officials in Prussia entitled Reiseberichte über Nordamerika,
erstattet von Kommissaren des Königlich Preussischen Ministers für Gewerbe und
Handel, anlässlich der Weltausstellung in St. Louis (see Pabst, p. 1907).
The principal of the Teachers’ Seminar for Boys’ Industrial Arts in Leipzig,
Alwin Pabst, also found the world’s fair in St. Louis as an occasion to speak about
Dewey’s experimental school. He published an article in 1905 in the Deutsche
Lehrerzeitung in which he discussed the “psychologist” John Dewey: he was
making a genuine practically oriented Arbeitsschule a reality and regarded
technical knowledge as an important element in all education. In a report also
published later in the journal Praktische Erziehung, he referred to the recent
German edition of Dewey’s School and Society, originally published in English in
1899 (see Pabst, 1912, p. 70). In some of Pabst’s other essays as well, he speaks
with a certain positive esteem of Dewey’s “educational system,” stressing that
Dewey based his work on his practical experience in the classroom and not on
“rigid principles stemming from some theory or other.” Dewey also acknowledged
he had been influenced by Fröbel (see Papst, 1908, p. 49, 54).
166
A few years later, Oskar Messmer sketched a more adequate picture, criticizing
Dewey’s excessive orientation to work in the school. Paul Barth’s Geschichte der
Erziehung, in its second edition in 1916, also mentions Dewey’s University
Elementary School (Laboratory School) established in Chicago. Practical
experience had also come to temper the boldness of his ideas. In the view of Barth
Dewey’s criticism of the school, which stressed more external acquisition rather
than solid deep learning, was justified. On the other hand, he warned against
sentimental idealizing of children and his influence in the United States was strong
(see Barth, 1925, p. 656 f.). So school reform and reform pedagogy were the topics
associated with Dewey. Dewey was also characterized by Barth as a source of
pedagogical stimulation for Kerschensteiner, which in the constellation America-
Germany and its dynamics of academic influence was more the exception in
direction at the time.
References to James can be noted already before the emergence of Dewey, and
not just among the experimental education specialists working around Meumann.
In the already mentioned Jahrbuch des Vereins für wissenschaftliche Pädagogik,
an essay on modern research on children returns to James’ Psychology and
Education in its German translation Psychologie und Erziehung (see Hemprich,
1904, p. 183). Kerschensteiner likewise first came to know James at this time, and
in his 1906 essay “Productive Work and Its Educative Value” he draws on
Jamesian psychology (see Wilhelm, 1957, p. 52). Dewey is mentioned by
Kerschensteiner for the first time in 1908 in Das Problem der Volkserziehung [The
Problem of Public Education]. He reveals that a few months earlier he had read
Dewey’s The School and the Society with great pleasure and admiration (see
Kerschensteiner, 1910, p. 8). Dewey was important for Kerschensteiner as a school
reformer.
On the other hand, the Herbartians articulated the same criticism of Dewey as of
Kerschensteiner, namely to make school and curriculum the foundation of “social
pedagogy” (see Nüchter, 1915).
Moreover, for Kerschensteiner’s thinking, Dewey’s How We Think constituted
the point of departure for abandoning the Herbartian theory of character. He
apparently had absorbed it shortly after its publication in 1910. Understandably, his
distancing from Herbart was not regarded by them as a gain for educational theory
(see Kubbe 1913). In his Charakterbegriff und Charaktererziehung [Concept and
Education of Character], Kerschensteiner (1911) referred to William James and
most especially to Dewey’s psychology. This although he had reduced that
psychology idealistically, by proceeding from thought itself as the point of
departure for attacking a problem instead of the Deweyan platform of action. He
also failed to grasp the pragmatic character of “How We Think”, as Alan Ryan
recently stressed, where the social dimension and experiment are accorded a key
role (see Ryan, 1998, p. 396 ff).
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PHILIPP GONON
VII. CONCLUSION
I have sketched the outlines here of a pattern of impact and reception that is best
termed “bifurcated.” The ideas of James and Dewey were only dealt with in a
narrow, discipline-oriented perspective. Dewey was seen as a theorist and
practitioner of reform pedagogy, James as a psychologist.
The opportunities for creative encounter can be considered a “missed chance” in
that despite the similar configurations of problems in philosophy, education and
social change on both sides of the Atlantic, the German philosophers and
educational theorists paid no attention to American pragmatism, nor did they wish
to pay it any intellectual heed. And to boot they were poorly informed. They
perceived only one or two representatives, namely James and Schiller, and Dewey
in fragmented part. Peirce they totally forgot. Thus they overlooked the numerous
multiple facets and differentiations within the body of pragmatism. Even in
William James, for them its most prominent exponent, they only took note of a
portion of his comments on pragmatism, thus perceiving him within a distorted,
foreshortened image of pragmatism that was too subjectivistic, utilitarian, and
tethered to Lebensphilosophie.
A further variant was not developed in the present paper, namely a reception
more attuned to politics. It began to pay more attention to Dewey from the 1920s
on, but reinterpreted his definition of democracy so as to be compatible with
National Socialist and folkish notions of the folk community (see Baumgarten,
1938). In extension of democratic variants of the reception of pragmatism, socialist
variants are also conceivable beyond the space of Social Democracy and liberalism
(see Schubert, 1995 & Kunkat, 2000), and even within Italian fascism paths of
reception and influence are discernable (see Vogt, 2003).
Thus, even those who specially made reference to Dewey, such as
Kerschensteiner in particular, adapted pragmatism in a reductionist form. Only
more recently has pragmatism acquired a more positive ring in philosophy,
pedagogy and the social sciences in the German-speaking countries. After a welter
of confused paths and false directions in the 1960s, pragmatism is no longer
reduced to positivism and the securing of dominance, or rendered – as in
Horkheimer’s “critique of instrumental reason” – the subject of fears regarding the
eminence of philosophy as a discipline, reduced by pragmatism to a mere
instrument of subjective desire.
The paradoxical results remain: a pragmatic approach to pragmatism as called
for by Jacoby nearly a century ago (1909/2002) is still on a future agenda. And a
pragmatism strung between truth and untruth, morality and immorality as a
dynamic tertium quid – a tenor of mind that eludes dualisms and welcomes
ambivalence as a challenge – is something that educational theory can still attempt
to discover.
168
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Translated by Bill Templer
Philipp Gonon
Department of Vocational Education and Training
171
STEFAN BITTNER
THE PERCEPTION OF DEWEY’S PRAGMATISM IN

GERMANY AFTER 1945
INTRODUCTION
To reconstruct the fine-spun network of the German-speaking Dewey reception in

a way that is accurate in every detail is a laborious task. In the time after World
War Two until the present alone, which is to be depicted in the following, many
interpretational cliffs have surfaced, due, on the one hand, to differing, sometimes
conflicting pedagogic positions, on the other to the socio-political genesis of the
educational system. Therefore, what is to be shown here is a general overview of
the chronological development of what has so far been a largely rudimentary
German perception of Dewey. On top of that, I would like to use the opportunity to
extend the question put in my reception history, i.e., what has been learnt from
Dewey, to the present: What conclusions can be drawn from the detailed discourse
analysis for the present pedagogic Dewey perception, what future perspectives
does it imply?1
First though, to the history of the Dewey perception, which is generally divided
into two phases, thus following political and social development: the
“establishment phase” beginning with the American re-education of the young
German state until 1965 and The phase of the autonomy of democratic
development, which began with the student demonstrations. A short outlook on the
east-sectoral and GDR-reception will then offer room for comparison.
In the first of the mentioned phases, there are, in turn, three operative spaces:
the reception of Dewey during the allied military regime of 1945-1949, the
studying of his works in early federal republican discourse until 1957, and their
perception in the consolidating and economic miracle phase until 1965. The
temporal boundaries do not attempt to be exact.
THE PERCEPTION BETWEEN 1945 AND 1965
Dewey in the re-education politics 1945–1965

Subsequent to the national socialist taboo, a reinvolvement with Dewey began at
the same time as the west allied re-education policy. This essentially aimed at a
cultural and mental denazification, so as to prepare the political and financial
environment for democratic socialization and the development of a democratic
social system. Oelkers’ (1993) general verdict that particularly the involvement of

STEFAN BITTNER
Dewey’s theory in the re-education programs precluded an understanding (p. 3),

can be specified for this time: Dewey was, on the one hand, considered a mentor of
the American re-education and perceived accordingly, on the other hand, however,
as regards to content, his conceptions and works were hardly examined.
Historically speaking, Dewey’s unintentional role of a mentor begins with the
decision of the allied forces to rebuild Germany. Therefore, the Morgenthau
concept refers only faintly to Dewey, whereas the 1946 “Zook Report” of the U.S.
Education Mission to Germany is more definite:2After a long list of habits to be
abandoned, such as the “tendency to expand all terms into absoluteness”, the “now
inopportune aristocratic and military tradition” or the “uncritical obedience”
(Berichte und Nachrichten, 1947, p. 47). Dewey’s name is mentioned casually. An
allusion to the American Comprehensive School follows, which had developed as
a progressive alternative to the secondary high school. In the course of this pointer,
which can definitely be considered a suggestion, terms such as equality of
opportunity, integration and self-determination were mentioned.
Therefore, the report mirrors what had already been completely fulfilled in the
United States at that time – the synonymization of Dewey with the entire, in itself
heterogenic, Progressive Education Movement: 3 Dewey had, in any case, roughly
sketched a plan for an elementary comprehensive school in The School and
Society, but had left open precisely how such an institution was to be devised
above the eighth grade (Dewey, 1900). Apart from this, the educational
organization principle of the laboratory school could hardly be transferred to the
requirements of the comprehensive school. Finally, the vagueness of the allusion
suggests a complete lack of concrete ideas for the establishment of the German
school system: How could the authors have known that, in the next few years, their
report would mistakenly be used as the sole reference as to the intentions of the
State Department, who, as is generally known, put an emphasis on reservation, co-
operation and the integration of German formation ideas, concerning educational
policies? The whole situation was open to various interpretations: The Germans
must have seen Dewey as a radical school reformist and the between allied -
especially the American - decision-makers, a home-made debate now began at
infantry level over whether or not a school reform was necessary.
This short preamble explains a number of irritations with regard to the historical
assessment of the role Dewey played in the re-education policy. Certainly the
report was “inspired by the mind of Dewey” (Schlander, 1981, p. 50), Dewey
therefore being the “person who most influenced re-education after 1945” (Müller,
1995, p. 111) and in all probability “the American re-education experts were all
[steeped in] Dewey’s education philosophy” (Lange-Quassowsky, 1979. p. 68).
However, all this may only be affirmed for the very general information: From the
American side, only the rough boundaries, the general ideological guidelines so to
speak – instrumental pragmatism, social learning from experience, criticism of
idealism, democratic attitude towards life - were linked to Dewey. To discuss
specific questions such as the internal structure of the educational system,
development of a curriculum or the theoretical outline of a democratic pedagogy
using Dewey or to even impose them by authority contradicted the above-
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PERCEPTION OF DEWEY’S PRAGMATISM IN GERMANY
mentioned basic position of the State Department, even if this did not always suit
the military government: It read into the report the demand to introduce a variant
of the integrative, vertically structured Comprehensive School in their zone,
something that was fought determinedly especially in Bavaria and finally
prevented (Klafki, 1976; Müller, 1995).
German pedagogy reacted to the Zook Report, which was repeatedly used to
justify pedagogic decisions, with exorbitant expectations on the one hand and
exaggerated fear on the other: The representatives of the reformist pedagogy
(Arbeitspädagogik) continued their Weimar-connected perceptions by declaring
Dewey to be the American protagonist of an international reform movement that
also represented their aims (Ederer, 1947; Seiler, 1948). In contrast, Dewey
appeared to the Christian-idealist propriety to be the incarnation of the pragmatic
antichrist (Von Trotha, 1946; Ederer, 1949). Against the background of this
diversity of interests, the military government, which was counting more and more
on the least suspected churches, could only opt for an anti-reformist course that
could also accommodate the political concerns of the American government and
maybe even Dewey’s instrumentalism: If faith and religiousness help to deal with
democratic life, then they play a considerable part in personal and social
experiences and thus provide a basis for the construction of a society with stable
values. It is not an accident that the advice given in the Zook Report is promptly
revised towards a three-part structure in the school report of the Harvard
Committee (1948).
To reception historians as much as to reform educationalists an annoying
because intentionally meager development: Due to the targeted democratization,
the American party decide against imposing Dewey as an educational savior and
instead throw him into the discourse as a theory proposal for a pragmatic-
undogmatic world outlook and with this, in counter current with the idealist norm.
Precisely this was however the unmistakable indication of a pragmatic procedure,
thereby marginalizing Lange-Quassowskis question about the ability of the re-
education officers working in the educational sector to implement educational
issues: Nothing was to be implemented other than the guarantee of liberal spaces
for activity and reflection. The threat of the military government, to establish the
American comprehensive school system in Bavaria, can therefore hardly be treated
as a protest against the State Department but rather as a means to promote German
conceptions (Klafki, 1976; Müller, 1995). Thus, the reception of Dewey began at
the level of discourse amongst the democratization intentions of the occupying
powers and the ambivalent position of German pedagogues in 1945. Precisely for
this reason, Dewey has become a reference point in the educational theory and
practice debate, where a large part of the basic questions are answered using
Dewey; more differentiated problems however, are rarely discussed in detail.
Differing deductions and conclusions are therefore inevitable.
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STEFAN BITTNER
Dewey in the establishment phase 1949–1957

Already in the establishment phase and the early developmental stages of the
Federal Republic, it was obvious that the American plan was working – even if
slowly: Up until 1957, the year of the Sputnik shock, the educational
dichotomization was intensified but at the same time, a creative-visionary
occupation begins. On the one hand, the reformist pedagogy decides on
Kilpatrick’s project conception as being the operative consequence of pragmatic
pedagogy – falling back on Petersen’s The Project-Plan (1935) – and so arrive at a
more basis-democratic theoretical and methodical standard.4 The Christian
ideology opposition, on the other hand, also strengthens its position), the allegation
of pragmatic amorality being further intensified in the keyword Deweyism.5
Compatibility of the educational inventory with Dewey’s theory is sought-after
amongst these two enemy positions, both working with a distorted conception of
Dewey: In an experimental phase of theory development, Wilhelm a.k.a. Oetinger
(1951) and Baumgarten (1952) demand a transatlantic discourse at the same level,
together with a “Pedagogy of Partnership”, where teacher and learner should “enter
into the experiment of action” (Wilhelm, 1953, p. 118).6 Particularly
operationalization by Wilhelm, which takes religious experiences into
consideration, acts as a multiplier and thus becomes the most practice-successful
theory of the Adenauer era.7 In this respect, the plan of the military government
works: Dewey is not merely rejected or put into action in a reformist way, but is
discussed and thought through creatively in school reality and pedagogy, as was
intended.
Dewey during the economic decampment 1958–1965

The third phase from 1958 until 1965 is marked by a change in ideological signs
and personal connections caused by the construction of the Berlin Wall and the
subsequent establishment of the GDR (German Democratic Republic). The state-
social pedagogy now enters the West German discourse as a progressive-reformist
trend and occupies the former reformist pedagogue work concept.8 In the course of
the Stalinist interweaving of the GDR pedagogy, Dewey is simultaneously labeled
a bourgeois and contra-revolutionary reformist pedagogue and his theory excluded
from the polytechnic education conception. By chance, this overall refusal happens
to coincide with the general assessment of the ideological-religious to
humanistically reasoning Dewey and pragmatism opponents of West Germany. As
a consequence of their Dewey exclusion, they agree on deduction as being the
ultimate teaching and understanding principle9 or polemicize in comparative
reporting against the American school system.10
The skeptical approachers, who modify their hitherto reformist pedagogic
positions in preference of the views of Baumgarten and Wilhelm however,
measure a surprising upsurge: Correll (1964) questions the project method, which
he himself had propagandized before, and now discusses a “livening” of the
176
contents and thus follows his teacher Hylla (1952), who had already returned to the
notion of education (Bildung) after his Weimar abstinence.
The other groups too show signs of trying to combine the experience orientation
with universal fields of knowledge, without having an appropriately modernized
conception of education.11 Weinstock (1963), for instance, seeks compliance of his
theory of the “Third Humanity”, which was persecuted during national socialism,
to the demands of the present. In this respect, a general skepticism towards a one-
to-one transfer of Dewey’s theory and practice to the German circumstances also
remained until 1965.
Dewey in the Soviet East Sector and the GDR (German Democratic Republik)
In the East Sector and in the GDR, the following development occurs: As early as
1949, after a short period of rivalry between the three influential groups reformist
pedagogy12, humanistic pedagogy,13 and democratic-socialist pedagogy,14 the
Stalinist interpretation of Marxist-Leninism begins to take over15 and its followers
rigorously contend the other three directions. As of this time, the only demanded
and permitted evaluation allowed is that the western reformist pedagogy – and with
this Dewey – is the bourgeois midwife of capitalism. After Stalin’s death in 1953,
this opinion unclenches slightly and up until 1989, there are attempts at a
approximation 16 - all, however, isolated and very careful – yet that all end in further
distancing and exclusion. Due to the guaranteed liberties there, some discussions
take place in West Germany and thus influence the local discourse (Wagner,
1978).
Until the Fall of the Wall in 1989, Dewey is no official part of the GDR-
pedagogy, which can be seen in the complete lack of the subject in appropriate
encyclopedias.
Conclusions
Two general approaches can abstracted from the discourse presented here: Only in
few cases do the recipients thoroughly analyze the context according to works,
people, biographies and society, in short hermeneutic-reconstructively. The other
authors gradually abandon a more detailed interpretive examination and tend
towards the popular speckle quotation. In the first case, Dewey’s whole concept is
thematically well thought-through, textually supplementary or contradicting, at any
rate a coherent position, whereby in the second, the aim is to historically secure
prestabilized theories and ideologies.
There can be no doubt that in both cases – as hermeneutics and psychology have
known for a long time – proceedings are inevitably reconstructive, subjective
bound to the present and often enough, systematic. Only in the first case a
premature ideologization of the model can be ruled out, as long as the decision is
made on the basis of a careful and dignified scientific text and works analysis.
Dewey is rarely used as a source or reference for personal construction and
creative production of current ideologies before 1965 – as with Hylla, Correll,
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STEFAN BITTNER
Baumgarten, Wilhelm – only in these individual cases does he stand for a

communicative and textual input into the society they were aiming for. The
perception of Dewey between 1945 and 1965 mirrors not only the majoritarian
reaction of the world of educational science towards the allied democratization
intentions.
It also shows that reverting to the works analysis of historical theory models is
turning into a major part of communicatively becoming a person within the science
community. All types of reception, even the rejection of Dewey, show that
particularly freedom of opinion and content-liberal communication – in spite of the
prophecies of doom of the re-education historians – are the best evidence for a
sustainability and efficiency of the pragmatic re-education since 1945.
That most of the reviewed authors react in a greatly unsettled way to the American
thinker will probably have to do with simple disinformation. Perhaps it is not a
coincidence, against the backdrop of the central pragmatic idea of the
democratization that only few educationally important works by Dewey were
translated into German between 1945 and 1965, making a complete ascertainment
of his theory virtually impossible or rather excessively time-consuming and labor-
intensive. Notes taken in one of Dewey’s principle lectures on education
philosophy, clarifying the practice of instruction and overcoming the euphoria of
the early laboratory school experiment, had been lying half-translated by
Kerschensteiner in a drawer somewhere since 1910.17 It was not until 1966 that an
American edition appeared, whose translation is however still outstanding (Dewey,
1966).
Under these circumstances the recipients were forced – if they did not want to
turn once again to The School and Society (Dewey, 1900)18 – to deduce pedagogic
questions of detail from works concerned with psychological, sociological or
ethical problems. Important comments on pedagogy could be found in My
Pedagogic Creed from 1922 and particularly in How We Think (1951), the
profession of faith is, however, somewhat obvious and How We Think is not based
on educational questions . A translation of the weighty work Democracy and
Education had been available since 1930 and in 1949 and 1964 the second and
third editions19, respectively, were published, however, it clearly presents itself as
an introduction into actual education philosophy of the Lectures and thus leaves
out their complexity concerning education practice and their terminological
internal structure. Democracy and Education therefore offers no great help as to
the structuring of lessons to trainee teachers, who received the book as a present in
the face of their impending traineeship. The fact that only few recipients actually
concerned themselves with the original document or Hyllas’ transfer – with the
exception of the thirty or so reviewers – shows once again how little the discourse
was influenced by this text before 1965, that it was perceived as a kind of
“American pedagogy-Bible”, a highest authority to be referred to – as the socialist
countries referred to Marx - so as to forestall varying results and views.
The inevitable consequence of guaranteeing democratic liberties by means of a
pragmatic framework with an inadequate information flow is therefore a ever-
darkening view of Dewey, which finally manifests itself in a cross-linking of
178
erroneous interpretations, wrong conclusions and incorrect allocations, corrections

and functionalist reinterpretations. Many things could not be verified by the
original straight away, thus leading the allusion to a supposed Dewey declaration
to appear to be fact.
On the other hand, one-sided occupations were almost impossible due to the
propriety development of the Dewey world picture: because strictly speaking, his
earlier comments on the internal stringentness of teaching procedures and teaching
material aside, Dewey’s works, the more he distances himself from American
progressiveness, can no longer be thought of as belonging to reformist pedagogy.
On the contrary, Dewey’s ideology – provided the recipients mentioned here that
represent almost every pedagogic direction, political spectrums covering left- and
right-wing, the conservative to the progressive position, pragmatic to idealistic
ideology and empirical to hermeneutic methodology get involved with Dewey –
can be taken as a key to understanding the contents of the pedagogic discourse
after 1965.
This is meant in terms of a centering around certain key topics, topos of
educational theory construction, that have been the center of pedagogic debate in
many different ways since 1945. Jutta Lange-Quassowski (1979) lists a number
such subjects which can ultimately be traced back to Dewey, whereby she
emphasizes the beginning of the curriculum theory with the determiners culture,
society and democracy education together with a centering around historical-
humanistic-scientific subject matter as well as critically highlighting learning by
doing in project lessons (p. 72). In addition to a number of further points, these are
the topics that emerge up to the late sixties as belonging to Dewey that have since
steered the discourse and to this day, are seen as concepts and execution factors
typical of Dewey.
THE PERCEPTION AFTER 1965: FOUR MAIN RECEPTION GROUPS
The last perception phase to be recapitulated in this framework is that between

1965 and ca. 2000 and demands a stronger textual differentiation, so as to better
grasp the different reception levels. This is the result of increasingly specialized
pedagogic subject areas but also the con sequence of a wider understanding of
Dewey. First of all, four main lines of reception are to be differentiated that have a
similar opinion of Dewey as the previous groups – not, however, concerning their
educational motivation and intentions.
The first group to be mentioned is the Frankfurt School of Social Sciences
surrounding Habermas, Marcuse and Adorno which – due to the ostentatious
silence that Habermas (1994) celebrated towards Dewey – never began a concrete
or critical discussion on Dewey. The exception is Marcuse, who glances
skeptically towards Dewey again and again. Due to his function as head of the
1968 student movement, Marcuse at least contributed to a rudimentary sociologist
view of Dewey in the following generation of scientists. At his side is K. O. Apel
(1975. 1976), who, in his two-volume publication on the logician Peirce, suggests
draft of a pragmatism image that attempts to blend in with the idealist-normative
179
STEFAN BITTNER
position of Neomarxism.20 Even if these two volumes are the only and at the same
time most important West German works about Peirce, they remain without
response: Even the pedagogues of the Frankfurt Critical Theory avoid Dewey and
Peirce completely. In this respect, this reaction is comparable with the state
socialist-reformist attempts at exclusion before 1965. Unfortunately the Luhmann
school of sociology, which overcomes the influence of the Critical Theory in the
late eighties, follows in its predecessors footsteps with regard to Dewey: In
Luhmanns The Education System of Society, published posthumously in 2002,
Dewey can neither be found in the text itself, nor in the extensive foot notes. Only
the term world society includes the note “Dewey, The Federalist 1996/2. 5. 1.
1911” (p. 231) that, however, cannot be allocated to the text. Luhmann was
obviously concerned with globalization, which does at least deal with the so far
unanswered question whether a worldwide social system complies with the
requirements of the system theory or, conversely, whether there can be a global
social system (including supranational subsystems) per definition and if not, why.
The fact remains that Dewey’s experience individuality does not tie in with the
model of communicative person and society development, despite its inherent
pragmatic sociology. The introduced German sociology and, in succession, large
parts of the social pedagogy therefore hardly became argumentative positions
against pragmatism and subjective experience spheres.
The second large anti-Dewey-bastion of the post-war period, the religious-
humanistic group, starts its creative education theorist examination as of 1965
(Schütz, 1975). In reality, Dewey is as close to general education
(Allgemeinbildung) – if the term is used without referring to bygone polemics and
socially stratifying ulterior motives – as he is to that of the education/upgrading
(Erziehung) and the socialization, which used to be differentiated in Germany. Of
course, due to his linguistic-mental context, he need not be interested in such a
textual differentiation. In the 1990s, however, views revert back to a more reserved
position, something especially apparent in the Christian-conservative orientated
sociology: Due to its inherent pragmatism, the democratic re-education is classified
as a “secularly mission” (Plé, 1990) and is refused as such.
The third area, which contains all the formally skeptical proponents of
pragmatic positions, develops itself to a hoard of affirmative pragmatism
admiration and thus falls into a more historical view of Dewey (Wilhelm, 1969,
1975, 1977; Rust, 1995).
The fourth approach, led by descendents of the American Renewal-of-Dewey
movement, takes part in the German discourse, consisting of modernist and
postmodernist authors, presenting current reformist educational, communication
theoretical and constructivist reinterpretations – especially of the notion of
experience (Neubert, 1998) – and in their wake, the transfer of various hitherto
untranslated Dewey works is finally carried out or at least planned.21 Knoll (1992)
separates the project understanding of Dewey and Kilpatrick and with this, starts a
discussion about the use of historical project conceptions for current schooling.22
180
The perception of Dewey after 1965 in range-educational classification

Apart from these four perception spheres, further reception groups can be
differentiated – resulting from the transverse structure of the professionalizing of
pedagogy. In general, one can speak of the perception of Dewey in the general,
historical, comparative and school pedagogy. With regard to their general position,
the authors assigned to this group are partly within the aforementioned perception
spheres, mostly, however, they refrain from identifying themselves with a theory.
The great shift of aspect towards more practical, didactic and lessons methodical,
in other words school educational and didactically specialized problems is
noticeable.
General educational works to be mentioned are introductive pedagogue
literature, which basically consist of arguments that are critical as far as dismissive
of Dewey (Brezinka, 1981; Henz, 1991). Because education is generally
considered in a social way, the sociologist view is preferred, even though Dewey
never saw any of his education processes as being outside of society and insofar a
consideration of his subjective-empirically and economically orientated society
genesis could be expected.
Historical educationalists, if they have concerned themselves with the education
political re-education measures since the mid-seventies, hardly ever mention
Dewey, even though this would have been in their area of research. If they do
mention Dewey at all, they are usually undecided whether and to what extent
Dewey or pragmatism had any influence on the re-education intentions of the
allied forces.23 Irrespective of the almost complete lack of evidence concerning
this, the question still remains whether Germany became democratic independently
or only under supervision. American influence is usually doubted, recently even
regretted (Plé, 1990). This calls into question the system-devising effect of
international contents within communicative processes – for example human rights
norms or UN- and NATO-resolutions – and it remains to be seen how, why and
with what pedagogic consequences certain state and government forms develop for
example after wars or uniting of countries.
As of 1965, the comparative pedagogy begins an assessment of the American
system,24in which former evaluations are ignored, and where, in regard to the
discussion of German comprehensive schools, the recent American experiments,
conceptions and models receive particular attention.
The remaining and quantitatively largest perception sphere is the school
pedagogy, in which, starting with the school theory25 over action-orientated
learning,26 didactics,27 project lessons,28 interdisciplinary lessons,29 general
science30, political education 31, ethics education 32 up to media pedagogy,33 all
subject areas that attempt to base themselves on Dewey. This is also where the
different considerations concerning a belated realization of Dewey pedagogy in
Germany can be found, seeing as it never came to the establishment of a Dewey
reform school.34
181
STEFAN BITTNER
Conclusions
The West German Dewey reception of Dewey between 1965 and the nineties
essentially remains a rudimentary excerpt, to which theories and hypotheses that
hardly correspond to Dewey’s conceptions are added. There are only few
exceptions to this type of examination, for example the works of Hyllas, Corrells,
Wilhelms, von Hentigs, Schütz, Bohnsacks or Apels, who distance themselves
from hasty functionalizations and offer critical text analyses. The lion’s share of
the reception is accounted for by the school practical project-debate that is no
longer concerned with its approval or refusal, but with a sensible integration into
school learning. Accordingly, the question over whether a project is a general,
universally usable lesson principle or whether it is an optionally applicable method
now becomes relevant. Overall, a greater presence of Dewey’s conceptions is
found in works concerning the conventional school system, the result being their
extraction from specific reformist pedagogy contexts, carried by a textual
consolidation and resulting in a budding broad school practical effect. This
however has a disadvantageous effect on the possibility of a deeper theoretical
examination and finally leads to a complete loss of knowledge of the original
context. An modified old slogan says: Dewey is known, not read.
END AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
How the German pedagogy perceived Dewey and how he influenced it after 1945
can be described as follows: Exactly as he intended, as well as how the State
Department and the majority of the re-education programs did too: Neither as a
pragmatic philosophy, which could have been enforced authoritatively, nor as a
cognition regulation of educational techniques, but rather as an encouragement to
find individual ways of thinking, fixed to the starting-point of experience and
coping with life, disassociated from static affirmation. Even the acknowledgment
of the theory of experience as a subjective criterion for evaluating realizations
while continuously reconstructing experience therefore included a skeptical way to
deal with pragmatism. In other words: The demonstrable appearance of contrary
positions, meanders and misinterpretations must be understood as consequences
and signs of democratic development, whereat one may argue about the best form
of democracy as well as about the question whether or not the feeling of
democracy aimed at by Dewey as well has arisen. At any rate, the existence of
pragmatism critical ways of thinking and theories will remain the touch-stone of
democracy for as long as these ideologies themselves do not become dogmatic or
totalitarian in character, attempt to displace pragmatism and thus risk anti-
democratic developments.
A final verdict on the West German perception of Dewey since 1945 can either
be carried out and explained quantitative-empirically 35 or qualitative-textually:
Regarded with respect to quantity, a total of 302 mentions of Dewey show only
three reception pinnacles of more than ten contributions: in 1952, due to his death,
in 1967, following the Correllian reinterpretation or rather due to the beginning
182
social and educational upheaval and finally in 1995, during the renewed project-
debate under a new movement, the Renewal of Dewey movement. Other than this,
preoccupation is relatively periodical: A continuous basic preoccupation allows a
peak of some five contributions every five years so that – similar to the rise for
education (Bildung) debates - one can talk of a cycle.36 Viewed with regard to
quality, there is a scientifically communicative learning process through
pragmatism that is temporally constant and within the observed groups of
individuals, which, at first, remains general and, at the latest, since Correll takes up
a theoretically founded and practically orientated examination and shows more and
more traits of text and works analysis. Even if there are only few scientists that
take this route, their multiplicational function concerning an idea-historical impact
– which could not be examined due to insufficient evidence – should not be able to
be overrated and it should be precisely the opening of the topic into school-
practical areas that turns out to be the most fruitful.
Thus, what happens is the placing of pedagogy into a west-international
discourse together with a rapprochement towards hitherto unknown optimistic-
visionary and self-confident feelings in Germany. The fact that Dewey’s contents
and positions are only rudimentarily considered in a skeptical-differential, works
analytical way and a detailed comparison of traditional European conceptions with
his theories and experiences is basically elided apparently does not hinder this
development.
On this platform, the question of how quality and intensity of Dewey were
received and evaluated become more interesting and the problems of reception
become focus of attention. How much hermeneutic legwork, how much de- and
reconstruction has to be performed to be able to come to an informed judgement of
Dewey’s written legacy, without considering the general usage of the advantages
of the democratic-pragmatic framework? Is there a general boundary of
interpretation, from which a recipient can be accused of imprecision, sloppiness or
simply operative-functional concoctions of texts? Such a fixed point probably does
not exist, yet one can hardly claim that a few randomly gathered Dewey quotations
thrown into an otherwise rather pitiful contribution suggest a serious text and
works analysis. Therefore, only the consideration of the entire research activity of
the recipient determines his thematic dignity and the depth and breadth of his
contribution the basis of his scientific plausibility. This shows that the quality of
judgement depends on the intensity with which a writer engages himself with
Dewey’s conceptions and not on the overall result. The devil is sometimes in the
details. This makes it harder to dismiss ‘uncomfortable’ authors like Dewey lock,
stock, and barrel; conversely every perception of Dewey, regardless of how
carefully it is carried out, is the beginning of a reception event. A ‘work
immanence’ of interpretation is therefore not needed, instead though a exact works
analytical preoccupation with the model as well as the remaining social, discourse
or biography analytical methods.
183
STEFAN BITTNER
Particularly from a German-language point of view the consequence of such an

occupation is the question of a logical transfer and interpretation of the notion of
‘education’. As every Dewey recipient inevitably has to refer to his own linguistic
contexts and connotations, in Germany he is forced to decide between one of three
educational basal codes – ‘Bildung’, ‘Erziehung’ (both education) or
‘Sozialisation’ (socialization). As Dewey’s understanding of education goes
beyond every one-sided German specification and, conversely, every mere transfer
of diction results in a decline in interpretation quality, it is necessary to redefine the
terminology horizon before every interpretation.
By the way, regardless of which German interpretation is used as a basis, such a
text analytical approach to the specific explanation and differentiation of Dewey’s
notion of education always end in his adjustment to the presupposed position. To
give an example, if you take Luhmann’s (2002) definition of education
(instruction, Bildung) not to mean showable knowledge but contextual knowledge
that originates from education (upgrading, Erziehung) “enables you to understand
what is explained quickly and be able to transform it into own
knowledge”(p.100),37 then you quickly find a correspondence to Dewey’s notion of
reflection and reconstruction, then a similarity concerning textual and
organizational interlocking of the three terms – but not in the evaluation – and
finally hardly any connection to the experience and action orientation of Dewey’s
idea of education. An almost identical result of the assessment of Dewey’s
understanding of education is achieved by the usage of one of the bequeathed
German instruction or education terms. When attempting to comprehend, it is
apparently only important that, one the one hand, the individual interpretations are
not immediately taken to be personal credos or rather as theoretically prestabilized
definitions but only used as working hypotheses and, on the other hand, that not
only textual overlapping is stated and noted down, but also deviations.
The question that now needs to be asked after the historical-review of the Dewey
discourse is that of the significance of the American and his theories for the current
pedagogy. As already implemented processes hardly need to be repeated, we can
concentrate on the presented excerpts of the reception history and the negative-
conclusions it allows: We can exclude the complete taboo of Dewey as it was
practiced by the humanistic pedagogy in the late imperial period and during the
national socialism: As the frameset for a democratic discourse - and thus for
communication in the sense of a textual examination - was only made possible in
Germany by Dewey in 1945, it would destroy the democratically paved way to
communicative theories if he were ignored once more.
To better understand Dewey, the common speckle-citations are unnecessary as
well as short references to Dewey in order to seemingly secure declarations and
propositions. Therefore using Dewey for prefabricated theories and ideologies can
hardly help to renew understanding, as there can generally be no one-to-one
equivalent – as proven for the reception around 1900 – and in those cases self-
critical objections are very rare.
184
Missing completely, on the other hand, is the historical expansion of the

pragmatism topic on the basis of Dewey’s theory: action and experience
orientation were included in the European and Western pedagogic cerebration
before Dewey and the great American pragmatists. A short review of the beginning
of the 19th century shows the defensive struggle of the idealist Hegel against his
experience and perception orientated colleague Beneke at the Berlin University. A
short while later – until 1848 – there is an increasing number of pedagogues who,
in reference to Beneke, act and think more and more republican until they also
arrive at the communication blockade. Incidentally, Peirce also referred to Beneke,
among others.38 Almost at the same time as the publication of Dewey’s The School
and Society, Wilamowitz (1902) designs and publishes his highly controversial
Greek Reading Book (which is soon banished from school use) that replaces
existing New Humanist contents with texts about antique economic, technical and
social history. Approximately one century earlier, it was the pragmatic Robinson
topic that won through, in different transformations, against homes and school
(Bittner 2003). A glance at Antiquity reveals rhetoric as being the predecessor of
pragmatism. Here too people judged and acted - linguistically - on the basis of
experience-orientated probability conclusions, which even at that time went against
the dogmatic notion of truth of the idealist philosophy. Rhetoric is therefore the
pragmatic communication theory of Antiquity, which has been expanded to
dialogue since Cicero and has thus achieved literacy and ubiquity.
Something else that is missing in the systematic sense is a text analytical or
linguistic ascertainment of Dewey with regard to the remaining analysis contexts.
The reason for this is so as not to influence the reader’s view of choice and
theoretical legitimizing of a pragmatic-worldly self-determination in the mindset of
democratic rules. Precisely this, it seems, is the deeper meaning of a contemporary
educational and pedagogic Dewey perception: Action in a teaching job – verbal or
non-verbal – may and should be designed within curricular specifications in such a
way that it complies with the life and work demands of the teacher: Free space for
action and decisions should be seen, used and created. This approach legitimizes
itself not only through our relatively - with regard to method - open curriculum, but
would also be secured by Dewey’s theory: Whatever seems methodically
necessary within legitimacy, morality and democratic integrity to guarantee an
effective classroom situation, is to be done.
Only this way do teachers have continually reconstructable experiences or rather
ideas and visions for their everyday proceedings and thus come to concrete
situational results for existing problems. At the same time, this gives pedagogy a
exhaustless source of observations, analyses, descriptions and syntheses for new
practices, developed on the spot, material that on its part can make a important
contribution to a theoretically founded and practically orientated teacher education.
185
STEFAN BITTNER
NOTES
1
In the following, we will discuss a result excerpt of the DFG-project Dewey in Germany between
1890 and 1965, whose research time was extended to 2000. Cf. Bittner, 2000, 2000a, 2001, 2004.
2
Report of the United States Education Mission to Germany (1946). The U.S. Education Mission to
Germany, with Dr. George F. Zook as chairman, left the United States on August 23, 1946, and
stayed in Germany for about one month to study and observe the educational situation in the U.S.
Zone by order of the State Department. On September 20, 1946, the mission submitted its report
(sometimes called the “Zook Report”) and returned to the U.S. on September 26, 1946.
3
The separation from the Progressive Education Movement, is not yet mirrored in the Zook Report.
For Progressive Education cf. Knoll, 1998.
4
Deuel, 1951; Hubert, 1956; Hylla, 1949. 1952 (2).
5
Stähler, 1952; Brosowsky, 1953; Ehrenteich, 1953; Schön, 1956.
6
See also Baumgarten 1954/1955, 1958 and 1971. Wilhelm (a.k.a. Oetinger) 1952, 1953, 1956, 1957.
7
Heise, 1953; Förster, 1953, 1954; Moor, 1960.
8
Abel, 1959; Szaniawski, 1961; Hagenmaier, 1964.
9
Stoldt, 1959; Weiss, 1959; Hampel, 1961.
10
Breier, 1958; Wilss, 1961; Loduchowski, 1961; Glaap, 1963; Willer, 1962, 1965.
11
Anweiler, 1961; Glöckel, 1964; Guyer, 1960.
12
Usually referring to Petersen (1935), who pleaded for the re-opening of the Jena-Plan-School.
13
Also referring to Theodor Litt and his thought on scientific education.
14
Deiters, 1947; Lange, 1947; Haase, 1946.
15
Schtscherbow, 1947; Skatkin, 1952; Schewkin 1956.
16
Wothge, 1956; Sawin, 1976; Heimberger, 1977.
17
Lectures in the Philosophy of Education, university of Chicago 1899.
18
Since the translation by Gurlitt (1905), there has been strong reception of Dewey’s The School and
Society. Therefore it was Gurlitts interpretation of the laboratory school experiment, which most
influenced the whole West-German Dewey-understanding until the 1930s. In the first years after
World War II this development revived. Vgl. Bittner (2001).
19
Translated by Hylla, 1930, 1949 (2),1993 (3, ed. By J. Oelkers).
20
Probably Apel referred to the reception of Peirce in the GDR, which today is felt into oblivion.
21
Tippelt, 1986; Joas, 1992; Biesta, 1995; Biesta/Miedema, 1996; Reich, 1996. Rülcker&Oelkers,
1998; Rhyn, 1998; Neubert, 1999; Lehmann-Rommel, 2000.
22
See also Knoll 1993 (2), 1996, 1998 and the youngest school-pedagogical literature about projekts.
23
Lange-Quassowski, 1979; Müller, 1995; Klafki, 1976.
24
Röhrs, 1977, 1982, 1991 (2); Monsheimer, 1968; Wittig, 1973; Blankertz, 1989.
25
Bohnsack, 1964; Wilhelm, 1969; Apel, 1974.
26
Brüggen, 1980; Wagner, 1978; Klausmeier&Ripple, 1971; Claußen, 1978.
27
Von Hentig. 1966, 1973, 1984; Ammon, 1980.
28
Correll, 1974; Keim, 1974; Wittmann, 1983; Magnor, 1976; Hänsel, 1995; Frey, 1993; Duncker,
1987; Schilmöller, 1995.
29
Trapp, 1989; Frommer&Körsgen, 1989.
30
Lind, 1975; Schreier, 1991.
31
Bohnsack, 1967, 1978; Behrmann, 1975; Ammon, 1980; Braun, 1986; Koch, 1995.
32
Kurzweil, 1970, 1974; Tippelt, 1986; Nipkow, 1990. The general problem of pragmatic ethics in
Dewey’s work see f.i. Kaum, 1972.
33
Schäfer, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1990; Bittner 1999.
34
Rudloff, 1979; Pütt, 1982; Reinhardt, 1992.
35
A general view to the empiric dates I resumed while the conference Internationalisierungsprozesse
in Bildung und Wissenschaft (University of Mannheim, 27/28. 9. 2002).
36
If cycles of pragmatism are fitting with cycles of education/instruction (Bildung) has to be
investigated.
37
See also p. 38 u. 81. For Luhmann ‚Bildung’ is one result of educational (Erziehung) processes.
186
38
Vgl. K. O. Apel 1976, p. 49, 5. Peirce refers on Benekes System der Logik II, Berlin 1842, p. 103.
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Studienreferendar
Frechen, Germany
194
PHILIP W. JACKSON
DEWEY’S OPTIMISM1,2
A philosophy without heart and a faith without intellect are abstractions from the
true life of knowledge and faith. The man [or woman] whom philosophy leaves
cold, and the man [or woman] whom faith does not illuminate, may be assured that
the fault lies in them, not in knowledge and faith. The former is still an alien to
philosophy, the latter an alien to faith.
Hegel, Vermischte Schriften, ii. 144
PREAMBLE
John Dewey exemplified in his own terms the true life of knowledge and faith to
which Hegel alludes in the above passage. From early adulthood onward he
personified what it meant to be a philosopher with heart and a man of abiding faith.
That characterization of Dewey may come as a surprise to those of his critics,
past and present, who variously look upon him as either excessively rational in
outlook (too favorably inclined toward the sciences is one common complaint) and
therefore as lacking in heart or, alternatively, as so staunchly opposed to the
dogmatism and supernaturalism of the major religions of the world as to be averse
to the attractions of “faith,” no matter how neatly packaged or devoutly affirmed.
The shortsightedness of both of those judgments will soon become evident
although that is by no means the main purpose of these remarks. I am far less
interested in defending Dewey from unfair criticism than in continuing to explore,
as I have in the past,3 what the public in general and we educators in particular
might learn from his life and work.
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
John Dewey’s outlook on life was basically optimistic, or so we are told by all six
of his recent biographers.4 The recollections of his former colleagues and of others
who knew him personally say the same.5 A casual perusal of his vast body of
writings readily confirms those judgments. In book after book and article after
article (a compilation whose critical edition runs to thirty-seven volumes, leaving
aside an almost equally vast body of correspondence)6, Dewey comes across as
someone who from early adulthood onward, and possibly much earlier than that,
managed to view the world in terms that were at once rational in outlook and
spirited in temperament.7 Despite having witnessed many tumultuous events
during his lifetime, including wars, revolutions, and economic hard times, and
despite having suffered a number of personal tragedies, including the loss of two of
his sons through childhood illnesses, he appears to have been a stranger to the kind

PHILIP W. JACKSON
of existential doubt and despair that descended upon so many of his

contemporaries throughout the first half of the twentieth century; a condition that
not only continues to plague a fair number of us today but one that in the light of
current events threatens daily to overtake an even greater number.
What accounts for Dewey’s optimism? Was he just born that way? Or was it
perhaps the result of his early upbringing, the fact that he spent his formative years
in a favorable social environment – the cherished son of loving parents, living in a
peaceful, though bustling New England town, nestled in the hills of Vermont, a
young citizen of a fledgling nation whose future at the time could hardly have been
more promising? Both of those possibilities likely played a part in making him the
kind of person he turned out to be. But there exists a third and more intriguing
possibility, which is that Dewey may have had good reasons for remaining
optimistic throughout his life, ones that we might come to share ourselves if we but
knew them. That third possibility is the one I would like to explore in this essay.
We educators have a special reason for being interested in Dewey’s positive
outlook. Optimism, as a fundamental disposition toward what life has to offer, is
no luxury for us. Our work demands it. We must convincingly project to our
students, through the way we carry on their instruction, a future that looks at least
moderately appealing, if not downright rosy, much of the time, one in which, as a
result of our joint efforts, they will come to live more satisfying lives than would
otherwise be the case. Absent that shared conviction, that stake in a promising
future, the struggle to acquire new knowledge and skills makes little sense for them
or for us. Pursued without optimism, the whole enterprise of education makes little
sense. Why bother learning anything at all if the future holds no promise?
For those of us who teach, there is more to our wishing to remain optimistic
than our need to do so for the sake of our students. Our convincing portrayal of a
promising future must be accomplished in the face of considerable uncertainty at
times about how well our teaching is going from moment to moment and from day
to day. The signs of our pedagogical accomplishments, such as they might be, are
often difficult to discern and sometimes downright discouraging. That condition
alone can become a threat to our sense of optimism.
Many of us face other challenges as well, such as unruly students, ineffective
administrators, the demands of an excessively bureaucratic environment, and so
forth. All such conditions wear away at our capacity to remain forward-looking
and upbeat about our work. So anything that Dewey (or anyone else, for that
matter) might teach us about how to keep our spirits high and our determination
steady would certainly be most welcome.
We turn to Dewey in particular as a potential source of guidance in such matters
because, as we all know, he was himself an educator of note. Not only that, he was,
as one might say, an educator’s educator. He founded a Laboratory School that
became world famous. He spent vast amounts of time addressing teachers and
school administrators worldwide about the importance and significance of their
work. Though he is remembered chiefly as having been a great American
philosopher, he was basically a teacher at heart and a highly respected friend of
teachers. It makes sense, therefore, to imagine that educators in particular might
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stand to gain somewhat more from a close look at Dewey’s optimism than might
persons engaged in some other worthy pursuit, such as law, let’s say, or business
administration.
Such was my thinking as I began to ruminate on the subject at hand. Yet as I
moved along I came to see that I may have been wrong about at least two of the
points contained in those thoughts. It may be, for one, that educators are no more
in need of remaining optimistic about their work and about life in general than are
those following other pursuits. I possibly had exaggerated that need simply
because, as an educator, I have experienced it at firsthand and, therefore, know
more about it than I do about the needs of others. Secondly, it could also be that a
close look at the possible sources of Dewey’s optimism may be no more
illuminating to educators as a group than to any other group of readers, since those
sources are multiple and are by no means exclusively tied to education as a human
endeavor. It is quite possible, therefore, that non-educators stand to gain just as
much (or as little) from the exposition to follow as do those of us who happen to be
educators.
My growing awareness that such may be the case caused me for a time to
consider changing audiences. I thought of shifting from a primary audience of
educators to one far more general. I finally decided, however, to stick with my
initial plan of paying particular attention to the needs and interests of teachers and
of persons preparing to teach. I did so principally because, I have been an
university teacher myself for most of my adult life and teaching is the work I know
best. I have also been closely associated with teachers of many different kinds
during that time, as a member of my university’s Department of Education. Thus
the illustrations and examples that come most readily to mind when trying to
concretize some general point quite often have to do with classroom situations. In
short, I feel most comfortable addressing a readership consisting primarily of
educators, though I would certainly hope that much of what follows might be of
interest to others as well.
I should, however, warn those whose interests are narrowly confined to
education that I will wander rather far afield from teaching at times and will by no
means restrict my attention to what Dewey had to say about education per se.8
Education as a social institution was a very important for Dewey, as has already
been acknowledged. He looked upon it as essential to the well-being of the society
at large. But, though it was certainly one of his favorite subjects, it was by no
means the only one he explored in depth. After a few preliminary remarks about
the procedure to be followed, I will identify several other matters that concerned
him as deeply.
Procedural Remarks
My thoughts about Dewey’s optimism got underway in a very ordinary and almost
off-handed manner. I began by trying to compile a list, based on my own reading
of his major works, of those ideas to which Dewey returned most often, the ones
that he seemed to care most about. I thought that those core beliefs, if I could
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identify a fair number of them, might hold the key to an understanding of his
optimism. I also believed that I had read enough of Dewey to be able to say what
some of those beliefs were without much difficulty.
The ones that first came to mind were ten in number and since that seemed like
a reasonable number to start with I stopped there and did not bother to dredge up
any more. I then proceeded to give some thought to each of those ten notions and
even more to their complex interrelationships. The underlying question in my mind
at the start was how that set of beliefs, individually and collectively, might have
lent support to Dewey’s optimism.
I never did find a satisfying answer to that question (and for reasons that will
later become clear I am now inclined to think that it was not a very good question
to start with). But in the process of pursuing it I did come upon an unanticipated
insight into an aspect of Dewey’s thought that I had not paid much attention to
before: its systemic nature. I began to see how the ten so-called key ideas that I had
identified hung together to form a kind of structure whose overall shape was barely
discernible yet provocatively present.9 I spent quite some time fiddling with that
structure, trying to understand it as best I could and describe it as clearly as
possible before turning to the question of how it might function as a tool of
understanding for educators and the public at large.
As might be guessed, my pace at each of those tasks was rather slow. Because I
was often quite unsure of where I was going, I tried to allow each step in the
process to follow more or less naturally from the one just taken. In short, I
followed my nose most of the time rather than trying to plan too far ahead.
I did take several false steps along the way, including the one involving my
guiding question, which I have just mentioned. I tried to remedy most such errors
as I went along. Sometimes, however, I did not catch them soon enough and by the
time I had done so it was too late to turn back. Those flaws remain, though I do try
to call attention to those of which I am aware.
The account that follows retraces, in the main, the path I have just outlined. It
includes a recounting of some (but not all) of the false steps I took along the way.
The ones I have left in are intended to be edifying rather than distracting, though to
some readers they may be neither. I trust that the informality of my procedure and
my way of reporting it will be acceptable to most readers, whom I picture as being
more or less the way I was at the start: mildly interested in the topic and in no
particular hurry to move along at breakneck speed. I can easily imagine, however,
that such informality and leisurely pace might be quite annoying to readers who are
in more of a hurry to get where they are going. To them I bid adieu with apologies
for having taken up this much of their time.
As just said, I began by trying to identify the most prominent of Dewey’s
beliefs, based exclusively on my own reading of his works. By “beliefs,” I simply
had in mind those “ideas” or “notions” (for the time being, any of those three terms
will do) that he seemed to have valued most deeply. I jotted them down as they
came to mind and in fairly short order, I had come up with the names of ten of
them, each in the form of an abstract noun. I decided to stop there for reasons that
have already been explained.
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My method of relying solely on my own casual recall of what I had read of

Dewey’s works, might lead some to wonder why I had not adopted a more formal
approach. Why not begin with one of Dewey’s own explicit statements about what
he believed? Surely a man of his prominence, one who was also an extraordinarily
prolific writer, would have been invited on numerous occasions to provide such a
personal declaration. And even if he had not been invited to do so, a man of his
character probably would have done so quite on his own.
There are, it is true, several pieces of writing scattered throughout Dewey’s
works that fit that description. His essay entitled “My Pedagogic Creed,” published
in 189810 and his two contributions to volumes published in 1930 and 1939 that
contain statements from prominent figures of the day outlining their own beliefs,11
serve as good examples. My reasons are twofold for not beginning with one or
another of those documents and moving on from there. First, those occasional
pieces tend on the whole to be too limited in scope. Each deals with only a narrow
sub-set of Dewey’s beliefs, leaving out more than it includes. “My Pedagogic
Creed,” for example, focuses almost exclusively on what Dewey believed about
the conduct of teaching during the time when he was founding the Laboratory
School at the University of Chicago. His statements in the two volumes mentioned
above were closely tied to the social and political events of the day. Second, there
is a sense in which almost all of Dewey’s writings, certainly the vast bulk of those
that received the widest attention, can be read as elaborated riffs on one or more of
his most deeply-felt convictions. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that six of the
ten abstract nouns that I came up with also appear prominently in the title of one or
another of Dewey’s books.12
The impressionistic procedure I followed naturally involved guesswork, there
being no agreed-upon inventory of what Dewey believed and no method that I
know of constructing one. Yet I would defend my selection against the charge of
arbitrariness by pointing out that Dewey wrote so prolifically on a fairly restricted
range of topics, that many of his most deeply held convictions repeatedly resurface
and thus are not terribly hard to identify. After some initial indecision about which
ones should be considered uppermost, I settled upon ten that, when all was said
and done, seemed to me incontrovertible.
To reveal some of the hesitancy I felt at the start, I first will present the list of
ten beliefs in approximately the order in which they originally came to mind. This
mode of presentation will make clear which items I felt most confident about
including at the start (those at the top of the list) and which ones I initially had
some misgivings about (those at the bottom). I will briefly discuss my hesitation
with respect to the latter when each is introduced. Somewhat later on I will present
a revised list with the same ten items rearranged to highlight a distinction that I had
not been fully aware of at the start.
Each of the items will be introduced at the start as an abstract noun or noun
phrase, for that is how they initially came to mind. Such labeling is minimally
informative, of course, so before launching a discussion of the list as a whole, I
will say a few words about each entry and, where it seems convenient to do so, will
interject a few of Dewey’s own words on the subject. That brief commentary will
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certainly not provide an adequate picture of what Dewey believed with respect to
any one of the ten items (in most instances it would take a full volume to do that)
but it should be enough to give at least a few hints in that direction and thus allow
our investigation to move forward without too much delay. When I turn to the total
list I will be chiefly interested in what the ten beliefs have in common and how
they might be variously combined to reveal some of the structural features of
Dewey’s system of beliefs. To bring the essay to a close, I will address the
question of how those ten key beliefs and Dewey’s grasp of them might shed light
on our task as educators and more generally on our human condition. Those final
reflections will bring us full circle, returning us at long last to the question with
which we began.13
PART 2: TEN OF DEWEY’S CORE BELIEFS
Generating the list. When I set about trying to name the key beliefs that I find to be
central to Dewey’s thought I first came up with a list of six that I took to be
essential. The six items were: intelligence, science, common sense, human nature,
education, and democracy.
After a bit more thought I considered adding four more items to the list but
hesitated to do so for a variety of reasons. The four that I thought to include but
then set aside were: art, religion, philosophy, and freedom. I subsequently had
second thoughts about the exclusion of those four items and have now come to feel
that they too deserve to be included, even though I continue to have some nagging
reservations about doing so, which I will explain in due course.
I place no great importance on the actual number of beliefs on my list. Someone
else undertaking the same task and going about it in roughly the same way might
well come up with either more or fewer than ten items. I would be surprised
however, assuming their list was approximately the same length as mine, if they
omitted more than one or two of those I have settled upon. Here then, arrayed in a
single column, are my ten nominees.
1) Intelligence
2) Science
3) Common sense
4) Human nature
5) Education
6) Democracy
7) Art
8) Religion
9) Philosophy
10) Freedom
One of the things that stands out about that list is how commonplace the names
are. Every child beyond the age of ten or so has encountered each one of them
countless times in school, not to mention hearing them discussed in more informal
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settings, such as over the dinner table or on TV. None sends any literate speaker of
English rushing to a dictionary for help. Yet despite its familiarity, each word is
more or less a cipher. Without a lot more in the way of explanation, none reveals
what it might mean to believe in what the word stands for.
Imagine interposing the phrase “Dewey believed in” before each entry, turning
it into a complete, three-word sentence: Dewey believed in intelligence, Dewey
believed in science, Dewey believed in common sense, and so forth. We would
still be left pretty much in the dark as to what each sentence meant. Moreover, at
least one of those sentences, the one that declared “Dewey believed in religion,”
would be downright misleading if not patently false. From his young adulthood
forward Dewey did not believe in religion, at least not as the term is commonly
understood. Yet it still makes sense, I would insist, for reasons yet to be given, to
include religion on the list.
There is something else to say about the easy recognition of the ten items. We
need be warned that the meaning Dewey attaches to several of those names turns
out to be radically different than the one that most people have in mind when they
use it themselves or come upon its use by others. As everyone who has read much
of Dewey quickly discovers, he put his own twist on several of those all-too-
familiar terms. Thus we must be careful about assuming that a generic meaning
known to all holds when we ascribe to him this or that commonplace belief.
For that reason I will offer a few introductory paragraphs about each of the ten
items as we go along, paying particular attention to its meaning for Dewey,
especially when that meaning differs markedly from the one in general use.
Readers must also keep in mind, however, that Dewey has written whole books
and numerous articles about several of the big ideas on that list.14 Therefore, my
brief commentary on each of them is not to be taken as anything like a summary of
Dewey’s thought on the subject.
1) Intelligence
Intelligence, for Dewey, might also be called reflective thought or rationality in
general, though he took pains to distinguish intelligence from mere ratiocination or
formal, syllogistic thinking of the kind logicians from Aristotle forward are known
to favor. He also did not look upon it as a single psychological attribute — as it
came to be treated in most of the psychology textbooks of the twenties and thirties
— nor would he have been content with seeing it treated as a multiple set of such
attributes, as has become fashionable in some quarters today. “Intelligence is not a
peculiar possession which a person owns,” Dewey said.15 It is instead, “just a name
for the events and acts which make up the processes of analytic inspection and
projected invention and testing.”16 Intelligence, for Dewey, was a way of dealing
with those aspects of the environment that have become problematic for one reason
or another, conditions that call for an adjustment or a resolution of some kind.
What Dewey believed in most emphatically — at one point he himself called it
“the thing of supreme value”17 — was the perfecting of intelligence as a method
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for solving recurring problems.18 Here he is, in mid-career, giving voice to that
deeply-felt conviction:
Faith in the power of intelligence to imagine a future which is the projection
of the desirable in the present, and to invent the instrumentalities of its
realization, is our salvation. And it is a faith which must be nurtured and
made articulate: surely a sufficiently large task for our philosophy.19
That brief statement repays close attention. Notice that he assigns to intelligence
not one task but two, both of them creative. He calls upon it to imagine a future
based on what the present shows to be desirable. That in itself is unusual, since
intelligence and imagination are not ordinarily so intimately associated, especially
with the latter being a verb and the former a noun. He also demands of intelligence
that it be used to invent the instrumentalities that will lead to the realization of that
future. “Inventing” comes a bit closer to the way we ordinarily think of intelligence
as operating than does “Imagining,” yet the call is still for a far broader conception
of rationality than is customary.
The first task, that of imagining a future, deals principally with ends, the second,
that of inventing instrumentalities, with means. In short, the first idealizes; the
second realizes. Yet the pair of tasks are so closely intertwined in practice, as
Dewey repeatedly observes, that they become almost inseparable, which may be
why he here mentions them both in a single sentence.
Note also that the task of projection (imagining the future) comes first.
Visualizing what is yet to be comes before inventing ways of getting there. That
makes sense. Yet the imagined future remains indebted to what is known about the
past and present. The exercise of imagination projects into the future what the
present is capable of becoming, based in part on a retrospective appreciation, a
recollection, let’s say, of what has already been shown to have been worthwhile.
That tethering of the future to both the past and the present does away with rigid
temporal distinctions. It also reveals the mediating function of the present, its
capacity to envelope, as it were, both past and future. The move is typically
Deweyan. Its significance will grow in importance as we move along.
We also must not overlook the religiosity of Dewey’s language, the fact that in
the above quotation the word “faith” appears twice and “salvation” once. Both
words sound a bit off-key, given our knowledge of Dewey’s rejection of organized
religion some years prior. Yet Dewey made no effort to eschew such language. In
fact, he drew upon it often, as we soon will have ample occasion to observe.20
Note, as well, that at the close of the statement he speaks of “our” philosophy
rather than philosophy pure and simple. The choice of “our” implies that there are
philosophies other than “ours,” ones that presumably may not share the same
“faith” as ours. Is philosophy more a matter of choice rather than one of necessity?
Is it like one’s choice of a religion? More on that later.
How might one come to exercise the kind of creative intelligence that Dewey
calls for? If such powers are not predetermined biologically, if they are neither
fully present at birth nor awaiting development on their own, the way a seed might
contain the potentiality of its mature form (both possibilities being ones that
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Dewey rejects), how do they come about? How do we “perfect” intelligence?

Dewey has two principal answers to that question. They are implicated in what he
thinks about the next two items on our list: science and common sense.
2) Science
Science, Dewey believed, offers the best model we have to date of intelligence in
action. Its practitioners exemplify the art of reflective thought focused on physical
objects and natural states of affairs and committed to the testing of theories and
hypotheses by means of empirical investigation. Dewey calls science “an
intensified form of knowing in which are written large the essential characters of
any knowing.”21 Therefore, its methodological lessons, which include not only the
“how” of science but also the dispositions and attitudes that accompany and make
possible its doing, Dewey believed to be worthy of emulation by us all.
The empiricism of science teaches us to avoid empty speculation and other
modes of thought that lead no where, i.e., that have no consequences for action. Its
experimentalism establishes the wisdom of always putting ideas to the test, first
imaginatively and later concretely.
Science further exemplifies an ideal form of social discourse. Its openness
affords on-going debate and discussion within the scientific community. From such
exchanges progress ensues, if not unerringly, at least with some regularity.
Through its openness to criticism and its principle of fallibility science becomes a
self-correcting and self-sustaining social enterprise, dedicated to the endless
generation of scientific theories and facts.
How does science benefit humanity at large? It does so, according to Dewey, by
offering a “vast return wave of the methods and conclusions of scientific concern
into the uses and enjoyments (and sufferings) of everyday affairs.”22 It also effects
the “transformation of judgment and of the emotional affections, preferences, and
aversions of everyday human beings,” which means it contributes to making us
better both as individuals and as contributing members of this or that social
organization.23
Here is one of Dewey’s culminating endorsements of science:
Science represents the fruition of the cognitive factors in experience. Instead
of contenting itself with a mere statement of what commends itself to
personal or customary experience, it aims at a statement which will reveal the
sources, grounds, and consequences of a belief. The achievement of this aim
gives logical character to the statements. . . In emancipating an idea from the
particular context in which it originated and giving it a wider reference the
results of the experience of any individual are put at the disposal of all men.
Thus ultimately and philosophically science is the organ of general social
progress.24
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3) Common sense
Common sense constitutes the shared knowledge we accrue through our customary
up-bringing and ordinary exchanges with our physical and social world. It is in part
culturally circumscribed, in the sense of being limited to members of a particular
culture in a form usually spoken of as custom or ethos, although it also contains
elements that are sufficiently widespread to be universal.25 It provides the
grounding or the baseline on which more specialized and refined knowledge
builds.
Dewey believed that common sense, which he also referred to as “ordinary
thinking,” operates rather like science much of the time, though not always by any
means. Like science, it too is supposedly generated by testing the worth of actions
by their consequences. Its primary means of acquisition, i.e., everyday life, let
Dewey to call it “acquaintance knowledge,” which is to say, knowledge at first
hand. Like science, it too operates principally within an explanatory framework of
cause and effect. It too yields universal judgments, principles, and laws in the form
of maxims, sayings, rules of thumb, and other pithy expressions worthy of
memorization. Here is how he puts it.
Only by direct active participation in the transactions of living does anyone
become familiarly acquainted with other human beings and with “things”
which make up the world. While “common sense” includes more than
knowledge, this acquaintance knowledge is its distinguishing trait; it
demarcates the frame of reference of common sense by identifying it with the
life actually carried on as it is enjoyed or suffered.26
At times however, common sense operates very unscientifically. Therein lies its
weakness. It often lapses into close-mindedness and dogmatism, clinging to
tradition and to what this or that authority, sacred or secular, deems true. In short, it
is not thoroughly experimental. In deriving its conclusions, whether from custom
or direct experience, it also moves more haltingly and clumsily than does science,
lacking the precision and refinement that the latter gains by means of its dedication
to quantitative exactness and precision.
All such disadvantages aside, however, common sense is obviously
indispensable. Dewey even grants it a superior place to that of science in certain
respects, so long as it does not undertake to ignore or to contradict the latter’s
findings. It is from the platform of common sense, the world of ordinary
experience, that science launches its inquiries. That platform is also where science
ends, where it returns with its booty in tow, bringing new knowledge and new
skills in its wake.
How, then, do science and common sense differ? They do so in the following
ways, as Dewey explains:
Doing and knowing are both involved in common sense and science –
involved so intimately as to be necessary conditions of their existence. Nor
does the difference between common sense and science consist in the fact
that knowing is the important consideration in science but not in common
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sense. It consists of the position occupied by each member in relation to the

other. In the concerns of common sense knowing is as necessary, as
important, as in those of science. But knowing there is for the sake of
agenda, the what and the how of which have to be studied and to be learned
— in short, known in order that the necessary affairs of everyday life be
carried on. The relation is reversed in science as a concern.27
Or, again,
The concern of common sense knowing is “practical,” that of scientific doing
is “theoretical.” But practical in the first case is not limited to the
“utilitarian” in the sense in which the word is disparagingly used. It includes
all matters of direct enjoyment that occur in the course of living because of
transformation wrought by the fine arts, by friendship, by recreation, by civic
affairs, etc. And “theoretical” in the second instance is far away from the
theoria of pure contemplation of the Aristotelian tradition, and from any
sense of the word that excludes elaborate and extensive doings and makings.
Scientific knowing is that particular form of practical human activity which
is concerned with the advancement of knowing apart from concern with other
practical affairs.28
The elliptical trajectory of inquiry. It is worth pausing here to take note of the
intimate relationships between and among intelligence, science, and commonsense.
Conceived in spatial terms, intelligence, whether employed in the service of
science or of common sense, traces a kind of circular or elliptical path. It goes
round and round or up and down or back and forth, depending on how one chooses
to depict its motion graphically. The poles of its journey bear several paired names,
each familiar to everyone. Theory/practice, universal/particular, abstract/concrete,
are a few of them. Dewey favored the latter pair of terms when discussing its
bipolarity, although he regularly employed the first two as well.
Inquiry, for Dewey, whether of a scientific or a common sense kind, begins with
a down-to-earth problem or puzzlement that requires resolution. From there it
moves into the heights of abstraction in search of a theory about what makes the
situation problematic and what might constitute a solution to its problem. If all
goes well, it returns ultimately to the situation at hand with an idea ready for
testing. Thus is how Dewey visualizes successful inquiry as working.29
The potential of applied intelligence, as exemplified by science and as
familiarly exercised by common sense, formed the bedrock of Dewey’s optimism.
But those three core beliefs did not stand alone. They enjoyed the support of three
other convictions, each bearing upon social conditions in general. As has already
been announced, these three were: human nature, education, and democracy.
Dewey believed as fervently in what each of those three terms stood for as he did
in the three basic ideas that have already been explicated.
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4) Human nature
Human nature, for Dewey, was as much an acquired as a biologically determined
state of affairs. If biology establishes our natural condition, our “first” nature, so to
speak, our “second” nature consists of what we are capable of becoming through
experience and education. The potentiality that remained to be realized through our
associations with others and through our contingent interchanges with the world of
objects and events — our “second nature,” in other words — interested Dewey far
more than did the more-or-less prescribed dictates of our biological inheritance.
Dewey understood, of course, that our second nature need not always turn out as
we or others would like. He was painfully aware of humanity’s imperfections and
weaknesses. He acknowledged the reality of evil doings and evil doers. Yet he
remained an avowed humanist in the sense of believing in what humans are
capable of becoming when conditions are right. He basically trusted those human
qualities that naturally develop within the confines of the family and within those
groups that form themselves into larger ethical communities. He knew, for
example, that human kindness and decency were not only possible but were far
more broadly desired by humanity at large than were cruelty and indecency.
Here he is remarking on the connection between human nature and the
democratic social arrangement conducive to optimal human development.
Were I to say that democracy needs a new psychology of human nature, one
adequate to the heavy demands put upon it by foreign and domestic
conditions, I might be taken to utter an academic irrelevancy. But if the
remark is understood to mean that democracy has always been allied with
humanism, with faith in the potentialities of human nature, and that the
present need is vigorous reassertion of this faith, developed in relevant ideas
and manifested in practical attitudes, it but continues the American tradition.
For belief in the “common man” has no significance save as an expression of
belief in the intimate and vital connection of democracy and human nature.30
5) Education
Education, as a social institution, is a natural outgrowth of the cumulative advance
of human knowledge and skills both of which, in turn, are products of the refined
ways of knowing and doing that humans have developed over the centuries. As
human intelligence has increased so has the need to preserve and transmit to
succeeding generations the heritage of its accomplishments — the arts, the
sciences, and the many other improved ways of conducting our social affairs to
which intelligence has given birth.
It is worth remarking here on the close connection that Dewey saw between
education and philosophy. He once famously defined philosophy as “the theory of
education as a deliberately conducted practice.”31 He also said, “The most
penetrating definition of philosophy which can be given is, then, that it is the
theory of education in its most general phase.”32 Heralding that same idea a page or
so earlier in the same volume, he announced,
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If we are willing to conceive education as the process of forming

fundamental dispositions, intellectual and emotional, toward nature and
fellow-men, philosophy may even be defined as the general theory of
education.33
The evident redundancy of those three remarks underscores their importance.
They imply, among other things, that philosophy is to education as theory is to
practice. The role of such theory is not to guide practice step by step. Philosophy is
about education “in its most general phase.” Dewey was adamant on that point, for
elsewhere in the same volume that contains the above statement, he said, “Nothing
has brought pedagogical theory into greater disrepute than the belief that it is
identified with handing out to teachers recipes and models to be followed in
teaching.”34 Rather, the function of philosophy as theory is to
comment on nature and life in the interest of a more intense and just
appreciation of the meanings present in experience. . . . Its primary concern is
to clarify, liberate and extend the goods which inhere in the naturally
generated functions of experience.35
Philosophy’s triple task, as here defined, that of clarifying, liberating, and
extending the goods that inhere in ordinary experience, Dewey took to be
educational in a double sense. It was educational for the philosopher offering such
commentary — self-actualizing, one might say — since he or she inevitably had to
modify his or her own thinking in the process. And it was also educational for the
philosopher’s audience, his “students,” as they might be called, whether
encountered face-to-face in actual classrooms or scattered about and isolated as
might be the widely-dispersed readers of the philosopher’s treatises.
But does not that state of affairs hold for education in general? Do not teachers
everywhere seek to clarify, liberate, and extend for themselves as well as for their
students the “goods” that inhere in experience? Aren’t teachers always teaching
themselves to some extent? “Self-realizing” might be a very general way of putting
it. If we grant that they are, which may be too large a premiss to accept without a
lot more in the way of explanation, then philosophy (with a capital P) and
education (with a capital E) become relatively indistinguishable, at least in
aspiration, no matter how clearly differentiated they might be in practice.
6) Democracy
Democracy for Dewey was far more than a political structure that entailed
adherence to constitutional law under the management of an elected and
representative government. It was, in addition and in full, a form of shared social
understanding whose many ramifications permeated nearly all aspects of a
society’s way of life.
It follows from that broad perspective that Dewey’s belief in democracy stood
for more than loyalty to a nationalistic ideal. Though staunchly American in
outlook, and a dyed-in-the-wool New England Yankee by birth and breeding,
Dewey was no Fourth-of-July flag-waver. He believed in democracy, not because
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it was American, as opposed to European or Asian, but because he had witnessed

its operation in action and lived within its embrace. He had seen it at work in his
family, his local community, his various university settings, and of course in
national and international affairs broadly conceived.36 He also, we might imagine,
had occasionally felt its absence as well. Democracy as an idealized goal may have
been only partially realized in some of those locations and totally absent in others,
to be sure, but what there was of it remained memorable all the same. Such
memories find expression in the following paean to democracy’s enactment. The
statement is long, but worth quoting in full all the same. The occasion of its
composition also deserves mention: It was delivered at a banquet celebrating
Dewey’s eightieth birthday. The year was 1939. Europe was already at war and
America would soon enter the fray. Here are Dewey’s words (actually read by his
proxy, Harry Kalven) on that memorable occasion:37
Democracy is a personal way of life controlled not merely by faith in human
nature in general but by faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent
judgment and action if proper conditions are furnished. I have been accused
more than once and from opposed quarters of an undue, a utopian, faith in the
possibilities of intelligence and in education as a correlate of intelligence. At
all events, I did not invent this faith. I acquired it from my surroundings as
far as those surroundings were animated by the democratic spirit. For what is
the faith of democracy in the role of consultation, of conference, of
persuasion, of discussion, in formation of public opinion, which in the long
run is self-corrective, except faith in the capacity of the intelligence of the
common man to respond with common sense to the free play of facts and
ideas which are secured by effective guarantees of free inquiry, free
assembly, and free communication? I am willing to leave to upholders of
totalitarian states of the right and the left the view that faith in the capacities
of intelligence is utopian. For the faith is so deeply embedded in the methods
which are intrinsic to democracy that when a professed democrat denies the
faith he convicts himself of treachery to his profession.38
That declaration of Dewey’s abiding faith in democracy with the thunderclouds
of World War II already rumbling in the background is so in keeping with the
theme of this essay and the way it is here unfolding that it might almost serve as
both a summary of much that has been said so far and a harbinger of what is yet to
come. Within that single paragraph Dewey explicitly mentions five of the six
abstract nouns that have been examined so far. He names intelligence, common
sense, democracy, human nature, and education. The only one he leaves out is
science, but the phrases “free play of facts and ideas” and “free inquiry” serve
rather well as proxies that might stand in for that omission.39 Also note the
repeated mention of the word “faith” in that paragraph. It occurs no fewer than
nine times. That repetition prompts me to rename the six items that have been
mentioned so far. Instead of referring to them as constituting a prime set of
Dewey’s core beliefs, I believe they could as well be called the six basic tenets of
his secular faith. More on that suggested change of nomenclature later.
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* * * * * *
The above, then, constitute the six items that first came to mind as I set about
trying to name the topmost of Dewey’s core beliefs. I now turn to the four
additional nominees that also emerged near the start but that I at first hesitated to
include for one reason or another. Having now decided to include them after all,
though still with lingering reservations, I will chiefly limit my remarks about each
of them to why I hesitated in the first place.
7) Art
My chief reason for not including art in my list right from the start was my sense
that Dewey was not really a lover of the arts in the usual sense of the term, at least
not until very late in his life and even then it is not entirely clear that such a love
actually took hold. His major work on the subject, Art as Experience, appeared in
1934, the year Dewey turned seventy-five. Moreover, it is not at all certain that he
would have turned his attention in that direction even at that late date, save for the
influence of Albert Barnes, the wealthy industrialist and connoisseur of the arts,
who became Dewey’s personal friend and to whom Dewey dedicated that seminal
book.
Dewey had, of course, written about the arts long before then. Those writings
include at least one memorable essay about poetry, comparing Robert Browning
and Matthew Arnold,40 plus several talks to audiences of educators addressing the
place of art in education.41 Yet, for all those impressive yet limited treatments of
the subject, one gets the impression that throughout most of his life Dewey did not
go out of his way to immerse himself personally in any of the arts, save in a very
perfunctory manner.42 He is reputed, for example, to have had a “tin ear” with
respect to music and not to have enjoyed it very much.43 Countering that
impression of his lukewarm interest in the arts, we do know that Dewey had some
acquaintance with Romantic poetry, pre-dating by forty years or so, one might
guess, his references to it in Art as Experience.44 For a time he also dabbled in the
writing of poetry on his own.45 The evidence pro and con bearing on his true love
of the arts remains, therefore, rather clouded.
Why, then, did I finally tilt in the direction of including art as a primary tenet of
Dewey’s secular faith? I did so because the concept of art, all that it stands for
when viewed abstractly, was far closer to the heart of Dewey’s thinking, I finally
came to see, than was art as a formalized institutional practice. Dewey loved art
with a small “a,” in other words, far more than he loved Art with a capital “A.”
Experience, when fully developed, he so often declared, takes on an artfulness of
its own. It does so by blending thought and feeling, objectivity and subjectivity.
Even more than in his explicit writing on the subject of Art, Dewey repeatedly
championed the unity that art stood for.
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8) Religion
Dewey’s attitude toward religion was a bit like his attitude toward art. He believed
in it, one might say, with a small “r” rather than a capital “R.” But that rather
oblique way of describing his position, though convenient as shorthand, overlooks
too much. It fails to acknowledge the prolonged struggle he went through to arrive
at his secular faith. For Dewey did not always hold to the merely adjectival
significance of a religious consciousness. He came to it slowly and painfully. As a
youth and young adult he was avowedly a Protestant Christian and a regular
church-goer. Even as a young professor at the University of Michigan he
participated in religious services and led Bible-study discussion groups. His formal
withdrawal from active participation in organized religion did not occur until he
moved to the University of Chicago in 1894, the year he turned thirty-five.46
Though Dewey turned his back on organized religion at that time, and though he
openly acknowledged late in life that the topic of religion was never of great
interest to him as a philosopher,47 he continued to draw upon religious imagery and
religious language (as we have already seen), especially when discussing those
aspects of human experience that he found to be most psychologically gratifying.
In fact, in his one book on the subject, A Common Faith, published in 1934, the
year he turned seventy-five, he insisted that the adjective “religious” was
justifiably applied to all of those experiences that have the effect of evoking the
sense of belonging to a larger whole than that of our individual identity, a whole of
which we are part. It is that insistence that led me to describe him as believing in
religion with a small “r” but not a capital “R.” At the same time, it was his troubled
relation with religion as commonly understood, his struggles and ultimate rejection
of organized religion, that led me to hesitate including religion as one of the major
tenets of his secular faith.
9) Philosophy
My hesitancy about including philosophy among the notions that Dewey cherished
may come as the biggest surprise of all to those who know anything at all about
Dewey and what he stood for. In the eyes of the world at large he was, after all, a
philosopher par excellence, far and away the most prominent American
philosopher of his day. Being a philosopher was also an integral part of his own
self-image, there can be no doubt of that.
Yet Dewey’s relation to philosophy as a profession, which is to say as an
organized intellectual endeavor with a long history leading up to a contemporary
modus operandi, was in some ways no less troubled than was his relation to
organized religion, though it was certainly far different in character. Dewey never
faltered in his resolute dedication to philosophy as a career, that much is certain.
He aspired to become a professional philosopher as a young man and remained one
long after his formal retirement from academic life. Yet he also turned his back on
a lot of the philosophical establishment, both past and present. Ultimately, many of
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those in the forefront of his chosen profession turned their back on him while he
was still alive. More did so after his death.
Dewey was not a contentious man by temperament. He obviously did not enjoy
engaging in pitched battles with those with whom he disagreed. Save for his
earliest literary forays that principally sought to establish his professional
credentials, he also did not enjoy engaging in bookish arguments with his
philosophical forefathers.48 His more typical strategy was simply to ignore his
elders as well as those of his contemporaries with whom he disagreed.
Dewey’s call for a “reconstruction in philosophy,” which served as his title for a
book on the subject published in 1919, went largely unheeded by vast numbers of
his professional colleagues. By the time of his official retirement from academic
life in 1929 the baton of leadership within the field as a whole had already passed
from Dewey and his fellow pragmatists to those known as logical positivists and,
somewhat later, analytic philosophers.
Once again, it was this ambiguous relationship between Dewey and his fellow
philosophers as well as between him and many if not all of his major historical
predecessors that caused me to omit philosophy from my initial list of his core
convictions. As I have already acknowledged, I now believe that omission to have
been a mistake. Regardless of his attitude toward his fellow philosophers, past and
present, philosophy remained for Dewey his chosen way of life, his way of seeking
freedom through the pursuit of an avowed “good.” “Philosophic discourse,” we
have already heard him say,
is a comment on nature and life in the interest of a more intense and just
appreciation of the meanings present in experience. . . . Its primary concern is
to clarify, liberate and extend the goods which inhere in the naturally
generated functions of experience.49
10) Freedom
My rationale for initially setting aside freedom as one of Dewey’s core convictions
was that I did not at the time fully appreciate its intimate connection with
everything else that Dewey believed. It was my own study of Hegel, whose
influence Dewey readily acknowledged, that enabled me to see that connection. To
put it somewhat differently, before seeing freedom through Hegel’s eyes,
especially as aided by the writings of a host of his most recent exegetes,50 I had not
fully appreciated how essential freedom was for the realization of each of the other
“goods” that Dewey espoused. I also had not seen how neatly the idea of freedom
dovetailed with Dewey’s deep-seated endorsement of intelligence, forming a kind
of symbiotic relationship that ultimately embraced all of his other key beliefs. Here
he is addressing that relationship in Experience and Education.
The only freedom that is of enduring importance is freedom of intelligence,
that is to say, freedom of observation and of judgment exercised in behalf of
purposes that are intrinsically worth while.51
Or again, in Human Nature and Conduct,
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Intelligence is the key to freedom in act.52

Notice that Dewey is not saying that the freedom of intelligence is the only
freedom there is. On the contrary, his use of the word “only” in the first citation
implies there are others. But he is insisting on it being the only one of enduring
importance. Notice also that he is not suggesting that the exercise of intelligence in
and of itself is of prime importance. Behaving intelligently on behalf of transient
goals and objectives may be a prudent thing to do, surely enough, but it does not
yield results of prime importance. What does yield such results? Freedom of
intelligence exercised in behalf of purposes that are intrinsically worthwhile. What
would be some examples of such purposes? Several of them are named in our list
of Dewey’s beliefs. Science, art, and education are among them.
Conventionally, freedom from external constraints and interferences of various
kinds (“negative freedom,” as it is called by some) 53 gets distinguished from
freedom to do as one pleases or as one wills (“positive freedom,” so called).
Dewey understands the importance of both kinds of freedom yet the kind that he
ranks the highest differs from both of them. His freedom of intelligence is not just
freedom to do as one desires, not even when the doing conforms to what we might
call intelligent action. To behave intelligently in its fullest sense is, for Dewey, to
behave ethically. It is to act on behalf of some higher social purpose, higher than
one’s own inclinations, whims, and fancies.
Does that mean that one is only behaving freely and intelligently when one
suppresses one’s own wishes and desires and acts in conformity with a sense of
duty and obligation as Kant implies in his conception of the categorical
imperative? Not at all. For the freedom to act intelligently on behalf of some larger
purpose entails the freedom to choose what that purpose will be, not only
abstractly but subjectively, particularly. Presumably that choice, which we
sometimes speak of as a vocation or career choice, allows one to labor on behalf of
purposes that are not only intrinsically worthwhile but are also richly and uniquely
satisfying to those pursuing them. I will have more to say about such pursuits in
what follows.
PART 3: WHAT THE TEN BELIEFS HAVE IN COMMON
Having posited these ten items as comprising the core, so to speak, of Dewey’s
most closely-held beliefs, we are now in a position to back off a bit in order to
consider all ten of them at once. Beyond claiming them all to be among Dewey’s
deepest convictions, what else might we say of them?
I have already pointed out that the first six items struck me as being more
indisputably nominees for such a distinction than the last four. I have also partially
explained why I came to that view. Is there more to be said about the list as a
whole than that? Can its items be grouped in some other way that might highlight
additional aspects of their interrelationships? I believe there is another
advantageous way of doing so, but before saying what that is, I want to make three
general observations about all ten items.
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I must warn that these three observations are bound to sound vague at first.
Moreover, I fear they will remain somewhat so even after I have tried to explain
them. That vagueness partially reflects the limits of my own understanding. Even
after giving the matter as much thought as time has allowed so far, I remain
uncertain about several aspects of what I am about to say. To wait upon a fuller
understanding, however, hoping that the clouds of confusion would soon drift
away, is, I have decided, too great a risk. It would lead, I fear, to an interminable
delay if not the ultimate abandonment of my project. I trust, therefore, that this
forewarning and the confession it entails will suffice to alert readers to the
unavoidable difficulties that lie ahead.
Let me first present in summary form the three observations that I will
subsequently discuss in somewhat greater detail.
The first one calls attention to the fact that each of the ten items, though
introduced as a noun or noun phrase, has principally to do with an activity of some
kind, a way of doing something. It actually functions, in other words, more like a
verb than a noun.
The second observation takes note of the rather odd cohesiveness of the ten
items, the way they seem to fit together, rather like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
spread out on a table top before being assembled. They intimate the existence of a
pattern of some sort, yet not one whose details can be immediately discerned.
The third and final observation, which is the hardest to summarize succinctly,
focuses on how each of the items, again when viewed from afar, can be seen to be
a means of mediating between two extremes, a way of bringing together, of
resolving or harmonizing, at least temporarily, one or more of the classic
dichotomies whose bi-polarities have so vexed Western thought through the ages.
Man vs. Nature, Man vs. God, Self vs. Other, One vs. Many, Subjective vs.
Objective are but a few of the ways those dichotomies have been expressed.
1) Changing Nouns into Verbs: Dewey’s Core Beliefs Brought to Life

The ease with which the English language allows verbs to transmogrify into nouns
and vice versa is familiar to us all. “She swam” readily becomes “She went for a
swim,” “I’ll look” becomes “I’ll take a look.” Our substitution of nouns like “a
swim” and “a look” for the activities to which they refer presents no difficulty
most of the time. We all have become used to such linguistic legerdemain.
Yet every school child also memorizes the textbook definition that declares a
noun to be the name of a person, place, or thing. Persons, places, and things, we
subsequently learn, are usually readily observable as objects.
But when we start looking for some of the verbs that we have so facilely
transformed into nouns, they are nowhere to be found. Where, for example, is the
“swim” she went for or the “look” I took? When sought as sensory objects, they
vanish into thin air. This is because they are not really objects at all in the standard
sense of physical objects. They are, instead, events or happenings.
The conventional distinction between events, which are basically temporal, and
objects, which are basically spatial, helps to resolve this difficulty but not entirely
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satisfactorily. We locate an event in both time and space. It “takes place” within a
certain period of time, we say, even though in some cases its exact beginning and
ending, even its precise location, remain in doubt. Consider, for example, the
beginning, ending, and location of World War II. By naming an event we turn it
into an object, we “objectify” it, as the saying goes, a way of speaking,
incidentally, that reverses the process, turning an noun back into a verb. Objects,
though basically spatial, are also temporal. They do not endure forever. They come
into being and ultimately they pass away.
Now what about abstract nouns like those appearing on the list of ten we have
compiled, words like “intelligence” or “science” or “common sense”? Where are
they? What are they? They refer neither to events nor to objects that presently
exist, nor even to ones that once had existed. Their status seems more inward or
ideational, as we might say, rather than actual. They are, in a word, concepts.
Abstractions or Ideas might be better words for them.
But they are not merely abstractions or ideas. They are abstractions or ideas of a
special kind. They all refer to desirable states of affairs. They are quite unlike some
other ideas, such as tyranny, or greed or cruelty. In a word, they are all ideals,
desirable states of affairs awaiting fuller realization than they enjoy at present. In a
word, they are normative. At least that’s what they are when looked upon as a
select assortment of Dewey’s core beliefs. They are “goods” of one kind or another
that Dewey, along with many of the rest of us, would like to see brought into fuller
existence than we find them in today. As a committed believer in those ideals,
Dewey stands ready to assist in the process; chiefly, it would seem, by helping to
explain to the rest of us how we all might come to feel both obliged and entirely
willing to join in some aspect of that effort. Would that be the same as our
developing an optimistic disposition? Let’s keep that possibility in mind as we
move on.
The point to be underscored here is that each of those ten abstract nouns, if it is
to serve as a genuine ideal and not just an empty word that one mouths on
ceremonious occasions, must be transformed into an activity of some kind,
something that one does in order to ensure or help to ensure the realization of that
ideal. In short, each noun must become a verb if it is to be more than hot air.
The path along which to move in accomplishing those transformations is far
easier to discern with respect to some of the ten items than it is with others.
Science, education, art, religion, philosophy (thought of as a profession), and
democracy (taken as shorthand for all forms of involvement in governmental
affairs, from exercising one’s voting rights to becoming President) all point in the
direction of well-established, institutionalized practices within our society.
Associated with each is a major organization of some kind, in some cases far more
than one. Each of those institutionalized structures has its traditions, its social
enactment, its membership rules, and so forth. It is fairly easy to see how one
might contribute to the furtherance of each; either by joining it as one of its
practitioners or by supporting it indirectly in one way or another.54
Intelligence, common sense, human nature, and freedom also refer to processes,
though not ones for which there corresponds a well-defined, institutionalized form
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of realization. They each, like the other six, may be said to exist as an ideal. They
also exist in the sense of being embodied in particular ways of doing things. Yet
they do not stand out as visibly on the social horizon as do those practices that
have long enjoyed an established, institutionalized form. This distinction will
sharpen when we return to it below.
The two basic notions, first, that each of Dewey’s ten beliefs stands for an ideal
of some kind and, second, that ideals must be worked upon, enacted, in order to be
made real, have extremely important consequences for how we look upon those ten
abstract nouns in general. Consider, as an instance, the very first item on our list:
intelligence.
What’s the difference between thinking of intelligence as a noun versus thinking
of it as a verb? Let’s take the noun first. How is the noun intelligence made
visible? Where shall we go looking for it? Where is it located? Is it housed
somewhere? In our brains, perhaps? Maybe there are specialists who know where
and how to find it. Perhaps they have instruments for doing so. Who might they
be? Psychologists, perhaps. They seem to know how to make intelligence visible.
They even estimate it quantitatively by means of an intelligence test. But how does
that “measurement” take place? The psychologist “observes” intelligence by
closely watching what people do under very specialized and highly standardized
conditions. So she doesn’t really “observe” it, save figuratively. Yet she often
speaks of it as something that individuals possess, as something hidden within
them, as one of their properties.
Listen now to how differently Dewey speaks of intelligence, treating it as a verb
rather than a noun.
Intelligence is not a peculiar possession which a person owns; but a person is
intelligent in so far as the activities in which he plays a part have . . . [certain]
qualities . . . Nor are the activities in which a person engages, whether
intelligently or not, exclusive properties of himself; they are something in
which he engages and partakes.55
This means that intelligence, for Dewey, is grossly evident in the way people
act. It reveals itself in each and every one of their transactions with objects, events,
and other people. Because those transactions change, it also means that intelligence
as a way of acting is not something that remains fixed, once and for all. Not only
may it change, it may also in large measure be passed along from one individual to
another by means of communication, demonstration, close observation, and all of
the other strategies and techniques that comprise our methods of instruction. That
being so, it is not at all far-fetched to describe the overall job of the teacher as one
of seeking to expand the range of her students’ intelligence.
This is not to take anything away from the intelligence test as a psychometric
instrument of considerable value within a narrowly circumscribed set of
circumstances,56 but it is to suggest that when it comes to an increased
understanding of how most people come to behave intelligently within the world at
large there is far more to be gained by thinking of intelligence as a verb rather than
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as a noun. That was Dewey’s message in a nutshell. Teachers especially, it seems

to me, stand greatly to benefit by taking it to heart.
A similar kind of noun/verb distinction can also be made with respect to
science. Looked upon as a noun, which is quite customary, science too becomes
something that exists somewhere (in textbooks and journal articles in the main).
We typically speak of it as consisting of a “body” of knowledge. In the popular
view (to which many science teachers themselves appear to subscribe) to learn a
particular science, at least at the early stages of its instruction, is to “ingest” or
“internalize” in some fashion a goodly portion of its subject matter, which consists
principally of information having to do with its laws and principles as well as its
currently accepted theories and findings.
The “doing” of science, science looked upon as a verb, is another matter
entirely. Well, perhaps not entirely, for the “doing” of science can never be
completely divorced from its “products.” How we do something influences what
we do. Yet there remains a discernible difference between the two outlooks.
Science-as-verb is a procedure, a way, a method. It refers to how scientific theories
and facts are generated, tested, and refined. Yet it is not just about technique and
instrumentation. It also has to do with the attitudes and dispositions that generate
and evaluate the scientific problems to be solved and also guide the application of
the more mechanical aspects of solving them.
Common sense likewise eludes the simple objectivity of a noun. It is far from
being an externalized form of knowledge, of the kind one might find in a farmer’s
almanac, let’s say. It includes knowledge, of course, and a special kind of
knowledge at that. Dewey calls it “acquaintance knowledge,” as we have seen,
since it is principally derived from “direct active participation in the transactions of
living.”57 But, like science, common sense includes more than knowledge. “It
demarcates,” as Dewey says, “the frame of reference . . . [in which life is] actually
carried on as it is enjoyed or suffered.”58 It is, instead, knowledge-at-the-ready;
knowledge internalized as operational habit. Within that frame of reference
common sense offers its advice. It not only tells us what to do, it affords the
unarticulated framework in which that doing takes place.
Human nature, Dewey reminds us, is not an established condition. It is not
biologically determined once and for all. It is instead an assemblage of instincts
and habits, a propensity to act in this way or that. Some of those dispositions, the
ones we call instincts, are biologically rooted, true enough, but others are the
product of experience and are at least in part self-constructed and self-sustained.
The latter become, in a manner of speaking, our second nature. The positive side of
that transformation constitutes what we call character and virtue. To say that
Dewey believed in human nature is to say that he believed in its fundamental
purposefulness and plasticity, in its capacity to be shaped (to become habitual) for
good or ill by virtue of its physical and social surroundings and particularly by
willful effort.
A comparable set of remarks could be made about education and democracy
being better described as forms of activity than as objects or nouns, but since their
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status as processes seem more obvious than the first four beliefs, I will overlook
them for the time being.
2) Connecting the Dots: Dewey’s Core Beliefs as Forming a System

The various activities that our ten abstract nouns dissolve into when we do the
noun-to-verb transformation seem to hang together somehow, though exactly how
is not easy to say. Most crudely described, their relationship appears to be one of
mutual dependence. Each noun (or verb), it seems, needs the others to fulfill its
own potentiality. Democracy, for example, calls for the exercise of intelligence,
but intelligence flourishes optimally, according to Dewey, under those social and
political conditions that we call democratic. Science too calls for the exercise of
intelligence, but it also contributes in a major way to our knowledge of what it
means to behave intelligently. Education transmits to students the fruits of science,
the arts, and more, including the refined methodologies associated with each area
of study, but when properly performed it also readies its youthful recipients for
living within a democratic society. Even common sense and human nature become
gradually transformed in a positive way under social conditions that foster the
development of intelligence, science, democracy, and education.
These reciprocal interactions are not, of course, as simple and clear-cut as this
brief mention of their connections makes them sound. They may even conflict at
times. Common sense and science, for example, do not always agree. Nor do
democracy and education. It is quite possible, for example, to conduct a system of
schooling within a totalitarian framework and in an authoritarian manner.
Dickens’s description of Mr. Gradgrind and his hapless students in his novel Hard
Times offers a classic fictional account of mis-education taking place within the
confines of a Victorian school setting. Yet what makes the account so laughable is
the reader’s immediate understanding that something is horribly amiss in Mr.
Gradgrind’s class, i.e., that what is going on there is not what should happen in
school. Dewey would certainly agree.
This apparent interdependency of the key elements of Dewey’s optimism
suggests that they may all be part of a self-enclosed system of some kind, one
whose components relate to each other rather like the separate organs of a living
body, wherein each plays a part in maintaining the life of the whole organism.
Dewey drew upon such biological analogies frequently throughout his writings, yet
he typically did not refer to his entire set of beliefs (his total philosophy, as one
might say) as forming a system of some kind. In fact, he tended to avoid such talk.
We will not pause here to say more about Dewey’s preferences in such matters, but
the kind of interconnections and mutual supportiveness of the ten items that have
already been pointed out, suggests that at the very least we stop thinking of his ten
beliefs as a mere concatenation of randomly arranged convictions, which is more
or less the way we have been treating them to this point. When we take up the
question of how the items on the list might be rearranged, the possibility of them
forming some kind of a system will again move to the fore.
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3) From Ends to Means: Dewey’s Core Beliefs as Forms of Mediation

A third way of approaching what is common about all ten beliefs is to view them
in instrumental terms, to see them as tools — conceptual tools, that is — designed
to accomplish a task or a set of tasks of some kind. What do tools in general
accomplish? They serve to mediate between an ideal on the one hand and its
realized instantiation on the other. They are means of mediation. And what do
Dewey’s ten beliefs mediate? What do they help to bring together? At a purely
conceptual level, they mediate between other concepts that are presently separated,
at least in thought, but seem as though they should be unified. And what are some
of those concepts that call for unification?
They are the several classical dualisms that have plagued philosophers (and
countless others) over the centuries. There is no agreed-upon list of them that I
know of, but a catalogue of those that almost everyone has encountered in one
form or another would surely include: subject/object, self/world, real/ideal,
individual/society, theory/practice, fact/value, mind/body, and nature/God. Here is
Dewey describing his release from the discomfort occasioned by his own struggle
with several of those dichotomies as a young man. Hegelian philosophy, he
reports, was what came to his rescue during that trying period.
There were, however, also “subjective” reasons for the appeal that Hegel’s
thought made to me; it supplied a demand for unification that was doubtless
an intense emotional craving, and yet was a hunger that only an
intellectualized subject matter could satisfy. It is more than difficult, it is
impossible to recover that early mood. But the sense of divisions and
separations that were, I suppose, borne in upon me as a consequence of a
heritage of New England culture, divisions by way of isolation of self from
the world, of soul from body, of nature from God, brought a painful
oppression—or, rather, they were an inward laceration. My earlier
philosophic study had been an intellectual gymnastic. Hegel’s synthesis of
subject and object, matter and spirit, the divine and the human, was, however,
no mere intellectual formula; it operated as an immense release, a liberation.
Hegel’s treatment of human culture, of institutions and the arts, involved the
same dissolution of hard-and-fast dividing walls, and had a special attraction
for me.59
Let’s now probe the dynamics of that liberation a bit further. If we look upon
each of our ten abstract nouns as standing for a means of overcoming (even if only
temporarily) the sense of separation occasioned by one or more of those enduring
barriers — those “hard-and-fast dividing walls,” as Dewey calls them — its quality
as a noun becomes transformed. Each appears tied to action not just as a means of
furthering its own advance (intelligent action for the sake of intelligence, scientific
method for the sake of science, and so forth). Instead, each emerges as a way of
bridging the gap, so to speak, between one or more of those ancient “divisions and
separations,” as Dewey called them, that beg to be overcome.
218
DEWEY’S OPTIMISM
Intelligent action occurs not just for its own sake. It is, instead, a way of
establishing some kind of immediate harmony or equilibrium between the
organism and its environment (subject and object, self and world, ideal and real), a
relationship that has been disrupted or has gone out of kilter in some way. Science
too is a way of addressing several of those same separations, but it does so in the
interest of establishing relationships that are more law-like and universalistic in
their application than are those having to do with the immediate problems we face
day to day. Common sense, in the form of knowledge and attitudinal
predispositions shared by the inhabitants of a community or an entire culture,
serves to draw together the individual and society. As conventionally mastered, it
allows the individual to feel and to act at home within a particular social setting.
Human nature, at least as Dewey would have us understand it, has two forms:
biological and culturally conditioned. Both afford means of developing habits of
thought and action that promise to align our biological and acquired natures,
bringing together thought and feeling, volition and action, body and mind.
Education chiefly entails the transmission of our cultural heritage from one
generation to the next. It too thus addresses the relationship between the individual
and society in ways intending to ensure a harmonious relationship. It also, of
course, addresses the relationship between the individual (or the self) and the
broader world. It likewise concerns itself with the conventional separations of
knowing and doing, theory and practice.60 Democracy as a way of life, which is
what Dewey calls it, also addresses the relationship between the individual and
society but usually with an emphasis on broad civic conditions having to do with
the establishment of laws, duties, and rights and the apparatus of various levels of
social governance from the family to the nation-state.
Each of these forms of mediation, from intelligence to freedom, posits an ideal
condition, an ultimate state of harmony or unification whose attainment is never
fully or permanently reached yet is already partially realized. Each of our ten
abstract nouns, as so understood, stands for something that not only ought to be but
at least partially already is. Both of those conditions are essential. The fact that
each of Dewey’s ten core beliefs constitutes something yet to be accomplished,
something worth working for, gives direction to action. The incompleteness of that
unification and the fact of its impermanence also implies that there will always be
something more to do, steps yet to be taken, repairs to be made. The targets of such
interminable striving form what Dewey called “inclusive final ends,” goals so
broad in scope and so unifying in nature as to give enduring purpose and meaning
to individual efforts. The fact that each of those inclusive ends is already partially
realized means that the possibility of its furtherance is not just a pipe dream, an
idealistic fantasy. It is something real enough (even though “relatively embryonic,”
as Dewey points out61) to sustain one’s faith in the possibility of its
accomplishment.
219
PHILIP W. JACKSON
PART 4: REARRANGING THE LIST OF BELIEFS
Near the start of this essay I wondered whether there might be a way of re-
arranging the original list of ten beliefs that would help us better understand how
they function for Dewey and also how they might contribute to our own way of
thinking. As the second of my three observations about the list as a whole, I
wondered whether the ten items possibly formed a system of some kind and
whether their re-arrangement might help to bring their systemic nature to light.
Now it is time to address those questions. The rearrangement that I have found to
be most helpful heuristically is the one that I have already put forward implicitly
above. That was the following.
- Science
- Art
- Religion
- Philosophy
- Education
- Democracy
- Intelligence
- Common Sense
- Human Nature
- Freedom
The two groups into which the ten items have been divided differ in one major
way and several minor ones. The major difference is that the first six items are
each associated with a particular set of social institutions, whereas the second set
of four items are not distinguishable in that way. The social institutions with which
the first six items are associated form vast conglomerates within the society as a
whole. The institution of science, for example, consists of the laboratories and
experimental facilities that carry on the research of the many different branches of
science, the schools and colleges in which scientists train and teach, the books and
journals that present and house scientific knowledge, the industries that supply
scientific equipment, the professional societies to which scientists belong, the
specialized language that scientists employ in communicating with each other, and
so on. The institution of art is likewise vast. It includes all of art’s practitioners and
creators and all of its audience. It includes, as well, all of art’s tools and all of the
physical facilities for its creation, display, and performance. The latter would
include studios, theaters, museums, concert halls, and so on. It also includes its
own history and the current controversies that dominate its present enactment.
A similar list of institutional components could easily be drawn up for each of
the four remaining items in the first sub-group, though I will not bother to do so
here. It is worth pointing out, however, that philosophy in its institutionalized form
stands out as being anomalous. It is far narrower in scope — involving far fewer
participants, facilities, professional societies, etc. — than the other five. Moreover,
it fits comfortably within the social institution of education and there is strong
evidence that Dewey himself would have placed it there. The sole reason for
220
DEWEY’S OPTIMISM
keeping it separate is that Dewey was himself a philosopher and he placed heavy
emphasis on its social importance.
There are a number of other things to be said about the first six items. Each is
not only associated with a well-established social institution, the latter is also
dedicated to the realization of a social “good” of some kind, an “end” that the
society as a whole finds beneficial and that a significant number of its members
therefore seek to promote.62 Many devote their lives to doing so. All such
institutions are human inventions, yet none is the invention of a single person.
None are found in nature. Each has been in existence for a considerable length of
time. That means that each not only has a history but also a tradition, a set of
norms that are passed on from one generation to the next. None is perfect. None is
set in stone. All undergo change over time. Each is self-sustaining in the sense of
outliving or outlasting its present set of practitioners. Yet the renewal of each also
depends on a continual flow of new participants. Each must therefore remain
attractive as a career choice.
The six items on that first list do not of course cover all of the social institutions
dedicated to the attainment of a broad social good in today’s society. Law and
medicine, for example, are not included among them. Nor are military service,
agriculture, commerce and trade, among others. Those omissions do not reflect
upon the lack of importance of such “goods”. They are omitted partially because I
ceased adding to my list when I got to ten and also because Dewey spent less time
addressing them. They were not among his principal concerns.
In sum, all social institutions dedicated to the welfare of all, both those included
on our list of ten and those left out, are objective. They are concrete, actual. They
are all rationally organized in various ways. Each is an institutionalized form of
objective rationality: the ideal made real. Their numerous instantiations (the way
they operate in the here and now) get discussed in the daily newspaper and can be
looked up in any telephone book.
The remaining four items — intelligence, common sense, human nature, and
freedom — refer to conditions that are rather more subjective than objective.
Another way of putting it might be to say that they have more to do with
individuals than with institutions. However, like the social institutions that we have
been discussing, they too are normative at least in the sense of implicitly referring
to a “good” of some kind that calls for articulation and realization through words
and actions. The latter need not occur exclusively within the context of a formal
institution. They may be exercised just as fully within the informal confines of
everyday life.
The “goods” that such actions embody and serve to realize might be referred to
collectively as normative principles of subjective rationality.63 Those principles
include, then, how to behave intelligently in general, how to draw upon common
sense effectively, how to develop a “second nature” that serves both self and
society, and how to attain the highest degree of freedom, which is one that
combines virtue and happiness.
* * * * * *
221
PHILIP W. JACKSON
This is as far as my writing has gone to date, at least in a form that I am willing to
share with others. Immediately ahead lie the questions of whether there is more to
say about the second set of four items (I am sure there is) and whether, within each
of the two sub-groups all the items are of equal importance, or, conversely,
whether some might be more important than the others (I feel confident that they
are not of equal importance yet I have not fully worked out the grounds of that
conviction). Further on, as I have said, I will turn to the question of what practicing
educators might gain from pondering the grounds of Dewey’s optimism.
NOTES
1
The preparation of this essay was supported in part by a grant from the Spencer Foundation.
2
This manuscript incorporates the central ideas contained in the remarks I made somewhat more
sketchily and more informally at the conference in Zurich. It does not, however, present them in
exactly the form they took on that day. I have since refined the presentation of those ideas
considerably and have added far more detail to their explication than could possibly have been
presented at the conference itself. The form they take here comprises the latest version of the first
part of a larger writing project on which I am currently at work. The portion yet to be written will
spell out the underlying structure of Dewey’s core beliefs in somewhat greater detail than in this
essay and will then turn to the significance of that structure for practicing educators.
3
See my John Dewey and the Lessons of Art (Yale University Press, 1998) and John Dewey and the
Philosopher’s Task (Teachers College Press, 2002).
4
See Dalton, T. C. (2002). Becoming John Dewey: Dilemmas of a Philosopher and Naturalist.
Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press; Dykhuizen, G. (1973). The Life and Mind of John
Dewey. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press; Martin, J. (2002). The Education of John
Dewey: A Biography. New York: Columbia University Press; Rockefeller, S. C. (1991). John
Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism. New York: Columbia University Press; Ryan,
A. (1995). John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism. New York: W.W. Norton;
Westbrook, R. B. (1991). John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
5
See, for example, Lamont, C. (1958) Dialogue on John Dewey. New York: Horizon Press; also,
Ratner, S. (Editor) (1940). The Philosopher of the Common Man: Essays in Honor of John Dewey to
Celebrate His Eightieth Birthday. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Also Hook, S. (Editor) (1950).
John Dewey: Philosopher of Science and Freedom. New York: Dial Press.
6
Edited by JoAnn Boydston, Southern Illinois University Press.
7
There is some evidence that he experienced some despair as a young man. (See Coughlan, N. (1975)
The Young Dewey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Chapter 1; also, Martin, J. (2002). The
Education of John Dewey. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 5-19) His poetry, which he
long kept secret, also reveals that he may have had an unhappy marriage, at least for a time. See
Boydston, J. A. (Editor) (1977). The Poems of John Dewey. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
University Press, e.g., poems 2, 6, 8, 36. Those and other personal difficulties notwithstanding,
however, they do not seem to have affected his optimistic outlook on life in general.
8
Readers solely interested in what Dewey thought about education would be much better off going
directly to his writings on the subject. They might start with his School and Society and The Child
and the Curriculum before moving on to Democracy and Education and Experience and Education
and from there to the dozens of shorter and more specialized articles he has written on the subject.
9
Two things excited me about that insight. The first was that I recalled Dewey acknowledging late in
life that his point of view did form a system, having denied for some time the need for such a system
in philosophy. The occasion was a symposium celebrating his eightieth birthday. Dewey was
responding to remarks offered by two friendly critics of his work: Morris R. Cohen and William
Ernest Hocking. Near the start of his reply he said,
I find that with respect to the hanging together of various problems and various hypotheses in
a perspective determined by a definite point of view, I have a system. In so far I have to
222
DEWEY’S OPTIMISM
retract disparaging remarks I have made in the past about the need for system in philosophy.
(LW14, 140-141)
In bringing his remarks to a close, he further said:
Given a point of view that determines a perspective and the nature and arrangement of things
seen in that perspective, the point of view is, I suppose the last thing to be seen. In fact it is
never capable of being seen unless there is some change from the old point of view. (LW14,
154)
Remarks such as those, and they are not the only ones of that kind that could be cited, lead one to
suspect that Dewey may not have been fully aware, at least not until very late in life, of the systemic
nature of his own “point of view.”
The second thing that interested me was that the structure that I was beginning to see was decidedly
Hegelian in cast. It seemed to conform in general to the structure of Hegel’s social theory as put
forward principally in his Philosophy of Right and in the last portion of his Philosophy of Mind.
Dewey has repeated acknowledged his indebtedness to Hegel but I had not before seen as clearly the
enduring impact of his influence.
10
EW5, 84-95.
11
LW5, 267-278 and LW14, 91-97.
12
Allen Ryan, one of Dewey’s recent biographers, describes much of Dewey’s writings as constituting
a series of “lay sermons.” That judgment, which may sound harsh to some, sounds accurate to me.
Dewey, without doubt, was something of a sermonizer. He was much like Emerson in that regard.
Although he was the most private of persons in certain respects — seldom discussing his family
affairs in public, for example — he rarely hesitated to make known his unyielding allegiance to
those “final and inclusive ends,” as he called them, that constituted in the most general terms the
matrix of his personal creed.
13
The following account treats Dewey’s views generically rather than developmentally. That is, it
treats them as though they remained constant throughout his adult life. That, of course, yields a false
picture, for there is evidence that Dewey did indeed change his mind on several important points
throughout his lifetime. See, for example, “From absolutism to experimentalism.” in LW5, 147-160.
Also Jane Dewey’s edited account entitled “Biography of John Dewey,” in Schilpp, P. A. (Editor)
(1939). The Library of Living Philosophers: The Philosophy of John Dewey. New York: Tudor
Publishing Company, pp. 1-47.
14
E.g., Democracy and Education, Human Nature and Conduct, Reconstruction in Philosophy,
Experience and Education, Art as Experience.
15
MW9, 139.
16
MW10, 338-339.
17
LW4, 160.
18
As Dewey used the term, “intelligence” was only remotely related to the cognitive attribute that
psychologists have empirically explored over the years and that conventional intelligence tests
purport to measure. Dewey’s conception of intelligence was far broader than the one held by
psychologists. It was broader too than the conception of Pure Reason as explicated by eighteenth or
nineteenth Western philosophers, as in Kant’s First Critique, for example, wherein reason is looked
upon as principally a theoretical or logical construct.
Dewey’s notion comes closer to Kant’s Practical Reason or Aristotle’s phronesis, both of which
depict reason as being applied, put to work in the service of human ends. Following that line of
thought, Dewey likewise looked upon intelligence as basically a mode of interaction, a way of
confronting the world, facing its problems, inquiring into them, envisioning their resolution, and
then working diligently toward the realization of that vision.
19
MW10, 48.
20
The story of Dewey’s early conversion to Christianity and his later departure from it is deserving of
a fuller account than can be given here. See Rockefeller, S. C. (1991). John Dewey: Religious Faith
and Democratic Humanism. New York: Columbia University Press; also Shook, J. R. (2000).
Dewey’s Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
21
LW4, 200.
22
LW16, 253.
23
Ibid.
223
PHILIP W. JACKSON
24
MW9, 238.
25
Examples of such universals might be that of everyone knowing that there are two sexes or that
suspended objects drop to the ground when released or in what direction the sun rises and sets. It is
of course true that there are individuals, such as babies and those who are severely defective
mentally, who lack even that kind of common knowledge.
26
LW16, 244.
27
LW16, 252.
28
LW16,253.
29
Dewey was quite well aware that not all inquiry was successful and not all of it worked as neatly as
his spatial depiction of it portrayed. Sometimes, for example, the scientific investigator became so
intrigued with the construction of theory for its own sake that she never concerned herself with its
application to ordinary affairs. Here he is expressing that concern:
The intellectual enterprise which turns its back upon the matters of common sense, in the
connection of the latter with the concerns of living, does so at its peril. It is fatal for an
intellectual enterprise to despise the issues reflected in this speech; the more ambitious or
pretentious its claims, the more fatal the outcome. It is, I submit, the growing tendency of
“philosophy” to get so far away from vital issues which render its problems not only
technical (to some extent a necessity) but such that the more they are discussed the more
controversial are they and the further apart are philosophers among themselves: — a pretty
sure sign that somewhere on the rout a compass has been lost and a chart thrown away.
(LW16,249)
30
LW13, 151.
31
MW9, 341.
32
MW9, 338.
33
MW9, 338.
34
MW9, 176-177.
35
LW1, 304-305.
36
For Dewey, democracy was essentially moral in nature, as is evident in the following quotation.
. . . the source of the American democratic tradition is moral–not technical, abstract, narrowly
political nor materially utilitarian. It is moral because based on faith in the ability of human
nature to achieve freedom for individuals accompanied with respect and regard for other
persons and with social stability built on cohesion instead of coercion. (LW13, 178)
37
Dewey himself was not in attendance at that banquet. His speech was read in absentia by his friend
Harry Kalven. (Dykhuizen,1973, p.298)
38
LW14,227
39
If we wanted to round out that paragraph by adding something about science in Dewey’s own
words, we could easily tack on a sentence or two from any of a number of other statements that he
made at about the same time as the quotation given above. Here, for example, are a few additional
lines that also first appeared in 1939. They are from a chapter entitled “Science and Free Culture”
that appears in his book, Freedom and Culture.
. . . the future of democracy is allied with spread of the scientific attitude. It is the sole
guarantee against whole-sale misleading by propaganda. More important still, it is the only
assurance of the possibility of a public opinion intelligent enough to meet present social
problems. (LW13, 168)
40
EW3, 110-124.
41
See, for example, EW5, 202-203, MW3, 285-293, LW2, 111-115.
42
See Dunkel, H. B. (1959). Dewey and the Fine Arts School Review 67(Summer), 229-45.
43
See, Ryan, A. (1995). John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism. New York: W.W.
Norton, p.253.
44
References to the Romantic poetry of Shelley, Keats, and others are scattered throughout Art as
Experience. (LW10)
45
See Boydston, J. A. (Editor) (1977). The Poems of John Dewey. Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press.
46
The story of Dewey’s withdrawal from organized religion is well-told by Shook, J. (2000). Dewey’s
Empirical Theory of Knowledge and Reality. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
224
DEWEY’S OPTIMISM
47
LW5,153.
48
This is not to say that he ignored his critics. See his many replies to them in Morgenbesser, S.
(Editor) (1977). Dewey and His Critics. New York: The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
49
LW1, 304-305.
50
E.g., deVries, W. A. (1988); Franco, P. (1999); Forster, M. N. (1989); Forster, M. N. (1998);
Hardimon, M. O. (1994); Inwood, M. J. (2002); Neuhouser, F. (2000); Pinkard, T. (2002); Pinkard,
T. (2000); Pinkard, T. (1996); Pippin, R. B. (1997); Pippin, R. B. (1989); Pippin, R. B. (1999);
Smith, S. B. (1991); Taylor, C. (1975); Wood, A. W. (1990).
51
LW13,39.
52
MW14,210.
53
See Berlin, I. (1969). Two Concepts of Liberty. In Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp. 118-172.
54
It was at about this stage of my thinking about Dewey’s core beliefs that I began to see their deep
indebtedness to Hegel’s theory of ethical life (Sittlichkeit).
55
MW9, 139.
56
I speak as someone who for several years taught graduate students who were training to be
psychologists how to administer individual intelligence tests.
57
LW16, 242-256.
58
LW16,244.
59
LW5,153.
60
These dualities are made explicit in the titles of two of Dewey’s earliest books on the subject:
School and Society and The Child and the Curriculum.
61
LW9,35.
62
Dewey referred to such ends as “inclusive ideal ends.” LW9, 23.
63
Students of Hegel will quickly recognize that the two phrases “objective rationality” and “subjective
rationality” draw heavily on the Hegelian outlook that Dewey was deeply indebted to at one point
and never entirely abandoned.
REFERENCES
Berlin, I. (1969). Four essays on liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Coughlan, N. (1975). Young John Dewey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Dalton, T. C. (2002). Becoming John Dewey: Dilemmas of a philosopher and naturalist. Bloomington,
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deVries, W. A. (1988). Hegel’s theory of mental activity. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
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(MW12)
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Illinois University Press.
Dewey, John & A. F. Bentley (1949). Knowing and the known. Boston: Beacon Press. (LW16)
Dunkel, H. B. (1959). Dewey and the fine arts. The School Review 67(Summer), 229-45.
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PHILIP W. JACKSON
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Philip W. Jackson
Departments of Education and Psychology
University of Chicago
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Pragmatism and Education

Pragmatism and Education

Pestalozzianum Research Institute for the History of Education, University of Applied

Institute for Education, University of Zürich, Switserland

Published by: Sense Publishers,

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved © 2005 Sense Publishers

Introduction: Pragmatism and Education in the International

The Hegelian Roots of Dewey’s Pragmatism

William James’ Theory of Religion and Pluralistic World

Public Intercommunications. Dewey Reconstructs Errant Modernizations

The Concepts of Activity and Effectiveness in Dewey’s Aesthetics

Modern City, Social Justice and Education. Early Pragmatism as

Jane Addams’ and Mary Parker Follett’s Applied Pragmatism.

George Herbert Mead and the Theory of Schooling

Some Historical Notes on George Herbert Mead’s Theory of Education

Dewey And James in Germany – Missed Opportunities in German

The Perception of Dewey’s Pragmatism in Germany after 1945

INTRODUCTION: PRAGMATISM AND EDUCATION

At the Third International Congress of Philosophy in Heidelberg in September

D. Tröhler, J. Oelkers (eds.), Pragmatism and Education, 01–09.

Viennese philosopher and educationalist Wilhelm Jerusalem, who had studied

- Culture versus Civilization

It is not surprising, therefore, to find Werner Sombart, a German sociologist and

Kerschensteiner, Spranger quite accurately calls Kerschensteiner “Pestalozzi’s true

Under the sign of the increasing internationalization of educational discussion

Gutberlet, K. (1908). Der Pragmatismus. Philosophisches Jahrbuch, 21, 437-458.

THE HEGELIAN ROOTS OF DEWEY’S PRAGMATISM1

The traditional view of Dewey’s philosophical development dates back to Morton

D. Tröhler, J. Oelkers (eds.), Pragmatism and Education, 11–26.

THE AMERICAN HEGELIAN TRADITION

public educator (Leidecker, 1946). Harris served as editor of the Journal of

DEWEY AND HEGEL

As a graduate student at Johns Hopkins from 1882 to 1884, Dewey embraced

and “Psychology as Philosophic Method” (Dewey, 1967-72, pp. 1:123-43; 1:144-

Dewey’s lecture also contains a brief intellectual biography of Hegel that

In GPP, Dewey’s characterization of Hegel is completed in his claim that

Günther, K. H. (1995). Interdependence between democratic pedagogy in Germany and the

WILLIAM JAMES’ THEORY OF RELIGION AND

“I offer the oddly-named thing pragmatism as a philosophy that can satisfy

D. Tröhler, J. Oelkers (eds.), Pragmatism and Education, 27-41.

JAMES’ VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in Human Nature, published

with a pluralism of happinesses. The most interesting objective to man is the

RELIGION AFTER NIETZSCHE AND DARWIN: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN JAMES’

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JAMES’ THEORY OF RELIGION TODAY

Meike Sophia Baader

1. THIRDNESSES OVERCOME THE DUALISTIC MAINSTREAM

D. Tröhler, J. Oelkers (eds.), Pragmatism and Education, 43–52.

C. S. Peirce and W. James before being elaborated by G. H. Mead and Dewey. On

2. THE TWOFOLD MOVEMENT OF INSTRUMENTALIZATION AND

instrumentalized in the context of modern experimental sciences. The question

experimental scientific procedure performed by intelligence is considered as being

3. SITUATING THE LANGUAGE QUESTION IN DEWEY’S PHILOSOPHY OF

There was and is a lot of criticism of Dewey’s concept of communication, based on

4. THE SUBJUNCTIVE IN DEWEY’S UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN LANGUAGE

What does Dewey understand by human language? He thematizes it as a specific

As more language signs occur between the direct fulfillments of cooperative

5. THE LIMITS OF LANGUAGE IN THE TEMPORAL INTEGRATION OF THREE

Although Dewey develops the self-referencing of verbal communication which

mechanisms mentioned at the beginning. If human modes of conduct are really to

6. DEWEY’S PUBLIC INTERPENETRATIONS OF MODERN AUTONOMIES

From amongst the neo-pragmatic Dewey interpretations of the older generation of