ARISTOTLE: THE POLITICS

Aristotle
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Aristotle
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Aristotle was born in Stagiros, Macedon, in 384BCE. His father was a court physician to King Amyntas of Macedon, but died when Aristotle was young. At that time, medicine was a secret craft passed down from father to son, so his father’s early death drastically changed the course of Aristotle’s life. He was brought up and educated by a guardian, who sent him at the age of seventeen to the centre of intellectual and artistic life, Athens. There he entered Plato’s Academy (Plato was away in Syracuse at the time), where he stayed for about twenty years, first as student then as teacher.
When Plato died, the story becomes a little obscure. Aristotle left Athens, but it’s not clear exactly why. It might have been because he was passed over as head of the Academy, or because of his philosophical differences with the new head, Speusippus, or because of his Macedonian antecedents. Macedon was unpopular at that time, because the new king, Philip, was rapidly expanding the borders of his kingdom, and Athenians felt threatened. Moreover, Aristotle wasn’t simply tarred by the brush of geography; he was a childhood friend of Philip, and had retained his connections with the family.
Whatever the reason, Aristotle sailed for Assos in Asia Minor, where he lived for three years, developed his interest in anatomy and biology, and began work on his book The Politics. However, the Persians attacked and overran Assos in 345BCE, killing the king, and Aristotle left with his circle of philosophers, staying for a year in Mytilene on Lesbos (where he pursued his zoological investigations), before moving to Macedon, and is said to have became tutor to Philip’s son, Alexander (who became Alexander the Great).
Aristotle returned to Athens in 335 to establish his own school at the Lyceum. His students acquired the name ‘peripatetics’ from their master’s habit of walking about as he taught. What remains of Aristotle’s works embrace a wide range of subjects, including logic, philosophy, ethics, physics, biology, psychology, politics and rhetoric. With the sudden death of Alexander in 323 BCE., the political landscape changed and Aristotle fled from Athens to Chalcis in Euboea. Within a year he had died from an illness.
(Source: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~worc0337/authors/aristotle.html)

Excerpts from his book The Politics:
Every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.
Some people think that the qualifications of a statesman, king, householder, and master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind, but only in the number of their subjects. For example, the ruler over a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a still larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference between a great household and a small state. The distinction which is made between the king and the statesman is as follows: When the government is personal, the ruler is a king; when, according to the rules of the political science, the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, then he is called a statesman.
The state is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is like the “Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one, ” whom Homer denounces – the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.
Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in vain, and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift of speech. And whereas mere voice is but an indication of pleasure or pain, and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the unjust. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.
Almost all things rule and are ruled according to nature. But the kind of rule differs; the freeman rules over the slave after another manner from that in which the male rules over the female, or the man over the child; although the parts of the soul are present in any of them, they are present in different degrees. For the slave has no deliberative faculty at all; the woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is immature. So it must necessarily be supposed to be with the moral virtues also; all should partake of them, but only in such manner and degree as is required by each for the fulfillment of his duty.
Hence the ruler ought to have moral virtue in perfection, for his function, taken absolutely, demands a master artificer, and rational principle is such an artificer; the subjects, oil the other hand, require only that measure of virtue which is proper to each of them. Clearly, then, moral virtue belongs to all of them; but the temperance of a man and of a woman, or the courage and justice of a man and of a woman, are not, as Socrates maintained, the same; the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying. And this holds of all other virtues, as will be more clearly seen if we look at them in detail, for those who say generally that virtue consists in a good disposition of the soul, or in doing rightly, or the like, only deceive themselves. Far better than such definitions is their mode of speaking, who, like Gorgias, enumerate the virtues.
All classes must be deemed to have their special attributes; as the poet says of women, “Silence is a woman’s glory, ” but this is not equally the glory of man. The child is imperfect, and therefore obviously his virtue is not relative to himself alone, but to the perfect man and to his teacher, and in like manner the virtue of the slave is relative to a master. Now we determined that a slave is useful for the wants of life, and therefore he will obviously require only so much virtue as will prevent him from failing in his duty through cowardice or lack of self-control.
In all states there are three elements: one class is very rich, another very poor, and a third in a mean. It is admitted that moderation and the mean are best, and therefore it will clearly be best to possess the gifts of fortune in moderation; for in that condition of life men are most ready to follow rational principle. But he who greatly excels in beauty, strength, birth, or wealth, or on the other hand who is very poor, or very weak, or very much disgraced, finds it difficult to follow rational principle. Of these two the one sort grow into violent and great criminals, the others into rogues and petty rascals. And two sorts of offenses correspond to them, the one committed from violence, the other from roguery. Again, the middle class is least likely to shrink from rule, or to be over-ambitious for it; both of which are injuries to the state. Again, those who have too much of the goods of fortune, strength, wealth, friends, and the like, are neither willing nor able to submit to authority.
The evil begins at home; for when they are boys, by reason of the luxury in which they are brought up, they never learn, even at school, the habit of obedience. On the other hand, the very poor, who are in the opposite extreme, are too degraded. So that the one class cannot obey, and can only rule despotically; the other knows not how to command and must be ruled like slaves. Thus arises a city, not of freemen, but of masters and slaves, the one despising, the other envying; and nothing can be more fatal to friendship and good fellowship in states than this: for good fellowship springs from friendship; when men are at enmity with one another, they would rather not even share the same path.
A city ought to be composed, as far as possible, of equals and similars; and these are generally the middle classes. Wherefore the city which is composed of middle-class citizens is necessarily best constituted in respect of the elements of which we say the fabric of the state naturally consists. And this is the class of citizens which is most secure in a state, for they do not, like the poor, covet their neighbors’ goods; nor do others covet theirs, as the poor covet the goods of the rich; and as they neither plot against others, nor are themselves plotted against, they pass through life safely. Wisely then did Phocylides pray- ‘Many things are best in the mean; I desire to be of a middle condition in my city.’
In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune. The expense does not take place at once, and therefore is not observed; the mind is deceived, as in the fallacy which says that ‘if each part is little, then the whole is little.’ this is true in one way, but not in another, for the whole and the all are not little, although they are made up of littles.
It may, however, be asked what a man wants with virtue if he have political ability and is loyal, since these two qualities alone will make him do what is for the public interest. But may not men have both of them and yet be deficient in self-control? If, knowing and loving their own interests, they do not always attend to them, may they not be equally negligent of the interests of the public?
Again, the evil practices of the last and worst form of democracy are all found in tyrannies. Such are the power given to women in their families in the hope that they will inform against their husbands, and the license which is allowed to slaves in order that they may betray their masters; for slaves and women do not conspire against tyrants; and they are of course friendly to tyrannies and also to democracies, since under them they have a good time. For the people too would fain be a monarch, and therefore by them, as well as by the tyrant, the flatterer is held in honor; in democracies he is the demagogue; and the tyrant also has those who associate with him in a humble spirit, which is a work of flattery.
Hence tyrants are always fond of bad men, because they love to be flattered, but no man who has the spirit of a freeman in him will lower himself by flattery; good men love others, or at any rate do not flatter them. Moreover, the bad are useful for bad purposes; ‘nail knocks out nail,’ as the proverb says. It is characteristic of a tyrant to dislike every one who has dignity or independence; he wants to be alone in his glory, but any one who claims a like dignity or asserts his independence encroaches upon his prerogative, and is hated by him as an enemy to his power. Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him.
Such are the notes of the tyrant and the arts by which he preserves his power; there is no wickedness too great for him. All that we have said may be summed up under three heads, which answer to the three aims of the tyrant. These are, (1) the humiliation of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody; (2) the creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not overthrown until men begin to have confidence in one another; and this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good; they are under the idea that their power is endangered by them, not only because they would not be ruled despotically but also because they are loyal to one another, and to other men, and do not inform against one another or against other men; (3) the tyrant desires that his subjects shall be incapable of action, for no one attempts what is impossible, and they will not attempt to overthrow a tyranny, if they are powerless. Under these three heads the whole policy of a tyrant may be summed up, and to one or other of them all his ideas may be referred: (1) he sows distrust among his subjects; (2) he takes away their power; (3) he humbles them.
There are three things which make men good and virtuous; these are nature, habit, rational principle. In the first place, every one must be born a man and not some other animal; so, too, he must have a certain character, both of body and soul. But some qualities there is no use in having at birth, for they are altered by habit, and there are some gifts which by nature are made to be turned by habit to good or bad. Animals lead for the most part a life of nature, although in lesser particulars some are influenced by habit as well. Man has rational principle, in addition, and man only. Wherefore nature, habit, rational principle must be in harmony with one another; for they do not always agree; men do many things against habit and nature, if rational principle persuades them that they ought. We have already determined what natures are likely to be most easily molded by the hands of the legislator. An else is the work of education; we learn some things by habit and some by instruction.
Since the end of individuals and of states is the same, the end of the best man and of the best constitution must also be the same; it is therefore evident that there ought to exist in both of them the virtues of leisure; for peace, as has been often repeated, is the end of war, and leisure of toil. But leisure and cultivation may be promoted, not only by those virtues which are practiced in leisure, but also by some of those which are useful to business. For many necessaries of life have to be supplied before we can have leisure. Therefore a city must be temperate and brave, and able to endure: for truly, as the proverb says, ‘There is no leisure for slaves,’ and those who cannot face danger like men are the slaves of any invader. Courage and endurance are required for business and philosophy for leisure, temperance and justice for both, and more especially in times of peace and leisure, for war compels men to be just and temperate, whereas the enjoyment of good fortune and the leisure which comes with peace tend to make them insolent.

The book The Politics By Aristotle Written 350 B.C.E Translated by Benjamin Jowett:
Politics has been divided into the following sections:
Book One [70k] Book Two [105k] Book Three [103k]
Book Four [99k] Book Five [114k] Book Six [51k]
Book Seven [100k] Book Eight [46k]
(Source: http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Aristotle.html)

COMMON SENSE

From susanjamesbookstore.com

How often we hear the expression “Why, I never thought of that!” Why? Because we have failed to exercise Common Sense–that genius of mankind, which, when properly directed is the one attribute that will carry man and his kind successfully through the perplexities of life.

The desire for knowledge, like the thirst for wealth, increases by acquisition. Common sense rarely needs to strive; it unfolds itself in an atmosphere of peace, far from the tumult of obstructions and snares that are not easily avoided. A most absurd prejudice has occasionally considered common sense to be an inferior quality of mind. To those who possess common sense is given the faculty of placing everything in its proper rank. Persons who cultivate common sense never refuse to admit their errors. One may truly affirm that they are rarely far from the truth, because they practise directness of thought and force themselves never to deviate from this mental attitude.
Yoritomo said to us: Common sense should be thus defined. It is a central sense, toward which all impressions converge and unite in one sentiment–the desire for the truth.

For people who possess common sense, everything is summed up in one unique perception: The love of directness and simplicity. All thoughts are found to be related; the preponderance of these two sentiments makes itself felt in all resolutions, and chiefly in the reflections which determine them. Common sense permits us to elude fear which always seizes those whose judgment vacillates; it removes the defiance of the Will and indicates infallibly the correct attitude to assume.

And Yoritomo, whose mind delighted in extending his observations to the sociological side of the question, adds: Common sense varies in its character, according to surroundings and education. The common sense of one class of people is not the same as that of a neighboring class. Common sense takes good care not to assail violently those beliefs which tradition has transmuted into principles. However, if direct criticism of those beliefs causes common sense to be regarded unfavorably, it will be welcomed with the greatest reserve and will maintain a certain prudence relative to this criticism, which will be equivalent to a proffered reproach.

Common sense often varies as to external aspects, dependent upon education, for it is evident that a diamio (Japanese prince) can not judge of a subject in the same way as would a man belonging to the lowest class of society. The same object can become desirable or undesirable according to the rank it occupies. Must one believe that common sense is excluded from two such incompatible opinions? No, not at all. An idea can be rejected or accepted by common sense without violating the principles of logic in the least.  If, as one frequently sees, an idea be unacceptable because of having been presented before those belonging to a particular environment, common sense, by applying its laws, will recognize that the point of view must be changed before the idea can become acceptable.
And again, Yoritomo calls our attention to a peculiar circumstance. Common sense, he says, is the art of resolving questions, not the art of posing them. When taking the initiative it is rarely on trial. But the moment it is a case of applying practically that which ingenuity, science or genius have invented, it intervenes in the happiest and most decisive manner. Common sense is the principle element of discernment. Therefore, without this quality, it is impossible to judge either of the proposition or the importance of the subject. It is only with the aid of common sense that it is possible to distinguish the exact nature of the proposition, submitted for a just appreciation, and to render a solution of it which conforms to perfect accuracy of interpretation. The last point is essential and has its judicial function in all the circumstances of life. Without accuracy, common sense can not be satisfactorily developed, because it finds itself continually shocked by incoherency, resulting from a lack of exactness in the expression of opinions. If we wish to know what the principal qualities are which form common sense, we shall turn over a few pages and we shall read: Common sense is the synthesis of many sentiments, all of which convergein forming it.
Reasoning is the art of fixing the relativeness of things. It is by means of reasoning that it is possible to differentiate events and to indicate to what category they belong. It is the habit of reasoning to determine that which it is wise to undertake, thus permitting us to judge what should be set aside.

How could we guide ourselves through life without the beacon-light of reason? It pierces the darkness of social ignorance, it helps us to distinguish vaguely objects heretofore plunged in obscurity, and which will always remain invisible to those who are unprovided with this indispensable accessory–the gift of reasoning.

He who ventures in the darkness and walks haphazard, finds himself suddenly confronted by obstacles which he was unable to foresee. He finds himself frightened by forms whose nature he cannot define, and is often tempted to attribute silhouettes of assassins to branches of trees, instead of recognizing the real culprit who is watching him from the corner of the wild forest.

Life, as well as the wildest wilderness, is strewn with pitfalls. To think of examining it rapidly, without the aid of that torch called reason, would be imitating the man of whom we have just spoken. Many are the mirages, which lead us to mistake dim shadows for disquieting realities, unless we examine them critically, for otherwise we can never ascribe to them their true value.

Certain incidents, which seem at first sight to be of small importance, assume a primordial value when we have explained them by means ofreasoning. To reason about a thing is to dissect it, to examine it from everypoint of view before adopting it, before deferring to it or before rejecting it; in one word, to reason about a thing is to act with conscious volition, which is one of the phases essential to the conquest of common sense. This principle conceded, it then becomes a question of seriously studying the method of reasoning, which we propose to do in the following manner but first it is necessary to be convinced of this truth. Without reason there is no common sense.
Those, who see things through the medium of enthusiasm refuse to recognize that they could be deprived of brilliancy and beauty. The others, those who look upon things from a pessimistic standpoint, never find anything in them save pretexts for pouring out to their hearers tales of woe and misery. All find themselves deceptively allured; some rush toward illusion, others do not wish to admit the positive chances for success, and both lacking moderation, they start from a basis of false premises from which they draw deplorable conclusions, thus defeating future success.
Is it absolutely indispensable for us to poison ourselves in order to know that such and such a plant is harmful and that another contains the healing substance which destroys the effects of the poison? We may all possess wisdom if we are willing to be persuaded that the experience of others is as useful as our own.

Common Sense such as we have just described it, according to Yoritomo, is the absolute antithesis of dreamy imagination, it is the sworn enemy of illusion, against which it struggles from the moment of contact.
The worship of illusion, says Yoritomo, presents certain dangers to the integrity of judgment, which, under such influence, falsifies the comparative faculty, and sways decision to the side of neutrality.

The man who allows himself to be influenced by vague dreams, adds the Shogun, must, if he does not react powerfully, bid farewell to common sense and reason; for he will experience so great a charm in forgetting, even for one moment, the reality of life, that he will seek to prolong this blest moment. He will renounce logic, whose conclusions are, at times, opposed to his desires, and he will plunge himself into that false delight of awakened dreams, or, as some say, day-dreams.

Those who defend this artificial conception of happiness, like to compare people of common sense to heavy infantry soldiers, who march along through stony roads, while they depict themselves as pleasant bird-fanciers, giving flight to the fantastic bearers of wings. But they do not take into account the fact that the birds, for whom they open the cage, fly away without the intention of returning, leaving them thus deceived and deprived of the birds, while the rough infantry soldiers, after many hardships, reach the desired end which they had proposed to attain, thus realizing the joys of conquest. It is so delightful to foresee a solution which conforms to our desires!
We must conclude, with Yoritomo, that illusion could often be transformed into happy reality if it were better understood, and if, instead of looking upon it through the dreams of our imagination, we applied ourselves to the task of eliminating the fluid vapors which envelop it, that we might clothe it anew with the garment of common sense.

In the structure of the mind, inaccuracy brings a partial deviation from the truth, and it does not take long for this slight error to generalize itself, if not corrected by its natural reformer–common sense.

Because of seeing so often the good destroyed, we wish to believe no more in it as inherent in our being, and rather than suffer repeatedly from its disappearance, we prefer to smother it before perfect development. The greater number of skeptics are only the unavowed lovers of illusion; their desires, never being those capable of realization, they have lost the habit of hoping for a favorable termination of any sentiment.

The lack of common sense does not allow them to understand the folly of their enterprise, and rather than seek the causes of their habitual failures, they prefer to attack God and man, both of whom they hold responsible for all their unhappiness.

All these causes of disappointment can only be attributed to the lack of equilibrium of the reasoning power and, above all, to the absence of common sense, hence we cannot judge of relative values.

With his habitual sense of the practical in life, Yoritomo adds the following: There are, however, some imaginations which can not be controlled by the power of reasoning, and which, in spite of everything, escape toward the unlimited horizons of the dream. It would be in vain to think of shutting them up in the narrow prison walls of strict reason; they would die wishing to attempt an escape. We must pity those who live for an illusion as well as those whose imagination has not known how to create an ideal, whose beauty illumines their efforts.

(Adapted from The Project Gutenberg EBook OF THE MENTAL EFFICIENCY SERIES, COMMON SENSE, HOW TO EXERCISE IT, BY MME. BLANCHARD YORITOMO-TASHI, ANNOTATED BY: B. DANGENNES, TRANSLATED BY: MME. LEON J. BERTHELOT DE LA BOILEVEBIB, 1916)

DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

John Dewey, by Eva Watson Schütze
From lib.uchicago.edu

John Dewey
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John Dewey (1859-1952) lived from the Civil War to the Cold War, a period of extraordinary social, economic, demographic, political and technological change. During his lifetime the United States changed from a rural to an urban society, from an agricultural to an industrial economy, from a regional to a world power. It emancipated its slaves, but subjected them to white supremacy. It absorbed millions of immigrants from Europe and Asia, but faced wrenching conflicts between capital and labor as they were integrated into the urban industrial economy. It granted women the vote, but resisted their full integration into educational and economic institutions. As the face-to-face communal life of small villages and towns waned, it confronted the need to create new forms of community life capable of sustaining democracy on urban and national scales.
Dewey believed that neither traditional moral norms nor traditional philosophical ethics were up to the task of coping with the problems raised by these dramatic transformations. Traditional morality was adapted to conditions that no longer existed. Hidebound and unreflective, it was incapable of changing so as to effectively address the problems raised by new circumstances.
(By Elizabeth Anderson at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
After graduation in 1879, Dewey taught high school for two years, during which the idea of pursuing a career in philosophy took hold. With this nascent ambition in mind, he sent a philosophical essay to W.T. Harris, then editor of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, and the most prominent of the St. Louis Hegelians. Harris’s acceptance of the essay gave Dewey the confirmation he needed of his promise as a philosopher. With this encouragement he traveled to Baltimore to enroll as a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University.
(By Richard Field,Northwest Missouri State University, at the Internet Encyclopedia of Encyclopedia)
Dewey came to Columbia in 1905 after a decade at the University of Chicago, a year before he was elected president of the American Philosophical Association. His arrival made Columbia’s philosophy department arguably the strongest in the country. He taught at Columbia for 25 years, retiring in 1930. His teaching style was characterized by long pauses and lots of backtracking, as if he was putting his ideas together as he spoke, the effect of which could either be inspiring or soporific. He also taught the philosophy of education at Teachers College, where his impact on educational theory and practice was both profound and controversial. With his wife, Alice, he helped establish laboratory schools, first at Chicago and later at Columbia. He received the Butler Medal at the 1935 commencement for “the distinguished character and continued vitality of his contributions to philosophy and education.”
(© Copyright 2004 Columbia University
One of John Dewey’s far-reaching ideas was the idea that talking or communication is miraculous. It seemed to him the most wonderful occurrence in the world that things should have evolved beyond externally pulling and pushing one another around, and we should have developed the ability to communicate, should have acquired the art of handling our feelings and meanings to one another.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to hear one another talking. The complexity and speed, and the very weight of life’s machinery are forcing the spirit of man to retreat in upon itself. Yet out of the deepest retreat, even out of the fears, suspicions, distrusts, animosities that shout their denunciations on every side, we keep on talking to one another. We ask one another for understanding, for support, for affection.
John Dewey was among the greatest of those who persisted in laboring to win better and better means of articulating man’s hunger for comradeship in making individual lives and the lives of individuals in togetherness as joyous and worthy as possible. And he did not speak, as have others, for a given culture, a limited geographical area, a particular time.
(By by Max Otto from The Progressive, Madison, July 1952)
According to Dewey, there have been three great revolutions in modern life of which the traditional school has taken little or no account: the intellectual revolution, brought about by the discoveries of modern science; the industrial revolution, consequent upon the invention and development of modern machinery; and the social revolution, resulting from the growth of modern democracy.
Referring to this triad of changes in globo, he said: “One can hardly believe there has been a revolution in all history so rapid, so extensive, so complete. Consequently, that this revolution should not affect education in other than formal and superficial fashion is inconceivable.” And again, since “it is radical conditions (in the world) which have changed; only equally radical change in education suffices.” According to basic Hegelianism, a change in one phase of reality calls for a corresponding change in every other: “The obvious fact is that our social life has undergone a thorough and radical change. If our education is to have any meaning for life, it must pass through an equally complete transformation.”
John Dewey was enough of a psychologist to know that the most formative years of a person’s life are his childhood. In many of his writings, therefore, he was specially concerned with using experience as the medium of education for children, from kindergarten through grammar school. Dewey wrote, children in their early years are neither moral nor immoral, but simply unmoral; their sense of right and wrong has not yet begun to develop. Therefore, they should be allowed as much freedom as possible; prohibitions and commands, the result of which either upon themselves or their companions they cannot understand, are bound to be meaningless; their tendency is to make the child secretive and deceitful.
He said, in progressive schools “the children do the work, and the teacher is there to help them to know, not to have them give back what they have memorized” and not experienced. “Tests are often conducted with books open…. Lessons are not assigned”; otherwise, the child would be having knowledge poured into him from the outside instead of learning it from within.
Dewey is not satisfied with “the superficial explanation that a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and who obey their governors are educated.” The real reason why education in a democracy is of its very essence is that “a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority (and) must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be created only by education.”
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For John Dewey, education and democracy are intimately connected. Why do so many students hate school? It seems an obvious, but ignored question. Dewey proposed that education be designed on the basis of a theory of experience. We must understand the nature of how humans have the experiences they do, in order to design effective education. In this respect, Dewey’s theory of experience rested on two central tenets — continuity and interaction.
Continuity refers to the notion that humans are sensitive to (or are affected by) experience. Humans survive more by learning from experience after they are born than do many other animals who rely primarily on pre-wired instinct. In humans, education is critical for providing people with the skills to live in society. Dewey argued that we learn something from every experience, whether positive or negative and ones accumulated learned experience influences the nature of one’s future experiences. Thus, every experience in some way influences all potential future experiences for an individual. Continuity refers to this idea that each experience is stored and carried on into the future, whether one likes it or not.
Interaction builds upon the notion of continuity and explains how past experience interacts with the present situation, to create one’s present experience. Dewey’s hypothesis is that your current experience can be understood as a function of your past (stored) experiences which interacting with the present situation to create an individual’s experience. This explains the “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” maxim. Any situation can be experienced in profoundly different ways because of unique individual differences e.g., one student loves school, another hates the same school. This is important for educators to understand. Whilst they can’t control students’ past experiences, they can try to understand those past experiences so that better educational situations can be presented to the students. Ultimately, all a teacher has control over is the design of the present situation. The teacher with good insight into the effects of past experiences which students bring with them better enables the teacher to provide quality education which is relevant and meaningful for the students.
(By James Neill, Last updated: 26 Jan 2005 at wilderdom.com)

Lectures by John Dewey: The School and Society
(Supplemented by a statement of the University Elementary School, Chicago
University of Chicago Press, 1907 ©2007 The Mead Project):

The School and Social Process (1907)
The School and the Life of the Child (1907)
Waste in Education (1907)
Three Years of the University Elementary School (1907)
The Psychology of Elementary Education (1915)
Froebel’s Educational Principles (1915)
The Psychology of Occupations (1915)
The Development of Attention (1915)
The Aim of History in Elementary Education (1915)

Here are resources critical of Dewey and his philosophy:

General:
A collection of websites critical of Dewey.
Was Dewey a Marxist?, by William Brooks. Also see Dewey’s Impressions of Soviet Russia and the revolutionary world
The Unknown Dewey: John Dewey vs. the Alexander Technique. Discussion and quotes put together by a long-time student of the Alexander Technique who objects to Dewey’s philosophy generally and in particular to attempts to associate him with the Technique.
(From Anti-Dewey Page Turnabout at turnabout.ath.cx)

Democracy and Education:
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1
Education as a Necessity of Life
Chapter 2
Education as a Social Function
Chapter 3
Education as Direction
Chapter 4
Education as Growth
Chapter 5
Preparation, Unfolding, and Formal Discipline
Chapter 6
Education as Conservative and Progresssive
Chapter 7
The Democratic Conception in Education
Chapter 8
Aims in Education
Chapter 9
Natural Development and Social Efficiency as Aims
Chapter 10
Interest and Discipline
Chapter 11
Experience and Thinking
Chapter 12
Thinking in Education
Chapter 13
The Nature of Method
Chapter 14
The Nature of Subject Matter
Chapter 15
Play and Work in the Curriculum
Chapter 16
The Significance of Geography and History
Chapter 17
Science in the Course of Study
Chapter 18
Educational Values
Chapter19
Labor and Leisure
Chapter 20
Intellectual and Practical Studies
Chapter 21
Physical and Social Studies: Naturalism and Humanism
Chapter 22
The Individual and the World
Chapter 23
Vocational Aspects of Education
Chapter 24
Philosophy of Education
Chapter 25
Theories of Knowledge
Chapter 26
Theories of Morals
Copyright © 1916 The Macmillan Company.
Copyright renewed 1944 John Dewey.
HTML markup copyright 1994 ILT Digital Classics.
at ilt.columbia.edu

Teaching John Dewey: An Essay Review of Three Books on John Dewey
Reviewer: Eric Margolis
Arizona State University at Education Review

History:
University: University of Vermont (1879)
University: PhD, Johns Hopkins University (1882-84)
Professor: University of Michigan (1884-94 excluding 1888-89)
Professor: University of Minnesota (1888-89)
Professor: University of Chicago (1894-1904)
Professor: Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University (1904-30)
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Honorary Degrees:
1904 LL.D. University of Wisconsin
1910 LL.D. University of Vermont
1913 LL.D. University of Michigan
1915 LL.D. Johns Hopkins University
1917 LL.D. Illinois College
1920 Hon. Ph.D. National University of Peking
1929 Hon. Ph.D. University of St. Andrews
Litt.D. Columbia University
1930 DOCTEUR DE L’UNIVERSITE’ honoris causa Paris
1932 Harvard University
1946 D.Sc. University of Pennsylvania
University of Oslo
1948 Dewey refused a proffered honorary degree from Charles University of Prague
(worldofbiography.com © 2006, Media Matrix)