John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, on October 20, 1859. He was the third of four sons
(the eldest had already died of injuries incurred by accident). His father, Archibald, and his mother,
Lucina Rich, were both descended through long lines of Vermont farmers, though his mother's
roots were considerably more socially and politically important than those of his father. Archibald
had left farming to establish a grocery business in Burlington; he was almost fifty years old. Lucina
was twenty years younger. Dewey's father and mother presented a considerable contrast to each
other. Archibald was not an ambitious businessman and was, instead, content simply to run a sound
business service in the community. None of the Deweys had attended college. Lucina, on the other
hand, was ambitious for her sons, wanting them to become well educated and caring fervently for
their religious development.
Dewey was born into a world of intellectual and social revolution. In the same year as his birth, Charles Darwin published Origin of Species, Mill published On Liberty, and Karl Marx published Critique of Political Economy. While these would not have an immediate impact on Dewey himself, the set the contextual foundation for his education, both spiritual and practical. Of more immediate bearing on Dewey's life, the American Civil War was just beginning. His father, Archibald, enlisted in the Union Army in 1861 and went off to war. By 1864, Lucina could no longer tolerate the separation and moved the family to northern Virginia where Archibald was located. They did not return to Burlington until 1867. Close proximity to the Civil War may have had some impact on Dewey's later views about the uselessness and waste of violence in solving social and political problems.
Dewey's childhood and education were unassuming, though Lucina did everything possible to develop intellectual curiosity in her boys. Dewey entered the University of Vermont in 1875; but his studies were initially half-hearted. This disinterest did not last, however; and his last two years were kindled by courses in natural science and philosophy. He did well enough to graduate Phi Beta Kappa, in 1879. Dewey's mentor in moral philosophy was H. A. P. Torrey, a graduate of Union Theological Seminary, who had held the Chair of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy since 1868. It is important to understand that philosophy, in American universities and colleges, was primarily taught as the intellectual foundation to Protestant Christianity. To those who wanted more than a simple faith, philosophy offered a rationalization of Christian theology. Indeed, the rise of physical science motivated a strong anti-empiricist theme among American philosophers, hoping to keep science in check, and Vermont had developed a special passion for Kant's philosophical positions since the 1830s. Interpreted through the writings of Coleridge, Kant's position seemed to give the human mind central creative powers that were easily connected with theological concepts. It is not surprising, then, that Dewey developed a strong inclination to metaphysical thinking under Torrey.
After graduation, in 1879, Dewey went to work teaching in public high schools, first in Pennsylvania. While working in Pennsylvania, he wrote a Kantian article, "The Metaphysical Assumptions of Materialism," which was good enough to be published in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Returning to Vermont in 1881, he continued to teaching but also devoted himself to a tutorial reading with Torrey, who continued to encourage Dewey to read classics, history of philosophy, T. H. Green, and German philosophers. Dewey wrote another article, "The Pantheism of Spinoza," and decided to leave school teaching. He enrolled in the newly established Johns Hopkins University and finished a Ph.D. in 1884. His dissertation was entitled "The Psychology of Kant."
During Dewey's years at John's Hopkins, there were three young lecturers in philosophy. Charles Sanders Peirce, son of the famous Harvard mathematician, Benjamin Peirce, and a philosophically minded physicist in his own right, taught courses in logic and the philosophy of science. Another famous Harvard faculty member had already been substantially influenced by Peirce; this was William James. From the 60s through the late 80s, James had made his way from physiology to psychology to philosophy, writing one of the most famous 19th Century books on psychology along the way. Together, Peirce and James constituted the core of the school of American Pragmatism.
The other two Hopkins philosophers were G. Stanley Hall and George Sylvester Morris. Hall, like Peirce, had strong interests in science, physiology and psychology, in particular. Dewey quickly saw Morris as the only "real philosopher" and adopted him as mentor. Morris was a fellow Vermonter by birth and had also attended Union Theological Seminary. His interests were clearly aligned with Dewey's interests in metaphysics and theology. But Morris had studied in Germany and had left Kantian philosophy for neo-Kantian Hegelianism. Hegel, in his view, had solved the Kantian uncertainty about theology by advancing a logically clear argument for Mind (Idea, God) standing at the very center of the universe and for human reason representing a limited realization of Mind. It was a neat logical system that organized the world and that clearly placed science in a subordinate position to theology. Dewey left Hopkins a thorough-going Hegelian.
During the first decade after his Ph. D., Dewey taught at Michigan, Minnesota, and Chicago, concentrating on the relationships between psychology and philosophy. In 1887, he published a book, Psychology. But eventually, his teaching experiences in public schools led him to focus on educational pedagogy. At the University of Chicago, he began the famous "Laboratory School" and also was involved with the "Chicago Circle," which developed the philosophy of Pragmatism. The School and Society was one of several books produced in this period.
In 1904, Dewey was invited to join the faculty at Columbia University and he stayed at Columbia until his retirement, in 1930, continuing as an emeritus until 1939. At Columbia, his career blossomed into more purely philosophical areas, and he wrote many books on political and moral philosophy. Dewey was an especially enthusiastic advocate for democracy but he also deeply recognized the complete dependence of a democratic system on a free and well educated electorate. He brought this point home in books like Democracy and Education. But his creative life had tremendous range, as indicated by his large book, late in his career, Art as Experience. While his first wife died in 1927, Dewey remarried, at the age of 87, in 1946. He lived on Long Island, where he continued the life of a Vermont farmer, close to the earth, managing a small egg farm. He died at 93, in 1952. He wrote Freedom and Culture in 1939, in his retirement and at a desperate time in world history. As you will see it reflects his lifelong dedication to ideas about education, culture, democracy, and freedom.
[This biographical essay has been written on the basis of materials in Westbrook, Robert B. John Dewey and American Democracy (Cornell University Press, 1991).]
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