Philosophy 170 Course Notes
The School and Society

Copyright 1999-2000 by Tad Beckman, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711

The School and Society offers a significant change of direction and mood in this course, demonstrating the great differences between Dewey and his predecessors, Peirce and James. The latter devoted considerable attention to arguments for Pragmatism as a genuine philosophical method. Both saw themselves as thoroughly immersed in a long-standing debate between rationalists and empiricists, religion and science. The reign of metaphysics had to end; Pragmatism was advanced as a resolution of conflict and a mode of thought that could carry us into the future. Dewey, on the other hand, as the son of a grocery merchant, had grown up outside the high-pitched intellectual arguments of Cambridge and New York and the practical life was instinctive to him. It needed little rationalization or defense. Dewey's interest was society and included every issue that moves in and out of the creation of a free society. His approach to these problems, while stimulated by experiences with both Peirce and James, was inherently Pragmatic by his own nature.

As the title itself indicates, The School and Society argues that at least one major goal of education is the creation and maintenance of society. Dewey clearly realizes that young people must acquire practical skills so that they can gain occupations; but the final end to practical skills is fitting oneself into society, that is, becoming a functioning part of a community. Community is an end in the sense that individuals need community as the proper context of life and growth. In this respect, Dewey's thought strongly reflected the influence of the German philosopher Hegel, who believed that the state is the fundamental unit of world history and that the essence of history is progress toward human freedom. Hegel's logic was a contemporary adaptation of Plato's dialectic, involving a continual "exchange" between thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In fact, it is the same logic that is assumed by Peirce and James and lies at the core of Pragmatism.

The acquisition of practical skills is no mechanical or materialistic task, for Dewey. The entire history of humanity's development of practical skills reflects the growth and development of human intelligence. Thus, there is no separation between intelligence and practice, thought and action. The two cannot be learned in isolation from each other. Understanding human invention is equivalent to understanding human inventiveness, hence, the application of intelligence to practical problems in the world.

Intelligence, in Dewey's view, is not mere inventiveness either. The concept of what is "problematic" is complicated because it is fundamentally a question of human values, hence, social values. We cannot understand whatever in our world is problematic (in need of practical invention) until we understand how our society establishes values and what it values. The fundamental role of history in the curriculum is to help us see how societies have identified values and, then, how human intelligence has been deployed in the context of the environing world in order to solve problems relating to achievement of what we value. History is no free-standing abstraction or compilation of dates and figures; it is a living testimony to the essential themes of human life.

With these background ideas, Dewey determined that the curriculum of school should never become isolated from the practical evolution of society. Students will learn all of the abstract issues of education -- values, ethics, history, economics, government, etc. -- within the context of engaging in practical activities precisely because all of these are directly involved (inherent) in practice. You cannot be involved in practice and become a working part of it unless you engage your full intelligence with it and, hence, uncover its deeper meanings. While the educational experience should begin in the kitchen or sewing room or wood shop, it must always move from there to the blackboard or library. Dewey conceived of each practical activity as ripe with limitless questions about materials, techniques, and purposes. We should not trivialize our answers to these connecting questions; rather, we should take advantage of them to bring out their deep contents.

Symbolic of this relationship between thought and action is Dewey's concept of "occupation." An occupation is distinguished from mere "work" because it exemplifies the full engagement of intelligent thought with manual, utilitarian activity. To the degree that every person is engaged in an occupation, everyone is a full practicing member of society. To become merely a worker is to alienate oneself from the thinking process. Thus, Dewey's work was also aimed at the tradition of freedom (liberation) in society. Engagement in community gives each person a place as a value-giver and thoughtful advocate of problems and solutions. The contrast between occupation and work had already risen to an extreme social issue in the industrialized society of the century's turning. It too would dominate much of Dewey's attention throughout his life.