Dewey The Logic of Human Mind & Other Works

Enriched edition. Critical Debates and Insights about New Psychology, Reflex Arc Concept, Infant Language & Social Psychology
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-80-272-2599-6
Verlag: Musaicum Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 95 Seiten

In 'The Logic of Human Mind & Other Works' by John Dewey, the author delves into the complexities of human thought processes, examining the logic behind our decision-making and problem-solving abilities. Dewey's writing style is clear and concise, making it accessible to readers of all levels of expertise in psychology and philosophy. His work is situated in the pragmatist tradition, focusing on the practical implications of his theories on the human mind. This collection of works demonstrates Dewey's profound understanding of cognitive processes and his ability to articulate them in a scholarly and engaging manner. John Dewey, a prominent American psychologist and philosopher, was known for his groundbreaking contributions to the fields of education and psychology. His interest in understanding human behavior and cognition led him to explore the logic of the human mind, as evident in this seminal collection. Dewey's background in philosophy and psychology informs his writing, offering readers a comprehensive and insightful perspective on the complexities of the human mind. I highly recommend 'The Logic of Human Mind & Other Works' to anyone interested in delving into the intricate workings of the human mind. Dewey's insightful analysis and logical reasoning provide a valuable resource for scholars and enthusiasts alike seeking to deepen their understanding of cognitive processes and decision-making.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dewey, John

Weitere Mitwirkende

Barrett, Shawn

Leseproben

Psychological Doctrine and Philosophical Teaching

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT methodology has long seemed to me the dreariest field among all the territories, waste and fertile, occupied by philosophy. That philosophy---which, in the last analysis, means some philosopher---should, by means of a general philosophical position, at; tempt to catalogue the various provinces in the domain of learning, to set forth their respective boundaries, to locate their capital cities and fix their proper jurisdictions, appears to me an undertaking more likely to reveal the limitations of the philosopher's experience, interests, and intelligence than to throw light upon the subject. In discussing the relations of philosophy and psychology, I therefore disavow any attempt to pass upon what psychology must be or ought to be; I am content that psychology should be whatever competent investigators in that field make it to be in the successful pursuit of their inquiries. But a teacher and student of philosophy is within his scope when he reflects upon what philosophy in its own past has done in fixing the standpoints, ruling conceptions, and procedures of present psychology, and in raising questions as to the after-effects of this influence-its hearing, namely, upon present philosophical study and Leaching.

From this point of view, I say without more ado that, so far as I can observe, the larger part of the time and energy of teachers of philosophy is taken up in the discussion of problems which owe their existence-at least in the way in which they are currently formulated-to the influence of psychology. In its dominant conceptions and professed methods, this psychology is a survival of a. philosophy which is daily becoming more incredible and more irrelevant to our present intellectual and social situation. Grant that philosophy has no more to do, intrinsically, with psychology than it has with any other positive science, the fact remains that philosophy is neither taught nor studied, neither written nor read, by discarnate logical essences, but by human beings whose intellectual interests, problems, and attitudes, to say nothing of their vocabulary, are determined by what they already know or think they know in cognate fields. Let a man be as persuaded as you please that the relation between psychology and

philosophy is lacking in any peculiar intimacy, and yet let him believe that psychology has for its subject-matter a field antithetical to that of the physical sciences, and his problems are henceforth the problems of adjusting the two opposed subject-matters: the problems of how one such field can know or be truly known by another; of the bearing of the principles of substantiality and causality within and between the two fields. Or let him be persuaded that the antithesis is an unreal one, and yet let his students come to him with beliefs about consciousness and internal observation, the existence of sensations, images, and emotions as states of pure consciousness, the independence of the organs of action in both observation and movement from "consciousness" (since the organs are physical), and he will still be obliged to discuss the type of epistemological and metaphysical problems that inevitably follow from such beliefs. The beliefs do not cease to operate as intellectual habits because one gravely hangs the sign "philosophy" over the shop whence one dispenses one's philosophical wares.

More specifically : The student of philosophy comes to his philosophical work with a firmly established belief in the existence of two distinct realms of existence, one purely physical and the other purely psychical. The belief is established not as speculative, not as a part of or incident to the philosophy lie is about to study, but because lie M s already studied two sciences. For every science at once assumes .and guarantees the genuineness of its own appropriate subject-matter. That much of naive realism even the later study of epistemology hardly succeeds in displacing.

Given this established "scientific" background, it does not require much reflection to effect a recognition of problems of peculiar difficulty. To formulate and deal with these difficulties, then, becomes the chief work of philosophical teaching and writing. If it is asked what are the nature and scope of these difficulties, the simplest way of answering is to point to the whole industry of "epistemology." There are many ways of formulating them with technical specificality, no one of which, however, is likely, within the limits of space I can afford, to receive general assent, even as a bare statement of difficulties. But I venture upon the following: The physical world is, by received conception, something with which we become acquainted by external observation and active experiment. But the true nature of perception and action, as means of knowing, is to be got at only by introspection, for they are, by received theory, purely mental or psychical_ The organ, the instrument, and the method of knowing the external world thus fall within the internal world; it is psychology that tells us about them in telling us abort sensations, images, and the various associated complexes that form the psychical apparatus of knowing. But now how can these psychical states, these phenomena of consciousness, get outside of themselves and even know that there is a "real" or "external" world at all, much less whether what is known in any particular case is the "real" object, or is a real object modified by a mental contribution or a mental translation, or whether the sensation or image, as the only object immediately "known," is not itself the real object? And yet since sense-perception, observation of things, and reflective inquiry about these things, are among the data that psychological introspection studies, how can it study them unless there are such things to study? In this simple dialectic situation one may find implicit the endless circle of epistemological realism and idealism in their many varieties. And, one may also search not in vain for traces of attempts to solve these same problems in philosophies that professedly are purely empirical and pragmatic.

Let me attempt, in the interests of clearness, another statement that is not quite so formal. The student of philosophy comes to his work having already learned that there is a separate psychic realm; that it is composed of its unique entities; that these are connected and compounded by their own unique principles, thereby building up their own characteristic systematizations; that the, psychic entities are by nature in constant flux, transient and transitory, antithetical to abiding spatial things; that they are purely private; that they are open to internal inspection and to that only; that they constitute the whole scope of the "immediately" given and hence the things that are directly-non-inferentially-"known," and thus supply the sole certainties and the grounds of all other beliefs and knowings; that in spite of their transient and surface character, these psychic entities somehow form the self or ego, which, in turn, is identical with the mind or knower. The summary of the whole matter is that with states of consciousness and with them alone to be and to appear, to appear and to be certain, to be truly known, are equivalents.

Can any one, I ask, ponder these conceptions and not admit that they contain in germ (and in actively flourishing germ) the substance of the questions most R cutely discussed in contemporary philosophy? If such be the case, then the statement that philosophy has no more connection with psychology than with any other science, expresses not a fact, but a revolution to be accomplished, a task to be undertaken. One has, I think, either to admit that his philosophizing is infected with psychology beyond all cure, or else challenge the prevailing conceptions about the province, scope, and procedure of psychology itself.

One who has already denied to himself the right to undertake in the name of philosophy the revision and reinterpretation of the work of a special science may well seem to be precluded from making any such challenge. In setting forth such a self-denying ordinance, I also made, however, the statement that a philosopher is within his scope when he looks in a science for survivals of past philosophies and reflects upon their worth in the light of subsequent advance in science and art. The right to undertakesuch. a critical revision can be queried only by those who measure the worth of a philosophical problem by the number of centuries in which it has been unsuccessfully discussed.

There is, then, at least prima-facie ground for holding that the orthodox psychological tradition has not arisen within the actual pursuit of specific inquiries into matters of fact, but within the philosophies of Locke and Descartes, modified perhaps in some regards by the philosophy of Kant. With all due respect to the scientific findings of any group of inquiries, I can not find it in my heart to extend this disposition of acquiescence to the first tentative escapes from medieval science. I have not the time or the disposition herewith to prove that the notion of psychic states immediately given, forming the sole incontrovertible basis of "knowledge,"---i. e., certainty-and having their own laws and systematizations, was bequeathed by seventeenth-century philosophy to psychology, instead of originating independently within psychology. That is another story, and yet a story whose materials are easily accessible to all. My present purpose is the more restricted one of pointing out that in so far as there are grounds for thinking that the traditional presuppositions of psychology were wished upon it by philosophy when it was as yet...