BY
JOHN DEWEY
Professor of Philosophy in Columbia University
[Illustration]
NEW YORK.
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
Being invited to lecture at the Imperial University of Japan in Tokyo
during February and March of the present year, I attempted an
interpretation of the reconstruction of ideas and ways of thought now
going on in philosophy. While the lectures cannot avoid revealing the
marks of the particular standpoint of their author, the aim is to
exhibit the general contrasts between older and newer types of
philosophic problems rather than to make a partisan plea in behalf of
any one specific solution of these problems. I have tried for the most
part to set forth the forces which make intellectual reconstruction
inevitable and to prefigure some of the lines upon which it must
proceed.
Any one who has enjoyed the unique hospitality of Japan will be
overwhelmed with confusion if he endeavors to make an acknowledgment in
any way commensurate to the kindnesses he received. Yet I must set down
in the barest of black and white my grateful appreciation of them, and
in particular record my ineffaceable impressions of the courtesy and
help of the members of the department of philosophy of Tokyo University,
and of my dear friends Dr. Ono and Dr. Nitobe.
September, 1919.
Origin of philosophy in desire and imagination.
Influence of community traditions and authority.
Simultaneous development of matter-of-fact knowledge.
Incongruity and conflict of the two types.
Respective values of each type.... Classic philosophies
(i) compensatory, (ii) dialectically formal,
and (iii) concerned with "superior" Reality. Contemporary
thinking accepts primacy of matter-of-fact
knowledge and assigns to philosophy a social
function rather than that of absolute knowledge.
Francis Bacon exemplifies the newer spirit....
He conceived knowledge as power. As dependent
upon organized cooperative research.... As tested
by promotion of social progress. The new thought
reflected actual social changes, industrial, political,
religious.... The new idealism.
Science has revolutionized our conception of Nature.
Philosophy has to be transformed because
no longer depending upon a science which accepts
a closed, finite world. Or, fixed species. Or,
superiority or rest to change and motion. Contrast
of feudal with democratic conceptions. Elimination
of final causes. Mechanical science and the possibility
of control of nature. Respect for matter.
New temper of imagination. Influence thus far
technical rather than human and moral.