Stefan Neubert

John Dewey (1859–1952)

Wenn John Dewey heute mit Recht als ein bleibender Klassiker der modernen Padagogik zu bezeichnen ist, dann hangt dies nicht unwesentlich mit dem Umstand zusammen, dass er als einer der wichtigsten Vater eines radikaldemokratischen Erziehungsverstandnisses im 20. Jahrhundert gelten kann. Im Rahmen seines auserordentlich umfangreichen philosophischen Gesamtwerkes hat Dewey eine Konzeption von Erziehung begrundet, die konsequent am Demokratiegedanken orientiert ist. Den Lernenden soll die Moglichkeit gegeben werden, durch eigene Erfahrungen und Handlungen sowie durch Partizipation und Teilhabe an gemeinsam mit anderen durchgefuhrten Aktivitaten und Projekten zu einer umfassend selbsttatigen und selbst bestimmten Entwicklung ihres Lernens zu gelangen. Demokratische Selbstbestimmungs-, Mitbestimmungs- und Solidaritatsfahigkeit beginnen fur Dewey im Kleinen, sie sind eine Frage konkreter Handlungen, Teilnahmen und Beobachtungen von Lernenden im alltaglichen Miteinander. Die Schule als eine gesellschaftliche Institution ist an diesem Masstab zu messen. Sie bedarf umfassender Reformen, um den Herausforderungen des Lebens in einer komplexen modernen Industriegesellschaft zu entsprechen und demokratische Lernprozesse moglichst umfassend fur alle Lerner zu ermoglichen.

The Challenge of Pragmatism for Constructivism: Some Perspectives in the Programme of Cologne Constructivism

In this paper1 we wish to give a short introduction to the programme of interactive constructivism, an approach founded by Kersten Reich and under further development at the University of Cologne.2 This introduction will be combined with a discussion about the importance of pragmatism as a source of a socially oriented constructivism. For the Cologne programme, especially the philosophy of John Dewey has been very helpful in this respect.3 We will try to show this relation in two main steps. In the first part we will venture to reconsider Deweys concept of experience from the standpoint of interactive constructivism. In the second part we will do the same with Deweys concept of communication. Although we will not be able to explicate all the diverse and complex theoretical perspectives contained in both approaches, we will at least try to give you an impression of how pragmatism and constructivism might mutually enrich each other from our point of view. Please allow us to use a somewhat unconventional form of talk for this purpose. We will introduce in both parts the role of a hypothetical Dewey who discusses and exchanges ideas with us. Contrary to the way that Richard Rorty sometimes resorts to a hypothetical Dewey in his writings, we will use this figure to give Dewey the chance to quote from his own works in order to pose questions to us and criticize our views. Nevertheless, we are aware of the potential traps that such a procedure implies, and its up to the reader to criticize our ways of selection and omission.4

Complexity and Reductionism in Educational Philosophy—John Dewey’s Critical Approach in ‘Democracy and Education’ Reconsidered

Abstract Against the background of the Deweyan tradition of Democracy and Education, we discuss problems of complexity and reductionism in education and educational philosophy. First, we investigate some of Dewey’s own criticisms of reductionist tendencies in the educational traditions, theories, and practices of his time. Secondly, we explore some important cases of reductionism in the educational debates of our own day and argue that a similar criticism in behalf of democracy and education is appropriate and can easily be based on Deweyan terms. Thirdly, we draw some more general conclusions about complexity and reductionism as challenges for democracy and education. Among other things, we argue that powerful social tendencies of capitalist competition and social Darwinism support reductionisms in education and put the democratic project at risk. The tensional relation between democracy and capitalism constitutes a major challenge for educational philosophy in our own time as much as in Dewey’s.

Konstruktivismus, Demokratie und Multikultur: Konstruktivistische Überlegungen zu ausgewählten theoretischen Grundlagen der anglo-amerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte

Ich befasse mich in diesem Aufsatz aus konstruktivistischer Sicht mit einigen ausgewahlten theoretischen Grundlagen der gegenwartigen anglo-amerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte. Dabei ist es nicht meine Absicht, einen Uberblick uber die vielfaltigen, heterogenen und teilweise widerspruchlichen Ansatze zu geben, die diese Debatte in ihrer Gesamtheit ausmachen (vgl. dazu einfuhrend u. a.

Education and Culture—The Cultural Turn

We see Dewey as a philosopher who already took a cultural turn in education long before this move became widespread in the second half of the twentieth century in new contexts of cultural diversity, multiculturalism, and questions of cultural identity. His perspectives on culture are indispensable for understanding his broader philosophy of experience and the relation of experience and education.

Education, Communication, and Democracy—The Communicative Turn

In the preceding parts of this volume, we have seen that educational growth, for Dewey, consists of the continual reorganization or reconstruction of experience. “The criterion of the value of school education is the extent in which it creates a desire for continued growth and supplies means for making the desire effective in fact” (MW 9: 58). Growth depends on our ability to form habits. Habits endow experience with continuity and anchor it within the body (see Kestenbaum 1977; Alexander 1987; Garrison 1998). Their range extends from relatively passive “habituations” to “active habits” (see MW 9: 46ff.). “Habituations” are accommodations to usual contexts of living that are largely taken for granted in everyday practices and seldom rise to the level of reflection. “Active habits” are dynamic and flexible forces of intentional control—for example, powers of practical manipulation, intellectual grasp, and constructive organization—that we rely on in our attempts to adjust the environment to our needs. Although we can never completely transcend the habitual contexts of our experience, education as a process of continual growth depends on our ability to use habits as flexible resources in specific and changing situations and thereby partly to transform them in accord with the demands of the situation. This implies the extension or reorganization of old habits as well as the creation of new ones.

Criticism and Concerns—Reconstructing Dewey for Our Times

In many respects, Dewey’s groundbreaking introduction of a cultural, constructive, and communicative approach to democracy and education has started a turn that has yet to be fully completed. Hence, these ideas can still provide valuable orientations and guidance. However, especially with a philosopher like Dewey, who emphasized so much the necessary cultural, historical, and social contexts of education, we should at the same time take substantial steps to combine Deweyan pragmatism with more recent theoretical developments that respond to changes in our life and times. If we recall the expositions given in the three preceding parts of our book, we can say that the necessary reconstruction should connect productively as well as critically with the cultural, constructive, and communicative turns that Dewey’s philosophy of education has already taken. All three aspects have been of fundamental importance for philosophy, the humanities, the social sciences, and education in the twentieth century and they are still relevant today. Even if the general tendency in these disciplines today is to regard great theories with some skepticism and give them an ironic twist, they still remain important and valuable. This particularly applies to Dewey. He did not develop philosophical positions that end up in mere speculation or serve merely as another metanarrative, because he always connected his observations and reflections with experiences in the dynamic and diversified contexts of life.

Education as Reconstruction of Experience—The Constructive Turn

Dewey believes that we need “a theory of experience in order that education may be intelligently conducted upon the basis of experience” (LW 13: 17). Let us start by contrasting Dewey’s theory of experience with the ancient account of Plato and Aristotle and the modern account of the British Empiricists. The classical account was close to what modern psychologist call learning by trial and error as opposed to learning from ideas. Over time, rules exhibited as habits of action build up that yields a general idea of objects, relations, and situations. The skill development of artisans is the best exemplar of learning from experience. Because such practical learning was contingent and uncertain, the ancients considered it deficient compared to pure conceptual contemplation. The modern philosophy of experience assumed that we passively experienced discrete sense data that requires us to wire them together like sausages using psychological laws of association. Such a view naturally led to the radical skepticism of David Hume whose work awoke Kant from his dogmatic slumbers and led to the birth of rationalistic, subjective idealism with its transcendental, a priori categories subsisting dualistically apart from experience.

Reconstruction of Philosophy and Inquiry into Human Affairs —Deweyan Pragmatism in Dialogue with the Postmodern Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman

In this chapter, we want to open up a dialogue between Deweyan pragmatism and the postmodern sociology of Zygmunt Bauman (born 1925). Writing from the perspective of the Cologne program of interactive constructivism,1 we think that Bauman can be a promising dialogue partner not only for present-day Deweyan pragmatism but also generally for theories of culture and society in our time.2 We suggest that cultural and social theories are always constructions out of the contexts of their time. In accord with Deweyan pragmatism, we see the continual need of reconstruction and the need of taking into account the open-endedness of cultural and social developments in which we are involved. Bauman’s sociological descriptions and analyses of human affairs in modernity and postmodernity can be taken as a challenge and occasion for reconstructing pragmatic and constructive philosophy today. We proceed in several steps and discuss among other things both author’s contributions to themes like emancipation, individualism and capitalism, freedom and culture, work and labor, democracy, and education.

Concluding Conversation: The Future of Democratic Diversity

In the following conversation, the eight authors of this book discuss selected issues, challenges, and risks of democracy and diversity in our time and the relevance of Deweyan pragmatism as an intellectual resource for reconstruction of philosophical methods; personal habits; traditional cultures; institutions of government and civil society; and public policies at local, national, and international levels. They further clarify their position by responding to six general questions.