Dewey's Theory Of Philosophy: John Dewey And Reconstructing Philosophy

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Reconstructing philosophy is an area of study that has found much interest in the scholars and anybody attempting to understand or explain the breaking traditional structures of civilization. The attempt is to provide a specific solution to the philosophical problems that have faced Man since antiquity. John Dewey is one of the scholars who is considered as the father of functional psychology and also associated with pragmatism school of thought. Reconstruction philosophy is one of his major works. He suggested that his philosophy was more of instrumental rather than being pragmatic. He had the problem with the meaning of truth. Dewey posed questions on rationalism. He taught that reality was absolute thus no truth that can be relevant. He …show more content…

Augustine among other scholars. According to him when one tries to explain to how the societies have been transformed, one must appraise the significant results of science, governments, and industries.
Dewey's question on how the new way of thinking performs the function of philosophy. Dewey was faced with a problem in explaining whether new way thinking is a relevant or an irrelevant business of philosophy. The reason is beyond experience. The man has not moved to his modern state due to his experience only but also by the venture of reasoning. Man's modern mind and new aspiration different from those of middle ages have continuously helped man to develop and cope up with the dynamics of the world. In his work, he demonstrates the connection between the philosophical theories with a concrete action. With much effort, he shows how truth can only be absolute. The man has now embraced the application of common sense and knowledge at the expense of initial application of traditional emotionalized beliefs. According to him, philosophy is the best tool for rearranging the human experiences so that people may become adapted to the new and changing human needs, desires as well as environmental conditions. To …show more content…

Dewey was much impressed by the successes in the application of practical sciences. The application of practical sciences such as physics has been used in solving the actual human problems. Also in predicting, explaining as well as controlling the environment in which man lives in. For him, this was a considerable achievement since the evolution of man. Man can only learn his environment by use of his experience. These experiences can either be positive or negative. The experience is used to maintain and improve him with the new insight gained. Human beings aspiration to move from medieval, backdated, society to modern or civilized societies has received a significant boost from both the western influence and scientific discoveries. Western such reading and writing culture, ways of collecting and analyzing data and use of empirical knowledge to test the data. Scientific discoveries which have helped man's desire in getting to modern industrialized society are such as new ways of preserving life, use of machines in industries to improve the quality and quantity of production. These discoveries are limited to the economic sector only. The tremendous change has significantly led to the changes in man's lifestyle. However,

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