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Know Your Enemy
Conservatives of America! Meet your enemy, John Dewey, and find out what he’s all about.
That’s just a short video from the Great Texts in Philosophy playlist on my YouTube channel, and the first of a series now airing on the The Philosophers in Their Own Words playlist.
Truth be told, I don’t actually think Dewey is the enemy. I think he’s an interesting philosopher who’s not always right. But I enjoy reading him when I can, and I agree with him on some things. You can keep an eye out in this series for reasons why your so-called enemy is not exactly a caricature of an arch-leftist–maybe even an ally from time to time. Here are some pointers on what he says:
- Education is how a society renews its life from one generation to the next. Education involves initiating the young’uns in the life of their society. In a democratic society, that means (among other things) equal participation in education.
- Education should involve a good bit of scientific training. But it should also involve some old ideas and old books as introductions to and training in the moral and intellectual life of the society’s past.
- Education should be active–not one where students passively absorb information, but one where young humans learn to use and channel their energy into creative and useful action. A good education doesn’t need Ritalin. (I think the failure of schools in the USA these days to harness the interests and energies of students would leave Dewey appalled and deeply upset.)
Here’s the first video from the Own Words playlist:
And here’s the second one: The video isn’t loading properly, but here’s the URL.
Expect one more each Monday for the next four weeks.
Published in Education
The socially oriented schools we do have do. I’m not convinced they got that from Dewey, instead of by ignoring one facet of a multifaceted philosophy.
But I’d have to review chapter 22 carefully if I wanted to be sure one way or the other. Also his criticism of Plato.
I’ve always viewed the Sputnik response as part of the destructive process, in part because it nationalized our educational system. It wasn’t without its good points, but the overall effect, both short- and long- term, was destructive.
Over at the first video, a YouTuber said this:
I typed up this reply:
But then I added:
Ah. Here we are. I thought that would be this week.
But what if I don’t want to do the job I’m best suited for. Congress doesn’t do the job of Congress, journalists don’t do the job of journalism. Which is not to say that congressmen are suited to be congressmen, or that journalists are suited to be journalists. But why should I have to be constrained in what I do. Especially, why should I stick to work that others think I’m suited for and are willing to pay me to do?
Yes, that’s a sarcastic commentary on things I’ve heard people say in the news, without ever being challenged on them.
Now back to finish watching the video.
Except for those all important moments when Life is a math problem.
But the Left feels that math is too hard also. As well as being “too white guy.” (Even though the Egyptians and Persians contributed greatly to the foundations of math.)
Can you explain nominalism? (Like how you’d define it, for instance.)
I doubt I have heard the term before.
In the usual sense in philosophy (or at least a usual sense) it means the idea that universals don’t exist.
And what are universals? Universals are shared qualities or shared properties. E.g., a book on my shelf is red. My pen is red. They both have redness. Redness is a property shared by two different objects; it’s a real thing existing in two different places. (And it’s not made of matter.)
Yes. For my purposes, nominalism would tell me that an economy (or a market) is made up entirely of individual agents. I think of it as Robinson Crusoe and Friday trading fish and coconuts expanded to very large numbers of individuals who interact the same way that Crusoe and Friday interact. But, is that all an economy is? If I hold a realist position, then a market, an economy, a community, has some existence that makes it different than just the sum of its individual members. Perhaps then a market takes on more than just the narrow self-interest of the individual agents making trades?
You know, I think I might sooner connect that to reductionism in metaphysics than to universals. I’m sure there are connections, but I do think of those as separate topics in metaphysics.
(You know, this comment probably doesn’t matter.)
I finally found the quote I was looking for.
In Peirce’s realism, general ideas–like everything else in Peirce–evolve toward a final fixed state that is truth.
Ah!
Interesting.
I’m not sure if this is a confusion over “general”–does it mean wholes and groups rather than parts and members, or does it mean universal properties?
Maybe it can mean both–i.e., what I think of as “reductionism” overlaps with what I think of as “nominalism.”
Anyway, . . . that looks like a very promising critique of Dewey you got that.
I think Walker Percy said something about it being a miracle that any two people can communicate at all. To say nothing about agreeing on terminology.
Amen.
Just out of curiosity, Augie, do mind-independent universals “exist”? I should hope you will say “no,” but if you say “yes” then my question would be – what do you mean by the word “exist”?
By “exist” I mean “exist.”
Mind-independent universals exist.
They’ve always been the second-best reason to reject materialism.
Peirce says nothing is “mind-independent” because everything is mind. “…what we call matter is not completely dead, but is merely mind hidebound with habits.” —CS Peirce
“Don’t think that Peirce is saying that that wall is imaginary, if you put your head down and run as hard as you can into that wall, you will find out that it is real. Just as Peirce says.” —my Philosophy professor
so what is the first-best reason?
Consciousness.
Ok, that one’s too egregious to ignore any longer. I assert that qualia are not real. That’s just as valid as your assertion that they are. Over to you.
Well, that certainly is nice and circular. Also meaningless. Care to elaborate?
Since your version of “exist” remains undefined, I suppose it would be equally true to say they exist, or they do not exist. I’m tempted to ask for an example, but you know, it’s you, so there would be no point. You previously gave the example of red or redness. Does vermillion fall within the “universal” of red? Ruby? Carmine? Cerise? Can that be determined in any way that is mind-independent?
My assertion, however, that I am indeed perceiving red just now is more true than your assertion that I am not.
But do you understand that I was talking about universals in that bit you quoted? If “red” makes you think of qualia, just switch it out for “tendency to reflect light at such-and-such-a-wavelength” or even “weighing more than a quarter-ounce.”
No, but here’s an online dictionary if you need it.
Start with something simpler that doesn’t tempt us to switch from the topic of universals to the topic of qualia.
Does your left shoe have the property of weighing more than an ounce?
Be careful. The subtle art of philosophy is to substitute the map for the territory; it’s the trap. If you want to say “red” means some specific range of wavelengths, I’m all for that. But writ larger, that identification of a perception with a repeatable measurement will rule out many things you might want to argue for.
You started that when you chose a quality (qualium?) as an example of a universal.
A color is the easiest example of a property. Usually, it doesn’t cause a problem. If it does, you solve the problem by replacing “red” with “tendency to reflect light in a certain range of wavelengths” or something.
And I didn’t choose a qualia as an example of a universal. I chose a color, and you assumed I meant a qualia.
I’m not identifying a perception with a repeatable measurement. That’s silly. A perception is of a thing that can be repeatedly measured, but that’s not the same thing.
Ok, good. That’s real, the property of reflecting some specific light.
But it is made of matter. The light is energy, the reflector is matter, all of it is material. I think you’re trying to have it both ways.
Gaslighting. You said:
The light, the reflector–sure, you can call that material.
But I wasn’t talking about them. I was talking about the properties. The property is also real.
I never gaslight.
Yes, I said that.
That doesn’t identity a perception with a repeatable measurement. Where are you getting the idea that it does?