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“The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology”
John Dewey's first major contribution to society was "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology", an article that established functionalism, which is a philosophy in which thought and other types of mental states depend on its function and the role it has. Basically, something like pain is a reaction to an injury, to make the body think that something has harmed it, and the body does not like pain. This article caused a paradigm in thinking, and functionalism became more mainstream in education. -
"Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education"
In this article John Dewey describes the importance and relationship between the older members of a society and the younger members of a society. He describes that in order for a society to thrive, the older members of a society must pass down their beliefs, customs, and ideas to the younger members of the society while the younger members of society must proliferate and adopt the beliefs, customs, and ideas of the older members. This article was adopted into early United States education. -
Human Nature and Conduct
This article consist of four main points: The good of activity: “morality is action that causes growth in meaning” (Dewey, 1922).
Morals are human: “Morals use knowledge to condition human action and moral uses of knowledge, but are not determined by it.” (Dewey, 1922).
What is freedom?: He describes freedom as having a choice, being able to change plans and ideas, and having desire and emotions play a role in decisions.
Morality is social: Our morality is directly influenced by society. -
Experience and Nature
In this article, Dewey stressed the importance of empirical naturalism, being the only way modern science can be realized. Empirical naturalism is relying on experience and observation alone to make a conclusion. [Youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMjA0VxoTCY&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.preposterousuniverse.com%2F&feature=emb_ -
Works Cited
John Dewey. "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology", Psychological Review 3, (1896) Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2022, September 5). functionalism. Encyclopedia Britannica. Democracy and Education. (2022, December 17). In Wikipedia. Dewey, John. Human Nature and Conduct. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1922. Dewey J. (19581929). Experience and nature. Open Court Pub.