John Dewey Quotes

It is a familiar and significant saying that a problem well-put is half-solved.

If a mans actions are not guided by thoughtful conclusions, then they are guided by inconsiderate impulse, unbalanced appetite, caprice, or the circumstances of the moment. To cultivate unhindered, reflective external activity is to foster enslavement, for it leaves the person at the mercy of appetite, sense and circumstance

Forty years spent in wandering in a wilderness like that of the present is not a sad fate — unless one attempts to make himself believe that the wilderness is after all itself the promised land

Freedom of thought and of expression are not mere rights to be claimed. They have their roots deep in the existence of individuals as developing careers in time. Their denial and abrogation is an abdication of individuality and a virtual rejection of time as opportunity.

It may be remarked incidentally that the recognition of the relational character of scientific objects completely eliminates an old metaphysical issue. One of the outstanding problems created by the rise of modern science was due to the fact that scientific definitions and descriptions are framed in terms of which qualities play no part. Qualities were wholly superfluous. As long as the idea persisted (an inheritance from Greek metaphysical science) that the business of knowledge is to penetrate into the inner being of objects, the existence of qualities like colors, sounds, etc., was embarrassing. The usual way of dealing with them is to declare that they are merely subjective, existing only in the consciousness of individual knowers. Given the old idea that the purpose of knowledge (represented at its best in science) is to penetrate into the heart of reality and reveal its "true" nature, the conclusion was a logical one. ...The discovery of the nonscientific because of the empirically unverifiable and unnecessary character of absolute space, absolute motion, and absolute time gave the final coup de grâce to the traditional idea that solidity, mass, size, etc., are inherent possessions of ultimate individuals.

"Thinking is not a case of spontaneous combustion; it does not occur just on "general principles.

As formal teaching and training grow in extent, there is the danger of creating an undesirable split between the experience gained in more direct associations and what is acquired in school. This danger was never greater than at the present time, on account of the rapid growth in the last few centuries of knowledge and technical modes of skill.

On the other hand, if an experience arouses curiosity, strengthens initiative, and sets up desires and purposes that are sufficiently intense to carry a person over dead places in the future, continuity works in a very different way. Every experience is a moving force.

Just as the senses require sensible objects to stimulate them, so our powers of observation, recollection, and imagination do not work spontaneously, but are set in motion by the demands set up by current social occupations. The main texture of disposition is formed, independently of schooling, by such influences. What conscious, deliberate teaching can do is at most to free the capacities thus formed for fuller exercise, to purge them of some of their grossness, and to furnish objects which make their activity more productive of meaning.

New inventions, new machines, new methods of transportation and intercourse are making over the whole scene of action year by year. It is an absolute impossibility to educate the child for any fixed station in life.

Durup düşünmek” olarak tabir ettiğimiz davranış aslında çok doğru bir psikolojik yöntemdir. Çünkü düşünmek aynı zamanda, güdünün ilk ortaya çıktığı şeklinin, bu güdünün daha geniş kapsamlı ve daha tutarlı bir faaliyet planı oluşturmak için bulunması muhtemel diğer faaliyete geçme eğilimleri ile ilişki kurmasından önce durdurulması demektir. Bu diğer faaliyete geçme eğilimlerinin bazıları, nesnel koşulları gözlemlemek için gözün, kulağın ve elin kullanılmasına yol açar; bazıları da geçmişte olan şeylerin hatrlanması ile sonuçlanır. Bu nedenle, düşünme, bir yandan gözlem ve hatıranın bütünleştirilmesi ile, ki bu bütünleşme düşünmenin kalbidir, güdünün içten denetimini sağlarken, diğer yandan da alelacele yapılacak bir hareketin geciktirilmesi etkisini yapar.

A culture that permits science to destroy traditional values but which distrusts its power to create new ones is a culture which is destroying itself.

It is mere ignorance that leads then to the supposition that connection of art and esthetic perception with experience signifies a lowering of their significance and dignity.

Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.

Strait-jacket and chain-gang procedures had to be done away with if there was to a chance for growth of individuals in the intellectual springs of freedom without which there is no assurance of genuine and continued normal growth.