2012年2月27日 星期一

The Education of John Dewey

During John Dewey's lifetime (1859-1952), one public opinion poll after another revealed that he was esteemed to be one of the ten most important thinkers in American history. His body of thought, conventionally identified by the shorthand word "Pragmatism," has been the distinctive American philosophy of the last fifty years. His work on education is famous worldwide and is still influential today, anticipating as it did the ascendance in contemporary American pedagogy of multiculturalism and independent thinking. His University of Chicago Laboratory School (founded in 1896) thrives still and is a model for schools worldwide, especially in emerging democracies. But how was this lifetime of thought enmeshed in Dewey's emotional experience, in his joys and sorrows as son and brother, husband and father, and in his political activism and spirituality? Acclaimed biographer Jay Martin recaptures the unity of Dewey's life and work, tracing important themes through the philosopher's childhood years, family history, religious experience, and influential friendships.

Based on original sources, notably the vast collection of unpublished papers in the Center for Dewey Studies, this book tells the full story, for the first time, of the life and times of the eminent American philosopher, pragmatist, education reformer, and man of letters. In particular, The Education of John Dewey highlights the importance of the women in Dewey's life, especially his mother, wife, and daughters, but also others, including the reformer Jane Addams and the novelist Anzia Yezierska. A fitting tribute to a master thinker, Martin has rendered a tour de force portrait of a philosopher and social activist in full, seamlessly reintegrating Dewey's thought into both his personal life and the broader historical themes of his time.



From Booklist

Superseding The Life and Mind of John Dewey by George Dykhuizen (1974), due to the opening since then of Dewey's papers, Martin's biography will strike chords with admirers of the liberal reformer whose name is synonymous with progressive education. Tracing Dewey's 90-plus years, Martin aims for a sense of Dewey's life as a lived experiment, an exercise in pragmatism as it were, the label affixed to Dewey's philosophy. Although he was serious and conventional in his personal life, intellectually Dewey traveled far from his pietistic upbringing in the 1860s, traversing Hegelian idealism en route to his arrival to the view that the practical must trump the theoretical. Education is, of course, where he applied his ideas, most famously at his University of Chicago Laboratory School. Bowing to readability, Martin emphasizes Dewey's activities as a public expositor over scholarly mulling of his philosophical works, even as he records Dewey's life with a beloved first wife, succeeded by a second whom his children despised. This will be the new standard biography of the great reformer's life. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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余英時先生說明胡適與 Roberta (Robby) Lowitz (後來為杜威夫人/師母 胡適晚年說 Robby是富家女 將杜威照顧得很好......)的情緣

不過 胡適日记全集, 第 1 卷 1906-1914 頁77-92
我們看杜威的傳記中怎說她倆的關係
The Education of John Dewey byJay Martin, Columbia University Press (February 15, 2003)
這本書舉了胡適一封信"妳終於長大了......" 英文用 恭維 (flirtation)說胡適的口氣.....

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