Introduction: John Dewey on Philosophy and Childhood
Rent from DeepDyve- Introduction:John Dewey on Philosophy and Childhood
John Dewey was not a philosopher of education in the now-traditional sense of a doctor of philosophy who examines educational ends, means, and controversies through the disciplinary lenses of epistemology, ethics, and political theory, or of agenda-driven schools such as existentialism, feminism, and critical theory. Rather, Dewey was both an educator and a philosopher, and he saw in each discipline reconstructive possibilities for the other, famously characterizing "philosophy . . . as the general theory of education" (1985, p. 338). Dewey wanted each discipline to overcome its tendency to alienate knowledge and theory from experience and reconstruct itself as an enterprise aimed at personal and collective well-being.
That disciplinary ethos is articulated in this issue of Education and Culture by authors who, like Dewey, often work at the intersection of philosophy and education and who have considered the significance of children and childhood for both disciplines.1 Two interrelated, paradigmatic figures emerge from these essays, neither of which can be found directly in Dewey's writing, but neither of which, perhaps, would be articulated so widely or so compellingly today without him: the Child as Philosopher and the Philosopher as Child.
The Philosopher as Child
Proponents of the figure of the Philosopher as Child see the practice of philosophy, ideally, as involving a turn toward childhood. They identify certain characteristics of childhood, such as impulsiveness, somatic awareness, and cultural naïveté, as important correctives to the personal and cultural habits of adulthood that impede growth as they become hardened and nonadaptive—especially as these habits have been manipulated by commercial, religious, and political forces.2 Thus, Eric Anthamatten observes in his essay that "Dewey lean[s] toward the child as the source and reminder to teachers, adults, and philosophy itself that the great truth [End Page 1] that must be pursued begins and ends with the 'live creature,' 'fully present'"; and David Kennedy cites Dewey, telling us that "there is in the unformed activities of childhood and youth the possibilities of a better life for the community as well as for individuals" (1922, p. 99).
The authors in this issue consistently lament the fact that spontaneity, corporeality, and naïveté have become associated almost exclusively with childhood, and habit, rationality, constraint and erudition with adulthood. This historical prejudice denigrates the former characteristics as obstacles to be overcome, while it reifies the latter in ways that make them seem absolute and irresistible. In his paper, Stefano Oliverio traces this mal-contrivance to Descartes's construction of the scientific mind as different in kind from the mind of the child. He asserts that "the two main phenomena at the dawning of modernity—the invention of childhood and the birth of science—can be read as two sides of the same coin." Descartes's emphasis on mechanization and quantification in scientific method and understanding disregarded science's organic, qualitative, and desire-driven aspects, which became associated with immature thinking, that is, with that of women and children. More importantly, his ideal of rational thought—the cogito detached from its own physical embodiment and environment—condemned sensuality and instinct as necessarily irrational.
One consequence of this mal-contrivance is that "modern" education has aimed to move children away from their perceived irrationality, though as Athamatten explains, "[i]t takes Herculean effort for the child [in school] to stifle the instinct to reach in order to know, to extract itself from the continuous and coordinated flow that is 'life.'" Another consequence is that adults, even professional thinkers—even philosophers—are not expected to beware of the ossification of habit which obstructs new values available in present experience and nurture our own childish intelligence that might have discerned them. Another consequence is that science—and all the disciplines modeled on science (including, somehow, philosophy) is constantly on guard against the kinds of irrationality just described, and this very guardedness, as Dewey recognized, alienates work from value, inquiry from experience, and the adults we have become from the children we still are. These consequences are mutually reinforcing. Thus, Dewey related the pseudo-problems that take up so much of the work of professional philosophers...
