Dissertation Abstract

John Dewey's "Lectures in the Theory of Logic"

delivered at the University of Chicago,

fall and winter quarters (1899-1900),

edited, with an introduction. (Volumes I and II)

by

Steven Alan Nofsinger

Degree: Ph.D.

Year: 1989

Pages: 00437

Institution: Michigan State University; 0128

Source: DAI, 51, no. 02A (1989): p. 527

Nine years after Dewey's appointment to the University of Chicago Studies in Logical Theory was published. Dewey contributed the first four essays in a collection numbering eleven in all. The point of view contained in this volume came to make up what William James dubbed the "Chicago School."

Unfortunately, Dewey's view of logical theory is presented almost entirely through a critique of the philosopher Lotze. C. S. Peirce, among others, strongly objected to Dewey's chosen method of exposition. And for us today, the method is too oblique to convey the essentials of a radical reinterpretation of inquiry.

But Dewey's positive program for the reconstruction of logical theory, was explored and developed in seminars on logical theory at the University of Chicago prior to the release of the Studies. If we refer to these lectures we can better understand his standpoint.

Dewey's Lectures on the Theory of Logic delivered at the University of Chicago during the Fall and Winter Quarters of 1899-1900 are reproduced here for the first time. They provide us with an insight into his positive remarks concerning the reconstruction of logical theory.

In the Editor's Introduction it is argued that these lectures contain Dewey's "core vision" for the reconstruction of inquiry, and hence for logical theory as the critique of inquiry. It tries to show that Dewey is adopting the view that experience creates the very norm or standard under which its articulation is to be certified, and that this norm is the ideal of the continuity of experience.

Descriptor: PHILOSOPHY

Accession No: AAI9018729

Provider: OCLC

Database: Dissertations