Larry Hickman

_Presenting Dewey’s new view of philosophical inquiry_ This critical edition of _The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought _presents the results of John Dewey’s patient construction, throughout the previous sixteen years, of the radically new view of the methods and concerns of philosophical inquiry. It was a view that he continued to defend for the rest of his life. In the 1910 _The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy and Other Essays in Contemporary Thought_—the first collection of Dewey’s previously published, edited essays—John Dewey provided readers with an overview of the scope and direction of his philosophical vision in one volume. The order in which the eleven essays were presented was a reverse chronology, with more recently published essays appearing first. The collection of eleven essays offered a detailed portrait of Dewey’s proposed reconstruction of the traditional concepts of knowledge and truth. It furthermore elaborated on how his new logic and his proposal regarding knowledge and truth fit comfortably together, not only with each other but also with a pragmatically proper understanding of belief, reality, and experience. Because material in the _Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953_ was published chronologically, however, the essays published together in the 1910 Darwin book have appeared in seven different volumes in the _Collected Works_. This new, critical edition restores a classic collection of essays authored and edited by John Dewey as they originally appeared in the volume. The edition is presented with ancillary materials, including responses by Dewey’s critics and an introduction by Douglas Browning

This chapter presents an overview of John Dewey's life and work. John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, the third of four sons of Archibald Sprague Dewey and Lucina Artemesia Rich Dewey. In 1949, on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, Dewey was hailed by the New York Times as “America's Philosopher”. He died at his apartment on New York City on June 1, 1952. During his long and productive life, Dewey wrote widely about psychology, philosophy, art, and social issues. The chapter focuses on three general topics that are recurring themes in Dewey's work. The themes are: his concept of the purpose and process of human learning; his understanding of truth as a process, instead of something absolute and unchanging; and his faith in democracy as the only means of social organization that can foster individual fulfillment, and its implications for education and the arts.