Talk:John Dewey/to do

List the priority tasks needed to improve this article.

Article needs to discuss Dewey's crucial leadership role in the Secular Humanist movement - particularly his involvement with Humanist Manifest Number One.--DrWSO 00:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I know this is an old comment, but frankly, I can't imagine anything that this article needs less than to spend time trying to position Dewey as a "secular humanist." A humanist, yes,-- but "secular humanist" is one of those terms our age specializes in; it pretends to be a neutral judgement, but in fact is freighted with a rather tedious partisanship. (Despite its peculiar relationship to a particular group, it is now more commonly used as an epithet by those who oppose it.) I, frankly, think it should be used with great care as a descriptor in any NPOV argument. (The term humanist does not need an adjective; were the adjective necessary, then one would expect to hear, as commonly, the term "religious humanist"? That this second term does not exist in any sort of common usage suggests the degree to which this term (secular humanist) has gotten away from those who created it and become something else altogether. The bottom line is it is not a term that, so far as I know, Dewey ever used to describe himself. Although, humanist (without adjective) is a term he seems to have been comfortable with. Mddietz (talk) 20:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In searching the Dewey data base for references to "secular humanism" I found the following in the editorial matter (the term is NOT used by Dewey himself).

In the seventies and eighties Dewey has been accused of fathering "secular humanism" and thus eroding religious values. The critics are no doubt correct in identifying the schools as agents of social change and in attributing to Dewey the view that such a function is appropriate for the schools. It is a pity that educators have sometimes retreated in the face of militant vigilantes who oppose the schools' efforts to engage in moral education or to clarify and transform values, for this examination is a vital part of any education relevant to contemporary problems. Dewey argues that values are not absolute or fixed but need to be reappraised and evaluated in the context of contemporary society through the use of critical intelligence. [Page lw.5.xiv - xv]

And a little later the following:

Many of Dewey's foes blame the growth of secular humanism in later years on his influence. Dewey is clearly a humanist, but in what sense? ... Dewey's own humanism is like Bacon's, for it attempts to integrate science and to use it in the service of mankind. Dewey concludes with a statement of what humanism means to him: "Humanism . . . is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good." Dewey's definition is especially interesting in view of the recent development of the ecological movement. This new romanticism, in the name of humanism, often condemns science and technology, seeks to preserve nature and to return to it as the idyllic womb and standard of all value. In one sense it is not unlike the literary humanism of More and Babbitt that Dewey was objecting to. [Page lw.5.XXX - xxxi; the comments in both these excerpts come from Paul Kurtz]

Technopat, not sure if this fits anywhere in here (as a short sentence or two, at most), but Dewey's "humanism" is interesting and, I think, quite relevant. Much of Dewey interpretation is a tightrope walk, with two extremes trying to pull one toward opposing extremes. Mddietz (talk) 19:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings Mddietz. Agree with your comments. Have you visited Secular humanism? Just had a quick peep & keeping well away from it - have enough trouble getting this article encyclopedic... and keeping it so once folks get back from their summer holidays. Regards, --Technopat (talk) 10:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Technopat: yes, I had looked at the secular humanism page (and made some changes to what I originally wrote after looking there). Rather a lot of people want to claim (or villify) Dewey, which is part of what has made this article such an interesting mess. Do you think that the Dewey quotation: "Humanism ... servants of human good" might make a nice call out in the social and plitical activism section? Mddietz (talk) 16:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2. Change the secondary quote from Feenberg in the "democracy" section to a primary quote, or remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.164.227.38 (talk) 08:00, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

3. Put the 'On humanism' section next to the 'Religion' section. HuPi (talk) 23:49, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[I am not sure how to navigate these talk pages, and so I apologize for butting in here with this note - please feel free to move or otherwise do with this as is appropriate. But I noticed that a nice chunk of this article (specifically from the "Professionalization of teaching as a social service" to "A teacher's disposition", and possibly more) is taken from an article by Kandan Talebi, published in 2015, which can be found here: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED564712.pdf. The citations give it away. I'm not sure how this article should be referenced or cited in this article, but I wanted to bring this to the attention of somebody is versed in this sort of thing. Thank you!]