John Dewey (1859-1952) is widely regarded as the father of progressive education and one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. The thirty-seven volumes of his Collected Works comprise books and essays on education, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, logic, religion, and much more. On the occasion of his ninetieth birthday the New York Times hailed him as "America's Philosopher."
Phillip Deen is a visiting lecturer at Wellesley College and the author of essays published in Contemporary Pragmatism and Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.
"[T]he appearance of Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy should be considered a major event. It is a provocative interpretation of philosophical history in its own right, compliments and expands our understanding of Dewey's cultural naturalism, and can speak to practically any manner of reader interested in social theory, political theory, and anthropology."--Loren Goldman, Theory Event "John Dewey's new publication marks a watershed and an unexpected moment for American philosophy. Who could have anticipated that Dewey (1859-1952) would publish another book now, more than a few years into the 21st century? Yet here it is, a volume just as penetrating and wise as Dewey's Experience and Nature (1925), and one which in many ways is a kind of sequel to it."--C. A. Hobbs, CHOICE OR "Deen has done a masterful job at organizing these archival manuscripts and in providing a substantial Introduction, preceded by Hickman's foreword and followed by a well done Index. This "new" book is a kind of sequel to Experience and Nature, with the bonus of added clarity. It is (even as incomplete) a robust and dialectically engaged non-scientistic naturalism according to which there is a culture/nature unity articulated in dialectical tension with the history of Western philosophy. It is, in short, a cultural naturalism."--Charles A. Hobbs, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society: A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy "Deen's edition of Dewey's book should be a welcome addition to the bookshelves of Dewey scholars. . . . [T]here are significant new passages in Part One; Part Two, on crafting a genuinely modern, distinctively American philosophy, is well worth one's careful and close attention."-- Kevin S. Decker, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy "In a wonderful job of editing, Phillip Deen worked with [Dewey's unfinished] manuscript . . . Deen gives an excellent Introduction."--Hoyt Edge, Essays Philos "The book is not only a deconstruction of philosophical history. Dewey offered a positive solution to these troubles of philosophy, and it makes his argument as important today as it was in the mid-Twentieth Century."--Michael Brady, Philosophy Now OR "Despite its delayed publication, Dewey's rediscovered book Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy still challenges contemporary philosophy. In it he challenges philosophers to be sharply critical of their historical progress; he challenges philosophers to recognize the success of the methods of science and to be pragmatic; and he challenges us to use this method to create a truly modern philosophy."--Michael Brady, Philosophy Now "Imagine how exciting it would be to discover an unpublished and presumed lost text of Aristotle's. The discovery that Dewey's late book, Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy, was not irretrievably lost (as had been believed) is like that. This is a major work by a great philosopher, and Phillip Deen has done philosophy a great service by editing and introducing it."--Hilary Putnam, John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities Emeritus at Harvard University"I offer gratitude to Philip Deen for unearthing this manuscript, editorially rendering its many parts into a coherent whole, and writing a thorough and helpful introduction to its sprawling contents. It will take several generations of forthcoming Dewey scholarship to knit this very late work (1940s) back into the vast corpus of Dewey's published writings. One upshot is clear: the interpretive lens through which to read Dewey is what he holds herein, namely, that the lathe for understanding the history of philosophy is that of a 'cultural naturalism.' Only by so doing, contends John Dewey, will we be able to overcome the detritus of our philosophical past and avoid its 'eulogistic predicates.' Then we can sort out and revivify its still rich deposits and reconstruct philosophy as a diagnosis of the 'precarious and stable generic traits' that are always present in the affairs of human living. For students of John Dewey's thought, there is new work to be done."--John J. McDermott, University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Texas AM University
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