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Running head: Dewey’s theory of real thinking

John Dewey’s theory of real thinking, logic or inquiry and its implications for education

Fred Harris

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Abstract

Dewey’s theory of real thinking involves the formation of concepts, the function of which is to

control actions and perceptions. In turn, actions and perceptions function to warrant and delimit

concepts. Both concepts and perceptions, mediated by action, thus function to mould each other

to the point where they correspond to each other. The educational implications of this

correspondence theory of real thinking are threefold, one of which specifies the problem and two

of which indicate possible solutions to the problem. Since many schools fail to teach students

real thinking, they are not educational institutions at all. To rectify this problem, it is necessary to

streamline and decentralize the curriculum. The rectification of this problem, however, faces

strong opposition because the interests of the class of employers and its ideologues stand

opposed to the teaching of real thinking to children in schools.

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INTRODUCTION

Lenin, the Russian revolutionary, once wrote that to understand properly Karl

Marx’s Capital, it was necessary to understand Hegel’s theory of logic. Whether that is true in

the case of Marxian theory is a moot point. In the case of a proper understanding of John

Dewey’s philosophy of education, there is no doubt that it is necessary to understand his theory

of logic, inquiry or his theory of real thinking.

Dewey stated, in his 1916 work Democracy and Education, that “there is not adequate

theoretical recognition that all which the school can or need do for pupils, so far as their minds

are concerned, is to develop their ability to think” (1916/1980). Seventeen years later, in the

much expanded edition of his work How We Think, he reiterated that education, on its

intellectual side, must teach children how to think. For Dewey, education was identical to

learning how to think. The question then naturally arises: What did Dewey mean by thinking?

Surprisingly, it seems that there are no major works that address the issue in an educational

context. The following paper begins to address that issue.

The paper is divided into three parts. The first, major part outlines a simple model of

Dewey’s theory of real, not formal thinking. The second part looks, briefly, at some educational

implications of that theory. The third part, all too briefly, seeks to provide at least one

explanation of why Dewey’s theory has not been implemented in schools.

DEWEY’S THEORY OF REAL THINKING, INQUIRY OR LOGIC

Dewey’s views on real thinking are intimately associated with his definition of inquiry in

relation to a problematic situation. Dewey defined inquiry thus: “Inquiry is the controlled or

directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in its

constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of the original situation into a

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unified whole” (1938, pp. 104-105). This definition implies that a problematic situation contains

two essential elements: an indeterminate or vague situation and a disconnected or fragmented

situation. The function of inquiry or logic is to clarify the subject or the nature of the problem

and to unify its diverse elements so that we will know what to do in a problematic situation.

Until we have determined the kind of situation we face, we cannot act intelligently—the goal of

all education.

An example drawn from the movie Monsters, Inc. (2000) will illustrate Dewey’s

principle that a problematic situation involves clarification of the nature of the problem or the

subject and the unification of its diverse elements. The movie is a story about parallel universes,

one that of the monsters, and the other that of human beings. The monsters need to enter the

human world and scare the children in order to generate electricity for their world from the

screams of the human children. There are two main characters, a monster and a human girl. The

monster calls the human girl Boo. Boo, a little while after lifting up and playing with the tail of

what we perceive and conceive as a monster but what she evidently perceives and conceives

quite differently, calls the monster “kitty”. If we expand this elliptical proposition into a

complete one, we have: “That is a kitty.”1

Boo senses something with one or more of her five sense organs. She may see something

that provides her with specific information about that something at a particular time and place.

Hence the information is always contingent information, not necessary information. She may

also feel something, hear something and even smell something. What she senses is represented

by That (the subject) in the proposition. The information she obtains from the use of her sense

organs constitutes discrete but potentially connected information. If she treats the information

provided by her senses as a functional unit that points to or suggests the general kind kitty (the

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predicate), then the information functions to point to something beyond itself, namely, a concept,

kitty. The information functions as evidence that has a control function to perform in the process

of inquiry, namely, to suggest and delimit the predicate.

This functional status of facts as pointing to and delimiting a specific predicate constitutes a

necessary but insufficient condition for the process of real thinking to occur. Not only must the

subject fulfill a functional role, but so too must the predicate. To understand this function, it is

necessary to distinguish propositions from judgments. Until now, the term proposition has been

used to designate That is a kitty. That is a kitty, however, if an immediate judgment, with no

mediating process, does not involve inquiry or real thinking. What is perceived by Boo—

represented by That—is immediately identified with what is conceived, kitty. That is a kitty.

Nothing more. Boo believes that to be the case immediately and is willing to act upon that belief

immediately—and suffer the consequences.

On the other hand, if a mediating process does occur, then That is a kitty becomes a

proposition. If Boo treats the information she obtains from her sense organs as maybe suggesting

a kitty, then not only the subject has a functional value but so too does the predicate. Perception

and conception are not conceived as identical. Boo in this instance considers her description of

the object perceived to be incomplete:

In fact, that which is pointed to is that dark object or that suddenly moving thing, or is

partially described, while the question shows that the descriptives dark or suddenly

moving do not describe sufficiently to determine its kind in connection with the problem

in hand. It is an incomplete description for this reason. But the instance does not show

that all identifying and demarcating description is lacking, for such lack would be

identical with complete absence of ground for further description. (Dewey, 1938, p. 242)

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The predicate, kitty, then becomes an ideal means for guiding perception. The question

now becomes: How does the conception function to guide perceptions?

A gap is posited between perceptions and the conception, with the perceptions being

considered insufficient for grounding the conception. Judgment is thus held in abeyance. This

suspension of judgment permits the concept itself as goal to function in inquiry and to form an

essential element in it—as a means of control of inquiry, or a logical function:

Demand for the solution of a perplexity is the steadying and guiding factor in the entire

process of reflection. Where there is no question of a problem to be solved or a difficulty

to be surmounted, the course of suggestions flows on at random.… But a question to be

answered, an ambiguity to be resolved, sets up and end and holds the current of ideas to a

definite channel. The nature of the problem fixes the end of thought, and the end controls

the process of thinking. (Dewey, 1933, pp. 14-15)

The goal aids in clarifying objects and events within the situation by guiding the person into

what to observe and suggest as inquiry proceeds. The goal of judgment, as an operative principle,

is an end-in-view that functions to select and organize data (objects and events) as well as actions

(Dewey, 1938).

The subject of the proposition, That, or the set of conjoint traits perceived, needs to be further

clarified. To clarify the subject, it is necessary for Boo to develop her conception of a kitty. She

can do so through what Dewey called the universal proposition, which is the hypothetical

proposition, or if-then proposition, such as: If a kitty, then it has a tail. Boo probably already had

noted that the That has a tail since she was playing with it. So she may use other if-then

propositions to draw out her conception of a kitty, such as: If I place a string in front of it, it will

play with it. If I pet it, it will purr. If I lift it up, it will not weigh very much.

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Unlike the perceptual determinations of the subject, these determinations of the predicate are

necessary determinations, not contingent ones. They are analytical determinations of her concept

of a kitty. Many consider this stage of real thinking to be equivalent to actual thinking. Dewey

categorically denied that this stage exhausts the process of real thinking. Undoubtedly, the

hypothetical stage of inquiry can be quite complex, depending on the nature and complexity of

the problematic situation. There is no basis, however, for reducing the thought process to this

stage.

In Boo’s problematic situation, the goal is to determine whether the kind of object perceived

by her is in fact a kitty. Through her conception of the kitty as an ideal means, she can direct her

actions in order to determine whether the expected traits of the ideal concept accord with actually

perceived traits. Boo’s concept of a kitty is not therefore a fixed concept, but has a functional or

control status with respect to action and perceptions.

If the initial perceptions and the subsequent ones continue to connect or cohere to each other,

then the gap between perceptions and conception is reduced and the subject or the That

perceived becomes more and more clarified and more and more unified. The subject That

becomes more and more clarified because of the explicit determination of its perceptual content.

It becomes more and more unified because all those perceptual traits point to one and only one

concept, kitty. They all have equal functional status with respect to the grounding of the concept

of a kitty.

If the perceptions and conception eventually form a relatively unified whole, each

corresponding to the other, then the proposition That is a kitty becomes a warranted judgment,

not an immediate one.

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The subject That becomes clarified through the explicit description of its traits that form a

coherent or unified whole by all pointing to, suggesting, or constituting evidence in a coherent

fashion for the predicate kitty. The same linguistic form, That is a kitty, then, can be designated

by different terms (an immediate judgment, a proposition or a warranted judgment), depending

on its function within the process of real thinking. If Boo makes a warranted judgment, she can

then act intelligently. It is a warranted judgment and not the truth because, no matter how close

perceptions approach the conception, they are always contingent whereas the determinations of

the concept or predicate are necessary determinations.

If, however, a warranted judgment has not been made because the initial perceptions and the

subsequent perceptions grounded in the concept do not cohere, then the predicate needs to be

modified. Boo, if she tries to lift the something but cannot, may modify her concept and

corresponding proposition to That is a dog. The whole process of conceptual development

through universal propositions, action and perception of the consequences then needs to be

repeated (see Figure 1).

Perceptions thus function to control predication or the formation of concepts, and

predication functions to control perception. Both control functions must exist if real thinking is

to occur. Once perceptions and conceptions have achieved a relatively secure degree of

coherence, the symbolic form can then substitute as a proxy for the actual spatio-temporal

experience. The predicate, kitty, can then become the subject of a proposition. Dewey, therefore,

had a correspondence theory of experience (Burke, 1994), with the ideal being perceptions and

conceptions corresponding to each other in a process of conjugate relations with each other.

Of course, one should not confuse the view that perceptions and conceptions are in

conjugate relations with each other with the view that concepts are irrelevant. Dewey contended

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that perceptions needed to be formulated symbolically in order to develop the power of

generality characteristic of concepts. For example, smoke, existentially or empirically, is

frequently connected to fire. The term “smoke”, however, can be related to many other

phenomena besides fire. The range of connections can be expanded, imaginatively, through the

substitution of the symbolic form for the existential form.

The importance of this freedom can be seen in the change from ordinary real thinking to

scientific real thinking. Ordinary real thinking generally is limited to the establishment of

connections between immediate perceptible means and ends or consequences for human beings.

This kind of thinking is limited to this relation since those who engage in it are more concerned

with the ends to which their activity and related material are but a means. As Dewey put it, their

thinking was limited to use-value or the uses and enjoyments of life (or to the immediate

negation of harmful phenomena that threatened those uses and enjoyments). Being tied to use-

value, the concern was with the qualitative perceptual nature of objects and events.

Although ordinary real thinking includes symbolic forms and is thus continuous with

scientific real thinking in certain respects, those who think in ordinary terms are mainly

concerned with the end product. The control functions of perception and conception are limited

to this concern. The connections between perceptions and conceptions are limited by being much

more directly connected to human need and to immediate perceptible qualities (such as the

sudden flash of lightning and the subsequent sound of thunder, or the brilliance of a moving river

and its roaring sound).

In the pre-scientific definition of metals, for example, the definition was limited by the

interaction between material objects and human beings. The modern scientific definition of

metals, by contrast, links perceptions with the concept of metals in terms of interactions between

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objects and objects and not between objects and human beings. The range of connections in

ordinary real thinking, despite the use of symbols, is thus limited when compared to scientific

real thinking (Dewey, 1938). There is, of course, an intermediate process of interaction between

objects and human beings in the process of scientific inquiry, but this process is not for the

purpose of achieving specific consequences but general ones. It is qualitatively different from the

pre-scientific interactions characteristic of ordinary real thinking because of its more indirect

nature. Without the use of symbolic concepts, especially scientific ones, perceptual experiences

would be impoverished. On the other hand, the symbolic form, without any connection to

perceptual experience, has no function to perform.

In connection with the last point, Dewey not only recognized the possible advantages of

the symbolic form in dealing with the natural world, but he also saw the possible disadvantages.

Smoke, as an existential thing, cannot be related to many things since its generation is restricted

to specific material conditions. The generation of the word “smoke,” although too subject to

specific material conditions (any term has a material or physical status), functionally can be

related to other things in diverse ways that the material phenomenon cannot. Symbolic relations,

however, may have no existential basis. They may be pure fantasy. This possible disjunction

requires a return of theory, no matter how abstract or scientific, to the empirical world again if it

is to prove itself to be more than science-fiction. At some point scientific theory must connect up

once again with ordinary real thinking and ordinary perception on earth. If it cannot connect to

concrete ends and ordinary perceptions, then it is incomplete and possibly invalid. For example,

Nowak (1980) has argued that science, whether natural or social (the latter exemplified in Karl

Marx’s Capital), entails a set of counterfactual propositions that, when concretized, connects up

to the empirical world eventually. For instance, in the case of Marxian theory, Marx, in volume

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one of Capital, implicitly formulated a set of counterfactual propositions that would ensure that

the value of a commodity, measured in abstract labour time units, equalled price, measured in

units of gold. These assumptions included such counterfactual propositions as perfect

competition, equal composition or structure of production within and between industries, equal

exports and imports, and equal demand and supply. It was only in volume three of Capital that

Marx, systematically, dropped these counterfactual propositions in order to concretize his theory

and have it approach the empirical (perceptual) world.

A theory that cannot connect up, eventually, to the empirical world is pure fantasy. The

symbolic form, therefore, also has its dangers that always must be kept in mind when

formulating and developing a theory.

It has, of course, been argued that there is no single scientific method and therefore there

is no pattern to scientific inquiry any more than there is a pattern to ordinary inquiry. Such a

view conflates the claim that there is one unique method of inquiry with the claim that there is a

pattern to various kinds of inquiries.

For Dewey, both ordinary and scientific inquiries arise in relation to a problematic

situation. Clarification and unification of the diverse elements of the situation are what is

required regardless of the kind of problematic situation. How they are clarified and unified

requires both perceptions and conceptions as control functions if a solution is to arise.

Another argument against a theory of real thinking is that the scientific method is purely

a figment of our imagination. Scientific discovery is replete with accidental discoveries. In the

case of magnetism, for instance, Oersted accidentally discovered a connection between

electricity and magnetism by accidentally observing that an electric current altered the direction

of movement of a compass needle. This so-called accident, however, was preceded by thirteen

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years of work by Oersted in attempting to establish a connection between electricity and

magnetism (Bernal, 1965). Moreover, several people were using electric currents and compass

needles; the probability of a connection between the two being drawn increased as a result.

Dewey (1933) also saw that the problem was one of abstraction, or elimination of the apparent or

immediate connections and focus on new connections.

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF DEWEY’S THEORY OF REAL THINKING

Turning to the educational implications of Dewey’s theory of real thinking, the first

implication is that many schools do not teach real thinking; they are not, therefore, educational

institutions at all. For example, the ecological psychologist E.S. Reed, in his work The Necessity

of Experience (1996), contends that schools typically denigrate perceptual experiences linked to

conceptual experiences in relation to the pursuit of concrete goals. Instead, they concentrate on

symbolic or secondary (conceptual) learning at the expense of perceptual experience, especially

in relation to use and enjoyment. As Reed readily admits, much of our learning must be derived

from conceptual experiences since we cannot experience everything perceptually. However, it is

a question of balance. Many schools provide a poorly balanced diet of the control functions of

perception and conception in relation to use and enjoyment.

Even when they do provide perceptual experiences, they frequently do so in order merely

to illustrate concepts. The perceptions have no control function to perform. For example, in

having children learn about the concept of magnetism, many elementary teachers have the

children use magnets with iron filings. The children are to infer from the resulting pattern that

there is a field of force that generates the pattern. That field of force is the concept of magnetism.

The pattern is the result of impersonal relations or interactions between the iron filings and

the magnet. The concept of magnetism is undoubtedly linked to perception, but there is no

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control function for the act of perception to perform. Perception functions in the lesson as a

means for inferring a concept—magnetism. It has no other functional status. In turn, the concept

of magnetism, once derived, has no control function to perform with respect to perception. The

whole exercise is meant to illustrate the concept of magnetism and not to develop the capacities

of children to use perception and conception as functional control mechanisms in conjugate

relation with each other.

It is therefore necessary to distinguish the use of perceptions as means for either inferring a

concept or illustrating a concept and their use in a problematic situation. Perceptions must thus

have an evidential function if they are to be included in the determination of a concept. As

evidential functions, data have a control (logical) function to perform. All observed facts, apart

from a problematic situation, have no evidential (control) function:

Apart from connection with some problem, they [data] are like materials of brick, stone

and wood that a man might gather together who is intending to build a house but before

he has made a plan for building it. He ranges and collects in the hope that some of the

materials, he does not yet know just what, will come in usefully later after he has made

his plan. Again, because of connection with a problem, actual or potential, propositions

about observed facts correspond strictly with conceptual subject-matter by means of

which they are ordered and interpreted. (Dewey, 1938, pp. 232-233)

An alternative lesson would link magnetism as a scientific concept to the need for

magnetism functionally. For example, magnetism became more important as a principle during

the age of the European navigations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Providing a

historical context would provide a basis for linking human need to the concept of magnetism. By

linking the concept to human need (and not just to history), the concept has a functional status as

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a means to a concrete end: navigating the oceans. The children’s observation of the pattern of

irons filings, their inference that a force produced that pattern, and the subsequent use of their

concept of that force as a means to achieve concrete ends would entail a combination of

scientific thinking, where the emphasis is on the interactions between things as interactions, and

ordinary real thinking, where the emphasis is on the interactions between things and human

beings.

The combination of ordinary real thinking and scientific real thinking was exemplified in

the Dewey laboratory school in Chicago, between 1896 and 1903. The way in which children

developed intellectually was to begin with ordinary real thinking or ordinary inquiry, connected

to the use of things; they gradually united this common-sense inquiry with scientific inquiry. In

determining kinds of stones, for example, the organization of the material was at first realized

purely according to immediate perceptual qualities and use-value (such as colour and size).

Later, that organizational principle was used in conjunction with a more scientific way of

organizing the material. For example, the classification of various rocks was based on both their

uses and their scientific nature: igneous rock was useful for the construction of chimneys (it

would not explode) whereas sedimentary rock, being flat, was useful for throwing (Edwards &

Mayhew, 1936/1966). The impersonal generative process, or origins, was still connected to use-

value, and so formed a transitional stage between ordinary real thinking and scientific real

thinking.

As children became adept at linking use-values to their origins, a more impersonal form

of inquiry became possible, scientific inquiry, so that children could understand their ordinary

experiences with greater meaning:

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Popular definitions select certain fairly obvious traits as keys to classification. Scientific

definitions select conditions of causation, production and generation as their

characteristic method. The traits used by the popular definition do not help us to

understand why an object has its common meanings and qualities; they simply state the

fact that it does have them. Causal and genetic definitions settle on the way an object is

constructed [the manner of its becoming or coming into being] as giving the key to its

belonging to a certain kind of objects. They explain why it has its class or common traits

on the basis of its manner of production. (Dewey, 1933, pp. 162-163)

The second implication of Dewey’s theory of real thinking is the need for the streamlining of

the curriculum. Only those elements that contribute to the establishment of problematic

situations should be included as guidelines for teachers. Often there is so much in the curriculum,

at least at the secondary level, that teachers must rush through it.

In the Manitoba geography curriculum in French immersion, for example, there are six units

to cover within the Canadian context: the geographical situation of Canada within the world and

the geography of its borders; minerals and water; climate, forests and agriculture; energy;

population; and economic development. The curriculum is supposedly designed to give an

overview of the geography of Canada. By covering so much within one semester, however, only

superficial treatment of problematic situations Canadians face in their relation to the natural

world can be expected. To be sure, there is unity despite diversity through treating the relation

between the earth and Canadians from various angles (physiographic, climatic, hydrographic,

vegetative and so forth). The students must, however, learn a mass of facts without any hope of

integrating them into a conceptual and perceptual unity in such a short period of time. Haste is

hardly conducive to developing real thinking among students.

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A better approach would be to concentrate on one theme (or related themes: climate is

intimately related to agriculture and forestry), and then use it as a proto-typical model to deal

with the other themes more cursorily (Dewey, 1933). Depth in study followed by an expansion

of studies based on a deeper appreciation of one model would facilitate transfer of learning by

using the comparative method typical of many sciences. Similarities and differences could be

brought out once several problematic situations had been experienced within a limited context.

Of course, the use of the senses would require frequent experimentation or at least excursions so

that the students could use their perceptions to control their conceptions and use their

conceptions to control their perceptions.

Which particular aspect of Canadian geography might serve as a proto-type for the study of

Canadian geography would be a function of the extent to which each theme approximates the

features of an ideal model of the essential characteristics of Canadian geography, both physically

and socially. For example, agriculture, depending on seasonal and yearly cyclical processes, is

evidently much more an immediate temporal theme than are minerals, which may require

millions and even billions of years to form. The question of which theme would serve as a proto-

type would also include the extent to which the social aspect can be brought out. Since most

Canadians live in the context of a capitalist economy, agriculture would not be an appropriate

model since capitalists have historically found it difficult to control many processes in

agriculture.

The third implication of Dewey’s theory of real thinking is the need for the decentralization

of the curriculum. It is at the level of the classroom that education occurs, if at all. The setting up

of problematic situations requires flexibility. Teachers need to make warranted judgments about

whether a learning objective should be introduced as a control function in a particular classroom

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setting. Teachers must use their concept of education as an ideal guide or means to determine

whether their perceptions of a child’s behaviour warrant the introduction of certain objectives at

a particular moment in time. At the same time, teachers need to determine whether their concept

of education needs modification on the basis of their perceptions of childhood behaviour.

Frequent communication between teachers can ensure the required modification in their concept

of education. Dewey certainly implicitly supported a decentralized curriculum:

The vice of externally imposed ends has deep roots. Teachers receive them from their

superior authorities; these authorities accept them from what is current in the community.

The teachers impose them upon children. As a first consequence, the intelligence of the

teacher is not free; it is confined to receiving the aims laid down from above. Too rarely is

the individual teacher so free from the dictation of authoritative supervisor, textbook on

methods, prescribed course of study, etc., that he can let his mind come to close quarters with

the pupil’s mind and the subject matter. This distrust of the teacher’s experience is then

reflected in lack of confidence in the response of the pupils. The latter receive their aims

through a double or treble external imposition, and are constantly confused by the conflict

between the aims which are natural to their own experience at the time and those in which

they are taught to acquiesce. (1916/1980, p. 116)

The unity of the curriculum could be achieved, as it was in the Dewey laboratory school,

through having the curriculum begin with ordinary real thinking, with its anthropomorphic point

of view (Harris, 2000). The curriculum could then move gradually toward scientific real

thinking.

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SOCIOLOGICAL ISSUES

Turning now to an explanation of why real thinking may not be realized in schools, it could

of course be the case that Dewey’s model of real thinking is invalid. However, it could also be

that it is valid but that there are certain social forces whose interests oppose the teaching of such

a form of thought. Michael Apple, a Marxist educational theoretician, does offer some pointers

in explaining why Dewey’s model would meet resistance. In Apple’s work Ideology and

Curriculum (1990), Apple contends that one of the reasons why the privileging of what he calls

technical knowledge in schools occurs is the demand by corporate capital for technical

knowledge to run corporate capital. This technical knowledge is geared towards certainty,

efficiency and control by representatives of the employers. Although Apple’s concept of

technical knowledge needs to be more fully developed, it does suggest an explanation of why the

implementation of Dewey’s theory of real thinking would be resisted by some sectors of society.

Real thinking equips people with the insight to oppose purposes foreign to their own problematic

situations. It shifts the center of gravity toward a decentralized form of decision-making

grounded in the conjugate relation of perception and conception in opposition to the bureaucratic

and centralized form of discourse and power.

Dewey, in other parts of his work Democracy and Education (1916), referred occasionally to

how those who control industry—employers--impose their own purposes independently on

workers and how this relation may be reflected in school settings. There is still reason to believe

that employers do have a privileged status in schools. For example, one frequently comes across

the following free advertisement for employers in general posted on middle-school and senior-

high school walls:

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What Employers are Really Looking For

Academic Personal Management Teamwork Skills Skills Skills The advertisement is not an advertisement for this or that particular employer, but for all

employers. It is a class document. It is a synthesis of what a set of ideologues believe employers

expect from the school system in the way of general capacities.

Few if any (including teachers associations) comment on this advertisement. The silence

on the free nature of the advertisement, in the first place, and the silence on the message it

implicitly contains in the second place, indicate the extent to which employers grip the school

system. In North America, the terms of discussion both inside and outside schools almost

invariably presupposes the legitimacy of the employer-employee relation as such. Indeed, to

question the employer-employee relation as such (and not just any specific employer-employee

relation) is frequently met with censure. The advertisement, nevertheless, publicly declares the

class nature of the school system for those who question the employer-employee relation as such

rather than presuppose it.

The advertisement is both an implied promise and a threat. The implied promise is that, if

students listen to what employers want (employers are special in some way), they may be

recognized by employers and be hired. The threat, on the other hand, is that if students do not

pay attention to what employers want, they will probably suffer negative consequences.

By contrast, it is unlikely that anyone has perceived any free advertisement for employee

associations, such as:

What Employee Associations (Unions) are Really Looking For

Compassion Justice Solidarity

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It may be that Dewey’s philosophy of real thinking is not valid. It may be, on the other hand,

that it is valid but that there are social forces that would oppose its implementation because it is a

threat to their interests.

CONCLUSION

Dewey’s philosophy of real thinking, identical to his philosophy of education, involves the

conjugate relation of perceptions and conceptions in their functional status as control features of

a problematic situation. The conjugate relation presupposes a gap between perceptions and

conception. The function of real thinking is to reduce that gap so that we can act intelligently—

the goal of education.

The implications of Dewey’s philosophy of real thinking were outlined. Many schools do not

teach children real thinking. If they are to do so, then the curriculum must be streamlined and

decentralized. Such changes can still form a unified whole by having the initial curriculum begin

with ordinary real thinking and gradually move toward scientific real thinking. The final point is

that there may be social forces who would not want children to learn how to think—such as the

class of employers.

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References

Anderson, D. (Producer), & Docter, P. (Director). (2000). Monsters, Inc. [Motion picture].

United States: Pixar Animation Studios.

Apple, M. (1990). Ideology and curriculum. New York: Routledge.

Bernal, J. (1965). Science in history. London: Watts.

Burke, T. (1994). Dewey’s new logic: A reply to Russell. University of Chicago Press.

Dewey, J. (1933). How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the

education process. Lexington, MA.: Heath.

Dewey, J. (1938). Logic: The theory of inquiry. New York: Henry Holt.

Dewey, J. (1980). Democracy and education. In J. Boydston (Ed.), John Dewey: The middle

works, 1899-1924. (Vol. 9). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. (Original

work published 1916)

Edwards, A., & Mayhew, K. (1966). The Dewey School: The laboratory school of the

University of Chicago, 1896-1903. New York: Atherson Press. (Original work

published in 1936)

Harris, F. (2000). Towards a critical materialist pedagogy: Marx and Dewey. Unpublished

master’s thesis, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Nowak, L. (1980). The structure of idealization: Towards a systematic interpretation of the

Marxian idea of science. Boston: D. Reidel.

Reed, E. S. (1996). The necessity of experience. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Footnotes

1Dewey considered this expansion itself to be an intellectual gain:

With children just learning to understand and use speech, the context is largely that of

objects and acts. A child associates hat with putting something on his head when he is

going outdoors; drawer with pulling something out of a table, etc. Single words, because

of the direct presence of a context of actions performed with objects, then have the force

that complete sentences have to an older person. Gradually other words that originally

gained meaning by use in a context of overt actions become capable of supplying the

context, so that the mind can dispense with the context of things and deeds. Speaking in

sentences marks obviously a linguistic gain. But the more important matter is that it

shows a person has made a great intellectual advance. He can now think by putting

together verbal signs of things that are not present to the senses and are not accompanied

by any overt actions on his part. As he understands similar combinations made by others,

he has a new resource that extends his otherwise narrow personal experience indefinitely.

(1933, p. 145)

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Figure Caption

Figure 1. A simplified model of Dewey’s theory of real thinking.

Real thinking 24

Coherence of subsequent

perceptions and initial perceptions

Use of concepts to guide actions and

perceptions

Incoherence of initial

perceptions and subsequent perceptions

Use of perceptions to

modify concept

Conception and perception correspond:

can act intelligently

Suggestion of something (a concept

or kind)

Resolution of problematic

situation

Perception of something vague

(usually in conjunction with some stable

elements--concepts)

Problematic situation (vague and

disconnected)

Real thinking 25