Dewey, John

Dewey's Logic of Inquiry

Among other intellectual pursuits, Dewey was an epistemologist whose theory of knowledge was founded upon a conception of the universe as unstable, uncertain and hazardous. An advocate of evolutionary theory, he rejected dualistic philosophical systems that viewed the human mind as a psychic entity separate and distinct from the body. Mind, Dewey argued, is not a manifestation of some fixed, immutable reality that exists beyond the sensory screen and transcends human experience; rather, mind evolves in human society as a physiological adaptation to an environment that is constantly in flux. By their very nature, humans are sentient, problem-solving beings; they are also inherently social beings. An optimistic Darwinist, Dewey rejected interpretations of Darwin's theory that led conservative social theorists such as William Graham Sumner to advocate government laissez-faire and [Page 253]the abandonment of social welfare. Dewey's Darwinism was meliorist, moral and activist; he viewed social reform itself as a mindful, adaptive, problem-solving response of human beings in society.

Dewey believed that human mental development, in its natural course, is the mindful, multilayering and reconstruction of life experiences that results from the individual's continuous resolution of dissonance in his or her environment. Each problem-solving experience provides a substratum for those that follow, the net effect being a spiral of growth that is marked by increasing complexity at each new level of mental functioning. Each new experience incorporates something that goes before it and, in this new form, represents an equilibration until a new problem intrudes upon it. Dewey argued that each complete act of thought, which he associated with meaningful learning, begins with a difficulty or perplexity, or ‘forked-road’ situation. His famous model of reflection describes a biologically formed, discursive problem-solving mode that productive human beings apply in their daily lives in all manner of problematic situations.

The following are the phases of reflective thinking which Dewey associated in general terms with the method of science: first, an ongoing activity that is not problematic, representing in biological terms a state of equilibrium; second, a meaningful problem that arises within the course of this activity, creating a state of dissonance or disequilibrium and stimulating further thought; third, refinement of the difficulty or perplexity to specify precisely its dimensions; fourth, the formulation and elaboration of an idea or suggestion into a tentative solution to the problem—a hypothesis; fifth, testing the validity of the hypothesis by an application—by visible action and observation of results or by mental action and contemplation of results—and sixth, a review or summary of the entire process that resulted in a conclusion or course of action to determine what was positive, negative or nugatory, constructing a cognitive stepping stone for dealing effectively with future problems in analogous situations. Dewey first specified this logic of inquiry in How We Think (1910), itself a reflection on his experiences in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century; he amplified the heuristic in a revision of How We Think (1933), assigned it an evolutionary/biological basis in Experience and Nature (1925) and revisited it in Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), perhaps his most important statement on the complete act of thought.

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