A professor at Chicago and then Columbia for most of a long life, Dewey became the best known American philosopher of the early twentieth century. He founded an experimental school, wrote on logic, art and religion, and took part in countless public causes. For him, thinking is a tool for solving real problems, and democracy is a way of living together, not just a way of voting.
Core ideas
Ideas are tools, tested by how well they solve real problems
Children learn best by doing, experimenting and working together
Democracy is a shared way of life that must be renewed in every generation
The tradition: Pragmatist
Pragmatism judges ideas by their practical consequences rather than by abstract certainty. Dewey turned it toward education and politics, making it a philosophy of democratic experiment.
