ABSTRACT
The American philosopher John Dewey is well known for his many contributions to the development of American social science (particularly the disciplines of education and psychology), his voluminous writings on art and politics, and his commitment to the social reform efforts that swept American cities during the early decades of the twentieth century. While Dewey’s writing addressed a host of different questions, issues, and contemporary social problems, he is perhaps best known for his contributions to the pragmatist tradition in philosophical thinking. Pragmatism is a particularly American school of philosophical inquiry founded by Charles Sanders Peirce at the turn of the century and popularized by Dewey and William James. Later theorists in the pragmatist tradition, like the late twentieth-century American philosopher Richard Rorty, view Dewey’s work as crucial to a developing conception of knowledge as nothing more than “what we are justified in believing.”.
