Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic AttitudeDewey, John
Philosophy
Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude
Dewey, John
Philosophy; Pragmatism
Economic values arise in connection with attitudes toward things. We buy
things, we sell them. They have value just in that they gratify our
wants, but they do not compel any revision or change in wants or in the
self which wants. They represent a partial interest--or if they become
the total interest we regard them as now in the moral sphere. Values of
personal affection arise as we find a constant rapport in thought,
feeling, purpose, between the two members of our social consciousness.
The attitude is that of going along with another and thereby extending
and enriching our experiences. We enter into his ideas, range with his
imagination, kindle at his enthusiasms, sympathize with his joys or
sorrows. We may disagree with our friend's opinions, but we do not
maintain a critical attitude toward _him_, that is, toward his
fundamental convictions and attitudes. If "home is the place where, when
you have to go there, they have to take you in," as Frost puts it, a
friend is one who, when you go to him, has to accept you.
Moral values also arise in a social or personal relation--not in
relation to things. This is on the surface in the form of judgment; "He
is a good man," "That is a good act." If it is less obvious in the
practical judgment, "This is the better course of action," i.e., the
course which leads to the greater good, or to the good, this is because
we fail to discern that the good in these cases is a something with
which I can identify myself, not a something which I merely possess and
keep separate from my personality. It is something I shall be rather
than have. Or if I speak of a share or participation it is a sharing in
the sense of entering into a kindred life. It is an ideal, and an ideal
for a conscious personal being can hardly be other than conscious. It
may be objected that however personal the ideal it is not on this
account necessarily social. It embodies what I would be, but does not
necessarily imply response to any other personality. This, however,
would be to overlook the analyses which recent psychology has made of
the personal. The ideal does not develop in a vacuum. It implies for one
thing individuality which is conceivable only as other individuals are
distinguished. It implies the definition of purposes, and such
definition is scarcely if ever attempted except as a possible world of
purposes is envisaged.
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