Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic AttitudeDewey, John
Philosophy
Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude
Dewey, John
Philosophy; Pragmatism
In the second case it is "generous," it will show an "intelligent
sympathy"; it seeks "fellowship," and would not "elect to live in a
social environment in which the distinction of 'inferiors' were an
essential part of the idea."[82] The type of intelligence is found not
in the man seeking wealth or power, nor in the legal acumen which
forecasts all discoverable consequences and devises means to carry out
purposes, but in literature and art.[83]
The terms which cover both these meanings are the words "consider" and
"considerate." "Breadth of consideration" gives the basis for rights.
The selfish man is the "inconsiderate."[84] This term plays the part of
the _amor intellectualis_ in the system of Spinoza, which enables him at
once to discard all emotion and yet to keep it. For "consideration" is
used in common life, and defined in the dictionaries, as meaning both
"examination," "careful thought," and "appreciative or sympathetic
regard." The ambiguity in the term may well have served to disguise from
the author himself the double role which intelligence is made to play.
The broader use is the only one that does justice to the moral
consciousness, but we cannot include sympathy and still maintain that
"mere knowing" covers the whole. The insistence at times upon the "mere
knowing" is a mechanical element which needs to be removed before the
ethical implications can be accepted.
Once more, how does one know himself and others? Is it the same process
precisely as knowing a mechanical object? Thoughts without percepts are
empty, and what are the "percepts" in the two cases? In the first case,
that of knowing things, the percepts are colors, sounds, resistances; in
the case of persons the percepts are impulses, feelings, desires,
passions, as well as images, purposes, and the reflective process
itself. In the former case we construct objects dehumanized; in the
latter we keep them more or less concrete. But now, just as primitive
man did not so thoroughly de-personalize nature, but left in it an
element of personal aim, so science may view human beings as objects
whose purposes and even feelings may be predicted, and hence may, as
Professor Fite well puts it, view them mechanically. What he fails to
note is that just this mechanical point of view is the view of "mere
knowing"--if "mere" has any significance at all, it is meant to shut out
"sentiment." And this mechanical view is entirely equal to the
adjectives of "clear," "far-sighted," and even "broad" so far as this
means "more in one." For it is not essential to a mechanical point of
view that we consider men in masses or study them by statistics. I may
calculate the purposes and actions, yes, and the emotions and values of
one, or of a thousand, and be increasingly clear, and far-sighted, and
broad, but if it is "mere" knowing--scientific information--it is still
"mechanical," i.e., external. On the other hand, if it is to be a
knowledge that has the qualities of humaneness, or "intelligent
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