Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of EducationDewey, John
Philosophy
Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
Dewey, John
Education -- Philosophy; Education -- Social aspects
2. Science and Social Progress. Assuming that the development of the
direct knowledge gained in occupations of social interest is carried
to a perfected logical form, the question arises as to its place in
experience. In general, the reply is that science marks the emancipation
of mind from devotion to customary purposes and makes possible the
systematic pursuit of new ends. It is the agency of progress in action.
Progress is sometimes thought of as consisting in getting nearer to ends
already sought. But this is a minor form of progress, for it requires
only improvement of the means of action or technical advance. More
important modes of progress consist in enriching prior purposes and in
forming new ones. Desires are not a fixed quantity, nor does progress
mean only an increased amount of satisfaction. With increased culture
and new mastery of nature, new desires, demands for new qualities
of satisfaction, show themselves, for intelligence perceives new
possibilities of action. This projection of new possibilities leads to
search for new means of execution, and progress takes place; while the
discovery of objects not already used leads to suggestion of new ends.
That science is the chief means of perfecting control of means of action
is witnessed by the great crop of inventions which followed intellectual
command of the secrets of nature. The wonderful transformation of
production and distribution known as the industrial revolution is the
fruit of experimental science. Railways, steamboats, electric motors,
telephone and telegraph, automobiles, aeroplanes and dirigibles are
conspicuous evidences of the application of science in life. But none
of them would be of much importance without the thousands of less
sensational inventions by means of which natural science has been
rendered tributary to our daily life.
It must be admitted that to a considerable extent the progress thus
procured has been only technical: it has provided more efficient means
for satisfying preexistent desires, rather than modified the quality of
human purposes. There is, for example, no modern civilization which is
the equal of Greek culture in all respects. Science is still too recent
to have been absorbed into imaginative and emotional disposition. Men
move more swiftly and surely to the realization of their ends, but
their ends too largely remain what they were prior to scientific
enlightenment. This fact places upon education the responsibility of
using science in a way to modify the habitual attitude of imagination
and feeling, not leave it just an extension of our physical arms and
legs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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