Imagination and Judgment in John Dewey's Philosophy: Intelligent transactions in a democratic context

Abstract

In this essay, I attempt to interpret the educational philosophy of John Dewey in a way that accomplishes two goals. The first of these is to avoid any reference to Dewey as a propagator of a particular scientific method or to any of the individualist and cognitivist ideas that is sometimes associated with him. Secondly, I want to overcome the tendency to interpret Dewey as a naturalist by looking at his concept of intelligence. It is argued that ‘intelligent experience’ is the basic concept of education. I suggest how this concept should be understood. I propose to look at it as an interplay between the faculties of imagination and judgment.

Keywords:

• transaction
• learning
• intelligence
• thinking