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E&C/Education and Culture 23 (2) (2007): 27–62 ◆ 27
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes: or, the Potential
Rewards for Scholars who Dialogue across
Difference
Craig A. Cunningham, David Granger, Jane Fowler Morse,
Barbara Stengel, and Terri Wilson
Editor’s note: These essays were presented as part of an alternative session at the
Annual Meeting of the Philosophy of Education Society in March of 2005. The authors
have refined their or iginal presentation s and added an introduction an d conclusion to
make their thoughts and questions available to a wider audience through Education
and Culture.
Abstract
This symposium provides five case studies of the ways that John Dewey’s philoso-
phy and practice were influenced by women or “weirdoes” (our choices include F.
M. Alexander, Albert Barnes, Helen Bradford Thompson, Elsie Ripley Clapp, and
Jane Addams) and presents some conclusions about the value of dialoging across
difference for philosophers and other scholars.
Introduction
In The Education of John Dewey, Jay Martin (2003) suggests, “It was and remained a
characteristic of Dewey that he was always receptive to alternative ideas. With pro-
fessional philosophers, he generally held to his own positions, but with intelligent
women , non -phil osophe rs, odd t hi nke rs, and ord inar y fo lk, he was a s tudent aga in”
(167). Martin’s insight is the basis for a hypothesis that seems worth exploring: that
John Dewey is able to speak eloquently to us today—as much as a century after he
formulated his ideas—precisely because of his willingness to listen, to closely at-
tend to those we might categorize as women and weirdoes.
We use the provocative expression, “women and weirdoes,” to acknowledge
E&C ◆ Education and Culture
28 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
that John Dewey took seriously persons who often were not given credence in
philosophical circles. During Dewey’s scholarly career, women constituted minor
voices at best in philosophical discourse; in addition, philosophy had come to be
professionalized in Dewey’s time in a way that excluded those without philosophical
cr edentia ls. Howe ver, D ewe y ca me to underst and (and w ith Emer son, to pr ocl aim)
that phi los ophy and li fe were not s epa rab le do mai ns. A nd De wey ’s bio gra pher s not e
the significant role played in his life by such women as Alice Dewey, Jane Addams,
Ella Flagg Young, numerous graduate students, the Camp sisters, Anzia Yezier-
ska, and by such “odd ducks” and nonphilosophers as Scudder Klyce, F. Matthias
Alexander, Franklin Ford, and Albert Barnes. While these sources of inspiration
we seek to study may be classified as “odd” or “socially subordinate” in the realm
of professional philosophy, it is also true that each of the persons we identify were
intelligent in Dewey’s sense of a mind in use—often in unusual ways. We main-
tain that the interaction between Dewey’s lived experience and the shaping of his
philosophical inquiry warrants greater scholarly attention.
Our perspective is partly historical and partly philosophical. Dewey’s rela-
tionships have, for the most part, been documented. A variety of well-researched
biographies, the Collected Works and now the Collected Papers, lay out the basic
historical narrative. However, some relationships have been mined extensively
and others less well considered. And what has not been done in a systematic way
is the kind of analysis that looks closely at Dewey’s thinking in juxtaposition with
the thinking of nonphilosopher others in the context of those particular relation-
ships. The work offered here is a first step that lays out some useful paths for more
extensive historical inquiry and offers some preliminary examples of the kind of
textual analysis that can prove our thesis.
We are not suggesting that Dewey didn’t listen to or attend to other profes-
sional philosophers. Obviously he did. Those influences are well documented in
the Rockefeller (1991) and Ryan (1995) biographies, among others. Here we begin
to explore the “value added” by Dewey’s willingness to take seriously—for philo-
sophical purposes—those who moved outside the bounds of professional philoso-
phy, and even, in some cases, outside of accepted social circles. We are particularly
interested in the ways in which Dewey’s works seem remarkably contemporary, as
if they were written to address present issues in education, the arts and public life.
Is it possible that the contemporary power of Dewey’s thought rests, at least in part,
in just his willingness to cultivate, appreciate and appropriate the thinking of in-
teresting women and odd ducks?
Two essential questions guided our inquiry: First, were Dewey’s theories in
fact significantly influenced by women and those professionally excluded eccentric
voices we are calling weirdoes? How was this influence transacted? Second, if such
influence did impact Dewey’s own thinking, so what? What should we think, say,
or do as a result of establishing Dewey’s philosophically significant interaction with
women and weirdoes, and their influence on him?
As we pursued this work, it became clear that our initial questions would not
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 29
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
be easily answered—and would not be answered at all until we raised a range of
other questions. Why was Dewey drawn to those we studied? What was the nature
of hi s relationsh ips w it h them ? What k ind of a teacher—and learner—was Dewey?
What qualities of personal responsiveness permeated his teaching and his t heori z-
ing? How did Dewey go about developing insights and theories? How did he share
those insights and theories with the broader public?
What emerges is a picture of the philosopher as “man thinking” (to use Em-
erson’s idiom). Of course, for Dewey, thinking done well is an interactive process
into real puzzles for actual human persons and marked by open-mindedness and
responsiveness. These are elements that we find in each of the case studies described
be low. T hes e qualiti es of t hin ki ng a re the element s that op ened Dewey to the in flu-
ences of al l those with whom he came and remained in contact. Because we exam-
in ed onl y a fe w ca ndid ates, an d becaus e th e cons tra int s of ti me a nd s pace pr ohi bite d
us from completing a thorough examination of even these initial examples, we see
our work here as preliminary, as more of a pilot study than a comprehensive one.
Our hope is that these beginnings may inspire others to conduct similar studies,
either by joining with us in a longer-term project, or by working on their own to
address similar questions.
Included here are five case studies taken from Dewey’s biography. Among the
many women and weirdoes we could have selected, we chose Jane Addams, Helen
Bradford Thompson, Elsie Ripley Clapp (as an exemplar of Dewey’s interaction with
female graduate students at Teachers College), F. M. Alexander and Albert Barnes.
We suggest that Dewey was influenced intellectually in these instances where he
experienced dialogue across difference, and that these relationships are not anoma-
lies, but critical tokens in understanding the quality of Dewey’s thinking.
Dewey’s thinking is enriched when he is a “learner,” undergoing the kind of
questioning in the face of trouble or doubt or desire that he himself so famously
claims is the starting point of thinking. We offer here sketches of Dewey not as
eminent philosopher but as a thinker learning from different others
Dewey’s Pragmatic Poet: Reconstructing Jane Addams’s
Philosophical Impact
Barbara Stengel
John Dewey calls Ralph Waldo Emerson “The Philosopher of Democracy” in an es-
say of the same title (1903/1977). In making his case that Emerson is a philosopher,
Dewey acknowledges that some (including Emerson himself) might be inclined to
see him as a poet rather than a philosopher. Dewey goes on to discuss the differ-
ence between the poet and the philosopher. The poet is maker rather than reflec-
tor. The poet discerns and uncovers rather than analyzes and classifies. The poet
evidences a “natural attitude” where the philosopher relies on reasons for believing.
However, the distinction is not hard and fast; in Emerson’s case at least, one can be
E&C ◆ Education and Culture
30 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
both poet and philosopher.
Dewey’s description of Emerson as poet and philosopher of democracy holds,
I suggest, for Jane Addams as well, but it is, perhaps ironically, as poet that Add-
ams impacted the philosophy of John Dewey. Addams is unquestionably a maker
of democratic community and pragmatic education; Dewey is just as unquestion-
ably a reflector. Through her work at Hull House, Addams discerned the shape of
democracy as a mode of associated living and uncovered the outlines of an experi-
mental approach to knowledge and understanding; Dewey analyzed and classified
the social, psychological and educational processes Addams lived. As I will dem-
onstrate below, Addams’s “natural attitude” brought Dewey up short in a situation
in which he could, by his own admission, only rely on reason.
In this essay, I claim that Dewey became Dewey in the last decade of the nine-
teenth century and that Jane Addams was present as poet to his philosopher. When
I s ay t hat D ewe y be cam e De wey, I mea n that he let go of r eli gious prac tice an d th eo-
logical language, focused a conception of democracy as a mode of associated liv-
ing, shifted from Hegelian dialectic to pragmatic experimentalism, acknowledged
the relational nature of the self and found a way to think about thinking rooted in
human ac tion, thus acknowledging the unit y of hu man experie nce. Dewey ’s inter-
action with Addams, again by his own admission, forced a reconsideration of his
thinking, a reconstruction that led to the very elements (noted above) that have
rendered Deweyan thought useful to us in the early twenty-first century. I make
my case by focusing here on just one significant instance documented in Dewey’s
correspondence and described—in various ways—in contemporary Dewey biog-
raphies.
Jane Addams was not, of course, the only one who shaped Dewey’s think-
ing in this period. His wife Alice, his colleague George Herbert Mead, the idealist
T. H. Green, the antidemocratic political theorist Sir Henry Maines, and “weirdo”
Franklin Ford headline a list of others whose relations with Dewey were influen-
tial, positively or negatively. What seems clear to me, however, is that Dewey was
searching for a way to instantiate his thinking about democracy, about Christian-
ity and about experimentalism. His involvement in the ill-advised Thought News
episode can be read as part of this search. But it was at Hull House in the company
of Jane Addams that Dewey found what he was looking for.
My “text” for this essay comes from two letters John Dewey sent to his wife
Alice in October, 1894 describing a conversation he had with Jane Addams after
she participated in a program at the University of Chicago regarding the proposed
University Settlement House. In what follows, I offer a detailed rendering of that
correspondence, analyze the way this incident is represented in the biographies
penned by Robert Westbrook (1991), Steven Rockefeller (1991), Alan Ryan (1995)
and Jay Martin (2003), and then claim a “poetic” role for Jane Addams in influenc-
ing Dewey’s philosophy.
On Sunda y, O cto ber 7, 1894, a me et ing wa s held a t th e Unive rsi ty o f Ch ica go to
promo te t he Un ive rsit y S ett lem ent Hou se. Jan e Add am s spoke re gard ing th e point of
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 31
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
ph ila nthropy as pract ice d in the set tle ment ho use . Joh n De wey wa s pre sent (L ev ine
2005). On Tuesday, October 9, 1894, Dewey noted in a letter to wife Alice that he
had just finished preparing a talk on Epictetus to be delivered at Hull House that
evening. He went on to describe the meeting at the University two days prior:
I came near forgetting the chief thing that’s happened since I wrote last—
The Sunday evening meeting on the Univ. Settlement. Miss McDowell
spoke on that settlement; Miss Addams on settlements in general—their
aim, she said she had been asked to speak on. Well, she said what you
might expect— She understands herself & the work better, of course,
than in ^her^ [w. caret] Ann Arbor talk so far as formulating it, but the
same absolute organic directness & sincerity— There was no special aim,
because it wasn’t a thing but a way of living—hence had the same aims as
life itself. If given a special aim, it was the unification ^of the city’s life^
[caret sic], or the realizing of the city’s aim unity. It was a way of living in
wh. there was ^was^ [sic] more to be got than to be given [ov. illegible]
given—for example, the great awakening of social [illegible] conscious-
ness in the labor movement was one of the most deeply religious things
in modern times—if not the most so. To come in contact with that alone
meant an awakening into a new life . . . . (Hickman 2001)1
On Wednesday, October 10, 1894, Dewey continued his discussion of the Univer-
sity of Chicago meeting and Jane Addams’s response to it in a new letter to Alice.
He noted that, on the previous evening, Jane Addams seemed quite discouraged
about what she understood as a corruption of the point of the settlement house
philosophy; Ellen Starr Gates was downright angry.
Miss A. also said that she had rebuk just received the first personal flaggel-
lation she had ever rec’d— She had just been to a Mr. Ayers who had given
money rather freely, not to Hull House, ^but^ [w. caret] for their relief
work, & asked him for more money for this winter’s relief. He turned on
her, & told her that she had a great thing & now she had thrown it away;
that she was ^had been^ [w. caret] trusteee for the prob interests of the
poor, & had betrayed it—that like an idiot she had mixed herself in some-
thing which was none of her business & about which she knew || nothing,
the labor movement & especially Pullman, & had thrown down her own
work etc. etc. And then she went on to say that she had always believed &
still believed that antagonism was not only husef [u ov. h] ules useless and
harmful, but entirely unnecessary; that it lay never in the objective differences,
which would always grow into unity if left alone, but from a person’s mixing
in his own personal reactions—the extra emphasis he gave the truth, the
enjoyment he took in doing a thing because it was unpalatable to others,
or the feeling that one must show his own colors, not be a moral coward,
&or any no. of other ways, That historically ^also^ [w. caret] only evil had
come from antagonisms—she kept asking me what I tho’t, & I agreed up
to this point, but then ^as to past history,^ [w. caret] after the manner of
E&C ◆ Education and Culture
32 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
fools, I dissented; then she went ^went^ [w. caret] on, that if Jesus drove
the money changers out of the temple that accounted for the apparent dif-
ference between the latest years of his A[cancelled illegible letters] minis-
try & the earlier, & for much of the falsity in Xnty {Christianity] since; if
he did it, he lost his faith &reacted; . . . I asked her if she didn’t think that
besides the personal || antagonisms, there was that of ideas & institutions,
as Xnty & Judaism, & Labor & Capital, the Church & Democracy now &
that a realization of that antagonism was necessary to an appreciation of
the truth, & to a consciousness of growth, & she said no. The antagonism
of institutions was always unreal; it ^was^ [w. caret] simply due to the
injection of the personal attitude & reaction; & then instead of adding to
the recognition of meaning, it delayed & distorted it. If I could tell you the
absolutely commonplace & unemotional way in which she said all these
things, it would give some better idea of the most magnificent exhibition of
intellectual & moral faith I ever saw. She converted me internally, but not
really, I fear. At least I can’t see what all this conflict & warring of history
means if it’s perfectly meaningless; my pride of intellect, I suppose it is,
revolts at thinking its all merely negatively, & has no functional value. But
I can also see, or rather dream, that ^maybe^ [w. caret] its a mere illusion
be cau se we pu t ours elve s in a w ron g positi on & t hus int roduce a ntagon ism
where its all one; & that its sole function is to warn out us never to think
division. But when you think that Miss Addams does not think this as a phi-
losophy, but believes it in all her senses & muscles—great God. ||
Wednesday [sic]—A. M. I guess I’ll have to give it all up & start over again.
I suppose that’s the subjective nature of sin; the only reality is unity, but
we assume ^there is^ [w. caret] antagonism & then it all goes wrong. I
can see that I have always been interpreting the Hegelian dialectic wrong
end up—the unity as the reconciliation of opposites, instead of the oppo-
sites as the unity in its growth, and thus translated physical tension into
^a^ moral thing— As a sample of Miss Addams’ intellect, when I spoke
of the place tension held in the all natural forces & in growth, she said ‘Of
course, there’s the stress of action, but that’s an entirely different thing.
‘I don’t know as I give her the reality of this at all—it seems so natural &
commonplace now, but I never had anything take hold of me so; & the at
the time it didn’t impress me as anything wonderful; it was only the next
day it began to dawn on me. Her father was a Quaker; she referred that
evening to his teaching. I don’t know whether I told you some time about
Miss Starr’s account of what they went thro’ with at the outset—the hoot-
ings, the throwing of stones in at the window & all the other outbreaks,
& how Miss A. said she would give the whole thing before she would ask
for a policeman; one day a negro spat straight in her face in the street, &
she simply wiped it off, & went on talking without noticing it. (Hickman
2001; emphasis added)
On Friday, October 12, 1894, Dewey wrote the following to Jane Addams:
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 33
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
Dear Miss Addams—
I wish to take back what I said the other night. Not only is actual antagoniz-
ing bad, but the assumption that there is or may be antagonism is bad —the
in fact, the real first antagonism always come back to the assumption.
I’m glad I found this out before I began to talk on social psychology [sched-
uled for 10/13/94] as otherwise I fear I should have made a mess of it.
This is rather a suspiciously sudden conversion, but then it’s only a be-
ginning
Gratefully yours,
John Dewey (Hickman 2001)
I quote this exchange in its near entirety because of the varying ways that Dewey’s
biographers have represented it.
Robe rt Wes tbroo k (1991), notes that the exchange took place (mistakenly
placing it after a Dewey talk on social psychology at Hull House) and includes the
description of what Addams said regarding antagonism, and then quotes the pas-
sage: “Addams converted me internally, but not really, I fear. . . . [M]y pride of in-
tellect, I suppose it is, revolts at thinking it’s all merely negative, and has no func-
tional value.” He goes on to note, in a footnote, that this is likely the root of their
later opposed positions with regard to World War I (Westbrook 1991, 81). He does
not include any of the expressions that suggest Addams’s real and apparently last-
ing impact on Dewey’s thought.
Specifically, he omits Dewey’s immediate concession (“we put ourselves in
a wrong position & thus introduce antagonism where it’s all one; & that its sole
function is to warn out us never to think division”); Dewey’s reflection the next
morning (“I guess I’ll have to give it all up & start over again . . . . I can see that I
have always been interpreting the Hegelian dialectic wrong end up—the unity as
the reconciliation of opposites, instead of the opposites as the unity in its growth,
and thus translated physical tension into ^a^ moral thing); and Dewey’s capitula-
tion to Miss Addams before his social psychology talk (“I wish to take back what I
said the other night. Not only is actual antagonizing bad, but the assumption that
there is or may be antagonism is bad—the in fact, the real first antagonism always
come back to the assumption. I’m glad I found this out before I began to talk on
social psychology as otherwise I fear I should have made a mess of it.”)
In John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism (1991), Steven
Rockefeller refers to the October 10 letter to demonstrate Dewey’s interest in the
“deeply religious” nature of social consciousness in the labor movement and to note
that Addams impressed Dewey with her “intellect and moral faith.” He concludes
his discussion, “In Jane Addams, Dewey found a kindred spirit. During the Chi-
E&C ◆ Education and Culture
34 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
cago years he became actively involved at Hull House, gaining fresh insight into
America’s social ills and their remedy.” Rockefeller seems to suggest that Addams’s
role in Dewey’s growth was both personal and practical—providing confirmation
of belief and attitude and offering insight into concrete social problems—but not
intellectual. Just one paragraph earlier, Rockefeller states that Addams “may have
drawn on Dewey’s thinking in ‘Christianity and Democracy,’ for she argues that
Christianity is to be identified with the ongoing process of revelation of truth, and
she concludes that the new Christianity shall seek a simple and natural expression
in the social organism. Addams shared Dewey’s belief that practical religion and
the democratic life are synonymous” (208).
It i s po ssi ble t hat Ad dams dr ew on Dewe y’s t al k—g ive n at t he S tud ents’ C hr is-
tian Association at the University of Michigan in March, 1892 (Levine 2005), and
publis hed th e fol low ing yea r—i n formul ati ng t he t hin ki ng exp resse d in “T he Sub -
jective Necessity for Social Settlements,” an essay composed originally in 1892 and
expressing sentiments reiterated that night in October of 1894. However, it may be
even more plausible t o sug gest th at Dewey’s t hin king i n “Chri stian ity and De moc-
racy” (1893) was seeded by an encounter with Addams at Hull House in January,
1892 (Levine 2005), and that his talk and later essay drew as much or more from
Addams’s “natural attitude” as she drew from him. Addams spoke at the School of
Applied Ethics early in 1892 and published that talk later the same year. Moreover,
she had be en liv ing the connect ion be twe en Chr ist iani ty a nd democ rac y for sever al
years. Prior to her start at Hull House, she expressed a hope that Hull House would
be “more distinctively Christian and less Social Science” (quoted in Lagemann 1985,
19)—differentiated from College Settlement Association houses. While Florence
Kelley (and later Richard Ely) insured that Hull House would develop its social
science experimentalism, the sense of the Social Gospel and Christian charity was
never abandoned. After his initial visit to Hull House, Dewey wrote to Addams to
say that she had “taken the right way” (quoted in Lagemann 1985, 29).
Rockefeller’s interest in Addams is focused and flavored by his thesis that
religious faith and democratic humanism are intertwined. Given that thesis, it is
odd that Addams’s relationship with Dewey is so little a part of Rockefeller’s work.
Rockefeller makes much of Fred Newton Scott’s talk regarding “Christianity and
the Newspaper” (also to the Students’ Christian Association) and a great deal of
Dewey’s aborted involvement with the publication of Thought News. He is right
that Dewey was looking for a way to link a Christian ethos and democratic func-
tion, and that Dewey’s various “extracurricular activities” were experiments in
that direction. What he doesn’t state clearly is that Dewey’s search found fruition
at Hull House. Jane Addams’s work gave substance to Dewey’s embryonic think-
ing. He said so in the letter of October 10 and elsewhere.
Li ke Roc kefe lle r, Al an R yan see ms to ass ume tha t Add ams was appro priat ing
and applying Dewey’s ideas. He does so despite what is known about Addams’s work
and thinking prior to encountering Dewey, and despite everything that Dewey later
says about Addams’s influence (1995, 152). It’s not that he doesn’t see value in Add-
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 35
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
ams’s work and in Dewey’s relationship with Addams. He says explicitly that “one
of the greatest bonuses of life in Chicago for Dewey was his friendship with Jane
Addams, and the chance to see Hull House in action” (122). He later calls Addams
a “radicalizing influence” on Dewey (149). Nonetheless, there is something intel-
lectually dismissive in what he chooses to include and leave out about the Dewey-
Addams interactions. She is his “friend,” not the intellectual influence George
Herber t Mead wa s (123). Hull Hous e in act ion simply offered pract ica l ex amp les of
the phenomena Dewey sought to theorize; Rockefeller does not recognize it as the
laboratory where experimental results informed theory (about democracy, about
Christianity, about education, and about experimentalism itself) in development.
For Ryan, her radicalizing influence affects Dewey’s politics, not his thought.
Ryan sells Addams short in other ways. He argues that “Dewey did two things
that nobody else tried to do in quite the same way: he defended modernity against
its detractors and he defended democracy as the modern, secular realization of the
Kingdom of God on earth” (86). Ryan might be better off qualifying that claim
by saying that no other male theorist has done so. One could argue that Addams
did exactly that in her first published explanation of the Hull House philosophy
(Addams 1892/1985, 49-63). When Ryan discusses Addams, there is no mention
of the Christianity-democracy connection theorized or enacted in Addams’s work,
either early in her career or later in, for instance, Democracy and Social Ethics
(1902/1967).
In a five-page section devoted to Dewey and Jane Addams, Ryan (1995, 149-
153) too reports the conversation about the “wickedness of conflict” (more briefly
than any of the other biographers considered here and placing it in the wrong time
and place), but presents this as evidence of Dewey’s “capacity for occupying the
middle of the road.” He notes that Addams convinced Dewey that antagonism was
unnecessary while talking with him, but that “on reflection,” he no longer accepted
her argument. Ryan sees this as an indication that Dewey was “less ready than Miss
Addams to serve people as he found them” (153). He does not hint at Dewey’s later
concession that Addams’s comments stayed with him, forcing a reconsideration of
the larger question of unity in experience and the narrower question of antagonism
and conflict. Ryan’s blind spot here may be caused partly by his reliance on West-
brook for the text of the letter in question. Westbrook’s abbreviated text admittedly
allows the interpretation Ryan finds in the remaining text.
Unlike the others, Jay Martin (2003) refers to the correspondence in question
by highlighting those sections that confirm Dewey’s debt to Addams and support
our broad thesis here. He represents in dialogue form the part of the letter West-
brook quotes and then goes further:
Dewey tried to counter her argument with one of his pet idealist
ideas. “Tension itself is central in life; it exists in all natural forces and in
grow th.”
“Of course,” she acknowledged, but then she made a nice philosophi-
E&C ◆ Education and Culture
36 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
cal distinction that the philosopher himself had missed. “There’s stress in
action, but mere choosing is an entirely different thing from the unity of
reality.” [Dewey called this] . . . “the most magnificent exhibition of in-
tellectual and moral faith I ever saw.” . . . [He wrote to Alice that] “I guess
I’ll have to give it all up & start over again. I suppose that . . . the only
reality”—he started to write ideal but caught himself—“is unity, but we
assume there is antagonism & and then it goes wrong. I can see that I have
always been interpreting the Hegelian—crossed out—dialectic wrong end
up—the unity as the reconciliation of opposites, instead of the opposites as
the unity in its growth, and thus translated physical tension into a moral
thing.” (167)
It is at this point that Martin notes:
It was, and remained, a characteristic of Dewey that he was always receptive
to alternative ideas. With professional philosophers he generally held to his
own position, but with intelligent women, nonphilosophers, odd thinkers,
and ordinary folk, he was a student again. On that October night in 1894,
the lecturer got a good lecture, and it stuck. (167-168)
Each of these biographers uses the same event to make a point congruent with
his own perspective or thesis. Each is selective about documentary evidence. It is
worth noting that none of them includes the context of Addams’s remarks in the
Chicago talk and her discussion with Dewey, an omission that lessens the impact
of Addams’s position. Nor do any include Dewey’s later, apparently unprompted
letter to Addams acknowledging that after several days, he recognized the truth
of her claim and that this insight would affect what he might say on the subject of
social psychology.
I submit t hat a comp lete re adi ng of t his tex t, i ncorp orati ng Ad dams’s ex per i-
ence as well as Dewey’s, makes clear the quality and impact of Addams’s influence
on Dewey and demonstrates the sense in which she played poet to his philosopher.
Dewey’s own words suggest that this experience (action and reflection) brought
Dewey up short in a way that contributed to his formulating the mode of thought
that characterizes his entire opus, a stance first clearly signaled in “The Reflex Arc
Concept in Psychology” (1896); and influenced substantively the way that Dewey
understood conflict.
Consider several phrases in Dewey’s correspondence:
Describing his conversation with Addams: She “had always believed & still
believed that antagonism was not only husef [u ov. h] ules [itself ?] useless
and harmful, but entirely unnecessary; that it lay never in the objective
differences, which would always grow into unity if left alone, but from a
person’s mixing in his own personal reactions.”
Dewey reflecting: “I guess I’ll have to give it all up & sta rt over agai n. I s up-
pose that’s the subjective nature of sin; the only reality is unity, but we as-
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 37
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
sume ^there is^ antagonism & then it all goes wrong. I can see that I have
always been interpreting the Hegelian dialectic wrong end up—the unity as
the reconciliation of opposites, instead of the opposites as the unity in its
growth, and thus translated physical tension into ^a^ moral thing—”
Dewey “confessing” to Addams: “I’m glad I found this out before I began
to talk on social psychology as otherwise I fear I should have made a mess
of it. This is rather a suspiciously sudden conversion, but then it’s only a
beginning.”
Two years later, Dewey would publish “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” a
piece that marks his empirical and naturalistic transformation of Hegelianism by
turning it on its head and seeing opposites as unity in its growth rather than unity
as the reconciliation of opposites. In that 1896 essay, Dewey constructs the device (a
reflex circuit or coordination, not an arc) that will undergird most of his theorizing
in areas as various as art, education, logic and public life. Dewey rejects a “reflex
ar c,” t hat is , th e an aly sis of a sensory experience that stimulates a motor response in
favor of a sensory-motor circuit. Stimulus can only be identified as stimulus when
understood as part of a whole circuit of meaningful action, replacing an older du-
alism of sensation and idea. In Dewey’s terms, “. . . sensory stimulus and central
connections and motor response are divisions of labor, function factors, within a
single concrete whole designated reflex arc. The “commonly employed” formula-
tion of the reflex arc
is defective in that it assumes sensory stimulus and motor response as
distinct psychical existences, while in reality they are always inside a co-
ordination and have their significance purely from the part played in main-
taining or reconstituting the co-ordination; and (secondly) in assuming
that the quale of experience which precedes the “motor” phase and that
which succeeds it are two different states, instead of the last being always
the first reconstituted, the more phase coming in only for the sake of such
mediation. (99)
In Dewey’s reflex circuit, coordination is the critical entity. Both sensation and
movement lie inside, not outside the act.
Thus Dewey turns traditional psychological structure on its head and argues
for human action in relation as unit of analysis. The point is simple if difficult to
see in an analytic frame of mind: there is wholeness (embodied, eristic, spiritual,
emotional, moral and aesthetic) in experience if we but see it. In fact, perceiving it
is the challenge. It was Addams, the “poet,” who led Dewey to the perception that
would reshape his analysis.
Dewey’s own admission that he must “start over” after his conversation with
Addams points to the role she played in providing Dewey with the key to solving
an analytic problem he encountered at the confluence of his idealist training and
his empiricist inclination. It was not only what Addams said but what she perceived
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38 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
and e nac ted —an “ intel lec t an d mor al f ait h” that she beli eved “ in her very bei ng”—
that made the difference for Dewey. Her praxis, her poetic sensibility, contributes to
his becoming the most thoroughgoing (and widely known) of the pragmatist theo-
rists. Most (male) biographers of Dewey trace his “lineage” through philosophical
“fathers” (Seigfried 1996, 73). This experience suggests that Dewey’s abiding value
may be interpreted through pragmatic “mothers” as well.
What of Addams’s specific point regarding antagonism? How is this insight
reflected in Dewey’s work in a way that is revealed in contemporary thinking and
generative of future possibility? Dewey answers clearly:
I h ave l ear ned man y th ing s from Jan e Add am s. I not ice tha t wi th h er u sua l
modesty she attributed to me some of the things in Chicago which she and
her colleagues in Hull House did. One of the things that I have learned
from her is the enormous value of mental non-resistance, of tearing away
the armor-plate of prejudice, of convention, isolation that keeps one from
sharing to the full in the larger and even the more unfamiliar and alien
ranges of the possibilities of human life and experience. (1930/1984, 421;
emphasis added)
Addams differentiates between the constructive conflict that marks the fact of
democratic diversity and the antagonism (including mental resistance) that we
bring to the conflict as a result of unexamined emotion. Diversity, for Addams,
is morally and cognitively significant. We do not grow, we do not become better
persons, without confronting other perspectives. Conflict is useful for learning;
antagonism inhibits it.
It is precisely this view that Dewey later develops in naturalistic explorations
of human thinking, education and public life. A problem (a conflict of perspec-
tives, properties or persons) stimulates thought. The “method of intelligence”
yields deeper understanding, new learning and responsible action. But intelligence
is stymied by antagonism, by mental resistance. Dewey adopts what Seigfried calls
“the principled pluralism of pragmatist theory” (1993, 2). Addams personified it
for him.
Naturally, there are other issues to be explored if we are to fully understand
how Addams played “poet” to Dewey’s “philosopher”: Democracy as a mode of as-
sociated living and a moral ideal, the educational requirements of democracy, the
curricular value of occupations, the ways in which the language of action holds the
cognitive and the moral together, the value of collaborative experience in constitut-
ing a community of knowers, responsiveness and responsibility, the role of emotion
and intelligent sympathy in moral life, the link between inquiry and action and the
theoretical press of concrete experience. Across this range of issues, one’s thinking
and action likely “cross-pollinated” the other’s.
Does it matter if we fail to recognize Addams’s role in Dewey’s develop-
ment—or Dewey’s role in Addams’s growth? I believe it matters on Dewey’s own
(philosophical) terms as much as it is a matter of historical accuracy. If we miss the
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 39
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
influence of philosophical outsiders on the quality of Dewey’s thought, we miss as
well the centrality of “democratic dialogue across difference” that is the hallmark
of Dewey’s philosophical process and its products. The phrase above is one often
used by Dewey scholar Jim Garrison to capture what Dewey was about in his life
relations, political action and philosophical expression. Jane Addams was just one
of the others with whom Dewey conducted an extensive dialogue.
Moreover, some features of Dewey’s pragmatic thought that seem especially
useful to us today can be linked in at least a prima facie way to his interaction with
Addams, among others. These include compatibility with the both/and, contex-
tualized thinking that marks contemporary feminism (Seigfried 1993, 1996) and
his ability to offer “a robust philosophy of everyday living” (Garrison 1997, 28).
And o f cou rse , we must acknow ledge hi s recogn iti on that confli ct (as di stinct fro m
antagonism) is not a problem but an opportunity for growth.
In the end of his consideration of Emerson as the philosopher of democracy,
Dewey of course dissolves the dichotomy between poet and philosopher. He con-
cedes the point that Emerson is well considered a poet, but he is no less a philoso-
pher for that. In fact, he must be both. “It is no more possible to eliminate love and
generation from the definition of the thinker than it is thought and limits from
the conception of the artist. It is interest, concern, caring which makes the one as
it makes the other” (1903b/1977, 186). Jane Addams is poet (love and generation)
to Dewey’s philosopher (thought and limits), and, one might argue, he poet to her
philosopher as well. Neither would have their significant impact without both dis-
cernment and logic.
The Preposterous Theory of Helen Bradford Thompson: Men’s
and Women’s Intelligence is Similar in Quantity and Quality
Jane Fowler Morse
Pragmatism was born during the philosopher John Dewey’s ten years at Chicago,
1894 to 1904 (Dykhuizen 1973). In part, it grew out of the people with whom he
associated. Among them was his student, Helen Bradford Thompson, a woman
whose contribution to psychology and philosophy has gone largely unrecognized.
While it seems likely that Dewey influenced Thompson, we might also ask how this
apt pupil influenced her teacher and colleague. Thompson’s 1900 dissertation ex-
emplified the new empir ical psycholog y. Her research i llustrated the newly emerg-
ing pragmatic theory that the thinker’s interaction with the world is the focus of
meaning, rather than relying on the idealist notion that the thinker somehow con-
firms a match between the ideas in his or her head and “the real world” out there
(an entity whose existence is assumed). After coming to Chicago, Dewey began to
question the idealism that he had supported earlier in his career. Thompson was
one of his interlocutors. The logic required for the new philosophy was presented
in the seminal 1903 volume, Studies in Logical Theory. Thompson was the only
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40 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
woman contributor.
Thompson graduated summa cum laude in philosophy from Chicago in
1897. Awarded a fellowship for graduate work, she chose psychology as her major.
She studied in Germany, perhaps with Wilhelm Wundt, against whose reflex arc
theory Dewey argues in his famous 1896 essay. After graduation, Thompson taught
at Mount Holyoke College, married in 1906, taught philosophy at the University
of Cincinnati, and served as school psychologist for the Cincinnati Public Schools
before movi ng to Detroit w here she beca me codi rector of t he Mer ril l Palmer I nsti-
tute for Child Study. Dewey and Thompson, now Woolley, met again at Teachers
College, Columbia University in 1927, when she became director of the Institute
for Child Research. During her career, Woolley published three books and over 50
articles.2 L ike Dewey, she was in tere ste d in so cia l just ice , con tri butin g to t he m ove-
ments for women’s suffrage, child study, the abolition of child labor, nursery school
and vocational guidance.
From her article in Studies in Logical Theory (1903) and her 1900 disserta-
tion, it is clear that Thompson agreed with Dewey’s critique of idealism. Her dis-
sertation, Psychological Norms in Men and Women, used psychometrics to show
that differences in men’s and women’s intelligence were slight. The tests she used
revealed a conception of functional, physiological psychology that challenged pre-
vious models of psychology.
Thompson’s contribution to Dewey’s edited collection, Studies in Logical
Theory, argued against Bosanquet’s 1888 idealist theory of judgment, which pro-
posed a dualistic epistemology in which judgment consists of finding a match be-
tween ideas and some preexisting reality. After disposing of this theory in the first
part of her essay, Thompson proposed that judgment is an activity on the part of
the perceiver, which does not attempt to match up perceptions with some kind of
independent reality, but rather arises from the construction of reality by the per-
ceiver. Her article provided the theoretical formulation of her earlier research on
the mental functioning of men and women.
In her dissertation, Thompson tested judgments about perceptions in a group
of 25 men and 25 women between the ages of 19 and 25 years. She checked motor
ability, skin and muscle senses, taste, smell, hearing, vision, intellectual faculties
and affective processes. In most of the tests, the subjects were compared in their
abil ity to mak e jud gme nts dis crim ina ting som e feat ure s of t he s timuli . For ins tance,
the test for perception of temperature, suggested by William James’s Psychology,
asks the subject to determine which container of water is colder after dipping his
or her fingers into two containers. The “threshold” at which the subject can make
75% accurate discriminations between stimuli was taken by Thompson to rep-
resent the degree of mental functioning by the subject. In these tests, Thompson
required the subject to make a judgment that depended upon the perceptive abili-
ties in question.
In all her tests, Thompson constantly returned to the topic of judgment. For
instance, in a test of memory, subjects were required to memorize a series of non-
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 41
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
sense syllables, describe the type of imagery that each used in memorizing, tell
whether or not each had learned the series by means of associations, and report
any tendency to group the syllables in learning them (Thompson 1903, 94). Not
content merely to count how many syllables a person could memorize, Thompson
asked subjects to comment on the process by which they completed the task. This
critical distance is indeed the judgment that Studies in Logical Theory introduced
to the philosophical world. In Thompson’s research design, subjects encountered
the world by a certain mode of perceiving on which they were asked to reflect in
the context of the encounter. They were not asked to search for a match to a pre-
conceived reality, as the idealist theory claimed.
When testing affective processes, Thompson (1903) both measured physi-
ological changes and asked subjects to talk about their feelings. She reported:
The most striking thing revealed by the . . . questions on personality is their
close coincidence in both sexes. The realm of feeling is one of those upon
which stress is laid by those who believe that there are important psycho-
logical differences of sex, and yet we find a series of men and a series of
women reacting toward questions about the life of feeling in wonderfully
similar ways. (166)
Th omps on lin ked some of the se d ifferences to sex role ste reot yp ing , as it later cam e
to be called. The upshot of her tests was that men’s and women’s abilities in many
areas were more similar than was believed by previous, nonempirical theories.
The “new psychology” rested on an empirical basis. At the end of her dissertation
Thompson, with characteristic caution, pronounced that “The biological theory
of psychological differences of sex is not in a condition to compel assent” (1903,
176). Hers was the first clear formulation of sex role stereotyping. She suggested
that there are better ways of explaining the minor differences in the psychological
functioning of men and women that she did find than biological destiny.
The suggestion that the observed psychological differences of sex may be
due to differences in environment has often been met with derision, but it
seems at least worthy of unbiased consideration. The fact that very genuine
and important differences of environment do exist can be denied only by
the most superficial observer. Even in our own country, where boys and
girls are allowed to go to the same schools and to play together to some
extent, the social atmosphere is different, from the cradle. Different toys
are given them, different occupations and games are taught them, differ-
ent ideals of conduct are held up before them. The question for the mo-
ment is not at all whether or not these differences in education are right
and proper and necessary, but merely whether or not, as a matter of fact,
they exist, and, if so, what effect they have on the individuals who are sub-
jected to them. (1903, 177)
In her final paragraph, Thompson announces
There are, as everyone must recognize, signs of a radical change in the so-
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42 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
cial ideals of sex. The point to be emphasized as the outcome of this study
is that, according to our present light, the psychological differences of
sex seemed to be largely due, not to difference of average capacity, nor to
difference in type of mental activity, but to differences in the social influ-
ences brought to bear on the developing individual from early infancy to
adult years. The question of the future development of the intellectual life
of women is one of social necessities and ideals, rather than of the inborn,
psychological characteristics of sex. (1903, 182)
The new model of philosophy to which Dewey aspired is evident in Thompson’s
work—philosophy should deal with the social problems that hinder people from
making the most of their lives. That she was drawn to the new perspective Dewey
and others were working out seems clear. What is not as clear is how her empiri-
cal explorations grounded in this perspective may have strengthened Dewey’s
understanding—about pragmatism generally or about the education of women
specifically.
Helen Thompson’s early work attempted to settle a longstanding problem for
women, the belief that they were not capable of receiving a higher education, that
education would be injurious to their health, and that their biology was responsi-
ble for their inferior social position. Instead of assuming that women’s psychology
depends on an ideally predetermined role, Thompson investigated how women
really do function psychologically. Her findings ruled out the idea that women
were biologically destined to belong to a separate sphere. Her idea of the influence
of nurture on the developing individual grew out of her desire to apply the results
of her study to some practical purpose. This application of the new psychology to
social problems evokes Dewey’s work. Her belief that a scientific study could dis-
pel old prejudices against women, allowing them entry to higher education and
the professions, is in keeping with Dewey’s application of philosophy to education.
Moreover, it is congruent with and predates Dewey’s public statements in favor of
coeducation (cf. Dewey 1902/1977, 1911/1977). Clearly, Dewey—who was open to
including a woman psychologist in his working group—was also open to the idea
that what was called “intelligence” arises in the sexes in the same manner—through
interaction with the world.
Helen Bradford Thompson’s work exemplifies the new logic whereby human
beings construct the reality of which they are a part. Dewey benefited by his con-
nection with women like her who undertook to apply pragmatism to pressing social
and political problems such as the admission of women to the previously all-male
networks of the academic, the profession and politics. Helen Thompson Wooley
was one of these, a rare bird in those days, a woman Ph.D. who undertook to end
the prejudice against women and working class people. Her inclusion in Dewey’s
1903 volume shows his willingness to work out his ideas in the presence of others
and demonstrates the interactive nature of his epistemology.
Unlike Dewey, Woolley never held a tenure-track position. A lone woman
in a vulnerable position, Woolley nevertheless refused to be intimidated in her
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 43
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
work, which was forgotten and ignored in the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury. Overcome by the kind of departmental politics that Dewey could afford to
scorn at Chicago, she died in obscurity. Nevertheless, in the early twentieth cen-
tury, she interacted with Dewey on the cutting edge of what came to be known
as Pragmatism.
New Directions in Old Places: Dewey’s Collaborative
Relationships with Women Graduate Students at Columbia
University, 1905-1930
Terri S. Wilson
Old Places
This essay began as an exploration of—and interest in—the work of Elsie Ripley
Clapp, a student, graduate assistant and long-standing colleague of John Dewey.
In considering the questions that prompted this group of essays, I found myself
remembering Clapp’s account of her graduate studies at Columbia University and
the warmth, generosity and encouragement that John Dewey gave her work. Clapp,
in her memoirs, contrasts his responsiveness with her work with other Columbia
faculty and her struggles to complete her graduate degree (Sandovnik and Semel
2002; Stack 2003). Given Clapp’s account, I found myself wondering if Dewey was
more receptive to women graduate students than were other members of the Co-
lumbia University faculty. This paper explores Dewey’s relationships with women
graduate students in the context of the general struggles for women at Columbia.
Drawing from Clapp and others, it is evident that Dewey formed collaborative re-
lationships with women graduate students, treating them seriously as philosophers
and e ducators. Th is r aise s a ser ies of i nte resti ng que sti ons : Given t hese c oll aborati ve
relationships, why did his women graduate students still struggle to succeed aca-
demically and professionally? Why, even today, are his students read primarily as
reformers and educators, not as philosophers? And finally, what do these relation-
ships reveal about Dewey’s commitments as a teacher, mentor and reformer—as
well as philosopher?
This essay is organized as follows. In order to provide the context for Dewey’s
relationships with and work on behalf of women graduate students, I first trace
the history of women at Columbia, highlighting Dewey’s practical work for their
inclusion. The next section considers Dewey’s relationship with women graduate
students, highlighting Clapp as an exemplar. In the final section I discuss the im-
plications and point towards some new directions for research.
The Struggles for Inclusion at Columbia
Women wishing to attend Columbia University during the first decades of the
twentieth century faced an uphill battle. Unlike other institutions, which began
with—or quickly embraced—coeducation, Columbia University fought women’s
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44 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
admission for decades (Rosenberg 2004, 3; Solomon 1985). While women were al-
lowed to enroll in a separate and limited undergraduate “Collegiate Course” starting
in 1883, graduate coursework remained firmly off-limits. A few professors crossed
over the lines by admitting certain high-achieving women as informal graduate
students. In 1886, Columbia gave its first Ph.D. degree to Winifred Edgerton, a stu-
dent admitted in “special standing” to the astronomy department (Rosenberg 2004,
45-46). In December of 1891, under increasing pressure from Barnard College, the
trustees finally agreed to open classes in the graduate faculties to women (74-75).
While classes were technically open to women, individual instructors still retained
the right to refuse any woman admittance to their course (80-81). So while women
were formally admitted to graduate study, their participation remained function-
all y segr egated by the resista nce posed —or encoura geme nt of fer ed— by par tic ular
faculty members and departments.
Rosenberg cites Dewey as one member of an encouraging group of Columbia
scholars “engaged in vigorous ‘trespass’ on the accepted forms of scholarly special-
ization” (111). In addition to Dewey, this group included James Harvey Robinson
in history, Franz Boas in anthropology, Franklin Giddings in sociology, Vladimir
Simk hovitch in economics, a nd Harry Hollingworth and Edward L . Thornd ike in
psychology. In addition to all having taught at Barnard or Teachers College, these
scholars were noted for their commitment to the interdisciplinary study of social
probl ems , movements for s oci al refor m and engagement w ith the s ettl ement m ove-
ment (111). In contrast to the developing concept of the university as a distributor
of specialized, professional knowledge, Dewey and his fellow scholars “viewed the
university as part of the urban laboratory,” a place where “ideas should be tested
and revised in light of the shifting experience” (112). Given this concept of the
university, these scholars saw women as an essential and organizing force in the
dr ive f or so cia l reform a nd were, as Rosenb erg notes , “gener ally sup portive of t heir
efforts” (112).
Under the guidance of Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College, a for-
mal group was created to advocate for women’s interests at Columbia. The Com-
mittee on Women Graduate Students lobbied to protect women’s interests in the
graduate school and open the professional schools to women (124). Even though this
committee contained prominent male faculty members such as Barnard professor
Ida Ogilvie, James Harvey Robinson and John Dewey, these efforts were part of a
strategic, savvy, decades-long and largely woman-led campaign to open Columbia
University to women. Rosenberg makes the argument that Columbia’s policy of
“containing” women students in separate, coordinate schools (such as Barnard and
Teache rs C oll ege) act ua lly ser ved to st reng th en wo men’s ove ral l position. Thes e ad-
jacent institutions served as “beachheads,” continuing “bases of protest and critical
thinking from the 1890s forward. They encouraged students to claim the right to
further training and provided jobs for talented graduates, at a time when academic
employment was largely closed to women” (3).
Teachers College provided an increasingly popular means for women to ac-
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 45
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
cess the graduate faculties of Columbia University. While only seven doctorates
were granted to women before 1900, by the time Dewey arrived on campus in 1905,
increasing numbers of women—indeed, increasing numbers of all students—were
enrolled in graduate work (Rossiter 1982). In 1905, 403 graduate students were reg-
istered at either the masters or the doctoral level. An increasing number of these
graduate students—103 of the 403, many of them women—came from Teachers
College. In fact, of the 19 Ph.D.s granted in 1905, 10 were in education (Randall
1975, 19-20). The increasing number of doctorates granted in education stood in
contrast to other disciplines, which remained more firmly closed to women.
Philosophy, Women and Dewey
In my research of women graduate students in the Philosophy Department at
Columbia, what stands out most clearly is their absence. Charlene Haddock
Seigfried points to a similar, and pervasive, pattern of omission in her valuable
study Pragmatism and Feminism. When looking for examples of women pragma-
tist philosophers who might have studied with James, Dewey, Peirce and Mead, she
found next to none (1996, 17-39). On one level, very few women at the turn of the
century—indeed, very few students in general—pursued full time graduate study.
But even as the numbers of overall graduate students increased, and the propor-
tion of women in their ranks grew, philosophy remained mostly closed to women
graduate students (Seigfried 1996; Rosenberg 2004, 305-306). While we find a few
women pursuing graduate study in philosophy, it seems like most disappeared
without leaving any scholarly record after leaving school. As Seigfried notes, if
they do appear, it is as reformers, social workers of educators, not as philosophers.
However, as she importantly reminds us, this absence reflects our definition of a
philosopher—as someone with a university position—as much as it does the ab-
sence of women doing philosophic work.
The record shows that Dewey had a variety of women students, although few
women he ment ored went on to find ac adem ic appoi ntment s in phi los ophy. In fact ,
only two specific students appear to have completed the Ph.D. in philosophy and
progressed through the ranks to find academic appointments: Savilla Alice Elkus,
who defended her dissertation, “The Concept of Control,” in 1907 and Willystine
Goodsell, who defended her dissertation, “The Conflict of Naturalism and Human-
ism,” in 1910. Elkus went on to teach philosophy at Vassar and Smith; Goodsell
taught at Teachers College, and shifted her research from philosophy to the study
of women and the family, publishing her most recognized work, A History of the
Family as a Social and Educational Institution, in 1915 (Schwartz-Seller 1994, 227-
231). While these two students are notable examples, they are by no means alone:
many more women students took masters degrees or minor doctoral concentra-
tions in philosophy.
Rose nberg not es t hat De wey and oth er key facu lty me mbe rs ser ved as med iat-
ing advocates for women graduate students, working behind the scenes to advance
the role that women played in the university. While few women were admitted to the
Department of Philosophy, many women—often those with major concentrations
E&C ◆ Education and Culture
46 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
in education—took a minor concentration in philosophy (Rosenberg 2004, 156,
161). These women’s reasons for studying philosophy varied: some appear to have
been educators, drawn to Dewey’s work (Green 2004). Others appear, like Clapp, to
have been students of philosophy—and therefore, to some extent, philosophers by
discipline and disposition, if not position. Because of the limited range of academic
professional opportunities available for women at that time, these two categories
often—and importantly—overlapped.
Elsie Ripley Clapp is an important example of this overlapping kind of stu-
dent. Clapp completed her graduate coursework in philosophy (and English) at
Columbia, taking no less than 14 courses from Dewey and serving as his gradu-
ate assistant in another 12 courses. It is in this role where we see the collaborative
relationship between Clapp and Dewey. She assisted Dewey with the content, ap-
proach and pedagogy of his courses. She often prepared detailed notes of these
courses, and engaged in lively, intellectual conversations about the content of these
courses (Seigfried 1996; Stack 2003). As J. J. Chambliss develops in his analysis of
thei r 1911 c orres pond ence, th is c onve rsati on ranged f rom t he c ontra st bet wee n the
desirable and the actual, an emerging synthesis between mind and nature and the
identification of thinking and acting (Chambliss 1991). Her contributions were so
sig nific ant that Dewey explicitly acknowledged Clapp in his preface for her cont ri-
butions to Democracy and Education. Four years earlier, in a letter to Clapp dated
September 2, 1911, Dewey recognized the significant, possibly too significant influ-
ence of her ideas in this manuscript. He writes, “So great is my indebtedness, that
it makes me apprehensive—not, I hope, that I am so mean as to be reluctant to be
under obligation, but that such a generous exploitation of your ideas as is likely to
result if and when I publish the outcome, seems to go beyond the limit” (quoted
in Seigfried 1996, 50).
Despite their extensive collaboration on philosophical ideas and courses—and
Clapp’s occasional contributions to philosophic journals (1909, 1912, 1911)—she
is best known as a progressive educator. Recognized as a leader in the progressive
education movement, Clapp taught at a number of schools before leading two ru-
ra l educ ation e xper iments at t he Ro ger C lark B al lard Me moria l Sc hool in Jef ferson
Co unt y, Kentucky (1929-1934) and t he A rthurd ale Sc hool in A rt hurda le, West Vi r-
ginia (1934-1936) (see Clapp 1939, 1952; Perlstein 1996; Patterson 2002). In fact, the
very fact that we acknowledge her work as educational reform reflects some of the
opportunities and limitations for women’s professional advancement at the time.
While an educational leader with a clear mastery of theoretical issues, Clapp found
an academic path closed to her. Clapp—while she was teaching secondary school
in New York—was also assisting Dewey with his courses at Teachers College when
he retired from active teaching in 1927. She wrote in her private notes, “The great-
est honor of my life was the fact that, on his retirement, Dr. Dewey named me as
his successor for the courses in Education he had been giving at Teachers College.
I was not appointed” (quoted in Seigfried 1996, 52).
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 47
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
New Directions
I believe that Clapp provides an instructive example for investigating other collab-
orative, intellectual relationships that Dewey had with his women graduate students.
Some of these students are familiar to us: Ella Flagg Young, Frances Perkins and
Lucy Sprague Mitchell, for example. Many others, though, are less known: Frances
Bradshaw, Myrtle McGraw, Louise Rosenblatt, Savilla Elkus, Willystine Goodsell,
Corrine Chisholm Frost, Alice P. Barrows, Margaret Haley, Pearl Hunter Weber
and countless others who have faded farther from view. Clapp is an example of re-
lationships that Dewey had with strong, intellectual women of his time, from Jane
Addams to Ella Flagg Young. These relationships helped to shape and reconstruct
Dewey’s philosophy, literally working out his ideas through practice and conversa-
tion (see, for instance, Stengel, this issue; Siegfried 1996).
More specifically though, I think Clapp provides an instructive example of
both where we might look for evidence of these collaborative relationships, as well
as why we should. Dewey’s relationship with Clapp points us toward some possible
places to learn about his collaboration with other students. One source of evidence
might include student remembrances and accounts of Dewey. These interviews,
memoirs and oral histories provide a glimpse into both Dewey’s thought and his
practice as a teacher. In contrast with accounts that often emphasize Dewey as lost
in his own thoughts in the classroom, his women students present a richer portrait.
One example of this is Pearl Hunter Weber’s remembrances of Dewey in the class-
room. She recalls, “When a student posed a question or made a comment, Dewey
came to attention . . . he would draw out of him and his innocent question intel-
lectual wonders. This drawing out was never better done because in Dewey’s ac-
tive deference he gave unqualified attention to anybody” (quoted in Martin 2003,
261). Weber’s account is particularly interesting in that it emphasizes the “active”
listening that Dewey practiced as well as his profound respect for every individual
student (Martin 2003; Jackson 1998).
In addition to where we might look, the example of Elsie R ipley Clapp m ight
help us think through some of the reasons why we should. One possible reason
to reexamine these women graduate students is for what they said. In particular,
I argue that what these women have written—in articles and books about what-
ever work they were engaged in, as well as in less formal sources like letters and
correspondence—might be deeply philosophic texts, or at least texts that deserve
philosophic attention and inquiry. For example, Louise Rosenblatt, one of Dew-
ey’s graduate students, is recognized chiefly as a teacher educator and authority on
literacy. In her pioneering work on how children learn how to read, she advances
a “transactional” theory of literacy. This theory might be examined for its philo-
sophic significance and theoretical depth, as well as for its educational application
(Seigfried 1996, 30-31). As Mary Ellen Waithe commented, these women might be,
“not women on the fringes of philosophy, but philosophers on the fringes of his-
tory” (quoted in Witt 1996).
In treating these women as philosophers, they provide us with examples—
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48 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
and perhaps are themselves exemplars—of taking the interrelationship between
philosophy and education seriously. As such, their work in interesting not just for
what it says, but also for how it says it. In particular, the body of this work, espe-
cially for the field and study of philosophy and education, might be interesting for
its methodological approach. Many of these women are powerful examples of en-
gaged scholars who explored the interplay between philosophy and education with
precision and commitment. As calls for action research, engaged scholarship and
school-university partnerships continue to proliferate within a variety of academic
disciplines, this methodology seems more resonant than ever.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly for this group of essays, I believe the
lives and work of these women provide some powerful insights into the life and
work of John Dewey. Jay Martin writes that those who came under Dewey’s influ-
ence were att rac ted by his qu alit y of w armt h (20 03, 2 46) . I bel ieve that D ewe y’s re la-
tionships with his students allow us to see this sense of warmth, responsiveness and
openness to the world in a new and important light. These relationships also push
us to see that this quality of responsiveness might be more than just a personality
trait. Instead, this quality of response might both reflect—and pervade—Dewey’s
philosophical method, democratic conviction and moral commitment. In a sense,
Dewey’s moral responsiveness to his students might have been part of taking his last
sentence in Dem ocr acy and Ed ucati on ver y muc h to hear t: th at “ interes t in lear ni ng
from all the contacts of life is the essential moral interest” (1916, 370).
Shared Explorations of Body-Mind: The Reciprocal Influences
of Dewey and F. M. Alexander
Craig A. Cunningham
John Dewey’s relationship with F. Matthias Alexander has presented his biographers
with a challenge: how to explain a thoughtful scholar’s fascination with an appar-
ent “quack,” a practitioner of an art with questionable scientific and intellectual
foundations? But there is no getting around the fact that Dewey took Alexander
quite seriously—as a healer and a thinker.
How “Weird” was F. M. Alexander?
The American Heritage Dictionary (2000) defines “weirdo” as:
1. A person regarded as being very strange or eccentric.
2. A deranged, potentially dangerous person.
Few would argue that Alexander was deranged, but there is no question that he was
an unusual person whose work, life and story display interesting and even eccen-
tric characteristics. He was born and raised in Tasmania, an island off the coast of
Au str alia th at was popu lat ed pr imar ily by exi led cri mi nal s from Eng lan d, Scotl and
and Ireland. All four of Alexander’s grandparents were criminals, either exiled for
petty theft or for participating in agrarian civil disobedience against the threaten-
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 49
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
ing machinery of capitalist hegemony. Alexander felt ashamed of his ancestry and
he lied about it and maintained a deep sense of distrust towards others his entire
life. Originally slated to become a schoolteacher, Alexander was forced to assume
financial responsibility for his family when he was 16, and worked in a variety of
jobs in tin mining and mechanizing during the next ten years, while he built a career
as an accomplished elocutionist and actor. In those days (unlike now, of course),
actors and entertainers were treated somewhat with suspicion as oddballs. There
is evidence that Alexander was actively homosexual or at least bisexual and he was
described as having an “affected” air that contributed to his eccentric reputation.
In the early stages of his career as an elocutionist, Alexander would often lose
his voice during performances, a tendency which, needless to say, caused him some
consternation. In trying to figure out what caused him to lose his voice, Alexander
spent some ti me watc hing h imsel f spea k in a mir ror, a nd he di scover ed that he was
ha bitua lly ten sing h is neck a nd jaw w hen he bega n to spea k, w hich was cau sing h im
to strain his vocal chords. Over time, Alexander developed a technique for helping
himself and others to maintain proper breathing and posture while speaking or
acting. The technique involved noticing bad habits, deciding not to do them, and
allowing new more effective habits to emerge. In selling his technique to actors
and, later to doctors to recommend to their patients, Alexander engaged in what
can only be described as hucksterism and exaggeration, tendencies which causes
some in the medical profession and others to think of him as a quack selling noth-
ing but hype. This was exacerbated by Alexander’s infamous tendency towards a
lack of tact in interpersonal relationships, and his renowned temper, which would
greatly intimidate employees, associates and even patients. He also had some un-
usual personal notions and habits revolving around gambling, dining habits and
money. To many of his contemporaries, Alexander might have been described as
an archetypal eccentric. Further, in his writings, Alexander went so far as to claim
that his method would not only cure bad posture and other habits, but would also
eventually lead to “universal salvation.” Despite all this strangeness and eccentric-
ity, Alexander became very successful, building primarily on the testimony of the
many individuals who found his technique useful in developing large clienteles in
London and New York—including, from 1916 onwards, John Dewey.
Before I go into his relationship to Dewey, let me answer the question: Was
Alexander a weirdo? Any attempt to decide whether a person is a weirdo must con-
sider the context in which the question is asked. Here we are talking about some-
one who has been thought to have a significant impact on Dewey’s philosophy of
habit and the relationship between the mind and the body. There is no question
that Alexander would seem an unlikely person to deeply affect the thinking of an
influential philosopher, given that he had no philosophical training and infused his
ideas with grandiose and unsupported claims and theories. So, both in the sense
that he was considered strange and eccentric by many associates and in the sense
that he was an unusual—even weird—candidate to have impacted a person such
as Dewey, then yes, we are justified in calling Alexander a “weirdo.”
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Was Dewey influenced by Alexander?
In 1916, Dewey was having some troubles with a tight neck, sore back, and eye strain.
Upon the recommendation of Wendell Bush, a colleague at Columbia, Dewey’s wife
and children began seeing Alexander (Alice went for help with her depression; it
is not clear for what the children were treated), and eventually Dewey himself had
se ssions w ith Ale xande r. De wey fou nd t he ses sion s “a l aborator y [i n] exp eri menta l
education” and felt he was “an inept, awkward, and slow pupil” (Dearborn 1988,
96). He described the early sessions as “the most humiliating experience of my life,
intellectually speaking. For to find that one is unable to execute directions . . . in
doing such a seemingly simply act as to sit down, when one is using all the mental
capacity which one prides oneself upon possessing, is not an experience congenial
to one ’s v anit y” (96 -97). Later, Dewe y wrote: “I use d to s huf fle a nd sag. Now, I hold
myself up” (97).
In addition, Dewey claimed, in several introductions he wrote to American
editions of Alexander’s books, that Alexander had deeply affected his understand-
ing of habits in relation to what he began to call body-mind or mind-body.
My theories of mind-body, of the coordination of the active elements of
the self and of the place of ideas in inhibition and control of overt action
required contact with the work of F. M. Alexander and in later years his
brother, A. R., to transform them into realities. (quoted in Jane Dewey
1939, 44-45)
Dewey’s respect for Alexander was maintained even though some of Dewey’s pro-
fessional colleagues dismissed him. At one point, for example, he was so bothered
by a dismissive review of one of Alexander’s books written by Randolph Bourne
that Dewey threatened never to contribute to the New Republic again if they ac-
cepted anything written by Bourne. In Dialogue on John Dewey (Lamont 1959),
Alvin Johnson described Dewey as having been “enamored” of Alexander; a com-
ment that caused Dewey’s second wife Roberta to wage a concerted campaign to
get the word stricken from subsequent editions for fear someone might conclude
that Dewey’s attractions to Alexander were more than intellectual.
There is no question that Dewey relied on his experiences with Alexander
to ground his theory of human nature and conduct, and that he saw Alexander’s
approach to correcting posture as embodying the physiology of psychophysical
experience that he theorized about in his later works. As Jo Ann Boydston (1986)
has written:
In 1923, Dewey introduced Alexander’s Constructive Conscious Control of
the Individual. In Dewey’s most comprehensive philosophical statement,
Experience and Nature (1925), often called his mag num opus, speci fic ref-
erences to Alexander again appear. As major work followed major work
from the late twenties to the late thirties, anyone knowledgeable about
Alexander’s thoughts and practice would find evidence of their impact in
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 51
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
Ar t as Exp erie nce , Th e Qu est for C erta int y, the 1933 revised How We Think,
Experience and Education, and finally in 1939, The Theory of Valuation.
Dewey again endorsed the Alexander technique and praised Alexander for making
“one of the most important discoveries that has been made in practical application
of the unity of the mind-body principle” (Letter to Joseph Ratner, July 24, 1946;
quoted in Boydston 1986). The key phrase here is “practical application.” What this
indicates to me is that Dewey had already formed a theory of mind-body by the time
he met Alexander—taking part of it from William James and C. S. Peirce—and
that Dewey’s appreciation for Alexander wasn’t so much in the theoretical realm as
in the realm of practice. This is not to denigrate the benefit Dewey gained from his
association with Alexander (to his posture as well as his thought), but to suggest
that the primary benefit was giving Dewey experience that helped him to solidify,
or gr ound, a v iew poi nt t hat h ad previ ously be en pr edom inan tly intel lec tua l. De wey
had always displayed an openness to experience as the crucial test of the value of
ideas, and his experience of the Alexander technique certainly convinced him that
mi nd a nd bod y wer e, i n th e end , a cont inu ity more tha n a s epa rat ion. Pe rhaps mor e
im por tantly, A lexa nder he lped Dewey to se e how, by usin g th e mi nd in a pa rticul ar
way, a habit of bad posture could gradually be corrected. This strongly suggests that
“mind” is more of a process than an entity, and that “ends-in-view” are tools that
enable the mind to continually create the self. This conception, of course, became
the essence of Dewey’s theory of human nature and conduct, and an important
rationale for his metaphysical view that every existence is an event. But again, the
theoretical bases for these ideas were already in place when Alexander gave Dewey
a concrete experience of it.
So What?
I must confess to being tempted, like some other Dewey commentators, to attri-
bute g rea t import anc e to th e Al exa nde r rel ati onship, i f on ly bec ause such a position
would help convince you that our focus here has legs. But I honestly cannot justify
suggesting anything more than a marginal influence on Dewey’s philosophy—more
in the way of confirmation than causal influence. Yet there can be no doubt that
Dewey, by his own admission, became a learner in Alexander’s presence. I believe
that Dew ey’s relat ion shi p wi th A lex ander— whi ch was clear ly mu tua ll y beneficia l—
says a lot about Dewey the man and a little about Dewey the philosopher that we
should pay attention to. By allowing himself to consider the relationship between
his ideas and the world of experience beyond the academy, by being a learner in
the world, Dewey exemplifies for us the notion of philosophical engagement. And
to this extent, I think, if not more, Dewey’s relationship with Alexander ought to
be taken as exemplifying something we all should seek.
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A “Scientific Aesthetic Method”: John Dewey, Albert Barnes and
the Question of Aesthetic Formalism
David A. Granger
A native of Philadelphia, Albert Coombs Barnes was born a little over a decade
after John Dewey in 1872. He is almost uniformly described as an oddball, an ill-
tempered, messianic eccentric who blazed his own path through life while leaving
his mark, for better and for worse, on everyone and everything he came into contact
with, including Dewey. Yet he was also, by current standards, a veritable renais-
sance man—a trained physician with a knack for chemistry, a head for business, a
fascination for psychology and philosophy, a passion for art and most importantly,
a fervid belief in human perfectibility through education.
As a young man of thirty, Barnes assisted in creating the innovative silver
compound marketed as Argyrol, a noncaustic antiseptic that proved very effec-
tive in treating certain viral infections. Upon setting up a business and amassing
a substantial fortune selling Argyrol, Barnes began to collect and give serious,
appreciative study to art. Under the tutelage of painter William Glackens’s avant-
garde sensibilities, and against the remonstrances of stiff-necked critics (at whom
he openly voiced his contempt), Barnes acquired at comparably low cost impres-
sionist and post-impressionist works by Renoir, Manet, Seurat, Gauguin, Cézanne,
Degas, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh and many others. By the time of his death in
1951, Barnes’s collection contained over one thousand pieces—including over one
hundred Renoirs, as he once boasted to Dewey—with a current estimated value in
excess of six billion dollars (Greenfeld 1987, 2-3; Anderson 2003, 5).
After becoming enamored in his spare time with the psycholog y and educa-
tional theory of Dewey and William James, Barnes began displaying some of his
paintings around the Argyrol factory. With the aid of his staff, he then convened
seminars on art, psychology and philosophy with his small but diverse cohort of
employees (Schack 1960, 97-99). The challenging seminars were intended to help
the employees reach their potentialities in bot h work and l ife, and entai led read ing
and discussion centered on the works of James, George Santayana, Bertrand Rus-
sell, and the formalist aesthetics of Roger Fry, along with Dewey’s How We Think
(1910/1977) and, eventually, Democracy and Education (1916/1977).
Wanting to meet the great educator in person, Barnes subsequently arranged
to enroll in one of Dewey’s philosophy seminars at Columbia University in 1917.
Barnes liked Dewey from the beginning, both for his earnest character and his
mind. Dewey, meanwhile, found Barnes to possess a prodigious intellect (though
he apparently never spoke up in Dewey’s class), so much so, in fact, that he came
to view him as “almost unmatched for ‘sheer brain power’” (Dykhuizen 1973, 221).
The two quickly became fast friends, conversing about art and aesthetics together
over dinner after class, with Dewey, who was not naturally an aesthete and who
admitted to knowing little about the plastic arts, largely assuming the role of stu-
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 53
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
dent. This was followed by many rewarding trips to museums, both in America
and abroad, in addition to careful study of Barnes’s growing collection. It also ap-
pears that Dewey learned early on to avoid confrontations with the highly irascible
Barnes—yet, with the best of diplomacy, he did apparently let Barnes know when
he was being short-sighted or overly quarrelsome—and to make certain conces-
sions from time to time for the sake of their deep and loyal friendship. On the
other hand, Dewey’s former student and friend Sidney Hook, who disliked Barnes
and his famously contentious demeanor with a passion, found in this “indulgent
friendship” a rare, humanizing flaw in Dewey’s otherwise unimpeachable charac-
ter (quoted in Schack 1960, 241). All the same, Dewey’s openly receptive and non-
judgmental attitude with all manner of people was, given the parochial exclusivity
of academe, integral to his insatiable craving for new experiences and ideas. While
it led at points to strange, even disreputable alliances (such as that with Barnes),
this democratic habit also made it possible for him continually to renew himself
personally as well as professionally.
By 1920, Barnes’s lavish art collection had clearly outgrown both the factory
and his otherwise ample Merion, Pennsylvania home. As an inventive solution to
the problem, he formulated an ambitious plan to construct a new building on an
adjacent tract of land and establish what came to be known as the Barnes Founda-
tion. At the core of this plan was Barnes’s vaulting aspiration to develop the means
for, in hi s word s, “an object ive study of pictures.” Such study would b e bas ed on an
explicitly Deweyan model of perception and would culminate in a personally and
culturally enriching “scientific aesthetic method” (Barnes and de Mazia 1935, xi).
In addition, it was this particular method that selected participants would learn
in the innovative education programs of the Barnes Foundation and its extraor-
dinary gallery.
To my knowledge, Dewey himself never described his theorizing in terms of
a “scientific aesthetic method,” an appellation that sounds rather rigid and con-
straining. Yet Dewey openly endorsed both the intellectual means and experien-
tial ends of the Barnes project for emphasizing the organic relationship between
art and life, and with generous words of approbation and support. Indeed, for a
short time after its opening in 1925, Dewey served (mostly informally) as the first
“director of education” at the Barnes Foundation, and thereafter he remained a
casual consultant, continuing to add “big name” prestige and legitimacy to the en-
te rpr ise . Fu rthermore, Dewey e xclai med in 1935 t hat the Bar nes Foundat ion i s “t he
most thoroughgoing embodiment of what I have tried to say about education.” In
particular, he took “profound satisfaction” in it being “an educational institution
that is concerned with art” which so “exemplifi[es] . . . what that theory means in
practice” (Dewey 1935, 504-505).
Ot her appa rent d isc ontinui tie s soon e merge, howe ver. For as numerous w rit-
ers have pointed out, while Dewey’s influence on the Barnes Foundation was by no
means nonexistent, the general policies and education programs of the Foundation
were in many way s con spicu ously un Dewey an. To w it: T he ga ller y ma int ai ned only
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54 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
limited public hours (and this only after Barnes’s death in 1951), restricting access
for those persons not participating in the Foundation’s necessarily limited education
prog ram s (Gla ss 19 97, 96) . It seem s, too, that B arnes w ished to prevent par tic ipa nts
from “enjoying his collection in a way other than the one he prescribed” (100). This
meant that lecturers at the Foundation must not veer even slightly from Barnes’s
“scientific aesthetic method.” Such “ideological rigidity” suggested that Barnes’s
method be treated as an established truth, rather than, in Deweyan fashion, an
ongoing experiment to be continually tested in the laboratory of lived experience
(100; see also Constantino 2004). Furthermore, while the Foundation claimed to
practice Dewey’s notion of “shared activity” as the basis for its lectures, little (if
any) of this occurred, nor were the meeting spaces very conducive to questioning
and discussion (Gilmar 2004, 5).
Interestingly, Dewey’s proponents among academic philosophers tend to
downplay, ignore, or in a few cases openly lament his association with Barnes—
including the important question of the possible influence of Barnes’s thinking on
Dewey’s aesthetics. On the other hand, writers working from the perspective of art
and aesthetic education openly admit to this association, yet they are inclined to
privilege Dewey’s influence on Barnes and so become rather vexed at the unDeweyan
elements of the Barnes Foundation education programs. (From the philosophical
standpoint, see, for example, Alexander 1987; Shusterman 2000; Jackson 1998;
Garrison 1997; Morris 1971; Dennis 1972. From the educational standpoint, see,
for example, Glass 1997; Constantino 2004; Gilmar 2004.)
All of this readily evokes the following questions: What degree of influence,
if any, did Barnes have on Dewey’s thinking about art and aesthetics and, if such
exists, what was the nature of this influence? Are there any significant differences
between Barnes’s and Dewey’s aesthetics? And finally, what accounts for t he seem-
ing incompatibility of the Barnes Foundation education programs and Dewey’s
educational vision?
These are complicated questions, and any effort to answer them must nec-
essarily involve some degree of conjecture. However, it is my belief, based on pre-
liminary research, that Dewey was justified in dedicating his only major work on
aesthetics, Ar t as Experience, to Barnes. (Barnes had previously dedicated his book
The Art in Painting to Dewey.) Those parts of Art as Experi enc e th at develo p th emes
introduced previously in Experience and Nature cou ld likely have been w rit ten h ad
Dewey never met Barnes. But the detailed commentary on the formal properties
of the plastic arts and different art media, especially in relation to specific pieces
of painting and sculpture, were very likely dependent on Barnes’s expertise. On
the reverse side, Barnes claims that Dewey helped him to see what is involved in
“educating people to new ways of thinking” (Hart 1963, 16). This is something that
Dewey freely acknowledged, both in print and in conversation among friends and
colleagues, including two of Dewey’s former students, Thomas Munro and Lau-
rence Buermeyer, both of whom taught for a time at the Barnes Foundation (Dewey
192 6, 10 4-110). I n an es say entitl ed “Af fec tive Thought i n Logi c and Pai nti ng,” fir st
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 55
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
published in The Journal of the Barnes Foundation in 1926, Dewey provides some
idea of what he learned from Barnes and why he thought it appropriate to cast his
lot with the Barnes Foundation:
In [his book] The Art in Painting, Mr. Barnes has shown that plastic form
is the integration of all plastic means. In the case of paintings, these are
color, line, light and space. By means of their relations to one another,
design is affected: design, namely, in line patterns, in surface masses, in
three-dimensional solids, and in spatial intervals—the “room” about ob-
jects whether up and down, side to side, front and back. And Mr. Barnes
has shown that it is the kind and degree of integration of plastic means in
achieving each of the elements of design taken by itself and also the inte-
gr ation of each w ith al l th e ot hers, wh ich con st itute s th e obj ect ive sta nda rd
for value in painting. (1926, 108)
Interestingly, too, these are some of the same formalist ideas—part of Barnes’s “sci-
entific aesthetic method,” where organic relationships between color, light, space
and line are foregrounded and privileged intellectually in experience—for which
Art as Experience is often reproved as “backsliding” into idealism.
Alternatively, the incompatibility in points of emphasis between Barnes’s and
Dewey’s aesthetics—or at least those elements of Dewey’s aesthetics that seem most
consistent with the general contours of his later philosophy—is perhaps best seen
with what Dewey calls “judicial” criticism. While joining Barnes in rejecting mere
“impressionist” criticism and sloppy sentimentalism, Dewey also spurns criticism
that uses fixed rules and principles to pass final judgment on individual pieces of
art or art movements (Dewey 1934, 303-313). Barnes, however, frequently uses
the “objective criteria of value” from his “scientific aesthetic method” to try and
“tame art with science,” thereby making judicial pronouncements on the ultimate
worth of different pieces of art. Barnes’s first published article was called, “How to
Judge a Painting.” Notably, too, Barnes’s formalism led him to be very dismissive
of abstract expressionism and its focus on “the subjective,” whereas abstract ex-
pressionist artists often found considerable inspiration in Dewey’s aesthetics (see
Bérubé 1998, 211-227; Buettner 1975, 383-391). In addition, Dewey’s more robust
organicism led him to emphasize the thorough integration of form and content
and the full play of subjectivity (or what he called “the human contribution”) in
maximizing the expressive possibilities of art and the aesthetic. One could say,
then, that while Barnes grafts elements of expressionist theory onto his aesthetic
formalism (via Dewey), Dewey grafts elements of aesthetic formalism onto his ex-
pressionism (via Barnes).
These and related contrasts, I have come to think, help to explain why the
education programs at the Barnes Foundation appear so methodologically pre-
scribed and unDeweyan in important ways: They were teaching an express aesthetic
formalism that aspired to complete objectivity in experience and criticism. Such
contrasts, along with other forms of evidence, suggest as well that Dewey at times
made concessions to Barnes’s aesthetics and educational endeavors out of a deep
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56 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
sense of respec t for his friend and t heir endu ring , mutually beneficial relationship.
For it seems clear that Dewey’s forays into the territory of art and aesthetics, and
his gradual “aesthetic turn,” would not have subsumed the plastic arts with such
alacrity and erudition were it not for his patient friendship with the infamous Al-
bert Barnes.
Concluding Remarks
Taken together, these essays support the hypothesis stated at the outset: Dewey’s
capacity to articulate prescient and revolutionary philosophical concepts was en-
hanced by his willingness to listen to and learn from women and weirdoes to an
extent rarely displayed by other scholars. His students noted his active listening
and profound respect for their questions and their ideas. He sought out female
graduate students and respected them as colleagues. He readily assumed the role
of student, for example, with Albert Barnes and F. M. Alexander. He respected the
role of w omen like Jane Add am s as an ess ent ial and orga ni zin g for ce i n th e dr ive for
social reform—and recognized the power of both their actions and their thinking.
Moreover, he was generous in his acknowledgment of others’ influence.
These essays also support the observation that Dewey’s biographers and in-
ter preters have la rgely dow nplayed such influences. Why? Our essays suggest t hat
this may be due to a limited conception of what constitutes an “influence,” or, even
more si gnificantl y, par t of a resista nce to certa in manifestations of i ntel lige nce. Ei-
ther limitation has both theoretical and practical implications.
It seems clear to us that Dewey was more open to listening to voices outside
of the traditional categories of academia than were his contemporaries or many of
today’s academics. Dewey was, as Terri Wilson notes above, interested “in learning
from all the contacts of life” and he viewed this as “the essential moral interest.”
This may be the key to understanding Dewey’s openness and to appreciating the
kind of influence others (specifically women and nonphilosophers) exerted on him.
Dewey was a learner and his commitment to learning was moral as much as intel-
lectual. This comes as no surprise to students of Dewey’s educational philosophy.
But there is a professional explanation for Dewey’s interest as well.
Dewey’s explicit goal in developing his theories was to develop conceptions
and hypotheses that could be tested in the realm of experience and that could
therefore have value in practical affairs such as schooling, politics, and community
development. He did not just accept pragmatism as an intellectual method; he ad-
opted it as a life philosophy. For Dewey, theorizing is not complete until ideas have
been tested in the crucible of experience, and testing (experience) cannot be con-
ceived of in the absence of ideas. There is a constant process of generating insight
from problems of practice and then testing them systematically for confirmation
(or warranted assertability), which then (potentially) translates into action. The
persons whose work we explore here offered both experience and ideas that were
congruent with Dewey’s experience and ideas. He recognized the connections and
Dewey, Women, and Weirdoes ◆ 57
Volume 23 (2) ◆ 2007
borrowed (and shared) freely.
The case studies themselves explicitly address the first essential question of
our study: Were Dewey’s theories in fact significantly influenced by women and
weirdoes? Several kinds and degrees of influence are documented. Given that, the
papers also begin to answer our other motivating question: So what? Why does it
matter if we fail to fully understand the sources of John Dewey’s thinking?
The fact that scholars do not sufficiently attend to persons, perspectives and
experiences that do not fit neatly into preconceived or traditional categories raises
important questions of intellectual privilege and institutional power. The tendency
of hegemonic groups to strive consciously and unconsciously to preserve power
through (often) artificial barriers to participation is well known. But, as Dewey
understood, the resulting exclusion is not only politically unfair; it is also intellec-
tually limiting, even dangerous.
As we sug gested at t he ou tse t, what emerges fr om ou r ex plorati ons o f Dewey’s
odd influences is a picture of the philosopher as “man thinking.” In each of the
case studies described above, we find an interactive process requiring puzzlement
about real problems for actual human persons, marked by open-mindedness and
responsiveness. These are the elements that mark Dewey’s conception of thinking
well. These are also the elements that suggest this inquiry is worth pursuing.
Further, it seems reasonable to propose that theoreticians who pay atten-
tion to ideas that come from people or experiences outside of normally privileged
categories may be more likely than their peers to form theories that push beyond
the received beliefs of an era and open doors for those creating the theories of the
next generation. In other words, theoreticians who pay attention to events ignored
by their academic contemporaries may be the ones who create new paradigms and
push theory beyond the normal to the revolutionary (Kuhn 1962). Dewey’s ongoing
influence justifies the claim that he was one of those unusually eclectic scholars.
Th e pra ctical implicati ons of l imit ing th is b road consideration of t he s ources
of thought are perhaps even more profound. Dewey famously urged his colleagues
to focu s less on the “problems of phil osophe rs” an d more on t he “proble ms of men”
(and, he must have intended, of women). Academics remain, in our day, notoriously
disconnected from the problems of practitioners in all fields. Dewey’s example,
revealed in these brief portraits, demonstrates the potentially fertile interaction of
theory and practice.
Despite Dewey’s own exemplification of “principled pluralism” in his work,
many of Dewey’s students and followers act in ways that constrain “democratic
dialogue across difference” and limit wide interaction with diverse and unusual
voices. The temptation to bracket the personal from the professional, as well as the
pressure to limit thoughtful attention to academically approved topics and prob-
lems in the service of academic “success,” can be overwhelming. Nonetheless, we
su gge st t hat t he t ru ly g reat cont ribut ors t o th eor y, and perhaps th e most sign ific ant
influences on nonacademic practices and everyday life, will be those who, whether
because they have pains in their necks or because they wish to understand events
E&C ◆ Education and Culture
58 ◆ Craig A. Cunningham et al.
beyond their own experience, remain open to learning from the unlearned, frat-
ernizing with the oddballs, and perhaps even taking seriously the strange ideas of
their students.
Notes
1. The text for this and the following three block quotes is taken directly from the
source (Hickman 2001) and retains the bracketed editorial comments.
2. For a fuller account of Thompson’s (Woolley) life and work, see articles by Katharine
Milar and Jane Fowler Morse.
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Craig A. Cunningham is Associate Professor, Integrated Studies in Teaching,
Technology, and Inquiry at National-Louis University.
Email: Craig.Cunningham@nl.edu
David A. Granger is Associate Professor of Education and Chair of the Childhood
Education Program at SUNY Geneseo.
Email: granger@geneseo.edu
Jane Fowler Morse is Professor of Education at SUNY Geneseo.
Email: jfmorse@geneseo.edu
Barbara Stengel is Professor of Educational Foundations at Millersville University.
Email: Barbara.Stengel@millersville.edu
Terri S. Wilson is a Doctoral Candidate in the Program in Philosophy and Education
at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Email: tsw2006@columbia.edu
