Dewey's book on Democracy and Education established his credentials in the field of education and once counted as his most important book. It has been re-published in many editions and continuously in print ever since the original publication in 1916.

“When Species Meet is a breathtaking meditation on the intersection between humankind and dog, philosophy and science, and macro and micro cultures.” —Cameron Woo, Publisher of Bark magazine In 2006, about 69 million U.S. households had pets, giving homes to around 73.9 million dogs, 90.5 million cats, and 16.6 million birds, and spending over $38 billion dollars on companion animals. As never before in history, our pets are truly members of the family. But the notion of “companion species”—knotted from human (...) beings, animals and other organisms, landscapes, and technologies—includes much more than “companion animals.” In When Species Meet, Donna J. Haraway digs into this larger phenomenon to contemplate the interactions of humans with many kinds of critters, especially with those called domestic. At the heart of the book are her experiences in agility training with her dogs Cayenne and Roland, but Haraway’s vision here also encompasses wolves, chickens, cats, baboons, sheep, microorganisms, and whales wearing video cameras. From designer pets to lab animals to trained therapy dogs, she deftly explores philosophical, cultural, and biological aspects of animal-human encounters. In this deeply personal yet intellectually groundbreaking work, Haraway develops the idea of companion species, those who meet and break bread together but not without some indigestion. “A great deal is at stake in such meetings,” she writes, “and outcomes are not guaranteed. There is no assured happy or unhappy ending—socially, ecologically, or scientifically. There is only the chance for getting on together with some grace.” Ultimately, she finds that respect, curiosity, and knowledge spring from animal-human associations and work powerfully against ideas about human exceptionalism. One of the founders of the posthumanities, Donna J. Haraway is professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Author of many books and widely read essays, including The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness and the now-classic essay “The Cyborg Manifesto,” she received the J. D. Bernal Prize in 2000, a lifetime achievement award from the Society for Social Studies in Science. (shrink)

Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey's ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education.

In Human Nature and Conduct, first published in 1922, Dewey brings the rigor of natural sciences to the quest for a better moral system.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The heart of this book is the reciprocal relationship between philosophical theories of mind and empirical studies of animal cognition.

"We become what we love," states Jim Garrison in Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching. This provocative book represents a major new interpretation of Dewey's education philosophy. It is also an examination of what motivates us to teach and to learn, and begins with the idea of education of eros (i.e., passionate desire)-"the supreme aim of education" as the author puts it-and how that desire results in a practical philosophy that guides us in recognizing what (...) is essentially good or valuable. Garrison weaves these threads of ancient wisdom into a critical analysis of John Dewey's writings that reveal an implicit theory of eros in reasoning, and the central importance of educating eros to seek "the Good." Chapters: Plato's Symposium: Eros, the Beautiful, and the Good • Care, Sympathy, and Community in Classroom Teaching: Feminist Reflections on the Expansive Self • Play-Doh, Poetry, and "Ethereal Things" • The Aesthetic Context of Inquiry and the Teachable Moment • The Education of Eros: Critical and Creative Value Appraisal • Teaching and the Logic of Moral Perception This book can be used in graduate courses in foundations, teacher education, philosophy of education, qualitative research, arts and education, language and literacy, and women and education. Jim Garrison is Professor of Philosophy of Education at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. He is pastpresident of the John Dewey Society and a winner of the Society's Outstanding Achievement Award. (shrink)

Our nation’s schools have always been contested turf but perhaps never more so than in today’s volatile environment. Educational policy and educational values have never been more controversial, and the schools themselves are under attack from many different directions.The role of philosophy of education in such an environment is not to dictate answers. Rather, it must foster understanding of the philosophical issues underlying contemporary debates. In this survey, Nel Noddings provides the essential background necessary for a more sophisticated and nuanced (...) comprehension of the issues. Philosophy of Education is designed for general students of education who need to know something about philosophical thought and its exercise in teaching, learning, research, and educational policy. It assumes no previous training in philosophy. Ranging broadly from the great historical figures through John Dewey to contemporary representatives of both analytic and Continental traditions, it is always fair-minded, generous, and undogmatic. Attractive features are the author’s nondoctrinaire feminism, her commitment to the empowerment of students, and her coverage of the most recent trends in educational thought.This is an essential book not just for teachers and for future teachers but for anyone needing a survey of contemporary trends in the philosophy of education. (shrink)

Animal tracks, word magic, the speech of stones, the power of letters, and the taste of the wind all figure prominently in this intellectual tour de force that returns us to our senses and to the sensuous terrain that sustains us. This is a major work of ecological philosophy that startles the senses out of habitual ways of perception.

A sign is something that refers to something else. Signs, whether of natural or cultural origin, act by provoking a receptive system, human or nonhuman, to form an interpretant (a movement or a brain activity) that somehow relates the system to this "something else." Semiotics sees meaning as connected to the formation of interpretants. In a biosemiotic understanding living systems are basically engaged in semiotic interactions, that is, interpretative processes, and organic evolution exhibits an inherent tendency toward an increase in (...) semiotic freedom. Mammals generally are equipped with more semiotic freedom than are their reptilian ancestor species, and fishes are more semiotically sophisticated than are invertebrates. The evolutionary trend toward the production of life forms with an increasing interpretative capacity or semiotic freedom implies that the production of meaning has become an essential survival parameter in later stages of evolution. (shrink)

In this article I draw on personal experience to explore the kinds of relationships that can develop between human and nonhuman animals. The first part of the article describes my encounters with wild baboons, whom I studied in East Africa over the course of many years. The baboons treated me as a social being, and to gain their trust I had to learn the troop's social conventions and behave in accordance with them. This process gave me a feeling for what (...) it means to be a baboon. Over time, I developed a sense of belonging to their community, and my subjective identity seemed to merge with theirs. This experience expanded my sense of the possible in interspecies relations. The second part of the article describes a mutual exploration of such possibilities in my relationship with my dog, Safi. I describe how Safi and I co-create systems of communication and emotional expression that permit deep 'intersubjectivity', despite our very different biological natures. In my relationships with baboons, dogs, and other animals, I have encountered the presence in another of something resembling a human 'self'. I emphasize the importance of recognizing and honoring this presence in other animals as well as in humans. (shrink)

In strict opposition to the prevailing positivist conception of nature as senseless and deprived of meaning Jakob von Uexküll claimed that a certain planmässigkeit was operative in nature. This idea however might be taken to mean that organic evolution is not itself a creative process but a gradual, if majestic, unfolding of Nature's own master plan. Such an idea would threaten to restore determinism in the center of biological theory, and this would seriously contradict the vision of biosemiotics shared by (...) most of its proponents. It lies at the heart of biosemiotics and of Peircean cosmological philosophy that indeterminacy is primary, that “habit taking” or interpretation are real processes in the world, and therefore that belief in the law of necessity is unfounded. It is suggested that Uexküllian planmässigkeit is in fact reconcilable with a modern non-deterministic understanding. In a certain sense the Umwelten of animals have indeed developed in accordance to a natural planmässigkeit, but this is a plan that incessantly traps life in certain strategic choices and in the same time diversifies the dimensionality of options for dealing with these choices, i. e. “the adjacent possible” in the terms of Stuart Kauffman. (shrink)

Originally published in 1942, this book was written in attempt to resolve disagreements surrounding educational theory through clarifying the positions of key schools of thought. The text is based around the examination of three typical theories: 'Education According to Nature'; 'The Educational Theory of Johann Friedrich Herbart'; and 'The Educational Theory of John Dewey'. Discussions of the foundations of educational theories and the logical assumptions involved in educational measurement are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with (...) an interest in educational theory and the history of education. (shrink)

In this paper I will sketch an Umwelt ethics, i.e., an ethics that rests heavily on fundamental features of Jakob von Uexküll’s Umwelt theory. In the course of an interpretation of the Umwelt theory, a number of concepts are introduced. These include ontological niche, common-Umwelt, total Umwelt and bio-ontological monad. I then present an Uexküllian reading of the deep ecology platform. It is suggested that loss of biodiversity, considered as a physio-phenomenal entity, is the most crucial aspect of the ecological (...) crisis, which can be understood as an ontological crisis. (shrink)

Disvaluing nature—a cognitive act—usually leads quickly to devaluing it too: to real-world exploitation and destruction. Worse, in fact, nature in its devalued state can then be held up as an excuse and justification for the initial disvaluation. In this way, dismissal and destruction perpetuate themselves. I call this process “self-validating reduction.” It is crucial to recognize the cycle of self-validating reduction, both in general and specifically as it applies to nature, if we are to have any chance of reversing it.

B.F. Skinner was the voice of radical behaviourism for some five decades, fighting relentlessly against consciousness as a scientific question. While in public he always argued the case for behaviourism, in fact Skinner was deeply at odds with himself, as he reveals in several books. Surprisingly, as a college student he was deeply interested in becoming a stream-of-consciousness novelist. When that ambition failed, he reacted with a radical rejection of the conscious life. Decades later Skinner's inner struggle still continued, as (...) his autobiography shows. Like a mystery novelist, B.F. Skinner again and again provides the clues to his own secret. Skinner's conflict about consciousness was not just a personal idiosyncracy. Behaviourism and its radical rejection of personal experience was a major theme of the twentieth century, and continues even today. Rejection of consciousness became a core belief for academic psychologists and philosophers in the English-speaking world, justifying their claim to standing among the physical sciences. Skinner's life suggests that radical behaviourism may be associated with psychological conflict and some degree of dissociation. It also raises questions about the cultural climate that celebrated the rejection of consciousness. (shrink)

In this article, I explore plant semiosis with a focus on plant learning. I distinguish between the scales and levels of learning conceivable in phytosemiosis, and identify organism-scale learning as the distinguishing question for plant semiosis. Since organism-scale learning depends on organism-scale semiosis, I critically review the arguments regarding whole-plant functional cycles. I conclude that they have largely relied on Uexküllian biases that have prevented an adequate interpretation of modern plant neurobiology. Through an examination of trophic growth in plant roots, (...) I expose some conceptual difficulties in attributing functional cycles to whole-plants. I conclude that the mapping of resource areas in the root system is a learning activity requiring higher-scale sign activity than is possible at the cellular scale, strongly suggesting the presence of organism-scale functional cycles. I do, however, question whether all perception-action cycles in organisms are accompanied with organism-scale semiosis. (shrink)