J. Dewey의 생애에 따른 사상적 발전과정

The Process of Development in John Dewey's Thoughts and Career

This article approaches to study on the process of changing thoughts and the characteristics of development in the thoughts according to John Dewey's career, which is divided into three parts, the earlier (1859-1888), the middle (1889-1930), and the later (1931-1952) parts. First, the earlier part of developing process in his thoughts is considered as the stage of formation in thinking. This period is the results of many accumulated experiences during Dewey's childhood, infinite intellectual inducements motivated by well-known previous scholars, and his own academic cultivation and meeting with people of various social experience. So this first period of the development in his thoughts is regarded as a foundation stone to build his thinking. Second, John Dewey was interested in the matters of philosophy, democracy, education, and others during the middle period of his career. He also revealed far more advancement in his academic and practical fields than he did during the first period. He exerted a lot of achievement in education and training of various academic areas through practical activities on and off campus. So this period is considered as the stage of development in his thoughts. Third, for 22 years until he died at the age of 93 on June 1st, 1952 after his retirement from Columbia University, John Dewey had never stopped devoting himself to active participation in social innovation and educational renovation through academic activities, authorship, and special lectures. It is true that he has had a great influence on philosophy, aesthetics, education, laws, political theories, and social sciences of the U.S.A. during the 20th century. This fact makes the later period of his career the perfect completion of his idea and learning for society. Through the developing process of John Dewey's building philosophical ideas and educational thoughts, we can realize that a philosopher's formation of thinking is related to his own personal inclination, sincere academic attitude, some advice from previous or present thinkers, and active ability to put what he learned into action. It can be also said that John Dewey's life and development of philosophy shows an example of learning attitude and an opportunity of reflection on today's learning depth to the later generation.