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John Dewey on Concept Acquisition, Part I

 


I discussed in two earlier posts the broad argument of John Dewey's book, HOW WE THINK, introducing a philosophical foundation for a theory of education in which schools have the goal of teaching how to think critically. 

This week I would like to focus three posts on a single important, though rather dry, issue within that book. What are concepts and how are THEY formed? 

According to Dewey, a conception is simply "a definite meaning which is standardized." As Dewey would have known, William James once offered a two-word statement of the same point, "thingumbob again". 

How do we acquire these standardized meanings? Most especially: how do we acquire concepts that may be considered somewhat abstract, where for example the standardized meaning allows for variation? 

Dewey offers a nice run-down of the standard account here before offering his own. The standard account (one may call it Baconian) is that a child begins with a lot of different particular things. Regarding dogs -- the child knows Fido in his own home, perhaps Carlo in his neighbor's home, Tray in his cousin's and so forth. The child then analyses the dogs according to a lot of different qualities: color, size, shape, number of legs, quantity and quality of hair, ability to recognize human speech, and so forth. The child then strikes out the respects in which they differ and retains what they have in common: dogs are domesticated four-legged furry creatures generally larger than cats and smaller than horses. 

But this, Dewey says, is clearly not what happens, and it is important to acknowledge what does happen A child starts forming concepts from a very small factual base, without waiting for enough material for any Baconian inductions. The concept "dog" begins with just one example, by meaning "Fido" and extends to meaning "creatures kinda like Fido." 

'[H]e tries to extend to every new experience whatever from his old experience will help him understand it, and as this process of constant assumption and experimentation is fulfilled and refuted by results, his conceptions get body and clearness." 

One implication of this is that there is always an individualistic bias built into concepts, and according into thought, even critical thought. It follows that conclusions warranted when drawn by person Z may not be warranted when drawn by person Y. Because one had Fido at home and the other had Carlo.  

In tomorrow's post I will try to flesh out this distinction between the wrong and the right understanding of concept formation by looking at a context to which, so far as I know, John Dewey never discussed: the search for extraterrestrial life. [Outer space Carlos, where our own ecosystem constitutes Fido.] In Part III of this discussion I will turn back to the issue of especial concern to Dewey --on the significance of this view of concept formation for education. 

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