A New Idealism

Abstract

My main claim in this book is that Dewey’s early thought amounts to an original and significant philosophy. This claim challenges the standard interpretation, which holds that aside from helping illuminate Dewey’s later writings, his early work has nothing important to teach us; that taken on its own terms it is unworthy of our sustained attention. It may be objected to my thesis that Dewey’s early thought is typical Hegelian idealism, reflecting the philosophy of his teacher, George Sylvester Morris, if not simply of Hegel himself, and merely reiterates pre-existing idealist claims. In this final chapter, I will demonstrate that the philosophy I have analyzed throughout this book really is a new mode of thought, specifically a new form of idealism, with sufficient merits in its own right to warrant careful study. I begin with a summary and reminder of the fundamental logic of Dewey’s early thought—the logic of rupture and movement. I then show how this underlying logic differentiates his early ideas from the