ESSAYS IN EXPERIMENTAL LOGIC

By

John Dewey

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Copyright 1916 By
The University of Chicago

All Rights Reserved

Published June 1916
Second Impression May 1918
Third Impression October 1920

Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

PREFATORY NOTE

In 1903 a volume was published by the University of Chicago Press, entitled Studies in Logical Theory, as a part of the "Decennial Publications" of the University. The volume contained contributions by Drs. Thompson (now Mrs. Woolley), McLennan, Ashley, Gore, Heidel, Stuart, and Moore, in addition to four essays by the present writer who was also general editor of the volume. The edition of the Studies being recently exhausted, the Director of the Press suggested that my own essays be reprinted, together with other studies of mine in the same field. The various contributors to the original volume cordially gave assent, and the present volume is the outcome. Chaps. ii-v, inclusive, represent (with editorial revisions, mostly omissions) the essays taken from the old volume. The first and introductory chapter has been especially written for the volume. The other essays are in part reprinted and in part rewritten, with additions, from various contributions to philosophical periodicals. I should like to point out that the essay on "Some Stages of Logical Thought" antedates the essays taken from the volume of Studies, having been published in 1900; the other essays have been written since then. I should also like to point out that the essays in their psychological phases are written from the standpoint of what is now termed a behavioristic psychology, though some of them antedate the use of that term as a descriptive epithet.

J. D.

Columbia University
April 3, 1916

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I

INTRODUCTION

The key to understanding the doctrine of the essays which are herewith reprinted lies in the passages regarding the temporal development of experience. Setting out from a conviction (more current at the time when the essays were written than it now is) that knowledge implies judgment (and hence, thinking) the essays try to show (1) that such terms as "thinking," "reflection," "judgment" denote inquiries or the results of inquiry, and (2) that inquiry occupies an intermediate and mediating place in the development of an experience. If this be granted, it follows at once that a philosophical discussion of the distinctions and relations which figure most largely in logical theories depends upon a proper placing of them in their temporal context; and that in default of such placing we are prone to transfer the traits of the