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Context over Foundation pp 209–227Cite as

Marx and Dewey on the Unity of Theory and Practice

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Part of the book series: Sovietica ((SOVA,volume 52))

Abstract

When Pythagoras was asked what he meant when he called himself a lover of wisdom, he responded, according to Cicero1, with a simile of the crowd at a religious festival. Some men are drawn to the festival to sell their goods, to make money; others come to exhibit their physical prowess in the hope of gaining fame; a few come only to admire the beautiful works of art and the fine speeches and talented performances at the festival.

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Notes

  1. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations V, 3, 8–9. See also Jamblichus, Concerning the Life of Pythagoras, 58–59, and Nicholas Lobkowicz, Theory and Practice: History of a Concept from Aristotle to Marx, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1967, pp. 5–6.

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  2. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, 1095a, 15–30.

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  3. See also Lobkowicz, op. cit., pp. 7–8.

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  4. Plato, Apology, 29.

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  5. Lobkowicz, op. cit., pp. 6–7.

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  6. Ibid. p. 9.

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  7. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, 1177b, 30ff

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  8. Plato, Republic, Book V, 473 c-d.

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  9. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book Lambda, 1072b, 15–31.

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  10. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, 1141b, 2–8.

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  11. Karl Marx, ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, XI, in K. Marx, F. Engels, V. Lenin, On Historical Materialism: A Collection, New York, International Publishers, 1974, p. 13.

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  12. Ibid. VIII

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  13. Shlomo Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, Cambridge, At the University Press, 1968, p. 148.

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  14. Lobkowicz, op. cit., pp. 340–341.

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  15. John Dewey, Philosophy and Civilization, New York, Minton, Balch & Company, 1931, p. 40.

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  16. John Dewey, ‘The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy’, in John Dewey, On Experience, Nature, and Freedom: Representative Selections, ed. Richard J. Bernstein, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, Library of Liberal Arts, 1960, p. 65.

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  17. John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, Enlarged Edition, Boston, Beacon Press, 1948, pp. 212–213.

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  18. G.W.F. Hegel, ‘Letter to Niethammer, 28 Oct. 1808’, cited by Shlomo Avineri, op. cit., p. , note 2.

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  19. G.W.F. Hegel in his Philosophy of History, trans, John Sibree (New York, Collier and Son, 1902), pp. 494–495, remarks on the Crusades that “Christendom found the empty Sepulchre but not the union of the Secular and the Eternal; and so it lost the Holy Land. It was practically undeceived; and the result which is brought back with it was of a negative kind: viz. that the definite embodiment which it was seeking, was to be looked for in Subjective Consciousness alone, and in no external object; that the definite form in question, presenting the union of the Secular with the Eternal, is the Spiritual self-cognizant independence of the individual. This… was the absolute result of the Crusades… the West bade an eternal farewell to the East at the Holy Sepulchre, and gained a comprehension of its own principle of subjective infinite Freedom. Christendom never appeared again on the scene of history as one body.” In this way, “the principle of a specific and definite embodiment of the Infinite — that desideratum which urged the world to the Crusades, now developed itself in a quite different direction, viz. in secular existence asserting an independent ground: Spirit made its embodiment an outward one and found a congenial sphere in the secular life thus originated.” (p. 512) Needless to say, neither Dewey nor Marx any longer talks this way. Hegel’s intentions are essentially speculative, theoretical.

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  20. Stanley Rosen, G.W.F. Hegel: An Introduction to the Science of Wisdom, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1974, pp. 264–265.

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  21. Michel Henry, ‘The Concept of Being as Production’, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal [New School for Social Research, New York, N.Y.], Vol. 10, No. 2, p. 21.

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  22. John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic, New York, Dover edition of first edition, University of Chicago, 1916, pp. 381–382.

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  23. John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 113.

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  24. Ibid. p. 116.

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  25. Ibid. p. 23.

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  26. Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, trans. Annette Jolin and Joseph O’Malley. Cambridge, At the University Press, 1970, p. 132.

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  27. Ibid. p. 137.

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  28. Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach’, I, in K. Marx, F. Engels, V. Lenin, On Historical Materialism: A Collection, p. 11.

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  29. John Dewey, Essays in Experimental Logic, p. 442.

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  30. Michel Henry, Marx: A Philosophy of Human Reality, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1983, p. 188.

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  31. “Nicht das Bewusstsein bestimmt das Leben, sondern das Leben bestimmt das Bewusstsein”, cited by Henry, Marx: A Philos-ophy of Human Reality, p. 168. See Karl Marx, The German Ideology, ch. 1, 4, in K. Marx, F. Engels, V. Lenin, On Historical Materialism: A Collection, p. 23.

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  32. John Dewey, Experience and Nature, second edition, New York, Dover, 1958, pp. 378–379.

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  33. See note 16 above.

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  34. John Dewey, Art as Experience, New York, Capricorn Books, 1958, pp. 132–133.

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  35. Ibid. p. 54.

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  36. Karl Marx, ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, VII, in K. Marx, F. Engels, V. Lenin, On Historical Materialism: A Collection, p. 13.

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  37. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, in Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, On Literature and Art, A Selection of Writings edited by Lee Baxandall

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  38. and Stefan Morawski, ‘Documents on Marxist Aesthetics’, Vol. I, New York, International General, 1973, p. 51.

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  39. Karl Marx, The German Ideology, Ch. 1, 2, in K. Marx, F. Engels, V. Lenin, On Historical Materialism: A Collection, p. 18.

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  40. John Dewey, Theory of Valuation, in International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. II, No. 4, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1939, p. 43.

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  41. John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology, New York, The Modern Library, 1930, p. 275.

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  42. Lobkowicz, op. cit., p. 329.

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  43. H.S. Thayer, Meaning and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism, Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1968, p. 169.

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  44. John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action, New York, Capricorn Books, 1960, p. 163.

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  45. Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, in K. Marx, F. Engels, V. Lenin, On Historical Materialism: A Collection, p. 77.

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  46. John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1938, p. 118.

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  47. Ibid. pp. 167–168.

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  48. Karl Marx, ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, II, in K. Marx, F. Engels, V. Lenin, On Historical Materialism: A Collection, p. 11.

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  51. John Dewey, Experience and Nature, p. 311.

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  53. John Dewey, Individualism Old and New, New York, Capricorn Books, 1962, p. 171.

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  55. Ibid. p. 99.

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  56. Ibid. p. 117.

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  58. John Dewey, Individualism Old and New, p. 171.

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  60. John Dewey, Time and Individuality’, in John Dewey, On Experience, Nature, and Freedom: Representative Selections, ed. Richard J. Bernstein, p. 242.

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  63. Ernest A. Moody, ‘Empiricism and Metaphysics in Medieval Philosophy’, Philosophical Review, Vol. LXVII (1958), pp. 160, 159.

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  64. Ibid. pp. 157–158.

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  65. Ibid. p. 158.

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  67. Ernest A. Moody, ‘Empiricism and Metaphysics in Medieval Philosophy’, p. 146.

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  68. See note 18 above. It should be clear by now that, although Marx and Dewey do not talk this way, that is, in the predominantly speculative or theoretical tone of Hegel, Hegel’s remarks here account for the direction of thought taken by both Marx and Dewey.

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  69. Thomas Cariyle, ‘Signs of the Times’, [1829] in A Cariyle Reader, ed. G.B. Tennyson, New York, Modern Library, 1969, pp. 40–41.

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  70. Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Songs of Prince Vogelfrei’, in Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans. Walter Kaufmann, New York, Vintage Books, Random House, 1974, p. 351.

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Authors
  1. Gerald J. Galgan
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine, USA

    William J. Gavin

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© 1988 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland

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Galgan, G.J. (1988). Marx and Dewey on the Unity of Theory and Practice. In: Gavin, W.J. (eds) Context over Foundation. Sovietica, vol 52. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2903-6_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2903-6_9

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