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DEWEY_WALK

                                             July    20, 2021
                                             December 4, 2021


    John Dewey, "Experimental Logic" (1916):

      "Any such way of looking at thinking
      demands moreover that the difficulty be
      located in the situation in question
      (very literally in question)."

    Dewey abounds with such assertions that intellectual
    activity must be ground in practical circumstance,
    but I think he sometimes over-reaches:

      "Knowing always has a *particular* purpose, and
      its solution must be a function of its conditions
      in connection with *additional* ones which are
      brought to bear."

    That's not actually a *requirement* of scientific
    inquiry, which often studies things simply because      LAMPPOST
    they *can* be studied.


         "The sciences, even the best,--
         mathematics and astronomy,--
         are like sportsmen, who seize
         whatever prey offers, even
         without being able to make any
         use of it."

           --Ralph Waldo Emerson,
             "Plato, or, the Philosopher"
             p. 309, Viking Portable ed.



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