Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education

In the opening chapter, Dewey John Dewey sets the framework for the importance of education in a democratic society. Education is the tool to develop critical-thinking skills in an uncertain world and to make informed political decisions. This chapter is split into three sections.

1. Renewal of Life by Transmission

As a philosopher, Dewey approaches the question of education from afar. He begins by suggesting that renewal is one key difference between inanimate objects and living beings. For example, a rock is incapable of avoiding a blow like a living thing. In contrast, a living thing “[turns] the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence” (1). One obvious way in which this renewal occurs is reproduction.

Humans do not simply exist but follow “customs, institutions, beliefs, victories, and defeats” (1). Herein lies the importance of education; it is part of a “social continuity of life” (1). Dewey argues: “The primary ineluctable facts of the birth and death of each one of the constituent members in a social group determine the necessity of education” (1). He compares the transmission of basic animal biology with that of society, in which education plays an important socializing role. The latter becomes an important, consistent aspect of Democracy and Education because education is meant to prepare students for the real world by helping them develop critical thinking skills.