Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 264-298).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

Proefschrift--Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, 1992. / La couv. porte comme nom d'auteur : "Gert Biesta" Résumé en anglais.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1948.

Thesis--University of Michigan. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 451-452).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 14, 2009). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 224-232) and index.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. / Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 110 p. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis offers a comparison between liberalism, Dewey’s pragmatism, and Confucianism on their views of community. Today, as China struggles with the influences of modernity, the relations between its Confucian heritage and liberal democracy have been much debated. Some scholars contend that classical Confucianism and the communitarian critique of liberal politics converge, because they both challenge the dominance of modern liberalism. Among the communitarian theories, John Dewey’s theory of democratic community comports well with the Confucian doctrine of community to argue against rights-based liberalism. For in a Confucian community, as in a Deweyan democracy, public consensus is often achieved at the aesthetic and practical levels rather than based on the claims of reason. For pragmatists like Dewey and Confucians, experiencing the world aesthetically is a practical way to improve the social functions of everyday life. In this thesis, following John Dewey, I argue that as a crucially communicative and social practice, art plays a key role on communal harmony. When traditional Confucian China as a ritual-based community is grounded in aesthetic practices, it is comparable and compatible with Dewey’s view of community. In addition, the Confucian theory of community is a source for putting contemporary communitarian ideas into practice. I conclude that by relating aesthetics to his democratic theory, Dewey puts forth a theory of pragmatist community that suits well with the Confucian ideal.

During the 20th century, John Dewey introduced a new idea with respect to the nature of logical theory: He presented a portrait of logic as a theory about how organisms interact and maintain an integrated balance between themselves and their environment. He wrote many texts on what he called his theory of inquiry, including Essays in Experimental Logic (1916), Studies in Logical Theory (1903), and How We Think (1910). However, the book where he most closely detailed his theory of inquiry is in his Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938). These texts by Dewey have served as the source for much recent discussion and commentary in Dewey scholarship. Most of these interpretations on Dewey’s theory of inquiry, I maintain, misunderstand Dewey in some fundamental way. I argue that these commentators have gone wrong in interpreting Dewey and his works by failing to understand some aspect of his theory of inquiry. I illustrate the flaws in their interpretations and subsequently integrate the conclusions I reach into a single, cohesive perspective on Dewey’s account of inquiry. The final chapter presents a new interpretation of Dewey that emphasizes the role of phenomenal, contextual, and social factors in the foundations of his logical works.

This thesis outlines one's overcoming of nihilism by consulting two figures, Martin Heidegger and John Dewey. Each thinker holds a pivotal role for art, such that, a turn to the aesthetic allows the individual to overcome this nihilistic age. I intend to show that Heidegger and Dewey mutually inform each other's project. Heidegger is able to shed light on Dewey's project; however, Dewey ultimately takes Heidegger's thought a step further. Heidegger understands the current age to be overcome with nihilism as a consequence of modern technological enframing as well the end of classical religious sensibilities. Heidegger, like Dewey, relies on aesthetics to correct this dilemma. Because of Heidegger's diagnosis of the problem, we can see a new context for Dewey's thought. Dewey does not speak in the language of nihilism, however, through Heidegger, we can see that they share a similar concern. Where Dewey takes Heidegger's thought a step forward is in regard to Dewey's emphasis on personal experience. This emphasis shifts the responsibility of overcoming nihilism away from Heidegger's poet and onto the individual. Dewey understands aesthetics to be a process of experience and art to be the culmination of this experience. This shift in responsibility is placed upon the individual because the individual is the arbiter of their doings and sole recipient of their undergoings. Consequently, the individual bears the consequences, and therefore the responsibility, of their experiences. Meaning, each individual holds the tools necessary to overcome nihilism inherent in one's own experience. The name for the process of properly weathering one's doings and undergoings is called the aesthetic life. The turn to personal responsibility, in the aesthetic life, allows the people to be the genesis of change rather than necessitating a leader, or poet. A community of people engaged in the aesthetic life is understood as democracy. Dewey's formulation of democracy, then, is not only a work of art but it also prevents the return of nihilism through the creation of a society always creating more possibility for its citizens.