John Dewey

About the author

John Dewey (1859–1952) stands as one of the most influential American thinkers of the twentieth century, a philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose work reshaped how democracy and learning are understood. A founding figure of pragmatism and functional psychology — his 1896 paper on the reflex arc launched the Chicago functionalist school — Dewey argued that democracy was not merely a political arrangement but the ultimate ethical ideal of humanity. At the University of Chicago he founded the Laboratory Schools to test his progressive pedagogical ideas, and he later taught philosophy at Teachers College until his retirement in 1930.