Dewey and Cassirer on nature, culture and education

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. The year 2016 marks the centenary of the publication of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education, a landmark for subsequent reflection and pedagogical practice. Consequently, this book has been the subject of numerous academic studies, as has been noted after a thorough academic literature review. Nevertheless, among the abundant secondary literature devoted to the educational thought of Dewey, there are hardly any works that relate his Philosophy of Education with the Theory of Culture of his contemporary — the German philosopher — Ernst Cassirer, who was exiled to the United States, where he worked in philosophical themes similar to Dewey’s. The task to be addressed in this article is the comparison between the concepts of “nature” and “culture”, and their relationship within the educational process in the works of both authors. METHOD. The article uses documentary analysis as a basis for research, conducting a comprehensive task of tracking, locating and studying the secondary literature about these authors — particularly the comparative literature between them — in the international arena; and also, an analysis of the main works in which Dewey and Cassirer address the study of this subject: Democracy and Education and The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, respectively. RESULTS. After noting the lack of studies on the topic, and clarifying the use of the terms “nature” and “culture” in Dewey and Cassirer, significant similarities between both authors are found. DISCUSSION. From this analysis it follows that both Dewey and Cassirer primarily understand the educational process in terms of socialization. This fact opens up further lines of work and discussion, still unexplored, which deserve our attention in future research.