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Re-Interpretation in Historiography: John Dewey and the Neo-Humanist Tradition

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Abstract

Did John Dewey’s ‘new philosophy of education’ really try to dissolve the whole block of tradition or is his debt namely to educational core-concepts of neo-humanism deeper than he was prepared to acknowledge? After some general remarks on the process of reception as productive re-adaptation and its implication for historiography I will deal with Dewey’s own contexts that shape the interpretative grid through which he receives the tradition. Two case studies attempt to illustrate both continuity and discontinuity with a specific part of this tradition, namely two critical perspectives within German neo-humanism: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Johann Friedrich Herbart.

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Bellmann, J. Re-Interpretation in Historiography: John Dewey and the Neo-Humanist Tradition. Stud Philos Educ 23, 467–488 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-004-4455-y

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