A Common Faith
by
John Dewey
One of America's greatest philosophers outlines a faith that is not confined to sect, class, or race. He describes a positive, practical, and dynamic faith, verified and supported by the intellect and evolving with the progress of social and scientific knowledge.
Paperback, 96 pages
Published
September 10th 1960
by Yale University Press
(first published 1934)
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A man after my own heart! If this isn't the most important book I've ever read, it's very close.
Dewey succinctly shows how the seat of intellectual authority has shifted away from religion, in turn altering society's organization. Claims of authority based on access to the supernatural have been dispersed, replaced by the skeptical inquiry of science.
The religious crowd mistakenly attributes their loss of influence to rebellious worldly hearts or quibbles with particulars, when the issue (the...more
Dewey succinctly shows how the seat of intellectual authority has shifted away from religion, in turn altering society's organization. Claims of authority based on access to the supernatural have been dispersed, replaced by the skeptical inquiry of science.
The religious crowd mistakenly attributes their loss of influence to rebellious worldly hearts or quibbles with particulars, when the issue (the...more
Originally given at Yale as the 1933-34 installment of the Terry Lectures, Dewey built upon the distinction he saw between religion and religious. He said that a religion "Always signifies a special body of beliefs and practices having some kind of institutional organization, loose or tight." In contrast, the adjective religious did not refer to "A specifiable entity, either institutional or as a system of beliefs." (9) Further, religious "does not denote anything that can exist by itself or tha...more
In A Common Faith Dewey makes a key distinction between religion and the religious. While religion is influenced by the state of culture, a religious attitude does not necessarily carry this influence. Rather, a religious attitude results from a religious quality produced by a direct experience of what is good. A religious quality is the effect of an experience, but not a cause of production. This effect influences attitudes that define particular modes of conduct.
Dewey believes that we must re...more
Dewey believes that we must re...more
Initial Difficulties:
Coming to this book with a few expectations, it was difficult for me to try and understand what Dewey was trying to do. First I thought he was trying to talk abstractly about the notion of faith through examination of religious case studies, as it were. Then I thought he was going to strip away all religious supernaturalism and talk about the nature of faith. Obviously I could not make sense of this book in either reading. Halfway, or so, through the chapter I realized the i...more
Coming to this book with a few expectations, it was difficult for me to try and understand what Dewey was trying to do. First I thought he was trying to talk abstractly about the notion of faith through examination of religious case studies, as it were. Then I thought he was going to strip away all religious supernaturalism and talk about the nature of faith. Obviously I could not make sense of this book in either reading. Halfway, or so, through the chapter I realized the i...more
This book is evil and is typical of the pathetic excuse we Americans like to call philosophy, pragmatism. Pragmatism is not philosophy because it denies metaphysics and just tries to find what will serve a given ideology. In other words, it is intellectual prostitution.
This particular book outlines a plan on how best to educate our youngsters for a functional social democracy. I have nothing against a social democracy, mind you, but as a telos for education it stinks. Education should be an apo...more
This particular book outlines a plan on how best to educate our youngsters for a functional social democracy. I have nothing against a social democracy, mind you, but as a telos for education it stinks. Education should be an apo...more
Feb 02, 2008
Kitty
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
those studying philosophy of religion, those interested in evolution vs. id
Shelves:
philosophy
A call for compassion and cooperation between people who believe in the supernatural and those who don't.
Dewey proposed a faith that has nothing to do with the supernatural, but that would use the tools of religion in the service of humanity and help us to better our condition as a community. His earnestness is admirable and the idea is brave. He is generous in thinking that we could ever reach his goal of a religious ideal without the trappings of religions. And it seems a logical answer to th...more
Dewey proposed a faith that has nothing to do with the supernatural, but that would use the tools of religion in the service of humanity and help us to better our condition as a community. His earnestness is admirable and the idea is brave. He is generous in thinking that we could ever reach his goal of a religious ideal without the trappings of religions. And it seems a logical answer to th...more
This little book is considered by many mainstream pragmatists to be one of Dewey's worst works. However I disagree. This is the most revealing book that Dewey penned during his long career. Larry Hickman gets his idea of "benign supernaturalism" from A Common Faith. Dewey and the pragmatists sought to establish the fact/value distinction rigidly in 20th century America. That comes out over and again in Faith. However the real problem is of a mimetic function. It is better to mimic the objective...more
While I very much enjoyed it, I wouldn’t recommend A Common Faith unless you’re into rhetoric, it can be dense. In any case, A Common Faith is about religious experience and Dewey claims to have written it after having one, but the events he describes are more broadly accessible (at least personally) than the “calling” many people of faith describe, since Dewey doesn’t rely on a specific explanation (i.e. the supernatural/God) to account for the cause of these events. Often, when I talk to peopl...more
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John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology. He was a major representative of the progressive and progressive populist philosophies of schooli...more
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“Faith in the possibilities of continued and rigorous inquiry does not limit access to truth to any channel or scheme of things. It does not first say that truth is universal and then add there is but one road to it.”
—
8 people liked it
“Men have gone on to build up vast intellectual schemes, philosophies, and theologies, to prove that ideals are not real as ideals but as antecedently existing actualities. They have failed to see that in converting moral realities into matters of intellectual assent they have evinced lack of moral faith. Faith that something should be in existence as far as lies in our power is changed into the intellectual belief that it is already in existence. When physical existence does not bear out the assertion, the physical is subtly changed into the metaphysical. In this way, moral faith has been inextricably tied up with intellectual beliefs about the supernatural.”
—
3 people liked it
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Nov 19, 2011 02:25pm
Nov 19, 2011 03:00pm