Dewey, John

John Dewey and China : general.
1956
Michael, Franz H. ; Taylor, George E. : John Dewey's message was that democracy could be achieved only through a slow process and that social objectives were relative. He was particularly interested in the scientific approach which he described as the search 'for concrete methods to meet concrete problems according to the exigencies of time and place'. In contrast to the apparent indefiniteness of his general social philosophy, the Communist theory provided the Chinese intellectuals with a system which also claimed to be scientific and to be based on a materialistic and antimetaphysical interpretation of human life… The pragmatists helped to prepare the way for the spread of materialism in the next decades. By joining in the attack against Confucianism they discredited the traditional value system, but themselves offered no system of values. They proposed solutions to the problems of the day according to what Dewey called 'exigencies of time and place'. Because the pragmatists themselves tend toward a materialistic and utilitarian interpretation they offered little resistance to communist doctrine.
1960
Thomas Berry : Dewey's influence in the philosophical order might be described as a further development of the positivism that began to dominate the intellectual life of China after Yan Fu published his translation of Thomas Huxley's 'Evolution and ethics' in 1898. We can follow the later development of this positivism, especially in the years just preceding Dewey's arrival, in the pages of the periodical Xin qing nian.
Hu Shi from his earliest years as a student was responsive to the attraction of Western materialist philosophy. He saw in science and technology something more spiritual than material. He developed the religious enthusiasm for Dewey's pragmatism. Hu was in close contact with the intellectual life of China during the critical years of its transition. Through him the new conception of the human mind as the instrument of pragmatic adaption to reality was transplanted to China. Hu sought especially to relate Chinese philosophical systems to their historical and social setting.
In the field of philosophy, other traditions have been stronger than that of Dewey and Hu Shi. As a special school of philosophy pragmatism was vigorous for only a few years. Since the middle 1920's, pragmatism as a system has been overshadowed by other Western philosophies. Pragmatists, including Hu, turned their attention to educational reform, social reconstruction and political revolution. The philosophical arena was taken over by neo-Realism, rationalistic and idealistic neo-Confucianism, and finally by Marxism. The Marxist challenge to Dewey proved to be more effective than the Confucian or the idealist. Marxism began to awaken in the Chinese a response of very great depth and enthusiasm. Positivism and Hegelian idealism, with their insistence on the progressive stages of development in the mind of man, had prepared the way. Neither Dewey nor his followers realized how powerful and influence Marxist-Leninist Communism would become. During the two years of his venture in China, Dewey made the greatest single effort ever made to bring China into the new age of Western liberalism in political life, of radical empiricism in philosophy, and of progressivism in education. Most important was the philosophical weakness of his position. It offered no satisfactory alternative to the traditional humanism that in former centuries had fashioned the Confucian virtues in the individual person and which had given inner vitality to the social structure. His educational program contained some excellent ideas which could be most beneficial in the training of the young, but only within a more adequate philosophical and religious context which his philosophy could not supply. His cause was in trouble from the lack of strength in the existing Chinese government. Liberalism can grow and develop only within an ordered society. Liberalism supposes order, it does not create order. His cause was in trouble from the existing antagonism toward the West rising from resentment against the colonial systems that had been imposed on so many Asian peoples.
The greatest influence of Dewey in China has been in the field of education. An ideal situation existed for his work as educator, a situation much more favorable, than the situation in America, for Chinese students had a sense of political and social involvement lacking among students in America. Detached intellectual speculation was as impossible and as undesirable for them as for Dewey. 'Education for living' had a welcome meaning to students anxious to make their contribution to the welfare of their society.
Dewey constantly encouraged the Chinese to take the initiative in bringing their nation into its proper place in the modern world. Dewey's confidence in the power of the human mind to find its own way and his opposition to indoctrination of though upon the mind of other persons were embodied in his insistence that the Chinese should administer their own affairs.
The achievement of Dewey was to strengthen the bonds of American-Chinese association. After his visit, other professors from America, particularly educators, were invited to China to assist in establishing training centers for teachers and to develop research program to guide and promote the new effort at the universal education of the Chinese people in accord with modern standards.
Three achievements of Dewey should be balanced against a consideration of the detrimental effects of his influence : 1) In accenting the positivistic approach in communication between China and America, Dewey created further difficulties in spiritual communication between the two countries. 2) In encouraging the Chinese people to an immediate and thorough adaptation to the modern age, he helped to turn them further dependence on the West. 3) In fostering a closer association between China and America on the philosophical basis of pragmatism, he helped to alienate the more humanistic forces of China and thereby created an area of antagonism as well as an area of agreement.
1960
Chow, Tse-tsung [Zhou, Cezong]. The May fourth movement : Intellectual revolution in modern China. (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1960).
Chow notes on John Dewey : When Dewey classified in his lectures all social problems into three categories – economic, political, and intellectual – Dewey pointed out that economic problems were the most important, because, as he said, 'economic life is the foundation of all social life'. But the significant economic problem discussed by Dewey did not attract enough attention from his Chinese students and friends and other Chinese liberals. Chinese liberals at this time were preoccupied with educational reform, academic research, and the reevaluation of national classics. Few of them considered seriously the problem of the application of democray in China in terms of economic organization and practice. This was undoubtedly one of the major causes of their waning influence on the public following their dramatic role in attacking the traditional ideology and institutions.
1972
Ou Tsui-chen : For China, Dewey suggests some practical measures to realize the ideal of democracy. He does not think it necessary to follow the Western pattern to go through self-seeking individualism and then employ the power of state to equalize society. She may, he thinks, amalgamate these two steps at one stroke. Since in China political individualism has not made headway, traditional paternalism can be turned into the protection of its citizens by a democratic government. In dealing with cultural problems, Dewey proposes to attach great importance to the authority of science instead of the authority of tradition. He pleads for free thinking and free expression of thought. In addition to a prosperous material life, he advocates a free intellectual life. To fulfill this ideal, he stresses the importance of using education as an efficient tool.
As the lectures were delivered shortly after the New Culture Movement had begun in Beijing and Chinese traditional morality was under severe criticism, Dewey's lectures often refer to the Movement and particularly to Chinese morality. Contrary to what might be expected, Dewey never advances any extreme view with regard to the then prevailing moral revolution. He takes a middle-of-the-road position vis-à-vis the conflict between the moralities old and new. At the end of his lectures, Dewey makes an excellent comparison between Eastern and Western ethical thought. He first states that morality is a function of the environment and varies with it. So it is difficult to judge which morality has more value than another.
There is no doubt whatsoever that of all Western educators Dewey most influence the course of Chinese education, while his influence on Chinese thought, politics, and society in general is a controversial question difficult to resolve.
A number of educational reforms and practices were introduced in China which reflected Dewey's influence : 1) Chinese educational aims were reconsidered in the light of Dewey's thought. 2) The national school system was reformed according to the American pattern. 3) Child-centered education was faced in the revision of the curriculum. 4) The new method of teaching according to the pragmatic theory was promoted. 5) Experimental schools were multiplied. 6) Student government as a mode of school discipline was promoted. 7) Literary reform and the adoption of textbooks for elementary schools written in the spoken Chinese language were encouraged.
1973
Robert W. Clopton ; Tsuin-chen Ou : Dewey's stay in China was one of the most significant and influential events in recent Chinese cultural history, but the Chinese have been so familiar with Dewey's influence that they have not bothered to analyze it, nor even to write extensively about it. Americans, on the other hand are largely unfamiliar with Dewey's impact on Chinese thought. In view of the reputation he established throughout the world, it is scarcely surprising that special attention to Dewey's Chinese sojourn should have been delayed. Yet there can be no doubt that China was the one foreign country on which Dewey exercised his greatest influence, particularly in the field of education.
When we consider Dewey's impact on Chinese thought and education, we think first of the warmth of his reception in China. All who met him were impressed by his personality, his intellectual honesty, his enthusiasm, his simplicity of nature, his friendliness, and his sympathetic understanding of the Chinese people and their problems. All these characteristics contributed to his popularity both among the intellectuals and among the common people. On one occasion Cai Yuanpei, chancellor of National Beijing University, even likened him to Confucius. Another factor which contributed to Dewey's popularity among the Chinese was that, as an American, he represented the one great nation friendly to China and opposed to its partition by the great powers.
Two important institutions were the main centers of Dewey's influence in China, both during his stay and after his departure. These were the National Beijing University and the National Nanjing Teachers College. Both had at their head men who had been Dewey's student : Chiang Monlin in Beijing and P.W. Kuo in Nanjing. Hu Shi involved Dewey in the New Culture movement. The other important institutions of higher learning helped to extend Dewey's influence throughout China : Beijing Teachers College of which Li Jianxun was president, and Nankai University in Tianjin, of which Zhang Boling was president.
Dewey's impact was primarily on political and social trends. In his lectures he advocated democray – social, political, and economic. He opposed both laissez-faire individualism and Marxist Communism. While he proposed a general ideal, he refused to advocate any all-embracing ism or any concrete program for action. His principle of the primacy of method also dominated his social and political thinking. Dewey took an unequivocally anti-Communist position, severely criticizing and pointedly repudiating Marxism. In a speech delivered in Fujian he blamed the Communists for neglecting critical thought and for their blind obedience.
Dewey most influenced the course of Chinese education, both in theory and practice. His philosophy of education dominated the teaching of educational theory in all teachers colleges and in university departments of education for many years. His textbook 'Democracy and education' was used everywhere, either as a text or as a work of reference.
Dewey's disciples Dao Jixing and Chen Heqin (1892-1982) were the most responsible for spreading his influence in China. They developed her own system, taking Dewey's educational theory as her starting point.
Dewey's influence in Chinese thought and education was dominant from1919 until1920. His influence first began to diminish after the May 30 incident in Shanghai in 1925. After the Nationalists came to power in 1927, Dewey's influence was seriously undermined. After 1949, the Chinese communists followed Soviet authorities and educators in their denunciation of Dewey and his followers.
1977
Barry Keenan : The most characteristic aspect of Dewey's lectures in China was his insistence that the fields of philosophy, education, and political theory incorporate modern science. He meant in particular the methodological importance of testing hypotheses with verifying evidence, and the implications of the Darwinian theory of evolution. The democratizing of society was linked by Dewey directly to the scientific revolution. His audiences in China were introduced to democracy and the philosophy of experimentalism, with both portrayed as related developments in the history of Western thought. Dewey's explanation of the role of the development of modern science in the West emphasized some points that were particularly designed for his Chinese audiences. One of these was the effect of science on human values and temperament. Dewey felt that the two or three hundred years in which the West had materialistically and morally undergone the effects of science accounted for the most evident differences between the East and West.
Dewey's discussion of values extended to some criticism of the way ethics was taught in Chinese schools. In China the school system provided set course on 'ethical education' at the primary and secondary levels. Dewey attacked the theory behind such course, namely, that morality could be presented as a body of facts and knowledge.
In his China lectures, Dewey felt it important to emphasize the child-centered curriculum – a turning away from classroom emphasis on subject matter to emphasis on the growth of the child. He dedicated one of his first lectures in Beijing to a discussion of the natural instincts and inherent dispositions of a child, which he considered 'the natural foundation of education'. Child-centered education should be a priority for China, Dewey felt, as a departure from the stratified society or authoritarian tradition that tended to promote the 'pouring in' of accepted subject matter as education. In the democratic society Dewey was told China was trying to create, there had to be equal opportunity for each child to develop his potentialities and become a participating citizen. It was important during a period of rapid social change, Dewey noted, that the younger generation be able to adapt to new conditions.
Dewey's comments on reform in China were undoubtedly guided by his coaches and spokesmen, Hu Shi and Chiang Menglin. Many references appear in his lectures relating his educational ideas to social change and 'modernization' in China. Socialization of the child should not only give him or her a critical attitude toward tradition, but also develop his or her critical judgment about contemporary social and political conditions.
Dewey and his followers in China felt that the school should be the basic unit in the reconstruction of China. Other institutions of social reform and betterment such as law and political parties, lacked the power of education to carry out deep and lasting change.
The experience of going to school gave a child his first daily contact with an environment broader than the family. Dewey pointed out that it was the role of the school to present the world of human knowledge in order to extend the limits of the child's environment.
Dewey's discussion of the nature of democracy in his China lectures were a kind of final equilateral component in the triangular connection of democracy, the experimental method, and the democratic education. The democratization of knowledge by science had led historically to an increase in the role of the common people in society, as Dewey saw it, and the connection between scientific knowledge and democracy remained close. As he said soon after arriving in Beijing : 'A person in a democratic country must have the power of independent judgment, the power to think freely, and the actual opportunity to experiment. He
must be able to use his own ability to choose the direction of his ideas and his behavior.'
In the process of formulating a pragmatic philosophy of politics Dewey discussed rugged individualism, Marxism, and socialism. He warned China to avoid the dangers of rugged individualism. Throughout his lectures he endorsed the idea that individuals should be able to develop themselves to their full potential. The dangers of uncontrolled individualism were emphasized by Dewey because he feared China, in the throes of liberating itself from the authority of the state and the family system, would be prone to fall into its opposite extreme of radical individualism.
Dewey was critical of Marxism in his lectures. He pointed out that Marxian theory had failed on two counts : 1) although capital squeezed out competition as predicted, the workers came to fare better and better- the poor did not become poorer and poorer ; 2) the prediction regarding industrial nations being the first to change to socialism was erroneous and shed doubt on the rest of the theory. The question of labor discontent was taken very seriously by Dewey, but he addressed himself critically to Marx's theory of alienation. Dewey was not so critical of some non-Marxian types of socialism. Guild socialism in particular had several points Dewey thought appropriate to China's needs. The existence of guilds in China – for railroads, mines, forests, and roads – provided a natural organizational unit which could be useful in China's transformation from a handicraft to an industrial economy.
Dewey called for Chinese reformers to retain a direct connection between the past and change. Dewey's views called for a re-evaluation of traditional customs and institutions, but not for their rejection. Intensive study of the past were encouraged, so that the indigenous cultural traits and institutions relevant to contemporary needs could be discovered and conserved.
Dewey's lectures gave many liberal Chinese reformers an unusual opportunity to study and apply an extremely up-to-date and philosophically reliable formulation of the modern democracy. What Dewey said in these lectures, was his own first-draft attempt to see how well pragmatism might be applied to politics.
1995
Su Zhixin : Deweyan experimentalism – as a way of thinking, as a way of acting politically, and as a component of democratic education – offered no strategy Dewey's followers could use to affect political power. Without such a strategy, failure was the main consequence of his followers' pragmatic reform efforts. Their reformism was paralyzed by dilemma. Dewey himself recognized this failure after his visit to China, writing, "The difficulties in the way of a practical extension and regeneration of Chinese education are all but insuperable. Discussion often ends in an impasse : no political reform of China without education ; but no development of schools as long as military men and corrupt officials divert funds and oppose schools from motives of self-interest. Here are the materials of tragedy of the first magnitude". The experimentalist philosophy, conceiving in a rich, literature, industrial, and relatively serene America and propagated by well-intentioned, but somewhat sheltered, Chinese intellectuals, was finally not appropriate for a huge, varied, agricultural, particularistic country. Maybe this is an important reason for Dewey's silence about his historic visit to China, and his views on educational development in China in his later years.
The American scholars conduct their evaluation in a purely academic manner, and they are not personally affected by the consequences of what they say or write because they are far detached from the Chinese reality. The Chinese scholars, on the other hand, have to pay attention to the political climate while conducting their evaluation of Western influence because what they say will directly affect their academic careers and personal lives – being 'politically incorrect' in academic discourse could result in the loss of jobs and alienation of families. In general, the Chinese do not differ from their American counterparts in their acknowledgment of the strong and widespread influence of Dewey's ideas on Chinese educational theory and practice. While the Americans do not question Dewey's sincerity in promoting the development of a democratic society or the worthiness of Dewey's ideas for Chinese schools and society ; some praise him as a saint, while others condemn him as an enemy. In many ways, it has been an ideological struggle between Dewey's pragmatism and experimentalism and Marxist-Leninist Communism.
Deng Xiaoping's political and economic pragmatism paved the way for Chinese intellectuals to become infatuated once again with Western pragmatism. Under these circumstances, a serious reevaluation of Dewey's influence on Chinese education has begun to emerge among Dewey scholars and concerned educators in China. Some critics suggest that the worthiness of certain elements in Dewey's educational philosophy and its status in the history of philosophy should be reevaluated. They recommend that instead of totally denying Dewey, the Chinese should critically borrow and make use of Dewey's ideas in Chinese educational practices.
1999
David L. Hall ; Roger T. Ames : The New Culture Movement was initially anti-Confucian, and Dewey's thought was seen to be in radical opposition to traditional Confucian ideas. When Sun Yat-sen and the Guomindang promoted a return to many of the traditional Chinese values and institutions, Dewey's thought was deemed unacceptable due to its foreign origin. When the communists came to power, Dewey's thought was roundly condemned as an expression of Western imperialism. After the establishment of the People's Republic, a purge of Deweyan pragmatism was begun. Literally millions of words were written refuting Dewey's works.
The reasons for Dewey's failure finally to influence China were largely associated with his refusal to take a wholesale approach to social problems. Always warning the Chinese against the uncritical importation of Western ideas, as well as the uncritical rejection of traditional Chinese values, Dewey, in spite of his radical reconstruction of the popular democratic ideal, was simply too moderate for a China in search of revolution. It was practically inevitable, that Marxism's wholesale ideology would replace Dewey's decidedly retail philosophy.
Dewey's educational reforms, badly misunderstood and only partially applied from the beginning, have long since been effectively abandoned. His understanding of democracy was never altogether in the mainstream. In many ways, the opportunity to introduce a reconstructed idea of democracy seems to have been lost as surely in America as it was in China.
1999
Kim Bong-ki : Dewey traf in China zu einem Zeitpunkt ein, als sich das Land in nahezu allen Bereichen in einer Phase des Umbruchs befand, dessen Ursache externer wie interner Natur war. Die Probleme rührten vornehmlich von der Begegnung mit dem Westen her, der die wissenschaftliche Revolution und die darauf folgende industrielle Revolution früher in Gang gesetzt hatte. Hinzu kamen innere Schwierigkeiten in Form einer prekären Wirtschaftslage, grassierender Korruption und eines in weiten Teilen der Bevölkerung als ungerecht empfundenen Steuersystems. Angesichts der Vielzahl und der Schwere der Probleme erstellte Dewey auf der Grundlage seiner pragmatistischen Gesellschaftstheorie eine konkrete Diagnose und entwickelte Reformvorschläge für die Erneuerung der traditionellen chinesischen Gesellschaft.
Die – in Deweys Sicht – hinreichende Ausstattung der chinesischen Kultur mit demokratischen Elementen : Abschaffung der Feudalherrschaft in der Antike, prinzipieller Zugang zur Bildung für alle, besondere Betonung der Erziehung führt ihn zu der Erwartung, China könne den Übergang zum Industrialismus noch kreativer und effektiver durchführen, als der Westen dies geleistet habe. Dewey These von der Verankerung demokratischer Elemente in der chinesischen Tradition findet ihre Bestätigung in den Konzeptionen des 'tian-ming' (Mandat des Himmels) mit einer verbindlichen Tugendlehre für die Herrscher, ihrer Machtbegrenzung und Fürsorgepflicht für das Volk, und des 'yanlu' (Wege der Kommunikation), eines Bestandteils der konfuzianischen Staatsauffassung, in dem Missstände der Beamtenschaft bis hin zur Kritik am Kaiser verzeichnet waren.
Was den Erfolg im Sinne Deweys um eine Transformation Chinas anbetrifft, wird man, aufs Ganze gesehen, sagen können, dass der Pragmatismus sich nicht dauerhaft durchzusetzen vermochte, dass er am ehesten noch in der Erziehung zum Tragen kam. Wenn es überhaupt zu positiven Ergebnissen gekommen ist, lässt sich dies darauf zurückführen, dass Dewey die von ihm selbst vorgegebene Prämisse der Vermeidung eines geraden westlichen Transfers nach
China ernstgenommen hat. Das amerikanische Konzept der Progressiven Schule wurde von Dewey modifiziert und auf die chinesischen Bedürfnisse zugeschnitten. So war zwar die 'Progressive Education' darauf gerichtet, den in der veränderten Lebenswelt aufgetretenen neuen Herausforderungen zu begegnen, die bewahrenswerten Elemente der chinesischen Tradition sollten aber für die Gegenwart fruchtbar gemacht, die spezifischen Bedingungen und Erfordernisse Chinas in das Bildungssystem eingebracht werden. Als größter einleitender Schritt für eine allgemeine elementare Erziehung kann die unter Deweys Einfluss von Hu Shi vollzogene Einführung einer an der Umgangssprache ausgerichteten Schriftsprache - 'baihua' - gelten, die seither landesweit im Gebrauch ist. Weitere erfolgversprechende Ansätze erbrachten die Schülerselbstverwaltung und die Dezentralisierung der Schulkontrolle und Schulsteuerung, derzufolge den Erfordernissen der örtlichen Umgebung besser entsprochen werden konnte.
Deweys Pragmatismus hat es als einzige westliche philosophische Strömung unternommen, Reformvorschläge für die Behebung der chinesischen Kulturkrise in der Zeit nach dem ersten Weltkrieg auszuarbeiten.
In zeitlicher Parallelität zur Rezeption und der Interpretation der Ideen Deweys durch die chinesischen Pragmatisten verlief die gesamte Reformbewegung, wobei der Themenkreis die Kritik an den traditionellen Wertmaßstäben, Gebräuchen und Institutionen, die Ordnung des nationalen Erbes durch kritische Interpretation der überlieferten Geschichte, Literaturkritik und die Sprachreform umfasste.
Hinsichtlich des Versuches der Schüler Deweys, seine politischen Ideen in die Praxis umzusetzen, muss gesagt werden, dass es bei dem Versuch geblieben ist. Im Sommer 1919 brach eine In zeitlicher Parallelität zur Rezeption und der Interpretation der Ideen Deweys durch die chinesischen Pragmatisten verlief die gesamte Reformbewegung, wobei der Themenkreis die 'Debatte über Probleme und Ismen' bzw. 'Reform und Revolution' auf, die für die folgenden 30 Jahre der politischen Entwicklung Chinas von Bedeutung war, weil sie in der Öffentlichkeit eine intellektuelle Spaltung der Liberalen und Linken hervorrief, die nicht rückgängig gemacht wurde. Während Li Dazhao, Gründer der KPCh, die marxistische Theorie als Alternative zur grundlegenden Lösung für alle gesellschaftlichen Probleme befürwortete, lehnte Hu Shi einen allumfassenden Ismus oder ein konkretes Programm für Aktionen ab und plädierte nachdrücklich für die Reformidee des Pragmatismus, der wegen seiner kritischen Potenz und des Fehlens dogmatischer Züge von einer anderen Qualität ist: die gesellschaftliche und politische Erneuerung durch schrittweise Progressivität, den einzigen in seiner Sicht gangbaren Weg.
2001
Martina Eglauer : Die Wissenschaft stellt nach Deweys Auffassung für China während der Umbruchsphase eine wichtige, ja sogar die einzig mögliche konstruktive Hilfe zur Umgestaltung der Gesellschaft dar. Die solle die neue 'Autorität', im Sinne von 'any thought or belief which directs human behaviour', sein und die zukünftige Orientierung liefern. Die Wissenschaft könne in Zukunft die Rolle übernehmen, die die Tradition in der Vergangenheit einnahm. Seine radikaldemokratische Auffassung, die die Entwicklung und Förderung des wissenschaftlichen Geistes in einer demokratischen Gemeinschaft verankert, versucht Dewey auch in China zu vermitteln, denn wissenschaftliche Erziehung ist für ihn gleichzeitig auch demokratische Erziehung. Nachdem die Wissenschaft jedermann zugänglich sein solle, sei eine Erziehungs- und Bildungsreform erforderlich, welche die traditionellen Lehrmethoden durch neue Methoden ersetzt.
Wissenschaft könne nur auf dem Boden intellektueller Freiheit optimal gedeihen. Dewey verweist darauf, dass Wissenschaft nicht einfach mit Technologie identifiziert werden dürfe. Im Hinblick auf den 'wissenschaftlichen Geist', der für die Entwicklung der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft eine wesentlich fundamentalere Rolle spiele, als einzelne Technologien und Errungenschaften, diagnostiziert Dewey einen Aufklärungsbedarf für China. China könne bei der Entwicklung der wissenschaftlichen Methode von den Erfahrungen des Westens profitieren, und gleichzeitig aus den Fehlern des Westens lernen. Dewey bescheinigt China zwar ein mangelndes Bewusstsein im Hinblick auf die Bedeutung des wissenschaftlichen Geistes, er geht aber von einer grundsätzlichen, verbindenden Rationalität aus. Der wissenschaftliche Geist gilt für ihn nicht als westliches Spezifikum, sondern als unviersales Vermögen, das allen Menschen zu eigen ist. Aus pragmatistischer Sicht ist die Situation in China stark veränderungsbedürftig. Das geistige Klima, welches Dewey vorfindet, ist noch vorwiegend von den alten Traditionen und Strukturen verhaftet und die traditionellen Werte und Gewohnheiten erweisen sich als gesellschaftsbestimmende Konstanten.
Für das Reformprojekt in China übernimmt Hu Shi ungebrochen das pragmatistische Wissenschaftsverständnis seines Lehrers Dewey, das er als wirksame Methode für die kulturelle Erneuerung vorstellt. Umgekehrt wirken seine, unter pragmatistischer Perspektive getätigten Analysen auf die Diskussion in der westlichen Philosophie und Wissenschaftsgeschichte zurück.
2002
Jay Martin : After his trips to Japan and China, Dewey had become a changed person, an evolving person. His educational vision and his political understanding had broadened beyond American boundaries to include the world. Dewey was indeed transformed by his trip to the Far East from U.S. philosopher to a transnational philosopher. In addition, after his visit to China, Dewey maintained his noninterventionist approach to international politics. Dewey's visit to China and his efforts to help modernize China's schools, which were widely reported and recognized, led to many invitations from other foreign governments to inspect their education systems.
2003-2004
Sor-hoon Tan : Hu Shi was promoting Dewey's philosophy while he was still developing it. Hu's pragmatist work in China, his promotion of vernacular literature, was an important contribution because it made possible 'the means of communication and publicity required for democracy'. Dewey's views on the process of thought were extremely important in the development of Hu's intellectual method. And much of Hu's life was devoted to the social inquiry that Dewey argued has to be at the center of democratic life, even though the inquiry was necessarily imperfect given the circumstances, and Hu was inclined to a more individualistic view of inquiry than was warranted by Dewey's conception of democracy.
Hu Shi, explaining Dewey's views on thinking, singles out 'the cultivation of creative intelligence' as 'the greatest aim of Dewey's philosophy ; it is creative intelligence that will enable human beings to respond satisfactorily to their environments, both physical and social. In his own way, Hu tried to realize Dewey's scientific method as intelligent practice, to transform his own experience and his country's. Hu believed that science could solve moral and political problems. These sentiments echo those in Dewey's 'Reconstruction of philosophy'. Dewey also believed that philosophy has much to learn from modern science, and that the lesson would improve philosophy's ability to handle what should be its central task, solving the problems of humanity, especially moral and social problems.
Hu Shi was not misreading or misapplying Dewey when he defended the relevance of science to life, including its moral and political aspects ; but he was less sensitive than Dewey to the dangers of worshiping the achievements of the physical sciences, because he believed that China's backwardness rendered it much more in need of the benefits of science than at risk from science's evils. This does not mean that he would not have agreed with Dewey's clarification that there are important differences between physical sciences and social sciences.
Hu's interpretation of pragmatism as method has considerable support from Dewey's writings, he sometimes exaggerated Dewey's own emphasis on method. Referring to Dewey's 1907 'What pragmatism means by practical', he claimed that 'Dewey, from beginning to end, only recognized pragmatism as a method'. Hu borrowed from Dewey much more than the mere formulation of an intellectual methodology. While he pointed out that Dewey's visit to China gave his Chinese audience 'no specific proposals such as communism, anarchism, or free love [but] a philosophical method which enabled [them], through its use, to solve [their] own special problems'.
In Dewey's theory and practice, politics and education are integrated in the endeavor to bring about democracy. Dewey endorsed Hu Shi's strategic exclusion of political involvement only to the extent that the politics in question was of a variety that sill awaited reconstruction if it was to contribute to democratization.
While Hu and Dewey were not against radical changes, they did not believe in 'revolutionary changes' that break completely with the past. The misplaced denial of the inherent continuity of experience even in the midst of the most drastic discontinuities would only lead to the destruction of not only obsolete customs and institutions but also the values those customs and institutions were originally intended to serve, values that may still be relevant to the new situation.
What Dewey's experimentalism led Hu Shi to reject was an undemocratic power struggle that might ensure short-term political victory only at the cost of the eventual defeat of democracy. Hu's attempt to realize Dewey's pragmatism in China may not have succeeded in bringing about democracy, but we should not overlook the democratic significance and far-reaching effect of certain aspects of the education and cultural reforms he and other initiated.
If Hu Shi seems a little selective in his presentation and interpretation of pragmatism, we must remember that he was promoting Dewey's philosophy even as Dewey was still developing it. Moreover, from a pragmatist perspective, his mentor's views are not absolute truths ; they are tools to be used appropriately in the circumstances.
2007
Jessica Wang : Many know that Dewey went to China to teach, but few know that he went because he wanted to learn. Dewey taught the Chinese a lot about the West and learned a great deal about China. Even though he may have had some exposure to Chinese culture through his Chinese students at Columbia University, it was not enough to prepare him to be a China expert. Most of Dewey's writings about China are the result of his own observations, assisted by his conversations with various people – his own students and translators, travel guides, missionary friends, academic acquaintances, and institutional hosts – and, most important, by his own study of Chinese history. In his sojourn, Dewey learned about the Chinese social psychology and philosophy of life. At the same time, he also came to understand the West and to question its Eurocentric worldviews. His presence in China opened his eyes to the dark realities of international politics, it also sheltered him from criticism for his idealistic support for the war.
Coinciding with the well-known May fourth movement, Dewey's two-year visit demarcated a significant episode in the history of intellectual exchange between China and the United States.
One of the most important episodes in the history of intellectual exchange was to grow out of the effort of the U.S. government to promote the education of China's young elites.
The encounter between Dewey and China in the 1920s was characterized by ambivalences, uncertainties, and changes on both sides. Faced with challenges from the West, Chinese intellectuals had initially sought to acquire Western technology and implement Western institutions. Later, they realized that they had to study the ideas that inform Western development and practice. During the two years of his stay, Dewey came into contact with these contending ideologies. Although Chinese intellectuals had ambivalent attitudes toward the West, Dewey had his doubts about how the United States should respond to China, or rather, how the United States could help China. Dewey was trying to understand China and its precarious position in the international world, while Chinese intellectuals were trying to understand Dewey and his position in their ideological battles.
In the 1920s, Chinese opinions of Dewey reflected their own vexed interests in liberalism, neo-traditionalism, and Marxism. In the 1930s and 1940s, as China underwent a series of domestic and international wars, a natural eclipse of interest in Dewey occurred. Since the establishment of the Communist regime in 1949, the dialogue between Dewey and China took a drastic turn. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese Communist government launched a large-scale campaign to purge the pragmatic influences of Hu Shi and Dewey. During this period, pragmatism was eschewed as an evil influence of Western imperialism and capitalism. In the 1980s, due to the reform and open door policy of China, the dialogue about Dewey was revived. Since then, Chinese scholars have started to reevaluate Dewey and pragmatism.
Dewey's experimental theory of inquiry made him qualified as 'Mr. Science'. His promotion of democratic ideals earned him the legitimate title of 'Mr. Democracy'. His concerns for the education of the masses contributed to his reputation as the common people's educator. The three topics on science, democracy, and education are chosen for many reasons. First, they constitute the major themes of Dewey's lectures ; second, they reflected the interests and concerns of his Chinese hosts ; and third, they evoked considerable responses and criticisms from his audience.
Dewey knew that in their attempt to emulate Western technology, the Chinese tended to espouse a one-sided, mechanistic view of science, paying attention merely to the products, not the process of science. Therefore in his lectures, Dewey stressed science as a method of thinking, knowing, and acting that has a positive impact on morals and values.
During his visit, Dewey was often asked about ways China could avoid the pitfalls of Western materialistic culture. He admitted that love of money, cruelty in military battles, and contention between capital and labor accompanied material progress in the West. He hoped that the Chinese would come to appreciate science as a method of intelligence for coping with problems and difficulties in ordinary life, rather than as a collection of objective truth. Knowing that such a view of science was not even widely shared in the West, he somehow hoped that the Chinese would consider his suggestions, particularly when they planned for education reform.
Dewey was aware of the increasing trend toward individualism in China and was wary of its concomitant problems. He advised the Chinese not to follow the same path Western nations had taken – namely, going through a stage of self-seeking individualism to the next stage in which state power had to be used to ensure social equality. He believed that Chinese culture was endowed with democratic elements that would enable her to carry out the transition to industrialism more creatively and effectively than the West had done.
Even though Dewey had great sympathy for the struggles of the Chinese and admired many unique qualities of Chinese culture, he was not uncritical of their weaknesses – their passivity and reliance on authority. Therefore, in his lectures, he often stressed the importance of spontaneity, creativity, and initiative, reminding his audience that they needed to reconcile partisan disputes and undertake practical tasks that demands large-scale organization and cooperation. Knowing that the Chinese had learned to organize themselves to operate on a national level, Dewey suggested that schools should cultivate a sense of public spirit extending beyond the students' immediate environments.
Dewey's political activism often runs a sharp contrast to Hu Shi's conservatism. Dewey exerted little influence in Hu's pragmatist experiment in China, even though Dewey was also a participant. Dewey was aware that Hu's reform approach was not very practical, that intellectual, attitudinal changes still depended on concrete changes in economic and social conditions, but Dewey was in no position to intervene. Dewey acknowledged the New Culture group Hu led and was willing to 'give face' to their liberal ideals.
2007
Ding Zijiang : Dewey's philosophy was very attractive to Chinese intellectuals because he seemed to give them an 'easygoing' and also 'efficient' way to deal with many current issues. He taught the Chinese people (1) to pay more attention to practical effectiveness rather than man's knowledge of transmaterial being or all former illusions about transcendent truths ; (2) to concern themselves with those immediate problems of individual and social life rather than the past heritage of culture, which had limited the country's development, and any abstract and all-embracing 'ism' which was not urgent for today's actual life, and (3) to consider intelligence as an instrument for meeting and mastering the new social environment.
Dewey's pragmatism was suitable for a certain aspect of Chinese thought patterns. Dewey's pragmatism as a method is congenial to the practical mentality and disposition of the Chinese people, and it is also a factor of fundamental importance among those that contributed to Dewey's popularity. The Chinese tradition, unlike the Greek one, has never exalted knowledge for its own sake, but rather for its usefulness to morality, society, politics, and culture. For this reason, leading Chinese intellectuals used Dewey Dewey's pragmatism was suitable for a certain aspect of Chinese thought patterns. Dewey's pragmatism as a method is congenial to the practical mentality and disposition of the Chinese people, and it is also a factor of fundamental importance among those that contributed to Dewey's popularity.
Dewey's pragmatic experimentalism with telling effect as a weapon with which to criticize Chinese culture and the traditional value system.
One of the reasons for Dewey's influence on China is the 'holistic' nature of his thought, which was thoroughly in tune with a similar position found in Chinese thought. For example, Chen Duxiu's totalistic attack on Confucianism resulted, among other factors, from his conception of the Confucian tradition as fundamentally a holism that rigidly directed all later developments of Confucianism.
Dewey's real success in China was his educational thought. Dewey emphasized that there was nothing which one heard so often from the lips of representatives of Young China today as that education was the sole means of reconstructing China. Dewey's theories, such as the 'own experience-centered principle', the 'teaching-learning-doing combination principle', the 'school as a society principle', and the 'education for living principle' were extended and advances by his Chinese disciples, such as Tao Xingzhi, one of the most influential Chinese educators. For the new Chinese intellectuals, Dewey's leading principle was that education is an instrument of social change and development. Accordingly, students who have grown politically aware under the new educational regime can be considered as a force, who will in the future make politics of a different sort.
The most important aspect of 'Deweyanization' is education. Dewey was a teacher of teachers. Teaching people how to life and think in the new age of science, technology, democracy, and social development was his mission. His School of education (1889) and Democracy and education (1916) were well known by Chinese edcators and intellectuals. Hu Shi accepted Dewey's idea that education is life and school is society. Importantly, political reform can only be achieved after a social and cultural transformation, which must be promoted by way of education. Dewey himself systematically explained the same views as Hu Shi's in his articles on China. As he correctly pointed out, since 'democracy was a matter of beliefs, of outlook upon life, of habits of mind, and not merely a matter of forms of government', it demanded 'universal education', and the first step towards achieving universal education was to establish the spoken language as a written literary language.
In the 1920s, with Dewey's visit, the entire American educational system was transferred to China, and American aims, methods, and materials became dominant. Deweyanized experimental schools and training programs were popularized. Even the purpose of Chinese education was redefined according to Dewey's progressivism, such as learning by doing, developing abilities by capacities, and students themselves running schools.
Dewey's educational influence on China : (1) Chinese educational aims were reconsidered in light of Dewey's thought ; (2) the national school system was reformed according to the American pattern ; (3) child-centered education predominated in the revision of the curriculum ; (4) new methods of teaching in accordance with Dewey's pragmatic theory were initiaded ; (5) experimental schools were expanded ; (6) student government, about which Dewey made a number of speeches, was widely extended as a mode of school discipline ; (7) literary reform was encouraged, and elementary school textbooks written in the vernacular were adopted.

Cai, Yuanpei. "Proposals for educational policies".
Cai Yuanpei recommended John Dewey and his pragmatic educational philosophy for the first time. He informed that 'pragmatism originated in North America and is now very popular on the European continent' and that 'Dewey from America is the representative of pragmatism'.

Hu Shi promoviert am Department of Philosophy der Columbia University unter John Dewey und Friedrich Hirth.
Hu selected two of Dewey's classes : social and political philosophy and schools of ethics. Three aspects of Dewey's teaching had a lasting impact on Hu, and were explicated in much of Hu's own writings : 1) Dewey's theory, which divided thinking into four evolutionary stages : the initial stage when beliefs were held fixed and static ; the Sophist stage where the certainty and static consistency of the previous stage was challenged ; the Socratic stage which transformed discussion into reasoning and subjective reflection into a method of proof ; and the inductive and empirical stage where thinking became research by way of the logical method. 2) Dewey's secular and instrumental approach to the study of the history of philosophy. 3) Dewey's idea of contextualism.

Dewey, John. Transforming the mind of China [ID D28459].
The beginning of the modem age in China dates from that bloody episode, the Boxer Convulsion. Its outbreak signalized the supreme endeavor of old China to have done once for all with the unwelcome intruder, so that it might return untroubled to its self-sufficiency. Its close marked the recognition that the old China was doomed, and that henceforth China must live its life in the presence of the forces of western life, forces intellectual, moral, economic, financial, political. With its usual patience China set out to adapt itself to the inevitable. But in this case, something more than a patient passivity was necessary. China learned in 1900 that she had to adjust herself to the requirements imposed by the activities of western peoples. Every year since then she has been learning that this adjustment can be effected only by a readjustment of her own age-long customs, that she has to change her historic mind and not merely a few of her practices. Twenty years have passed and the drama does not seem to be advancing. China seems to be marking time. As with the drama of the Chinese stage, the main story is apparendy lost in a mass of changing incidents and excitements that lack movement, climax and plot.
But the foreign interpreter comes to the scene with a mind adapted to the quick tempo of the West. He expects to see a drama unfold after the pattern of the movie. He is not used to history enacted on the scale of that of China. When he hastily concludes that nothing is doing, or rather that although something new and unexpected happens every day, everything is moving in an aimless circle, he forgets that twenty years is but a passing moment in a history that has already occupied its four thousand years. How can a civilization that has taken four thousand years to evolve, that has crept about and absorbed every obstacle hitherto encountered, that has countless inner folds of accumulated experience within itself, quickly find itself in new courses? We talk glibly about the importance of the problem of the Pacific, and even the school boy can quote Seward, Hay and Taft. But what do we suppose this problem to be? One that concerns a superficial waste of mobile waters? No, the real problem of the Pacific is the problem of the transformation of the mind of China, of the capacity of the oldest and most complicated civilization of the globe to remake itself into the new forms required by the impact of immense alien forces.
Analogies, especially when they are obvious, are as deceptive in the field of political thinking as they long ago proved in natural science. The tempting comparison of the future of China, in its reaction to western ideas and institutions, to the record of Japan is misleading. The difference of scale between a small island and a vast continental territory makes the correspondence impossible. China emerged from feudalism two thousand years ago, but without at the same time becoming a national state in the sense familiar to us. Japan's emergence coincided with its opening to the West, so that its internal condition and the external pressure from other nations enabled it to take the form of an absolute state (with certain constitutional trimmings) externally similar to states produced in the evolution out of feudalism of modem Europe. The development of a strong centralized state, with unified administration and militaristic protection, was as easy for Japan as it is difficult for China. More fundamental is the difference in national psychology. Something over a thousand years ago Japan took on Chinese civilization via Korea and yet remained essentially Japanese. For the past sixty years it has been taking on western civilization. Yet the writers and thinkers most characteristically Japanese tell you that Japan is not westernized in heart or mind. Though it borrows wholesale western technique in science, industry, administration, war and diplomacy, it borrows them with the deliberate intention of thereby strengthening the resisting power of its own traditional policies. It acknowledges without reserve the superiority of western methods, but these superior methods are to be used to maintain eastern ideals intrinsically superior to the foreign. This may seem to the foreigner an evidence of the conceit often associated with Japan, but the retort is easy: Is the European complacent conviction of superiority anything more than the conceit of prejudice? At all events, this doubleness of Japanese life, its combination of traditional aims and moral ways with the externals of foreign skill and specialized knowledge, accounts for the impression of duplicity which so many carry away from contact with contemporary Japan.
It is to be doubted whether such a dualism, such inconsistency of inner and outer life, can be long kept up. Yet its successful achievement marks the record of Japan in its relations to western civilization. And it is precisely this sort of thing which cannot happen in China. She has evolved, not borrowed, her civilization. She has no great knack at successful borrowing. Her problem is one of transformation, of making over from within. Educated Chinese will already tell you that if you wish intact survivals of old China, you must go to Japan—and Japanese tell you much the same thing, though with quite a different accent and import. The visitor is struck by the fact that it is in the public buildings and schools of Japan, not of China, that the eye everywhere sees the old Confucianist mottoes, especially those of the reactionary and authoritative type. China with all its backwardness and its confusion and weakness is more permeated today with western contemporary thought than is Japan. There is some significance in the fact that while the circulation of President Wilson's war speeches was legally forbidden in Japan, they have furnished for the past two years China's best seller. There will be many to say that Japan's retention of the ideas that she took from China in the best days of the latter's history, and then protected against deterioration, is the cause of Japan's strength, and that China's decay is precisely because she has permitted the infiltration of ideals and ideas that are foreign and consequently destructive. This may be true. I am not here concerned to deny it. In any case, it illustrates our proposition: China must run a course radically different from that of Japan.
There will either be decay and disintegration, or thoroughgoing inner transformation. There will not be adoption of western external methods for immediate practical ends, because the Chinese genius does not lie in that direction.
Japan's influence upon China has been enormous. The westerner who has not studied the situation is quite unaware of the extent to which China after the Russo-Japanese war in particular took over Japanese administrative and educational methods. But it is already obvious that they are not working here as they worked in Japan. A large part of the present intellectual and moral crisis in China is due to reaction against this factor in Chinese life. Doubtless it is artificially strengthened just now by immediate political causes. But beneath this surface there is a general intellectual ferment, and a belief that China must resort not to Japanese copies of western forms, but to the original sources of western moral and intellectual inspiration. And the recourse is not for the sake of getting models to pattern herself after, but to get ideas, intellectual capital, with which to renovate her own institutions.
National conceit, national vanity, is a sealed book to the outsider. We are sure that our own is only just pride and self-respect, and that the foreigner's is either ridiculous or a mark of offensive contempt and dangerous hostility to our own cherished ways of life. But dubious as is generalization on such matters, one is struck by certain differences in the group self-consciousness of Japan and China. Its quality is perhaps suggested in certain comments which they pass not infrequendy upon each other. A Japanese will tell you that the Chinese do not care what other persons think of them. A Chinese says that Japan has no sense of its 'face'. The two criticisms are enough alike to be intriguing. But it may be suggested in explanation that Chinese complacency is the deeper seated and hence is not so acute. It is fundamental and taken for granted. It does not need to be asserted in special instances. As long as the Chinese retain unimpaired their own judgment of themselves, their own reputation with themselves, their face is saved, and what others think is negligible. On the other hand, it is humiliating to them to borrow as Japan does. It would be a confession of absence of inner resources. When Japan engages foreign experts, she is interested in results, and so gives them a free hand till she has learned what they have to give. China engages the foreign expert—and then courteously shelves him. The difference is typical of a difference in attitude toward western life. It is a large part of the cause of Japan's rapid progress and of China's backwardness. The Japanese naturally places himself in the stead of the western spectator and is acutely conscious of the criticisms the beholder might pass upon what he sees. He tries to make over the spectacle to satisfy the demands of the western onlooker. He reserves his deeper pride for his national ideals. The Chinese scarcely cares what the foreigner may think of what he sees. He even brings the skeletons in his closet cheerfully forward for the visitor to gaze at. The complacency or conceit involved in this attitude has enormously retarded the advance of China. It has made for a conservative hugging of old traditions, and a belief in the inherent superiority of Chinese civilization in all respects to that of foreign barbarians. But it has also engendered a power of objective criticism and self-analysis which is rarely met in Japan. The educated Chinese who dissects the institutions and customs of his own country does it with a calm objectivity which is unsurpassable. And the basic reason, I think, is the same national pride. His institutions may not stand the criticism very well, but the people who produced these institutions are intrinsically invulnerable. They produced them, and when they get around to it they will create some new ones better adapted to the conditions of present life. The faith of the Chinese in the final outcome of their country, no matter what the despair about the current state of things, reminds an American of a similar faith abounding in his own country.
We are brought around to our main contention. China's slack¬ness with respect to borrowing the technique of the West in civil administration, public sanitation, taxation, education, manufacturing, etc., is quite compatible with an effort on her part to bring about a thoroughgoing transformation of her institutions through contact with western civilization. In this remaking she will appropriate rather than borrow. She will attempt to penetrate to the principles, the ideas, the intelligence, from which western progress has emanated, and to work out her own salvation through the use of her own renewed and quickened national mind. The task is an enormous one. Time is of the essence of the performance. Just because the task is to effect an inner modification rather than an outward adjustment, its execution will take a long time. Will the forces that are playing upon China from without, forces that have contemplated its territorial disintegration, that are desirous of dominating its policies and exploiting in their own behalf its natural resources, permit a normal evolution? Will they stand by to assist, or will they invade and irritate and deflect and thwart till there is a final climax of no one knows what tragic catastrophe? These are some of the elements in the great drama now enacting.
The baffling and 'mysterious' character of China to the West is genuine enough. But it does not seem to be due to any peculiarly dark and subtle psychology. Human nature as one meets it in China seems to be unusually human, if one may say so. There is more of it in quantity and it is open to view, not secreted. But the social mind, the political mind, has been subjected for centuries to institutions which are not only foreign to present western customs, but which have no historic precedent. Neither our political science nor our history supplies any system of classification for understanding the most characteristic phenomena of Chinese institutions. This is the fact which makes the workings of the Chinese mind inscrutable to the uninitiated foreigner, and which makes it necessary to describe so many things in contradictory linguistic terms. The civilization itself is not contradictory, but in its own self-consistency it includes things which in western life have been sharply opposed. Then there are intermediate forms, political missing links, which to our grasp must prove elusive; they are vague because we have no comparable forms by which to define and interpret them. Yet the Chinese mind thinks, of course, as naturally in terms of its customs and conventions as we think in ours. We merely forget that we think in terms of customs and traditions which habituation has engrained; we fancy that we think in terms of mind, pure and simple. Taking our mental habits as the norm of mind, we find the ways of thinking that do not conform to it abnormal, mysterious and tricky. We can get the key to mental operations only by studying social antecedents and environment, and this truth holds pre-eminendy in an old civilization like the Chinese. We have to understand beliefs and traditions to understand acts, and we have to understand historic institutions to understand beliefs.
It is clear enough that the Korean question is quite pivotal in many of the most urgent external political questions of Asia. Yet Mr. Holcombe has told how the question was complicated in earlier days by the misconceptions which formed the basis of dealing with it by western nations. They knew that there was something of a relation of dependency of Korea upon China. They assumed the kind of relationship with which the West was acquainted, that of suzerain and vassal. When China declined to bear the responsibility of enforcing certain demands upon Korea as being out of her authority, the western nations thought that China was either insincere or else disclaimed all political jurisdiction. That there should be a genuine relationship of dependency, but of an advisory, homiletic, grandfatherly type, was beyond the scope of western precedent and understanding. The early relations of western diplomacy with the Imperial Court at Peking are a record of simi¬lar misunderstandings. There were all the insignia of royalty over China, extending even to despotic power. In relation to happenings in the provinces, therefore, it was natural to endow the 'Government' at Peking with all the attributes of sovereignty as that is constituted in Europe. That the central government (beyond certain well-established relations of taxation and appointment of civil service) sustained mainly a ceremonial and hortatory connection with a large part of China was beyond conception. These grosser misunderstandings could be multiplied in considering almost every detail of Chinese institutional life. It has to be understood in terms of itself, not translated over into the classifications of an alien political morphology.
The story of the difficulties that had to be overcome in the introduction of railways into China is perhaps the best known of Chinese incidents. But it bears retelling because it affords a typical illustration of the fact that the chief obstacle in the effective contact of West and East is intellectual and moral. Opposition to railways was not a matter of routine conservatism, blind sluggish opposition to the new just because it was new. The Chinese have the normal amount of curiosity, and perhaps even more than the normal amount of practical sense of the advantage to be gained by a novelty which does not conflict with traditional beliefs. A difficulty presented itself in getting a clear right of way for railways, on account of the graves, which, from the western standpoint, are scattered at random. But from the Chinese standpoint, they are located with the utmost science, and to disturb them is to throw out of balance the whole system of environmental influences that affect health and good crops. Moreover, the graves are the centre of the system of ancestral worship, and that is the centre of civic organization. The tale might have been invented to show how completely the forces to be reckoned with are intellectual and moral, and how completely they are bound up with the structure of life. Without a change of national mind it is hopeless to suppose that China can go forward prosperously because of intercourse with the West.
It is a rash enterprise to form a generalization about the factors of the Chinese popular psychology that count most, whether positively or negatively, in the task of regenerating China. But the strong points of a people, as of individual character, lie close to its weak ones. So perhaps it is safe to say that the promise of China's rebirth into full membership in the modem world is found in its democratic habits of life and thought, provided we add to the statement another: the peculiar quality of this democracy also forms the strongest obstacle to the making over of China in its confrontation by a waiting, resdess and greedy world. For while China is morally and intellectually a democracy of a paternalistic type, she lacks the specific organs by which alone a democracy can effectively sustain itself either internally or internationally. China is in a dilemma whose seriousness can hardly be exaggerated. Her habitual decentralization, her centrifugal localisms, operate against her becoming a nationalistic entity with the institutions of public revenue, unitary public order, defence, legislation and diplomacy that are imperatively needed. Yet her deepest traditions, her most established ways of feeling and thinking, her essential democracy, cluster about the local units, the village and its neighbors. The superimposition of a national state, without corresponding transformation of local institutions (or better without an evolution of the spirit of local democracies into national scope) gives us just what we now have in China: A nominal republic governed by a military clique, maintained in part by foreign loans made in response to a bartering away of national property and power, and in part by bargainings with provincial leaders whose power rests upon their control of an army and the ability this control gives them to levy on industry and wealth. In fact, we have a state which, if it were taken statically, if it were frozen, would reproduce the evils of the old despotism with new ones added, and which can be saved only because it has released popular forces that make for something better. But it remains to organize these popular forces, to give them play, to build for them regular channels of operation.
Up to the present western thought has confined itself to the more obvious, the more structural, factors of the problem. These are naturally the problems most familiar in occidental political life. They are such things as the adjustment of the power and authority of the central government to that of local and regional governments; the problem of the relations of the executive and legislative forces in the government; the revision of legal procedure and law to eliminate arbitrariness and personal discretion. But after all, such matters are symptoms, effects. To try to reorganize China by beginning with them is like solving an engineering problem by skilful juggling. The real problem is how the democratic spirit historically manifest in the absence of classes, the prevalence of social and civil equality, the control of individuals and groups by moral rather than physical force—that is, by instruction, advice and public opinion rather than definitive legal methods—can find an organized expression of itself. And the problem, I repeat, is unusually difficult because traditionally, in the habits of beliefs as well as of action, these forces out of which the transformation of China must grow are opposed to organization on a nation-wide scale. Take a conspicuous example. To maintain itself as a nation among other nations of the contemporary world, China needs a system of national finance, of national taxation and revenues. But the effort to institute such a system does not merely meet a void. It has to meet deeply entrenched local customs, so firmly established that to interfere with them may mean the overthrow of all central government. To put another system of taxation into force requires the operation of the very national organs which depend upon a national system of public revenues. This is a fair example of the vicious circles that circumscribe all short-cut systems of reform in China. It is another evidence that the development must be a transforming growth from within, rather than either an external superimposition or a borrowing from foreign sources.
There are many, including a rather surprising number of Chinese as well as foreigners, who think that China can get set on her feet and become able to move for herself only by undergoing a period of foreign guardianship or trusteeship. The feeling is sedulously fostered by some persons in a neighboring island, and there is some undoubted response in China, though much less than there would be had the point of view not been unduly identified with the point of a bayonet. There are others who look to some western democracy or to the League of Nations to exercise the needed guardianship. We may waive the question whether at the present time there exists in the world a sufficient amount of disinterested intelligence to perform such a job of trusteeship. We stay on safe ground if we confine ourselves to saying that to be successful such a guardian would have to confine his efforts to stimulating, encouraging and expediting the democratic forces acting from within. And since such a task is almost entirely intellectual and moral, the guardianship is not necessary provided that China can be guaranteed time of growth protected from external attempts at disintegration. All that is necessary is a sufficient international decency and sufficient enlightened selfishness to give China the ad interim protection. She may have to sink deeper yet into the slough of confusion before she can get upon firm ground and move about freely. There is only harm in underestimating the seriousness of the task.
The evolution of Japan, as I have already said, offers no fair precedent. The problem is even more perplexing than that of the change of feudal into modem Europe. For medieval Europe was not civilized in the sense in which old China is civilized. There was not the inertia and weight of institutions wrapped up in the deepest feelings and most profound thoughts of the people that is found in China. Moreover, the European transition could take its own time to work itself out. That of China has to be accomplished in the face of the impatient, mobile western world, which, if it brings aid, also brings a voracious appetite. To the outward eye roaming in search of the romantic and picturesque, China is likely to prove a disappointment. To the eye of the mind it presents the most enthralling drama now anywhere enacting.

Hu, Shi. Shi yan zhu yi. [ID D28586]. [Experimentalismus].
Hu Shi zitiert John Dewey in leicht gekürzter Form In fünf Punkten : 1) Die Vertreter der früheren Strömungen gehen davon aus, dass Erfahrung durch und durch Erkennen ist. 2) Früher vertrat man die Meinung, dass die Erfahrung etwas Psychisches und völlig 'Subjektives' sei. 3) Früher erkannte man über die gegenwärtige Situation hinaus nur eine Vergangenheit an und vertrat die Position, dass die Erfahrung letztlich aus Erinnertem besteht. 4) Die Erfahrung in ihrer früheren Form war partikular. 5) Traditionell betrachtete man die Erfahrung und das Denken als absolute Gegensätze.
Er schreibt : "Die grundlegende Vorstellung der Philosophie Dewey besagt : 'Erfahrung ist Leben, Leben ist Auseinandersetzung mit der Umgebung', aber hinsichtlich der Auseinandersetzung (ying fu) mit der Umgebung gibt es unterschiedliche Niveaus… Der Mensch ist ein Lebewesen, das Wissen besitzt und denken kann ; wenn er den Weg verliert, klettert er weder nervös noch hektisch den Baum hinauf, er nimmt das Fernglas oder sucht den Bach und findet dem Wasser folgend den Weg hinaus. Das Leben des Menschen ist achtenswert, weil der Mensch die Denkfähigkeit besitzt, sich mit seiner Umgebung auf höchster Stufe auseinanderzusetzen. Deshalb ist die grundlegend Vorstellung der Philosophie Dewey : 'Das reflektierende Denken (zhi shi si xiang) ist das Werkzeug, mit dem der Mensch sich mit einer Umgebung auseinandersetzt'. Das reflektierende Denken ist ein täglich benötigtes, unentbehrliches Werkzeug des menschlichen Lebens, und keineswegs Spielzeug und Luxusartikel der Philosophen.
Das Denken, von dem Dewey spricht, hat die Funktion, ausgehend von bereits Bekanntem auf andere Dinge, Angelegenheiten oder Wahrheiten zu schliessen. Diese Funktion wird in der Logik 'Schlussfolgerung' (inference) genannt. Schlussfolgerung bedeutet lediglich von bereits Bekanntem auf noch Unbekanntes schliessen…"
Hu Shi folgt in der Darstellung der fünf Stufen des 'analytischen Denkens bei Dewey den Vorgaben seines Lehrers :
a) Als Ausgangspunkt benötigt man eine verwirrende, schwierige Situation. b) Durch Überlegen und Sondieren versucht man neue Dinge oder neue Erkenntnisse herauszufinden, um diese verwirrende Schwierigkeit zu lösen.
1) Der Ausgangspunkt des Denkens ist eine schwierige Situation. 2) Festlegen, worin die Schwierigkeit tatsächlich liegt. 3) Verschiedene hypothetische Lösungsmethoden darlegen. 4) Eine Hypothese als geeignete Lösung bestimmen. 6) Der Beweis.
Hu Shi concretely analyzed and explained the five steps in the ideological methodology of John Dewey : 1) knotty circumstances ; 2) pointing out exactly where the knotty points are ; 3) imagining the methods for resolving various knotty points ; 4) imagining the results of each such method to see which one can resolve the difficulties ; 5) proving this kind of solution is believable, or proving this kind of solution is wrong and unbelievable.

Suzanne P. Ogden : The immediate stimulus leading to the invitation to Bertrand Russell for a visit in China may have been the series of lectures given by John Dewey in Beijing in March 1919 on The three great philosophers of our day, James, Bergson, and Russell.

Shu, Xincheng. Jin dai Zhongguo jiao yu shi liao [ID D28674].
"Chinese educational aims were reconsidered in the light of Dewey's thought. The first Conference for Educational Investigation, held in April 1919, was attended by sixty outstanding education leaders, including Cai Yuanpei and Chiang Monlin [Jiang Menglin], all of whom were appointed by the Ministry of Education. Dissatisfied with the old educational aims which had been promulgated in 1912, and which had emphasized military education, the conference suggested that the aim and spirit of American education should be adopted. The new aim was to be 'the cultivation of perfect personality and the development of democratic spirit. The fifth annual meeting of the Federation of Educational Associations endorsed the new educational direction in the same year, and even went a step further in following literally Dewey's admonition that 'education has no ends beyond itself ; it is its own end', by advocating the abolition of all educational aims, and their replacements by a statement of the nature of education instead."

John Dewey hält Gastvorlesungen an der Beijing-Universität. Unter dem Titel Soziale und politische Philosophie legt Dewey zum ersten Mal die pragmatische Theorie der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung und Umformung, die der Bekämpfung des Marxismus als theoretische Grundlage diente, systematisch dar. Die Manuskripte werden in verschiedenen Zeitungen und Zeitschriften veröffentlicht und haben einen starken Einfluss auf die ideologischen und kulturellen Zirkel.
Dewey bereist 11 Provinzen in China.

Hu, Shih [Hu, Shi]. Introductory note. [Dewey, John. Lectures in China, 1919-1920]. Nov. 1919.
Dr. John Dewey has recently completed two series of lectures in Peking, one on “Social and Political Philosophy,” the other on “A Philosophy of Education.” Dr. Dewey’s philosophy of education is so well known that no introduction to it is required; but I do wish to make a few remarks about his lectures on “Social and Political Philosophy.”
The philosophy of pragmatism, with which Dr. Dewey's name is iden¬tified, has been the subject of a number of systematic statements, among them the work of William James in psychology, the work of Dewey him¬self and of Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller in logic, the work of Dewey and James Hayden Tufts in ethics, and, of course, Dewey’s own monu-mental work in education.
Only in the field of political philosophy has there not yet appeared any single systematic work which treats the subject from the viewpoint of pragmatism. It is true that the political theory of Graham Wallas and Harold Laski in England, and of Walter Lippmann in the United States of America, strongly reflects the influence of pragmatism; but, until now, a formal, coherent statement of a pragmatic philosophy of politics has been lacking.
It was for this reason that I suggested to Dr. Dewey, earlier this year when he and I were discussing his forthcoming lecture series in China, that this might be an appropriate opportunity for him to formulate a coherent statement of a social and political philosophy based in pragmatism, elements of which have been suggested in his writings increasingly during the last decade.
Dr. Dewey thought that my suggestion was a good one, and the result is this series of sixteen lectures. I hope that those who were in the audi¬ences when these lectures were delivered, as well as the readers of the printed version of the lectures herewith presented, are cognizant of their rare good fortune in sharing in Dr. Dewey's initial formal statement of his social and political philosophy.
As Dr. Dewey delivered his lectures in English I interpreted them sen¬tence by sentence into Chinese for the benefit of members of his audiences who did not understand English. My Chinese interpretation was recorded by my friend, I-han Kao. Dr. Dewey intends to revise and expand his original lecture notes for publication in book form. When his manuscript is complete, I hope to translate it into Chinese, so that both English and Chinese versions can be published at the same time.
It is inevitable that in material so complex as these lectures on-the-spot oral interpretation and simultaneous recording should result in certain inaccuracies and inadequacies. For such errors and omissions Professor I-han Kao and I offer our apologies, both to Dr. Dewey and to the read¬ing public.

While lecturing at the Imperial University in Tokyo, John Dewey received a joint invitation from five Chinese academic institutions to lecture in Beijing, Nanjing, and other cities in China. This invitation was prompted by three of his former students : Hu Shi, P.W. Kuo (President of the National Nanjing Teachers College) and Chiang Monlin [Jiang Menlin] (Ed. of New Education magazine).

Conference held by the Ministry of Education.
Hu Shi made a detailed introduction to John Dewey's pragmatism. Such publicity and introduction has created a 'Dewey craze' even before Dewey came to China, and the far and wide spread of his educational philosophy could be predicted.
Hu Shi found the 'practical philosophy' he was looking for in Dewey's pragmatism. His 1919 lecture introducing pragmatism, Hu refers approvingly to Dewey's comment that 'philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a device for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method, cultivated by philosophers, for dealing with the problems of men'.

John Dewey : Lecture 'The relation between democracy and education' at the Jiangsu Educational Association Building, Shanghai. = Ping min zhu yi, ping min zhu yi di jiao yu, ping min jiao yu zhu yi di ban fa. Jiang Menglin interpreter ; Pan Gongzhan recorder. In : Xue deng ; May 8-9 (1919) / In : Chen bao fu kan ; May 9 (1919).
Zhou Youjin : Dewey's speeches were so popular that there was barely enough room for the audience. The speeches have already been published in both Chinese and English newspapers to that those who were not able to attend the speeches for various reasons could learn about Dewey's ideas.

April 15, 1919
Professor John Dewey c/o The Government University Peking
My dear Professor Dewey
On the basis of the following telegram President Butler cabled to the Chancellor that you had been granted leave of absence in order to accept the suggestion that you lecture at the Government University Peking.
President Butler Columbia University
Professor Dewey consents lecture one year at Chinese Government University pending your concurrence. Kindly cable.
Thaiyuenpei [Cai Yuanpei] Chancellor Government University
President Butler is delighted that you will have the opportunity and is sure you can accomplish much of lasting good by work at this institution.
Trusting that all is going well with you, I beg to remain
Faithfully yours Frank D. Fackenthal

Letter from John Dewey to Sabino Dewey
Tuesday April 22. [1919]
Dear Sabino, You have probably heard more than we have that Lucy is coming sailing May 20, and Mr Barry too. The latter was great surprise. As soon as we heard we decided to leave for China right away so as to get back sooner; we sail from Kobe the 27th, next sunday. It takes one day to go thru the Inland Sea, between the Japanese Islands and about three more I think to cross to Shanghai. My former Chinese students seem to be making as elaborate plans for our reception as we have nejoyed here. The only trouble is that I shall have to lecture all the time to help even up. I dont know the program exactly, but I know it calls for lectures in Shanghai, Nanking and Peking and I presume other places. You look up your geography and you will see how far apart the places are. When the Chinamen were here I got the impression Nanking was a kind of suburb of Shanghai, they talked so about running over there, but I see from the time table it takes five hours or more. I hope we can go up the Yangste River to Hankow, by boat, but that doesnt seem to be on my paid schedule, and it may be better to postpone it till next fall if should stay over. I have had a letter from the President of a missionary colllge in Nanking, [Rev. Arthur John] Bowen by name, inviting us to stay at their house while we are there. I dont know whether he is of the Bowen family well known in the Islands. Mama has written Lucy full particulrs if only she gets the letter before she leaves. Anyway she understands to about going to the Nitobes. We have written them so that they [in ink w. caret] will be on the lookout for her, if we are not back. We have also written her about the possibility of stopping over one steamer in Honolulu. Of course we dont know how that will fit in with circumstances including Mr Barry's plans, bu and so we dont urge it except if if she wants to and it is convenient all around…
Tell Lucy to be sure to mail a letter postcard to us, care Dr Suh Hu [Hu Shi] Government University, Peking, to come [ink del.] by the Korea steamer, in case she stops over and a letter to mail in Yokahama when she leaves the steamer if she doesnt. In fact if she comes right thru she better cable us after she has got her mail at the Nitobes unless we write something different…
Dad
Professor Hu [Shi] is going to run down from Peking to Shanghai about a thousand miles to meet us when we arrive…

John Dewey : Lectures 'The real meaning of education in a democracy' at the Beijing National Academy of Fine Arts.
1) 'The natural foundations of education'.
2) 'The new attitude toward knowledge'.
3) 'The socialization of education'.

The Correspondence of John Dewey, 1871-1952. Electronic edition. Volume 2: 1919-1939. Past Masters : InteLex Corporation, 1999-.
nlx.com aus Briefen, die China betreffen. Die Briefe wurden so übernommen, wie sie vom Dewey Center und Past Masters zur Verfügung gestellt wurden ; ohne Korrektur der Fehler].

Dewey, John. The discrediting of idealism. In : New Republic ; vol. 20, 8.10. (1919). In : Dewey, John. The middle works. Vol. 11 : 1918-1919. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1976-1983).

Dewey, John. Chinese national sentiment. In : Asia ; vol. 19, Dec. (1919). In : Dewey, John. The middle works. Vol. 11 : 1918-1919. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1976-1983).

[Dewey, John]. Meiguo zhi min zhi de fa zhan. Duwei jiang yan lu. Hu Shi, Han Lu, Tian Feng. (Beijing : Xue shu jiang yan hui, [1919]). Übersetzung von Dewey, John. American democracy. Vortrag in China 1919].
美國之民治的發展 : 杜威講演录

[Dewey, John].Xue xiao yu she hui zhi jin bu. Liu Jianyang yi. In : Ping min jiao yu ; no 3 (Oct. 25, 1919). Übersetzung von Dewey, John. The school and society. (Chicago, Ill. : The University of Chicago Press, 1900). Chap. 1.
学小与社会制进步

[Dewey, John]. Xue xiao he er tong zhi sheng huo. Liu Jianyang yi. In : Ping min jiao yu ; no 7-9 (Nov. 22, 29, Dec. 6, 1919) Übersetzung von Dewey, John. The school and society. (Chicago, Ill. : The University of Chicago Press, 1900). Chap. 2.
学校何儿 童纸生活

[Dewey, John]. Jiao yu shang zhi min zhu zhu yi. Zhen Chang yi. In : Jiao yu za zhi ; vol. 11, no 5-6 (May 20, June 10, 1919). Übersetzung von Dewey, John. Democracy and education. (New York, N.Y. : Macmillan, 1916). Chap. 7.
敎育尚殖民注注译

[Dewey, John]. Li ke jiao yu zhi mu di. Transl. from Japanese by Jiang Qi yi. In : Xin jiao yu ; vol. 1, no 5 (Augs. 1919). Übersetzung von Dewey, John. The aims of science education. [Lecture given by Dewey in Japan in 1919].
理克教育之幕棣

Dewey, John. The international duel in China. In : New Republic ; vol. 20, July 8 (1919). In : Dewey, John. The middle works. Vol. 11 : 1918-1919. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1976-1983).

Dewey, John. Militarism in China. In : New Republic ; vol. 20, July 28 (1919). In : Dewey, John. The middle works. Vol. 11 : 1918-1919. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1976-1983).

Dewey, John. The American opportunity in China. In : New Republic ; vol. 21, Sept. 12 (1919). In : Dewey, John. The middle works. Vol. 11 : 1918-1919. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1976-1983).

Dewey, John. Transforming the mind of China. In : Asia ; vol. 19, Oct. (1919). In : Dewey, John. The middle works. Vol. 11 : 1918-1919. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1976-1983).

Dewey, John. Our share in drugging China. In : New Republic ; vol. 21, Oct. 6 (1919). In : Dewey, John. The middle works. Vol. 11 : 1918-1919. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1976-1983).

[Dewey, John]. Duwei wu da jiang yan. Duwei jiang ; Hu Shi yi ; Mu Wang, Fu Lu bi ji. (Beijing : Chen bao she, 1920). (Chen bao she cong shu ; 3). [Five lectures by Dewey in Beijing].
[Enthält] : She hui zhe xue yu zheng zhi zhe xue. Jiao yu zhe xue. Si xiang zhi pai bie. Xian dai san ge zhe xue jia. Lun li yan jiang ji lue.
杜威五大講演

Hu, Shi. Shi yan zhu yi. (Beijing : Xue shu jiang yan hui, 1919). (Xue shu jiang yan lu). [Vorträge von Hu Shi über Experimentalismus, Pragmatismus und Philosophie von John Dewey, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce].
实验主义

Cai, Yuanpei . Zai Duwei bo shi 60 zhi sheng ri wan yang hui shang zhi yan shuo. In : Shen, Yihong. Duwei tan Zhongguo. (Hangzhou : Zhejiang wen yi chu ban she, 2001). (Shi ji hui sheng). [Speech given at the Banquet to celebrate John Dewey's sixtieth birthday in Beijing].
在杜威博士60之生日晚養會上之演說

Li, Shicen. Li Shicen lun wen ji. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1924). [Gesammelte Essays. Enthalten Artikel über Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Rudolph Eucken, Joh n Dewey, Bertrand Russell].
李石岑論文集

Hu, Shi. Wu shi nian lai zhi shi jie zhe xue shi. (Shanghai : Shi jie tu shu guan, 1924). [Weltphilosophie der letzten 50 Jahre ; enthält Eintragungen über Friedrich Nietzsche, René Descartes, Henri Bergson, John Dewey, Aldous Huxley].
五十年來之世界哲學史