How We Think by John Dewey

How We Think Reviews

• 
  Maughn Gregory

  In this short book Dewey shows what pragmatist learning theory means for epistemology (what it means to think well) and for pedagogy (the study of teaching and learning). The starting point is a mind already active, curious and interested in what's going on around it, that, given the chance, will figure out how to read its environment for conditions likely to improve its qualitative experience. Learning what things mean in a way that enables you to make a difference you care about is the only kind of learning worth the effort.
• 
  Anima

  " Natural intelligence is no barrier to the propagation of error, nor large but untrained experience to the accumulation of fixed false beliefs. Errors may support one another mutually and weave an ever larger and firmer fabric of misconception"
  
  "Curiosity rises above the organic and the social planes and becomes intellectual in the degree in which it is transformed into interest in problems provoked by the observation of things and the accumulation of material...To the open mind, nature and social experience are full of varied and subtle challenges to look further. If germinating powers are not used and cultivated at the right moment, they tend to be transitory, to die out, or to wane in intensity. This general law is peculiarly true of sensitiveness to what is uncertain and questionable; in a few people, intellectual curiosity is so insatiable that nothing will discourage it, but in most its edge is easily dulled and blunted...
  Some lose it in indifference or carelessness; others in a frivolous flippancy; many escape these evils only to become incased in a hard dogmatism which is equally fatal to the spirit of wonder. Some are so taken up with routine as to be inaccessible to new facts and problems. Others retain curiosity only with reference to what concerns their personal advantage in their chosen career."
  ...."Certain men or classes of men come to be the accepted guardians and transmitters—instructors—of established doctrines. To question the beliefs is to question their authority; to accept the beliefs is evidence of loyalty to the powers that be, a proof of good citizenship. Passivity, docility, acquiescence, come to be primal intellectual virtues. Facts and events presenting novelty and variety are slighted, or are sheared down till they fit into the Procrustean bed of habitual belief. Inquiry and doubt are silenced by citation of ancient laws or a multitude of miscellaneous and unsifted cases. This attitude of mind generates dislike of change, and the resulting aversion to novelty is fatal to progress. What will not fit into the established canons is outlawed; men who make new discoveries are objects of suspicion and even of persecution."
  ...."Consider the following quotation: "When it first occurred to a reflecting mind that moving water had a property identical with human or brute force, namely, the property of setting other masses in motion, overcoming inertia and resistance,—when the sight of the stream suggested through this point of likeness the power of the animal,—a new addition was made to the class of prime movers, and when circumstances permitted, this power could become a substitute for the others. It may seem to the modern understanding, familiar with water wheels and drifting rafts, that the similarity here was an extremely obvious one. But if we put ourselves back into an early state of mind, when running water affected the mind by its brilliancy, its roar and irregular devastation, we may easily suppose that to identify this with animal muscular energy was by no means an obvious effort."
  .."Experience is not a rigid and closed thing; it is vital, and hence growing. When dominated by the past, by custom and routine, it is often opposed to the reasonable, the thoughtful. But experience also includes the reflection that sets us free from the limiting influence of sense, appetite, and tradition. Experience may welcome and assimilate all that the most exact and penetrating thought discovers. Indeed, the business of education might be defined as just such an emancipation and enlargement of experience. Education takes the individual while he is relatively plastic, before he has become so indurated by isolated experiences as to be rendered hopelessly empirical in his habit of mind. The attitude of childhood is naïve, wondering, experimental; the world of man and nature is new. Right methods of education preserve and perfect this attitude, and thereby short-circuit for the individual the slow progress of the race, eliminating the waste that comes from inert routine."
• 
  Cassandra Kay Silva

  I am not saying that I did not enjoy this book. I am just going to say that I have pretty much decided that all philosophy is turning into is a giant rolling sweep of defining terms. I understand the role that language plays in how we communicate as human beings. I understand that spending a chapter defining one term or another helps to get the main point across. All I am saying is that I am starting to feel like it is a cop out for further thought and appropriation of ideas. I am not sure if Dewey came up with much that was new or enlightening here. Like I said this does not mean that the content was not good or that the material was not interesting or pertinent. It just means that I am starting to see a formula and find it ungenuine in the pursuit of intellectual ideas. Maybe there is a formula because it works. I understand that. But it leads me to have no surprises that so little in the world of philosophy emerged for so long after Aristotle. After all he did it well. It was a good formula. Perhaps I just expected more from philosophers of our age. What are we really learning? Other than how to better articulate ourselves. Besides a book on thought that takes into account almost no neural biology in this day and age seems a bit dated.
• 
  Jana Light

  Every teacher, thinker and writer should read this book. It's a very accessible discussion of what it means to think and what it means to be a true educator. Dewey also provides a framework for analyzing your own biases and assumptions and the way those have inappropriately influenced conclusions on the rightness or truth value of any issue.
  
  READ THIS NOW!
• 
  Trần Hải Đăng

  Cuối cùng thì cũng đọc xong cuốn sách hại não nhất năm 2018 :)) chắc phải mở tiệc =))
  
  #Review: Cách Ta Nghĩ (How we think)
  Điểm nội dung: 9,5/10
  
  Bạn muốn tư duy của mình thêm sâu sắc? Bạn quan tâm đến tâm lý giáo dục? Bạn có đủ sự kiên nhẫn để cố gắng đọc những lý thuyết khô khan và trừu tượng? Bạn muốn một chút thử thách khi đã quá chán những cuốn sách dễ ăn dễ nuốt, khẩu vị nhạt? Vâng cuốn sách này sẽ cho bạn tất cả những điều đó :v
  
  Một ngày có lẽ bạn chỉ nên đọc từ 1-2 chương cuốn sách này nếu không muốn trí não của mình nổ tung vì sự "khó tiêu" của nó tuy nhiên đổi lại thì lượng kiến thức thu được cũng như quá trình tập rèn tư duy và trí nghĩ ngay khi bạn đọc cuốn sách này theo tôi thì khá xứng đáng cho điều đó.
  
  NXB Tri Thức thì luôn có những cuốn sách khá kén người đọc, nhưng quả thực cuốn này theo tôi sẽ còn ế dài nếu như không có những review chi tiết cho nó. 🤣😂🤣
  
  Nội dung: Bao hàm cả cuốn sách là về vấn đề trui rèn tư duy và trí nghĩ đặc biệt tác giả cực kỳ nhấn mạnh đến khía cạnh giáo dục của việc luyện trí năng bởi bản thân ông là 1 nhà cải cách giáo dục. Phần 1 và 3 thì có lẽ sẽ dễ tiêu hơn 1 chút so với phần 2 đặc biệt là chương "SUY LUẬN HỆ THỐNG QUY NẠP VÀ DIỄN DỊCH" có lẽ tôi dù đọc rất kĩ mới chỉ thẩm thấu được 40% kiến thức chương này. Xuyên suốt tác phẩm qua các yếu tố tâm lý của trí nghĩ và các khía cạnh của nó tác giả luôn lồng ghép nó vào vấn đề giáo dục. Hơi bất ngờ so với dự định ban đầu của tôi khi nghĩ đây chỉ là 1 cuốn tâm lý học thuần túy. Có 1 số chương tôi khá thích ở cả 3 phần đặc biệt một vài lý luận về sự phản tỉnh trong nhận thức khiến tôi thực sự phải nghi ngờ hơn nữa mọi quan điểm để không bị sa vào sự sói mòn của thói hời hợt.
  
  Kiến thức mà Dewey truyền tải rất nhiều cách trình bày khá "xương xẩu" không dễ nuốt nhưng phải thừa nhận nếu ngẫm nghĩ kĩ kiến thức của nó mang lại là rất nhiều so với những cuốn sách khác bởi từng câu từng chữ không thể đọc nhanh được vừa đọc vừa ngẫm nghĩ như quá trình rèn luyện tâm trí. Có lẽ do đó mà tác giả cố ý viết như thế chăng?
  
  Điểm trừ của tác phẩm là nhiều chi tiết quá chi li. Tôi không nghĩ là nên dùng từ "tiểu tiết" nhưng thật sự cách diễn đạt đó của Dewey hơi khiến cho người đọc dễ mất tập trung đọc trước quên sau, đặc biệt với tính hàn lâm "cực nặng" cứ phải căng não hoặc đọc đi đọc lại vài lần những đoạn khó hiểu mới nắm bắt được ý chính tác giả muốn truyền đạt. Khá là "toát mồ hôi", tuy nhiên đây không phải cuốn sách đọc để giải trí, thực sự là cứ phải tập trung hơn bình thường thì mới thẩm thấu được tác phẩm này. Tôi cũng đọc được kha khá các tác phẩm tâm lý học và triết học trước khi đến với "Cách Ta Nghĩ" nhưng chưa tác phẩm nào lại nặng đô đến vậy.
  
  Một điều nữa mà tôi thấy không hài lòng đó là dịch giả có vẻ rất thích dùng những từ ngữ ít phổ biến chứ ko phải kiểu thuật ngữ chuyên môn. Ví dụ như "bé cái lầm", "thức nhận" thay vì "nhận thức", "giác độ" thay vì "góc độ" hoặc 1 số từ mà tôi tra google cũng ko thể tìm ra được ý nghĩa của chúng như "xác quyết" "chung cùng" xét theo ý tứ trong câu thì hoàn toàn có thể thay thế những từ khác dễ hiểu hơn mà không khiến câu văn trở nên tối nghĩa và khó hiểu.
  
  Tổng quan thì nội dung sâu sắc giàu tính suy tư nhưng bản dịch có lẽ hơi tệ khiến tác phẩm bị hạn chế đi phần nào sự rành mạch và sáng sủa.
• 
  Illiterate

  A solid nontechnical (but obviously dated) account of logical reasoning and its importance.
• 
  Brent Jones

  John Dewey was born in 1859 and died in 1952 and was one of the founders of the philosophical movement known as pragmatism. He wrote the book, “How We Think”, that concludes that we can be taught to think well, but not the process. He tells us that thinking is automatic, like breathing and our heartbeats.
  
  Dewey tells us that our knowledge is what we are aware of, and that how we consider those things are beliefs. He tells us that beliefs have consequences, and that knowledge is relative to its interaction with the world.
  
  He says that, “Genuine freedom is intellectual; it rests in the trained power of thought, in the ability to turn things over and to look at matters deliberately”. Thinking is more important than what is being thought about. “If a man’s actions are not guided by thoughtful conclusions, then they are guided by inconsiderate impulse.”
  
  He tells us that thinking is the act of believing and offers an example: “I think that it is going to rain tomorrow’ is equivalent to saying, ‘I believe that it is going to rain tomorrow."
  
  Dewey tells us that the thinking process begins with a dilemma that suggests alternatives, indicating that thinking is evoked by confusion. He adds that schools do not need to teach information but should encourage stimulus that challenges external reality. The goal is to create curious and questioning minds that see wonder in science and philosophy, rather than monotony and routine in school.
  
  Thinking doesn’t just happen, but it is evoked by something specific. Experience is a point of reference for the imagination. The mind reflects by looking for additional evidence to compare with new experiences. Good and bad thinking in some cases can be in effected by the amount of experience or prior knowledge. With nothing to draw on the result is uncritical thinking.
  See Web Site for more on John Dewey and this book.
  www.connectedeventsmatter.com
  
  
• 
  Sophia

  Đọc vào dịp nghỉ lễ tránh dịch, đi làm, có cơ hội thực hành vài điều
  Đọc lần 2, không hấp thụ được nhiều như lần đầu. Just like a tip of the iceberg
• 
  Corbin Routier

  "... this book also represent the conviction that... the native and unspoiled attitude of childhood, marked by ardent curiosity, fertile imagination, and love of experimental inquiry, is near, very near, to the attitude of the scientific mind."
  
  "... thoughts grow up unconsciously and without reference to the attainment of correct belief."
  
  "All forms of of artificial apparatus are intentionally designed modifications of natural things in order that they may serve better than in their natural estate."
  
  "The substitution of scientific for superstitious habits of inference has not been brought about by an improvement in the acuteness of the senses... It is the result of regulation of the conditions under which observation and inference take place."
  
  It is the business of education, "to cultivate deep seated and effective habits of discrimination tested beliefs from mere assertions, guesses, and opinions... and to ingrain into the individual's working habits methods of inquiry and reasoning appropriate to the various problems that present themselves. No matter how much an individual knows as a matter of hearsay and information, if he has not attitudes and habits of this sort, he is not intellectually educated... And since these habits are not a gift of nature... the main office of education is to supply conditions that make for their cultivation."
  
  "... there is danger of the isolation of intellectual activity from the ordinary affairs of life... The abstract tends to become so aloof, so far away from application, as to be cut loose from practical and moral bearing... Because their knowledge has been achieved in connection with the needs of specific situations, men of little book-learning are often able to put to effective use every ounce of knowledge they possess; while men of vast erudition are often swamped by the mere bulk of their learning, because memory, rather than thinking [experience], has been operative in obtaining it."
  
  "It is, indeed, a stupid error to suppose that arbitrary tasks must be imposed from without in order to furnish the factor of perplexity and difficulty... Every vital activity of any depth and range inevitably meets obstacles... a fact that renders the search for artificial or external problems quite superfluous."
• 
  Zach

  I read this because, as a software engineering leader, I try to help more junior engineers think better. I tend to see the same problems over and over again during design reviews (proposals for building some piece of software): people aren't clear what the problem they're trying to solve is, they don't have clear success criteria for when it's been solved, and they don't provide alternatives to the solutions they propose. I thought this book might help me explain why these are necessary. The book does provide a concise summary of thinking, but it's aimed towards teachers. While mentoring is a lot like teaching, I suspect re-reading Dewey's Logic will be more useful.
  
  Thinking involves 5 steps:
  * A felt difficulty
  * Its location and definition
  * Suggestion of possible solution (inference)
  * Development by reasoning of the bearings of the suggestion (reasoning)
  * Further observation and experiment leading to its acceptance or rejection; this is, the conclusion of belief or disbelief
  
  “The essence of critical thinking is suspended judgment; and the essence of this suspense is inquiry to determine the nature of the problem before proceeding to attempts at its solution. This, more than any other thing, transforms mere inference into tested inference, suggested conclusions into proof.”
  
• 
  Gary

  How We Think is a classic work of educational philosophy written by John Dewey, published in 1910. Dewey established the Progressive movement in education which is still enforce today and was a huge proponent of the scientific method. The main theme of John Dewey’s How We Think is the importance of developing effective thinking skills and the role that education can play in fostering these skills. In his book, Dewey lays out his theory of reflective thinking, arguing that learning is a process of inquiry and problem-solving rather than a passive absorption of information. Not just a quondam belief. This book continues to influence contemporary education theory and practice, making How We Think an important tool for any prospective teachers and even for students of the world who want to understand and improve the meaning of a theory whose value is immeasurable as to where the education system has been and still is since the books inception. It's short but not an easy read.
  
• 
  mavromou

  En los conceptos que se describen en el libro parecen ser la bases fundacionales de otros conceptos más modernos como por ejemplo los involucrados en el aprendizaje basado en problemas.
  
  También el autor trata un montón de conceptos similares que otros autores trataron con otras denominaciones por ejemplo lo que Dewey llama pensamiento reflexivo es muy parecido conceptualmente a lo que Pierce llama pensamiento abductivo.
  
  Muchos de los conceptos también me remitieron al pensamiento divergente y al pensamiento creativo.
  
  Creo que es una lectura obligada para todos aquellos que somos profes y que entendemos la docencia no como el simple hecho de "volcar" conocimiento en recipientes vacíos, sino como de promover la curiosidad y el gusto por el aprendizaje y el conocimiento...
• 
  Elizabeth

  I found the philosophical format of this treatise a bit hard to follow. It could be that the amount of unpacking that Dewey offers exceeded the necessity of the points that the seemed to ultimately make. Alternatively, it could well be that I'm a poor reader of philosophy and really just wanted to glean his major points. Suffice it to say, I may choose to admire Dewey from a distance from here on out.
• 
  Brenda

  I read this in bits and pieces - and though I struggled through parts, it was interesting to consider all we have learned about the brain and making thinking visible since it was written. Still much of Dewey's thinking and conjectures were spot on. Encouraging thinking, imagining and questioning are still my main purposes for teaching.
• 
  Meilin

  DNF - I read half of this book and that was enough for me. It became more like required reading for a political science class than something I was genuinely interested in. I wanted to read something other than literary fiction, and maybe something that wouldn't be required for an introductory philosophy class.
• 
  Paul LaFontaine

  It is fascinating looking back in time when scientific perspective does not have our current advantages. When Dewey wrote this much of the molecular level study of the brain had not occurred. He does his best. A long book, and interesting. Recommend only to the enthusiast.
• 
  Kyrstin

  It’s interesting to conceptualize how our minds work. Dewey advocates for exploratory thinking, free-play, scientific inquiry and reflection as opposed to broad acceptance of force fed facts. Some parts were more dense than others but interesting for the most part.
• 
  Kevin Fulton

  The content of this book is generally excellent, but the writing is not. If you are interested in Dewey because of his massive influence on education in America, I would recommend this book. Just be prepared to deal with an unnecessarily abstruse writing style.
• 
  Silvia

  Una lettura sicuramente non leggerissima, ma illuminante. Gli spunti di riflessione aiutano a maturare una consapevole autocritica rispetto al proprio modo di pensare, a come funziona il pensiero e a come si educa, a partire dall'infanzia, in ambito scolastico e non.
• 
  Justina

  This was a phenomenal book to make you think, especially for me in the context of children's education. My favorite takeaway was finding the balance between playfulness and seriousness and inspiring the state of mind in a child's framework of learning: "Exclusive interest in the result alters work to drudgery. For by drudgery is meant those activities in which the interest in the outcome does not suffuse the means of getting the result. Whenever a piece of work becomes drudgery, the process of doing loses all value for the doer; he cares solely for what is to be had at the end of it. The work itself, the putting forth of energy, is hateful; it is just a necessary evil, since without it some important end would be missed. Now it is a commonplace that in the work of the world many things have to be done the doing of which is not intrinsically very interesting. However, the argument that children should be kept doing drudgery-tasks because thereby they acquire power to be faithful to distasteful duties, is wholly fallacious. Repulsion, shirking, and evasion are the consequences of having the repulsive imposed—not loyal love of duty. Willingness to work for ends by means of acts not naturally attractive is best attained by securing such an appreciation of the value of the end that a sense of its value is transferred to its means of accomplishment. Not interesting in themselves, they borrow interest from the result with which they are associated."
  
  While I do believe that a certain amount of practice and repetition/reiteration is necessary for mastery of a particular academic concept, my challenge now is figuring out how to show students how to do that, but in a way that is consciously interested, instead of having paper homework worksheets filtered as a "drudgery-task" until they can play minecraft on their chromebooks. What is the line between work and play, and can a student think critically during both? Overall, this is a good overview of four types of thinking, all laid out in a very logical manner.
• 
  James Violand

  A very intelligent exposition on how a human being attains knowledge. No wonder he is idolized by the best teachers.