Interdisciplinearity LO22739

tabeles (tabeles@tmn.com)
Sat, 25 Sep 1999 14:03:38 -0400

Replying to LO22711 --

Steve Eskow wrote, in a small part:

> I'd like to give you a quotation from the American pragmatist philosopher
> John Dewey, a genius now out of fashion.

I would not think that Dewey is out of fashion either for the quote you
provided, nor for his many other contributions to education. The pick of
this quote was an excellent one and worthy of re-reading.

Similarly, one might want to go back and read Adam Smith's works on
economics remembering that he had two volumes, one of pragmatics which
most like to quote, and a first, his foundation, calling for a moral basis
on which to build the pragmatism. We tend to forget the first just as
easily as we forget the message which Dewey gave in the quote you cited.

I think one of the issues here is not disciplinarity vs
interdisciplinarity or the permutations. Rather, I believe that those in
liberal studies, the humanities, have failed to make a case, even to
themselves, for the importance of these disciplines other than providing a
softening of the harsh exteriors of the strucutures built by the more
technologically driven bodies of knowledge.

thoughts?

tom abeles

-- 

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