The Middle Works, 1899-1924

Except for Democracy and Education, the 53 items in Volume 10 include all of Dewey's writings from 1916–1917, the years when he moved into politics and began to write about topics of general public interest. The best known of Dewey's writings in this volume is the essay from Creative Intelligence, “The Need for a Recovery of Philosophy.” Here Dewey asserts that “Philosophy recovers itself when it ceases to be a de­vice for dealing with the problems of philosophers and becomes a method for dealing with the problems of men.” Dewey put that idea into practice, as Lewis E. Hahn points out in his intro­duction. “In 1916–1917 [Dewey] com­mented on quite a range of issues from compulsory universal military training to the Wilson-Hughes presidential cam­paign, from conscription of thought to the future of pacifism, from what Amer­ica will fight for to appropriate peace terms . . . and from American educa­tion and culture to contemporary issues in education, with the war casting a shadow over most of the items.”