Abstract

This work addresses issues debated by John Dewey and Bertrand Russell, following the appearance of Dewey's Logic in 1938. Russell initiated this debate in 1939 with his contribution to the Library of Living Philosophers volume devoted to Dewey; he followed that in 1940 with a chapter in An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, and later, a chapter on Dewey in A History of Western Philosophy. Dewey's replies appeared in the Library of Living Philosophers volume, and in a Journal of Philosophy article in 1941. ;The present work focuses on several concepts which were slighted, misrepresented, or ignored by Russell, but which need to have been satisfactorily squared away prior to addressing the larger topics around which this debate was centered. From the outset Russell misunderstood several concepts and distinctions which are fundamental to Dewey's views, and he was therefore not in a good position to appraise Dewey's logical theory. ;In following out parts of this debate, the goal of this dissertation is to explain Dewey's distinction between propositions and judgments, requiring first that one understand his conceptions of inquiry, situations, and other notions central to his approach to logic. An introductory chapter includes biographical and historical notes. Chapters 2-4 address some of these more basic issues, prior to focusing on propositions and judgments in Chapter 5. In each of these chapters, several of Russell's arguments are analyzed in detail, to show how his misconceptions of these notions skew his picture of Dewey's logical theory. ;The final chapter addresses Dewey's conceptions of warranted assertibility and truth, his theory of knowledge, and the theory of intelligence and intentionality these conceptions support. Contributions of Dewey's logical theory to current developments in formal semantics and the philosophy of language are discussed. As a result of unsympathetic reviews such as Russell's, and because of the untimely nature of Dewey's views in the 1930s and 1940s, Dewey's logical theory has been considered obscure, naive, and irrelevant, when in fact it is complex, subtle, and increasingly relevant to current investigations of language, information, and intelligence