Abstract

It is a commonplace even among Dewey scholars that he did not have an exactingly clear, polished style of writing. This received and unstudied tradition of criticism perpetuates the specious dualism of style and content. This dualism is a barrier to ways in which Dewey's style of writing is connected fruitfully to his various subject matters. Within Dewey's texts written between 1916 and 1934, three of Dewey's most characteristic and pervasive style features are identified. These features are named , cited and related to the central themes of Dewey's philosophy. The interpretive bonding of style features with content provides a new context for appreciating Dewey's practice of philosophy. The study demonstrates Dewey's thoroughgoing commitment, evident in his writing style, to a deeply pluralistic account, to common and democratic speech, to elaborating communicative discourses that span conceptual dualisms, and to his unique practice of a developmental and moving aesthetic logic of experience. These aspects of the texts, with their pervasive stylistic accommodation to speech idiom, help to bridge another dualism, that of the printed text and the readers' life-world. The texts constantly expand the notions of silent reading and private interpretation to encompass public expression and useful eloquence. This is a critical factor in guiding and shaping educational practices of all kinds and sorts. Dewey's texts are the record of a practice of philosophy that can only be fully understood as it is practiced: "Education is the laboratory in which philosophic distinctions become concrete and are tested" . These insights are useful in expanding and deepening educative practices. They quite literally breathe new life into Dewey's maxim " ... that philosophy is the theory of education as a deliberately conducted practice"