John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1927-1928, Vol. 3

All of Dewey’s writings for 1927and 1928 with the exception of The Public and Its Problems, which appears in Volume 2, A Modern Language Association’s Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition.These essays are, as Sidorsky says in his Introduction, “framed, in great measure, by those two poles of his philosophical interest: looking backward, in a sense, to the defense of naturalistic metaphysics and moving forward to the justification and to the implications for practice of an empirical theory.”Dewey’s five essays on education are evidence of his continued interest in that field. Among them is the frequently quoted “Why IAm a Member of the Teachers Union,” which is still used by the American Federation of Teachers in its recruiting efforts. Other highlights of this volume include the famous exchange between George Santayana and Dewey on Experience and Nature; an impassioned condemnation of the miscarriage of justice Dewey saw in the Sacco-Vanzetti trial; and a series of six articles on the Soviet Union based on Dewey’s trip to that country in 1928.