[MD] David Hildebrand's Dewey

[david buchanan]

I was at the Tattered Cover recently and discovered that Hildebrand's book on Dewey is available now. (Hildebrand teaches philosophy at the University of Colorado in Denver. I've taken a couple classes with him and he's one of my advisors.) The book is titled "Dewey" and is one of several in a series of "Beginner's Guides". I mention this because John Dewey was a Radical Empiricist and, like James, his work illuminates the MOQ. I brought a copy, of course, and I'm looking forward to reading it. For whatever it's worth, he's not just a pragmatist. He also happens to be a really good guy. He's a husband, a dad, a philosopher and a jazz musician, not necessarily in that order. Here's a little taste from the introduction..."Why, Dewey asks, should each successive generation of philosophers accept these theoretical assumptions? Why should it be ASSUMED that there is, for example, a single over-arching principle of morality - or a dualism between subject and object in perception? Such predeterminations are unfounded; moreover, Dewey argues, they lead philosophical inquiry into insoluble problems and dead ends. They divert philosophical talent away from addressing practical problems.   Instead, Dewey urges a practical starting point, a bottom-up approach to philosophical inquiry. Drawing strongly upon William James's 'radical empiricism', Dewey proposes that philosophers avoid prejudicial frameworks and assumptions and accept experience as it is lived." 
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