A Tentative Study On Dewey's Thought Of Logic

Dewey wrote 4 books on Logic,and his statements about Logic could be found in many of his hundreds of essays.Russell and other logicians' serial reflection to Dewey's theory of Logic shows that Dewey's Logic had influenced his age.Although Dewey's theory is lack of formal contents,he didn't defy the role formal logic played in constructing and testing a theory.Dewey confronts Russell with a mathematical discourse,and he ascribes Logic to the theory of inquiry which is centered with problem-solving and combines logic and scientific methods.What Dewey's interpretation for his approach to "Deviating from the symbolization" is a language theory which doesn't defer form and matter,and the theory predicts Analytic Philosophy to some extents.Basing on Dewey's 4 works,this thesis is trying to delineate Dewey's subjects of Logic by examining Dewey,Russell and other logicians' discussions on Logic,inquiry and truth,examine Dewey's viewpoint on thought,propositions and scientific methods,introduce Dewey's orientation of Logic, and do some preliminary study in probing into Dewey's contribution to the theory of inquiry.There are four chapters in this thesis:Chapter One:Dewey's interpretation of thought.Here I will review Dewey's "actual thinking" and his idea about metrics of Logic so as to show why Dewey wards off formal thinking.By considering Dewey's approach to Aristotle and Russell's Logic,I want to fred what causes Dewey to reconstruct Logic.Chapter Two:Dewey's orientation of propositions.To show the bifurcation between Dewey's Logic and modern Logic,I will examine Dewey's comprehension of propositions and judgments and find the relation between his "terms" and "propositions".I will show Dewey's justification for his "Deviating from symbolization" through reviewing both Dewey's contextual interpretation for his orientation of propositions and his talk about mathematics.I will also talk about Tom Burke's appraisal to Dewey's approach and analyze the historical role of Dewey's language theory.This is the main chapter of my thesis.Chapter Three:Scientific methods in Dewey's theory of Logic.I will examine "scientific methods" to catch Dewey's Logic in the sense of instrumentalism.To reach the controversial between Dewey's Logic and modern Logic,I will also compare Dewey's thought of inquiry with that of Pierce so as to confirm Dewey's contribution to the theory of inquiry.Chapter Four will give a summary to the three chapters discussed.I will review Dewey's orientation of Logic from four aspects and consider three controversial issues about Dewey's Logic. Also,I will try to suggest some deficiencies of Dewey's thought of Logic.