Study On John Dewey’s Philosophy Of Value

The value of philosophy is a hot issue in the contemporary philosophical research. John Dewey, a famous20th century American pragmatist philosopher, has a wealth of ideas about Philosophy of Value, and the fundamental significance of his philosophy emphasizes on real life and practice. The fundamental problem which he is interested in is the survival and the fate of the people in the real social life. In the background of the reform and opening up, Chinese society is facing a series of problems, such as ecological crisis, energy shortage, moral decline and so on. Dewey’s philosophy of value will have a great significance to solve the social problems of China.In the late19th century, social life changed dramatically in the United States, modern western philosophy also got into trouble. Due to the effect of the rapid development of natural science, Dewey expands the criticism to traditional philosophy; he believes that if philosophy wants to get out of the woods, it is necessary to stop the quest for certainty. And in order to provide rational guidance for human life, it must pay attention to action which has been neglected and combine the theory with practice. Therefore, natural empiricism and instrumentalism constitute the basic statue of Dewey’s philosophy. On this basis, Dewey also attaches great importance to human values, his new individualism and experimental inquiry approach which is upheld by his scientific position jointly laid the theoretical foundation of Dewey’s philosophy of value.This paper starts from the background and theoretical foundation of Dewey’s philosophy of value, summarizing and analyzing the characteristics of the age and the basic value ideas of the foundation. Next goes systematically to his philosophy of value. Firstly, analyze Dewey’s understanding of "value". Through the discussion on the relation between value and existence, he affirms the objective existence of value. However, he points out that "value is the value of itself, any process which attempts to define and analyze the value would insert into the judgment stage; Secondly, discuss Dewey’s appraisal theory. The judgment of value is the core of Dewey theory. From an empirical standpoint, he values the judgment as a factual one. Value judgment aims to the condition and the result of experience. Action effects on the expected purpose and rational principle determine the correctness of the judgment. Thirdly, based on Dewey theory, the relationship of purpose and means would be discussed in the paper. The evaluation theory is against the dualism of purpose and means because he thought that the purpose and means are interdependent and continuous; fourthly, it discusses Dewey’s new values on individualism. On the problem of the person. Dewey put forward his new individualism which values more attention to social issues. It has also pointed out that the individual realizes the self-value through the process of making contribution to the society. Finally, analyze briefly the historical status of the thought through the understanding of Dewey’s theory of value. The positive significance is to uphold the principle of effectiveness, importance of value behavior and fight against the dualism. It provides a new perspective and enlightenment for the later study of philosophy of value. However, because of the pragmatic stance, he got confused between truth and value. He tried to use scientific methods to solve the problem of value, but he ignored the value of the "necessity", which is his limit on the philosophy.Therefore, Dewey’s philosophy of value is of certain practical significance, but it still cannot surpass the limitation of his pragmatism. Only using Marx’s practical materialist conception of history as a guide to explore the value of the problem can we make the value of theory research develop further.