John Dewey (1859-1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, educator, and public intellectual whose work helped define pragmatism, progressive education, and modern democratic social thought. A major figure in American philosophy, Dewey argued that knowledge arises through experience, inquiry, experimentation, and practical engagement with the world. His work rejected static models of learning and treated thought as an active instrument for solving problems, forming judgement, and improving common life.Dewey taught at several major institutions, including the University of Chicago and Columbia University, and wrote widely on education, ethics, democracy, psychology, aesthetics, and social reform. His major works include Democracy and Education, Experience and Nature, The Public and Its Problems, Art as Experience, and Experience and Education. Among educators, he remains especially important for his insistence that schools are social institutions, that learning must be connected to experience, and that education has a central role in sustaining democratic culture.
