实用主义对美国高等教育课程改革的影响.doc

实用主义对美国高等教育课程改革的影响 Impact of pragmatism on the american higher education curriculum reform 1.Introduction 1.1 Research meaning Pragmatism as a philosophical movement began in the United States in the 1870s. Its direction was determined by The Metaphysical Club members Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and Chauncey Wright, as well as John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. The first use in print of the name pragmatism was in 1898 by James, who credited Peirce with coining the term during the early 1870s. ames regarded Peirces 1877–8 Illustrations of the Logic of Science series (including The Fixation of Belief, 1877 and especially How to Make Our Ideas Clear, 1878) as the foundation of pragmatism .Peirce in turn wrote in 1906 that Nicholas St. John Green had been instrumental by emphasizing the importance of applying Alexander Bains definition of belief, which was that upon which a man is prepared to act. Peirce wrote that from this definition, pragmatism is scarce more than a corollary; so that I am disposed to think of him as the grandfather of pragmatism. John Shook has said, Chauncey Wright also deserves considerable credit, for as both Peirce and James recall, it was Wright who demanded a phenomenalist and fallibilist empiricism as an alternative to rationalistic speculation. Pragmatism is based on the premise that the human capability to theorize is necessary for intelligent practice. Theory and practice are not separate spheres; rather, theories and distinctions are tools or maps for finding our way in the world. As John Dewey put it, there is no question of theory versus practice, but rather of intelligent practice versus uninformed practice.Dewey, in The Quest For Certainty, criticized what he called the philosophical fallacy: philosophers often take categories (such as the mental and the physical) for granted because they dont realize that these are merely nominal concepts that were invented to help solve specific problems. This causes metaphysical and con