Democracy and Education · Chapter
Reflection in Experience explained
This chapter explores the nature of reflective thinking as a process of inquiry that transforms trial-and-error experience into deliberate, meaningful action.
What happens
This chapter explores the nature of reflective thinking as a process of inquiry that transforms trial-and-error experience into deliberate, meaningful action. Dewey outlines the five phases of reflective experience—perplexity, anticipation, survey, hypothesis elaboration, and testing—and argues that all thinking is research, involving risk and hypothetical conclusions. He contrasts reflective thought with routine and capricious behavior, emphasizing that thinking makes action purposeful by discerning the connections between what we do and the consequences that follow.
Themes in this chapter
Experience and Learning by Doing
Dewey emphasizes that thinking is a process of inquiry and testing, where hypotheses are tried out in action, making learning an active, experimental endeavor.
Unity of Knowledge and Action
The chapter argues that thinking is the intentional discovery of connections between doing and consequences, uniting theory and practice in reflective experience.
Critique of Traditional Curriculum
Dewey critiques the Greek disjunction between knowledge and ignorance, which hindered learning, and advocates for a method of hypothetical inquiry that modern science exemplifies.
Characters to notice
- Socrates
Referenced indirectly through the Greek dilemma about learning: 'How can we learn? For either we know already what we are after, or else we do not know.'
Key passages
“All thinking is research, and all research is native, original, with him who carries it on, even if everybody else in the world already is sure of what he is still looking for.”
Every act of thinking is a form of original inquiry for the person doing it, regardless of whether others already know the answer.
Dewey democratizes research, asserting that thinking itself is a personal, investigative process.
“Reflection is the acceptance of such responsibility.”
Reflective thinking means taking responsibility for the future consequences of one's actions.
This contrasts reflection with routine and capricious behavior, which avoid accountability.
“Thinking, in other words, is the intentional endeavor to discover specific connections between something which we do and the consequences which result, so that the two become continuous.”
Thinking is the deliberate effort to find how our actions lead to particular outcomes, making the link between them clear and unified.
This defines reflective thought as the explicit rendering of the intelligent element in experience.