An important, controversial, and often cited work on public education. Dewey discusses the role of public education in a democracy and the different methods for achieving quality in education. After its initial publication, this book began a revolution in educational thinking; one that emphasized growth, experience, and activity as key elements in promoting democratic qualities in students and educators alike. (Introduction by timferreira)

In this early collection of formative essays, acclaimed American philosopher John Dewey argues that the idealistic, realistic, and analytic schools of philosophy fail to take into account the pragmatic and experimental nature of experience - common to science and practical experience, but alien to the abstract theorizing of coherentist and correspondence theories of logic. Here we find the essential groundwork for the mature naturalistic and process-oriented metaphysics that Dewey would elaborate in his later mature works such as Experience and Nature and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry...

John Dewey, an early 20th Century American philosopher, psychologist, educational theorist saw Social Psychology as much a physical science as Biology and Chemistry. This project encompasses Part 1 of 4 of his book Human Nature and Conduct. Dewey's uses the word "HABIT" as a specialized catch-all word to describe how a person and his/her objective environment interact. This interaction is the basis for moral judgement. Dewey writes: "All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self.” In other places he also asserts that "Habits are Will." - Summary by William Jones, Soloist

This was one of Lord Acton's essays, that was in response to the publication of the letters between Sir Robert Peel and Lord Macaulay. Lord Acton hoped to refute the common prejudice that the religious practice of sacrificing human victims was not always carried out by unfeeling and uncivilized people, but was in some cases the development of an advanced theology. At the insistence of Lord Stanhope, Acton published the essay in the Home And Foreign Review in 1863.

The Two Treatises of Civil Government is a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise is an extended attack on Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, which argued for a divinely-ordained, hereditary, absolute monarchy. The more influential Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society based on natural rights and contract theory. Locke begins by describing the “state of nature,” and goes on to explain the hypothetical rise of property and civilization, asserting that the only legitimate governments are those which have the consent of the people...

Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke was originally published in 1689. Its initial publication was in Latin, though it was immediately translated into other languages. In this “letter” addressed to an anonymous “Honored Sir” (actually Locke’s close friend Philip von Limborch, who published it without Locke’s knowledge) Locke argues for a new understanding of the relationship between religion and government. One of the founders of Empiricism, Locke develops a philosophy that is contrary to the one expressed by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, primarily because it supports toleration for various Christian denominations...

Maritime and metaphysical verse by John Masefield, English poet and author, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death.

John McTaggart (1866-1925) was a British metaphysician and philosophical idealist. In this famous article for the periodical Mind, he introduced the notion of the A, B and C series, which was to become a leading theory in explaining the nature of time.

A series of lectures on landscape painting delivered at Oxford in 1871, by artist, critic, and social commentator, John Ruskin.

John Ruskin (1819 – 1900) is best known for his work as an art critic and social critic, but is remembered as an author, poet and artist as well. Unto This Last is an important work of political economic though that influenced Gandhi, among others. (Hugh McGuire/Wikipedia)

Published in 1859, On Liberty is a libertarian philosophical work by English philosopher John Stuart Mill that endorses his view on the importance of individuality for the constant progression and improvement of society. The work also supports economic and moral freedom, and openly criticizes the influence of social authority that in one way or another imposes a predefined set of acceptable attitudes and opinions. Highlighting issues including the incongruity between authority and liberty, the oppressive...

This is Mill’s first work on economics. It foreshadows his Political Economy which was the standard Anglo-American Economics textbook of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mill’s economic theory moved from free market capitalism, to government intervention within the precepts of Utilitarianism, and finally to Socialism.

John Stuart Mill’s book Utilitarianism is one of the most influential and widely-read philosophical defenses of utilitarianism in ethics. The essay first appeared as a series of three articles published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1861; the articles were collected and reprinted as a single book in 1863. It went through four editions during Mill’s lifetime with minor additions and revisions. Although Mill includes discussions of utilitarian ethical principles in other works such as On Liberty and The Subjection of Women, Utilitarianism contains Mill’s only major discussion of the fundamental grounds for utilitarian ethical theory.

The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favor of equality between the sexes. It offers both detailed argumentation and passionate eloquence in opposition to the social and legal inequalities commonly imposed upon women by a patriarchal culture. Just as in “On Liberty,” Mill defends the emancipation of women on utilitarian grounds, convinced that the moral and intellectual advancement of women would result in greater happiness for everybody.

Mill's volume was published in 1861 as an argument favoring this form of governance. Mill covers what forms of government work best, including when representative government is applicable and when not. He details appropriate functions of representative bodies and warns of problems to avoid. He distinguishes between true and false democracy. Other areas covered include how voting is carried out, the role of a second chamber in Parliament, and how an executive branch might function.

Part 1 lays out the framework for Positivism as originated in France by Auguste Comte in his Cours de Philosophie Positive. Mill examines the tenets of Comte's movement and alerts us to defects. Part 2 concerns all Comte's writings except the Cours de Philosophie Positive. During Comte's later years he gave up reading newspapers and periodicals to keep his mind pure for higher study. He also became enamored of a certain woman who changed his view of life. Comte turned his philosophy into a religion, with morality the supreme guide. Mill finds that Comte learned to despise science and the intellect, instead substituting his frantic need for the regulation of change.

Pantheisticon: or, the Form Of Celebrating the Socratic-Society. Divided into Three Parts. Which Contain, I. The Morals and Axioms of the Pantheists; or the Brotherhood. II. Their Deity and Philosophy. III. Their Liberty, and a Law, neither deceiving, nor to be deceived. To which is prefix’d a Discourse upon the Antient and Modern Societies of the Learned, as also upon the Infinite and Eternal Universe. And subjoined, a short dissertation upon a Two-fold Philosophy of the Pantheists, that is to be followed; together with an Idea of the best and most accomplished Man...

Disproportionately remembered as a hellfire-and-brimstone Puritan preacher on the basis of the excessively-anthologized "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Jonathan Edwards was a noted philosopher in the field of Aesthetics, or the metaphysics of Beauty. An examination even of his sermons reveals constant references to this philosophical preoccupation, his favorite word in many passages seeming to be "Sweetness," by which term he intended to convey a rich sense of Beauty. In "A Dissertation...

Josephine Preston Peabody was an American poet and dramatist. She was born in New York and educated at the Girls’ Latin School, Boston, and at Radcliffe College.