Publishing the Perishable

...Enjoyment ceases to be a datum and becomes a problem...

...In one of his more interesting chapters, Bernstein discusses the 19th century quest for qualitative immediacy, or the directly felt dimension of life...

...And if even imaginative popularizations may not satisfy the academic requirement to publish, and may violate the requirement not to publish anything shoddy, the bright young academicians are likely to become ever more narrow and careful, leaving to the second-rate the wider ventures and the task of making available to the cultural community the new thinking in any field...

...But the appearance of such a book and the wide attention paid to Bernstein's tenure battle raise important questions about the criteria of evaluation of academic publishing...

...Without wishing to pass judgment on either maxim, or to suggest that the complicated circumstances resulting in Richard Bernstein's failure to gain tenure at Yale last year can be explained by either one, it must be said that this book of his on John Dewey is no first-rate work of original scholarship...

...As a problem, it implies intelligent inquiry into the conditions and consequences of a value-object...

...But a brief course in experience enforces reflection...

...We can formulate new ends-in-view, goals to be achieved, and by understanding nature we can discover the means for realizing these goals...

...A democratic consensus, at whatever level, can be wrong...

...that is, criticism...

...Considering the grounds on which we may justifiably come, by an experimental process, to value some experiences more than others, Dewey writes: "Possession and enjoyment of goods passes insensibly and inevitably into appraisal...

...In addition to providing an introductory exposition of John Dewey's ideas, Bernstein seeks to answer Dewey's critics and rehabilitate his philosophic reputation, but his efforts in this regard are little more than hints of what might be done...

...They are pervaded by a heightened esthetic quality that sets them off from other experiences...

...As Richard Bernstein writes, Dewey's ideas enjoyed enormous popularity and had great influence in the first third of the century, but by about the early 1930s, "many philosophers had ceased reading him seriously, or had interpreted his work through the distorted image of popular cliches about 'pragmatism' and 'progressive education.' Since the World War II, there has been very little serious critical discussion of his philosophy...

...Moreover, even among philosophers Dewey is not so neglected as Bernstein suggests...

...The inevitability with which man would always, Dewey thought, lust for problems to pose themselves was a measure of his optimism...

...It does not pretend to be...

...It became evident, too, that even on pragmatic grounds, individuals at various times and places might do well to defy their version of the "community of inquirers" in which Dewey, following Peirce and Royce, had led them to place such faith...

...Reflection," Bernstein adds, arises for Dewey "from a conflict of values, and appraisal requires discrimination, evaluation, and choice...

...Is a technical examination of a small but new point "worth" more than a competent survey of a larger area...

...And though America's experience with John Dewey's philosophy of education was, in fact, educational, among the things learned was that his recommendations inevitably degenerated in the process of mass application...

...The contrary danger, that ideas spread too thin become mushy, is well illustrated by the course of John Dewey's own philosophic enterprise...

...Much less well known is what might be called the "don't publish and don't perish" maxim...

...The faculties of the better colleges are apt to contain a significant proportion of members, hired on the basis of high scores on their graduate examinations, whose major accomplishment since consists of not having made a mistake and never having published anything which anyone could point to derisively as no great contribution to scholarship in the field...

...A justification for part of this harsh attitude may be found in a passage not cited by Bernstein: "Education," Dewey said, "is the laboratory in which philosophical distinctions become concrete and are tested...

...he describes Dewey's objections to its anti-intellectual tendencies and his notion of "consummatory experiences...

...His other efforts to defend Dewey against specific criticisms are comparably weak...

...There is (or can be) a rhythm within our experience that passes from direct immediate enjoyment to critical appraisal, and from critical appraisal to consummatory experience...

...For some years, imagination has often paled beside careful research as a contributor to routine academic advancement, and the time may be ripe for stock-taking, especially in the humanities, where the vast irrelevance of some of the painstakingly acquired new knowledge is most apparent...

...Though his claim that such attacks significantly vindicate Dewey is interesting and relevant, he devotes only two pages to this argument and provides only two references in support of it...

...Primitive innocence does not last...

...These consummations are experiences marked by their harmony, integrity, and completeness...

...Dewey has become a favorite whipping boy...

...He mentions, for instance, recent work in the philosophy of science attacking rigid distinctions between analytic and synthetic truth (or that which is true by definition, like arithmetic, and that which is true on the basis of empirical observation, like chemistry), between hypotheses and facts, between theoretical and observational language...

...Reviewed by VIRGINIA HELD Department of Philosophy Hunter College The "publish or perish" maxim is by now so old-hat that freshmen agitate against it and Time decries its effects...

...it and the series of which it is part aim to be readable, fairly elementary expositions of the lives and thought and influence of various recognized "great American thinkers...

...it requires but brief time to teach that some things sweet in the having are bitter in after-taste and in what they lead to...

...First an immature experience is content simply to enjoy...

...If we are successful in realizing these ends we achieve consummationsexperiences that are funded with the results of our inquiry...