Here is my latest FearTalk in the series I started some 4 years ago, whereby I wanted to have the most honest conversations possible with people I knew, or don't know that well, and merely talk live and unedited on the topic of fear. Here is the link to this recent video on my Youtube Channel
The eminent early 20th century
American philosopher John Dewey...
In this above quote, he is on his grand project (to restore "experience" to philosophy)--to debunk all binaries, so it seems. E.g., Life vs. Education, is a good place to start that deconstruction.
Then he goes on, in a passage analogously, where he critiques those that derogate the "lower" aspects of reality (so-called) vs. the "higher" aspects of reality (so-called) that have become so common by the 20 th century in philosophy, and education philosophy and psychology. He wrote of these sensory aspects:
"Since sense-organs with their connected apparatus are the means of participation [with reality, with Life, with living organisms], any and every derogation of them, whether practical or theoretical, is at once effect and cause of a narrowed and dulled life-experience. Oppositions [i.e., binaries] of mind and body, soul and matter, spirit and flesh all have their origin, fundamentally, in fear of what life may--bring forth. They are marks of contraction and withdrawal [i.e., fear-based]." (Dewey, 1934, pp. 22-3).
This is not the only passage I have been reading from Dewey, in my recent study of his writing, where I am reading into and between the lines, and sometimes reading explicit calling out of fear in our knowledge and knowing systems--like it is a massive weight on us and life-forces, it is like he is speaking a language of fearlessness. I'll be writing a chapter on his philosophy (fearlessness) and education for my new book The Fear Problematique (2022)... more to come.
[NOTE: for another of my FM blogs on Dewey and fear and fearlessness go to: https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/blog/holy-rant-john-s-dewey-s-fearlessness-project]
Reference
Dewey, J. (1934/2005). Art as Experience. Penguin Group.
