New Individualism And Its Implications For The Education Of Children Of Dewey Relations Philosophy Vision

Dewey proposes the new individualism, from his aspiration of the pursuit of the unity in childhood. Basing on the relating philosophical thought, he advocates the creation of a new type of individual, which enlightens the children education.Dewey lived in the rising America after the Civil War. The science and technology and the industry and commerce developed by leaps and bounds, which brought great changes to the society. When the material level developed rapidly, the humanistic cultural level stopped at the pre-industrial age, the imbalance of which brought serious influences to the society. Dewey just lived in such disordered era. The education Dewey received as a child was dual fragment. The separation of the mind and body and the man and the god made Dewey hunger for the unity. By communicating with others positively and constantly, Dewey broke through the discrete states between self and society and found himself. Dewey grew from a shy boy to a wise man in social contact.In this process, Dewey proposed the naturalistic metaphysical centering on the relation and discussed the relation of unity, which constituted the theoretical basis. The relation is the interaction, the existing. It has the general descriptive character, including variety, uniqueness and variability. Dewey describes the relation between the natural and man. The pre-existence of the natural displays by man which exist as the interactive relation which is same as other organics; while the way of interaction of man is more complex, which embodies in the function of the mind. As the result of the natural evolution, the mind has the function of sensing the meaning which makes control possible, which concerning the intellectual activities such as to observe, predict and act. Besides emotion and imagination play a key role in the social intellect. What is more important is communicating, in which the function of mind realizes. Man grows from communicating to participating. It is possible to unify the social and the individual by communicating and the best way of communicating is art.Based on the metaphysics, Dewey pays close attention to the social facts and makes the new individualism by criticizing the old individualism, which splits the individual and the social and leads to unbalance. Dewey discusses the new individualism from the human natural and emphasizes the unity of the individual and the social. The new individualism centers on the methods of the intellect which is emotional and experimental. It aims at the unity——the democracy, which is the good states of communicating, including freedom, equality and love.Children education is the important place to create new individuals. We should move to the unification from opposition set up the children-centralism. We should carry out the social spirit to construct the democratic education community. We should bring up the new individual with a relational view, the intellectual method and the democratic character.