John Dewey and early Chicago functionalism.
John Dewey and James Angell are regarded respectively as the founder and systematizer of the Chicago school of functional psychology. The early Chicago school traditionally has been portrayed as a unified theoretical approach based primarily on William James's naturalist theory of mental processes. It is argued in this article that although the psychology systematized by Angell bore a close affinity to James's naturalism, Dewey's own psychology was based primarily on the neo-Hegelian philosophy of Thomas Hill Green. Through a review of a number of Dewey's major writings, Green's neo-Hegelian philosophy is shown to have influenced Dewey's views on psychological concepts such as reaction, emotion, and perception during the formative period of the Chicago school. The interpretation of Dewey's psychology developed in this article leads to the conclusion that early Chicago functionalism should not be regarded as a unified theoretical approach.
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Department of History, Indiana University, USA.
D002641:Chicago; D049672:History, 19th Century; D011584:Psychology / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States