“Experience is primarily an active-passive affair; it is not primarily cognitive.”
- Source
- Democracy and Education
- Date
- 1916
Meaning of “Experience is primarily an active-passive affair; it is…”
Dewey treats experience as a combination of doing and undergoing consequences, with understanding developing through the relationship between action and what follows from it.
Where does it come from?
Democracy and Education (1916), Chapter XI, “Experience and Thinking.” Dewey describes experience as a relation between doing and undergoing consequences, then immediately qualifies the active-passive formulation by saying that valuable experience includes cognition insofar as relationships and continuities are perceived. Verified against Project Gutenberg #852 and the scan-backed Wikisource Chapter XI transcription. The sentence is not a denial that cognition matters and is not presented as modern neuroscientific evidence.