John Dewey · Philosophy

Reflective Thinking: How We Inquire

Dewey’s analysis of what genuine thinking is: not idle mental drift but a disciplined process that begins in a felt difficulty, forms and tests hypotheses, and ends by resolving the trouble - thought as experimental conduct, the method of intelligence itself.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Dewey defined reflective thought as the active, persistent, careful examination of a belief in the light of its grounds, that it begins in a ‘forked-road’ difficulty, and that it moves through suggestion, framing the problem, hypothesis, reasoning, and testing. Explain how thinking becomes…

Leads to Charles Sanders Peirce.

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