Dewey quote

Posted by rpcman on May 13, 1998 at 15:43:45:

In Reply to: Change, etc. posted by rpcman on May 12, 1998 at 10:30:37:

As I was reading Dewey on my lunch hour, I came upon this quote which seems to fit what I was trying to say pretty well...

from page 159... "A society that chiefly esteems order, that finds growth painful and change disturbing, inevitably seeks for a fixed body of superior truths upon which it may depend. It looks backward, to something already in existence, for the source and sanction of truth. It falls back upon what is antecedent, prior, original, a priori, for assurance. The thought of looking ahead, toward the eventual, toward consequences, creates uneasiness and fear. It disturbs the sense of rest that is attached to the ideas of fixed Truth already in existence. It puts a heavy burden of responsibility upon us for search, unremitting observation, scrupulous development of hypotheses and thoroughgoing testing."