Political Quotes

John Dewey: But our definition is founded on the exercise of a function, not on any inherent essence or structural nature.

On the record
But our definition is founded on the exercise of a function, not on any inherent essence or structural nature.
Said by
John Dewey

Editor's note · Context

Dewey argues that definitions of states should be based on their functions rather than fixed characteristics.

Share

More from John Dewey

There was no logic which rendered necessary the appeal to the individual as an independent and isolated being.

gutenberg.org

Nor can the liberating and confirming results of public action be construed to yield a wholesale idealization of states in contrast with other associations.

gutenberg.org

In no two ages or places is there the same public.

gutenberg.org

Nothing better exhibits the scope of the movement than the fact that philosophic theories of knowledge made the same appeal to the self, or ego, in the form of personal consciousness identified with mind itself, that political theory made…

gutenberg.org