The Gleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson

Naoko Saito

Open Access Published by Fordham University Press 2019

The Gleam of Light

Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson

Naoko Saito
Funded by: National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program
Preface by: Stanley Cavell

In the series American Philosophy

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823285259

Overview
Contents

About this book

In the name of efficiency, the practice of education has come to be dominated by neoliberal ideology and
procedures of standardization and quantification. Such attempts to make all aspects of practice transparent and subject to systematic accounting lack sensitivity to the invisible and the silent, to something in the human
condition that cannot readily be expressed in an either-or form. Seeking alternatives to such trends, Saito reads
Dewey’s idea of progressive education through the lens of Emersonian moral perfectionism (to borrow a term coined by Stanley Cavell). She elucidates a spiritual and aesthetic dimension to Dewey’s notion of growth, one considerably richer than what Dewey alone presents in his typically scientific terminology.

Author / Editor information

Saito Naoko :

Naoko Saito is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of Kyoto. She is the author of The Gleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson.Cavell Stanley :

Stanley Cavell is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Harvard University. His recent publications include A Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises; Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, and Derrida; Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life and Emerson’s Transcendental Etudes.Naoko Saito (Author)
Naoko Saito is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of Kyoto. She is the author of The Gleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson.

Stanley Cavell (Foreword By)
Stanley Cavell is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Harvard University. His recent publications include A Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises; Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, and Derrida; Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life and Emerson’s Transcendental Etudes.

Reviews

Saito's elegantly written book is a meditation on what she regards as a crisis of nihilism affecting modern democratic life, especially education.

—David Hansen:
A provocative book that will be of value to all who care about Emerson, Dewey, and what they have to say about education.

. . . Exemplifies a vision of education as cooperative inquiry in which heterogenous voices resound yet experiential authority in its full force operates.

Saito has written an important book with a remarkable educational implication: We should educate every individual to grow by recognizing their unique gleam of light in self-transcendent relation with others different from ourselves while recognizing the Over-Soul sustains us all.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Foreword Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
one. in search of light in democracy and education Deweyan Growth in an Age of Nihilism Open Access Download PDF	1
two. dewey between hegel and darwin Open Access Download PDF	17
three. emerson’s voice Dewey beyond Hegel and Darwin Open Access Download PDF	36
five. dewey’s emersonian view of ends Open Access Download PDF	69
six. growth and the social reconstruction of criteria Gaining from the Distance between Dewey and Emerson Open Access Download PDF	81
seven. the gleam of light Reconstruction toward Holistic Growth Open Access Download PDF	99
eight. the gleam of light lost Transcending the Tragic with Dewey after Emerson Open Access Download PDF	120
nine. the rekindling of the gleam of light Toward Perfectionist Education Open Access Download PDF	139
Notes Open Access Download PDF	163
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	195
Index Open Access Download PDF	205

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Pages
- Main content: 228
Keywords: Education; Philosophy & Theory; American Studies

eBook

Published: January 29, 2019
ISBN: 9780823285259