John Dewey in France

The present article on John Dewey aims at pursuing thetraces of the reception of Dewey's work in France. Itis intended as a survey of the writers who have takennote of Dewey and his ideas, and is meant to functionas a sort of additive inventory, with no claim tocomprehensiveness. Some of the articles mentioned wereunfortunately unavailable for direct examination andare thus listed merely for purposes of information.Although the educational and philosophical writings ofJohn Dewey are actually indivisible, Dewey's oeuvrehas not been read in France and Europe generally as ofa piece, but has largely been registered in terms ofthose parts which have relevance to education andteaching. Indicative of this is the fact that it tookuntil 1975 for Democracy and Education (1916) –the book which, in Dewey's own view, most clearlypresented his linking of pedagogy and philosophy(Delledalle, 1975; Suhr, 1994) – to be published inFrance. Gérard Delledalle, the translator ofDemocracy and Education, is the only person so far inFrance to have dealt systematically with the whole ofDewey's writings. He has translated other works byDewey and has written several books on him, dealingexpressly with Dewey's philosophy of pragmatism as thefoundation of his theory of education.It is actually inadequate to restrict the reception ofDewey's work to France alone. Rather, one should speakof francophone Europe, for the first translations ofDewey's educational writings into French were made byAdolphe Ferriére, Ovide Decroly and ÉdouardClaparéde – a Swiss, a Belgian, and a Frenchman.It was thanks to them that Dewey's thoughts oneducation began to make an impact on the francophonemovement for school reform in the early twentiethcentury.Discussion of his theory of education is typified inFrance as well by a division into proponents of aconcept of `learning by doing' indebted to Dewey(particularly in France) and representatives ofauthoritarian forms of education, which reject Dewey.Although French thought has not yet concerned itselfclosely with pragmatism, Dewey's opponents believed(and still believe) that they could denounce him andhis theories simply by levelling the charge of``pragmatism.' This dualistic mode of thinking whichappears to be deeply rooted in France has proved to bean obstacle to the reception of Dewey and has led toneglect and rejection of his theories.