THE QUEST FOR CERTAINTY

By JOHN DEWEY. Minton, Balch and Company, New York. 1929. Pp. 318.

This book contains the author's Gifford Lectures, delivered at the University of Edinburgh recently. Professor Dewey is the third American philosopher ever to have been invited to give Gifford Lectures, the others having been William James and Josiah Royce. This book is clearly written and is interesting. The "quest for certainty" in human affairs is no longer satisfied by the hope that values are somehow conserved in some immutable realm outside of human experience. On the contrary, today, in pure and applied science, politics, social affairs and education, man is attaining greater certainty for the values he holds dear by learning to control his physical and social environment. He learns by doing, and revises theories in the light of experience. A corresponding reconstruction in philosophy is called for, and this Professor Dewey is attempting in this and his other books to supply.

Department of Philosophy.