He then proceeds to eliminate the body and the senses from being without doubt, until he comes up with the one verifiable truth: Sensing? There can be no sensing in the absence of body; and besides I have seemed during sleep to apprehend things which does belong to me: it alone cannot be separated from me. I am, I exist. This is certain. How often? As often as I think. For it might indeed be that if I entirely ceased to think, I should thereupon altogether cease to exist. I am not at present admitting anything, that is to say, a mind an understanding or reason--terms the significance of which has hitherto been unknown to me. I am, then, a real thing, and really existent. What thing? I have said it a thinking thing. (Descartes, Rene, "Meditations," Struhl, Paula Rothenberg, and Struhl Karsten J., editors, Philosophy Now. Random House: 1980)
The statement is confusing. It seems that Dewey wishes to have his cake and eat it too. He spends over four hundred pages arguing that we should accept his method of philosophical criticism. Dewey criticizes other philosophers of selective emphasis then claims we should accept his theory of the ineluctable traits of natural existence as a starting point for philosophic discovery or his selective emphasis. Dewey's method of philosophy claims the world is constantly changing and that truth can only be obtained according to the values we place on it. Dewey shows how our values, experiences, and culture change what we perceive as true. Truth, like nature constantly changes and hence, cannot be predicted or permanently defined. Dewey, by offering a selective emphasis of the natural traits nature, Dewey is, once again, guilty of his own criticism. There cannot be a selective emphasis in the system of philosophy Dewey espouses. Dewey states of selective emphasis:
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