Dewey as Virtue Epistemologist: Open-mindedness and the training of thought in Democracy and Education

In epistemology today, the intellectual virtues are receiving renewed attention. In this vein, epistemologists like Roberts and Wood (2007) suggest that a key task of
philosophy is not only to study the nature of knowledge and thought, but to promote good thinking. While not regarded as a standard thinker in virtue epistemology, Dewey thought like this too. In fact, study of the virtues that make for good thinking plays a key role in Dewey’s educational thought, most notably in Democracy and Education. In this paper, I reconstruct Dewey’s work on ‘the training of thought’ in Democracy and Education as a form of virtue epistemology. I give particular attention to Dewey’s thinking about the virtue of ‘open-mindedness’ and highlight the touchpoints and differences between Dewey’s conception of open-mindedness and contemporary accounts.