Dewey's idealist Legacy: Some Reflections on T. H. Green's Moral Theory

The aim of this paper is to highlight the influence of British idealism on Dewey's ideas on the one hand and the following break with it on the other. In particular, it emphasises Dewey's relationship with Green's philosophy and his subsequent criticism of it. Dewey's rejection of Hegelian assumptions leads him to a critique of his original idealist positions but his pragmatism is still strongly influenced by the tenets of idealism, especially in its Greenian formulation. For this reason, it is important to point out Dewey's arguments for distancing himself from Green and to investigate the validity of his motives.