SOURCE: "Dewey's Epistemology and Metaphysics," in The Philosophy of John Dewey, Northwestern University, 1939, pp. 195-225.

In the following essay, Murphy declares that Dewey's philosophical methods are unsound because they do not adopt scientific or practical methodology.

In harmony with Spinoza's observation that Peter's idea of Paul is likely to give us a better notion of Peter than of Paul, it will doubtless be observed that the essays in this volume reflect the preconceptions and interpretative limitations of their authors at least as much as the actual content and implications of Mr. Dewey's philosophy. The danger in such cases is that what is presented as a critical analysis will in fact amount to little more than a translation of what, from the standpoint of an opposing philosophy of questionable validity, Mr. Dewey really must have meant and ought to have said. This risk is not altogether avoidable, for one...