John Dewey (1859–1952) was the most famous philosopher in the United States during the early twentieth century. He was a public intellectual during the decades when ordinary people, as well as intellectuals, filled halls to hear intellectually stimulating and edifying speeches. His interactive, pragmatic approach to ordinary life, education, and art appreciation has shaped American experience in fundamental ways that do not always refer to him by name.

Although, or because, Dewey was shy, he wrote 37 books and more than 700 articles. His main publications include Psychology (1887), Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Experience and Nature (1925), The Public and Its Problems (1927), The Quest for Certainty (1929), Philosophy and Civilization (1932), A Common Faith (1934), Art as Experience (1934), Liberalism and Social Action (1935), Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), Freedom and Culture (1939), and Problems of Men (1946).