Celebrating Recent Work by Natalia Alexander

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by Natalia Rogach Alexander

John Dewey is among history’s most celebrated thinkers on democracy and education, yet he has often been underappreciated and misunderstood as a philosopher. This book paints a fresh portrait of Dewey as not only a reformer of schooling but also a profound theorist of human development, whose vision of the centrality of education to democracy, philosophy, and flourishing can still inspire us today.

What can we learn from this great thinker as we face challenges such as widespread drudgery and disaffection, estrangement among individuals and groups, and a crisis of democracy? This book supplies the answers, offering a bold new account of Dewey as an educational theorist who is essential for our troubled times.

Revealing the true scope of Dewey’s educational vision, this book provides a new perspective on a neglected aspect of the philosophical tradition. Growing People presents an alternative canon—running from Plato to Rousseau to Du Bois—that recasts philosophy in terms of education and, in so doing, opens new pathways for social critique and the liberation of human potential.

About the Author

is a lecturer in philosophy at Columbia University. Her work specializes in Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Education, Ethics and American Pragmatism. Alexander is currently an Early Career Fellow in Philosophy at Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Columbia under the supervision of Philip Kitcher. Her thesis offered a novel reconstruction of John Dewey’s thought, recovering the centrality of education to his philosophical vision. Alexander’s publications include “Dewey on Democratic Education” in the Cambridge Handbook of Democratic Education (forthcoming) and “Educating Democratic Character” (co-authored with Philip Kitcher) in Moral Philosophy and Politics.

About the Speakers

is the former Chair of Columbia University's Department of Biological Sciences, where his laboratory studies the vertebrate olfactory system, possibly the best chemical detector on the face of the planet. Aside from its molecular detection capabilities, the olfactory system serves as a model for investigating general principles and mechanisms of signaling and perception in the brain. His laboratory seeks to answer that fundamental human question: How do I smell? He currently is Professor of Biological Sciences and Provost's Senior Faculty Teaching Scholar at Columbia University.

is Fred and Fannie Mack Professor of Humanities in the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University. She is currently chair of the Department of Philosophy. Her university awards include: Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award (2009/2010). She is a recipient of Mellon, Getty, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and in 1997 was the Visiting Ernest Bloch Professor in the Music Department at the University of California at Berkeley, where she gave a series of lectures on Richard Wagner. In 2024 and 2025, she was a Visiting Professor at École Normale Supérieure in Paris. In 2022-23, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Max Planck Institute (Empirical Aesthetics) in Frankfurt and taught at the Courtauld Institute, London.

is John Dewey Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University. He received his B.A. from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. from Princeton. Before coming to Columbia, he has taught at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Minnesota. Prof. Kitcher is the author of books on topics ranging from the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of biology, the growth of science, the role of science in society, naturalistic ethics, pragmatism, Wagner’s Ring, Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, and Mann’s Death in Venice. He has been President of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division) and Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy of Science.

is Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia University, where she served as Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education from 2009-2011. Before Columbia, she taught at Cornell University, where she was Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Director of the Program on Ethics and Public Life. She has also taught at Wellesley College, the University of Rochester, and Indiana University, where she served as an Associate Dean.

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