Larry Hickman

One of the world’s leading authorities on the great American philosopher John Dewey, Dr. Hickman has long been a trusted advisor of the Ikeda Center on matters of education and philosophical pragmatism. Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Southern Illinois, he also directed the Center for Dewey Studies there for many decades. His breakthrough publication was John Dewey’s Pragmatic Technology, which explicated a previously unexamined dimension of Dewey’s work. Among his numerous publications, he also wrote works considering Dewey in the context of contemporary trends such as postmodernism, and edited, with Thomas Alexander, The Essential John Dewey. For many years Dr. Hickman chaired the Center’s Education Fellows advisory board. In 2014, he published, with Daisaku Ikeda and Jim Garrison, Living As Learning: John Dewey in the 21st Century, one of the most important volumes available examining the connections between Nichiren Buddhist thought and Deweyan pragmatism. His appearances at Ikeda Center events include as a speaker at the 2009 Ikeda Forum, “John Dewey, Daisaku Ikeda, and the Quest for a New Humanism” and as co-convener, with Jim Garrison, of a 2015 seminar on dialogical themes in Ikeda’s A New Humanism. You can view series of video interviews with Drs. Hickman and Garrison here.

Photo by Marilyn Humphries