John Dewey philosopher than a bona fide psychologist, the authors noted that Dewey was a founding member of the A.P.A., served as the A.P.A.'s eighth president in 1899, and was the author of an 1896 article on the reflex arc which is now considered a basis of American functional psychology. Dewey also expressed interest in work in the psychology of visual perception performed by Dartmouth research professor Adelbert Ames Jr. He had great trouble with listening, however, because it is known Dewey could not distinguish musical pitches—in other words was tone deaf. Dewey sometimes referred to his philosophy as instrumentalism rather than
John Dewey thereafter he relocated near the East Coast. In 1899, Dewey was elected president of the American Psychological Association. From 1904 until his retirement in 1930 he was professor of philosophy at Columbia University. In 1905 he became president of the American Philosophical Association. He was a longtime member of the American Federation of Teachers. Along with the historians Charles A. Beard and James Harvey Robinson, and the economist Thorstein Veblen, Dewey is one of the founders of The New School. Dewey's most significant writings were "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" (1896), a critique of a standard psychological concept and