Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository

Difficulty or obstruction in the way of reaching a
belief brings us […] to a pause. In the suspense of
uncertainty, we metaphorically climb a tree; we try
to find some standpoint from which we may survey
additional facts and, getting a more commanding view
of the situation, may decide how the facts stand
related to one another. (11)
This “[d]ifficulty or obstruction in the way of reaching a
belief” produces what Dewey calls a state of “perplexity.” It
is the experience of a “problem […] [that] challenges the mind
so that it makes belief at all uncertain” (9). All that seemed
so very Certain before – again, “the already-written, the
already-known” – cannot be relied upon, like some sort of
security blanket, to resolve that “problem” or the “perplexity”
it evokes. Not unlike a scientist in a laboratory, this “man
travelling in an unfamiliar region” must also undertake an
experiment of his own. He must usher in that dialectic, that
“scientific method of thought,” as I had called it. There must
be the conscious introduction of “variation” and the
scrutinizing and testing and questioning of the unknown and the
uncertain. All against the known and the certain. All against
other unknowns and other uncertainties. In order for that
“perplexity” to be resolved and some judgment or decision to be
made as to that earlier question, “Which road is right?” this
process – this dialectical experiment, as it were – needs to
happen. If it does not happen, then, as I said before, neither
does what Dewey would call real “thinking” – “reflective
thinking.” Because of this, that “forked road situation,” that
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