杜威《民主與教育》一書在1916年出版迄今已經102年，該書豐富的內容與精深的思想給世界各國的教育帶來深刻的啟示與龐大的影響，至今仍然方興未艾。杜威受古希臘哲學影響極深，其影響可見於杜威有關經驗的本質、倫理學理論、邏輯、知識論、美學，以及教育哲學等著作中。杜威主張古為今用的原則，他把哲學史上的材料當作出發點，來討論今日的情況。實際上，杜威在探討古希臘哲學時，希望還其本來面貌，究竟是否允當，值得進一步探討。本文主要探討杜威《民主與教育》一書中與古希臘哲學思想的淵源，特別是柏拉圖與亞里斯多德兩位哲學家對其教育哲學造成的影響。柏拉圖的身心二元論思想，以及他的教育正義觀，不僅影響今日教育體制上的許多政策與措施，也讓杜威深入地探討這些思想在今日教育上的功過。而亞里斯多德對於勞動與閒暇的論述，引發了博雅教育與技職實用教育二分法的爭論，杜威都進一步深入地加以檢視，並以辯證的方法去分辨這項理論背後假設的利弊得失，從而提出對策設法超越這種二元論上的對立。

It has been 102 years since John Dewey first published his book Democracy and Education in 1916. This book is extremely thought provoking and illuminating, and is still widely read all over the world. John Dewey was fascinated by ancient Greek philosophy. Its influence is seen in his writings on the nature of experience, ethical theory, logic, theory of knowledge, aesthetics, and philosophy of education. Dewey takes the starting point of history to be some present situation, and he tried to portray ancient Greek philosophy for what is was. Whether this is justifiable remains to be explored. In this paper, we shall study the relation between Dewey’s Democracy and Education and ancient Greek philosophy, especially the influence of Plato and Aristotle on Dewey’s philosophy of education. Plato’s dualism of body and mind, and his conception on educational justice has been exerting deep influence on the educational policy and measures, these subject matters attracted Dewey and were explored comprehensively by him. Aristotle’s division between labor and leisure, liberal education and industrial education, has caused Dewey’s interest in examining the theoretical hypothesis of the dualism and its influence on the educational practice. However, he managed to use dialectical method to go beyond the opposition of this dualism.