Dewey and Democratic Experimentation

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter reconstructs John Dewey’s theory of political hope and argues that he makes it a necessary condition for democracy. It begins with Dewey’s philosophical anthropology of an ecological self, one that denies any hard lines between self and other, will and world, or individual and environment. From there, it explains the transformation of circumstances as a recursive transformation of the habits of the self. Democracy is then presented as a social formation that enables intelligent, experimental reconstruction of the public in the light of ideals. It argues, finally, that this emphasis on experimentation allows Dewey to avoid the limitations seen in the ultimately one-sided perspectives of thinkers treated in earlier chapters. Because hope is inextricably related to the possibility of political action, the chapter concludes with reference to Dewey’s radical activism for the furtherance of American democracy.