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Democracy and the Scientific Method In the Philosophy of John Dewey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Joseph G. Metz
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Extract

John Dewey was both a devoted student of politics and an eminent philosopher. He constructed his theory of political democracy according to his own philosophical orientation. At the same time, he believed that political science should be pursued independently of political philosophy on the assumption that the “scientific method” alone is meaningful in resolving political questions. It is through his philosophy of “experience,” instrumentalism, that Dewey resolved the potential antithesis between philosophy and experimental science as he understood it. It is the scientific method alone, Dewey insists, that can do justice to the integrity of “experience.” Moreover, through its application to political democracy, the scientific method is the link connecting philosophical instrumentalism and democracy. Accordingly, this essay will attempt to show: 1) the threefold relationship among philosophy, science, and democracy provides the key to an understanding of Dewey's political thought; 2) the philosophical antecedents of instrumentalism, being inseparable from Dewey's “scientific method,” provide normative content for his democratic theory; and 3) the purpose of Dewey's application of the scientific method to political democracy is to reshape traditional values in accordance with the philosophical — and not necessarily scientific — antecedents of instrumentalism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , April 1969 , pp. 242 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1969

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References

1 Dewey, John, Problems of Men (New York, 1946), p. 248Google Scholar.

2 See Dewey, John, Liberalism and Social Action (New York, 1935), p. 92Google Scholar.

3 The Philosophy of John Dewey, ed. by Schlipp, Paul A. (Evanston, 1939), p. 530Google Scholar.

4 Dewey, John, Reconstruction in Philosophy (Boston, 1962), p. 95Google Scholar.

5 Ibid.

6 Dewey, John, Experience and Nature(New York, 1929), p. 4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Ibid., p. 5.

8 Dewey, John, Freedom and Culture (New York, 1963), p. 174Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., p. 175.

10 Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems (Denver, 1927), p. 82Google Scholar.

11 Dewey, John, Liberalism and Social Action, p. 73Google Scholar.

12 Dewey, John, Reconstruction in Philosophy, intro., p. ixGoogle Scholar.

13 Dewey, John, Problems of Men, p. 219Google Scholar.

14 Dewey, John, Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 156Google Scholar.

15 Dewey, John, “Essay in Experimental Logic,” John Dewey's Philosophy, ed. by Ratner, Joseph (New York, 1939), p. 944Google Scholar.

18 Dewey, John, Problems of Men, p. 248Google Scholar.

17 Ibid., p. 248–249.

18 Dewey, John. Experience and Nature, p. 161Google Scholar.

19 Ibid.

20 Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems, p. 174Google Scholar.

21 Dewey, John, Experience and Nature, p. 162Google Scholar. This statement is intelligible in light of the universality of “experience.”

22 Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems, p. 174Google Scholar.

23 Dewey, John, Problems of Men, p. 213Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 214.

25 Ibid.

26 Dewey, John, Freedom and Culture, p. 102Google Scholar.

27 Dewey, John, Liberalism and Social Action, p. 92Google Scholar.

28 Dewey, John, Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 175Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., p. 176.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid., p. 177.

32 Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems, pp. 202–203Google Scholar.

33 Ibid., p. 203.

34 Dewey, John, Liberalism and Social Action, p. 79Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., p. 90.

36 Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems, p. 193Google Scholar.

37 Ibid.

38 Dewey, John, Liberalism and Social Action, p. 48Google Scholar.

39 Ibid., p. 34.

40 Social arrangements, laws, and institutions for Dewey were means for creating individuals. That individuality is something to be formed by way of the scientific method is the essence of the “new” liberalism to which Dewey addressed himself.Dewey, John, Individualism Old and New(New York, 1930), pp. 157 ff.Google Scholar

According to Dewey, the doctrine of democracy as formulated by the founding fathers rested upon the notion that each individual was somehow equipped with the intelligence needed, under the operation of self-interest, to participate in political matters. Dewey, John, Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 157Google Scholar. Such a position, Dewey explained, was based on false psychology: faculties of observation, reflection, and desire, Dewey noted, are habits which are acquired under the influence of culture, or association, within the continuum of experience. They are not, he insisted, ready-made inherent powers. Therefore, the role of the democratic state is to shape the habits of individuals in such a way that man's true freedom may be realized, of course, within the context of the further development of experience, that is, “growth,” the latter being a formal concept.

Dewey's reformulation of liberal values, then, follows from his humanistic conception of man according to which man is in reality infinitely malleable in the name of “growth.” Dewey, John, Freedom and Culture, pp. 21–23Google Scholar, and Logic, The Theory of Inquiry (New York, 1938), pp. 285 ff.Google Scholar On these grounds Dewey emphatically rejected the alleged unchangeableness of human nature as a gross over simplification.

41 Dewey, John, Liberalism and Social Action, p. 43.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., p. 50.

43 Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems, p. 126Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., p. 131.

45 Ibid., p. 142.

46 Dewey, John, Freedom and Culture, p. 151Google Scholar.

47 Ibid., p. 153.

48 Dewey, John, Reconstruction in Philosophy, pp. 206–207Google Scholar.

49 Ibid., p. 207.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid., pp. 217–218.

52 Ibid., p. 218.

53 See John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, for his theory of the origin and nature of the state.

54 Ibid., p. 33.

55 Ibid., p. 73.

56 Ibid., p. 74.

57 Ibid., p. 64.

58 ibid., pp. 73–74.

59 Ibid., p. 64.

60 For Dewey's idea of the nature of man see The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy (New York, 1965), pp. 268 ff.Google Scholar

61 See Reconstruction in Philosophy, pp. 206 ff.

62 Dewey, John, The Public and Its Problems, p. 209Google Scholar.

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid., pp. 169–170.

65 See Dewey, John, Liberalism and Social Action, p. 92Google Scholar.

66 See Dewey, John, Problems of Men, pp. 213 ff.Google Scholar

67 “Value” here is used in the instrumentalist sense as the result of an act of evaluation which chooses between alternatives, and, by preference, resolves a doubtful situation.

68 , Schlipp, op. cit., p. 594Google Scholar.

69 See Dewey, John, Quest for Certainty, pp. 224 ff.Google Scholar, for a consideration of Dewey's epistemology.

70 See McCoy, C. N. R., The Structure of Political Thought (New York, 1963), p. 195Google Scholar. Because Dewey denied any ontological unity to substance and form, he must logically answer the following question negatively: can men arrive at an objective metaphysical foundation on which to base political action? By denying the notion of substantial form, as classically held, Dewey has precluded any natural inclination to action in accordance with form. This had led him, in turn, to a position in which “to be good” can no longer be the first principle of politics. Traditionally the “good” is defined as “that which all things desire insofar as they desire their perfection.” Having denied substantial form, any notion of the essential and unchanging nature of man and a natural inclination following this nature will be eliminated as the ultimate end and measure of politics.