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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

John Dewey's Reconstruction of the l-lenial Masses
presented by
Douglas Robert Rose
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Major professor

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JOHN DEWEY'S RECONSTRUCTION OF THE MENIAL MASSES

BY

Douglas Robert Rose

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of History

1993

ABSTRACT
JOHN DEWEY'S RECONSTRUCTION OF THE MENIAL MASSES
BY

Douglas Robert Rose

John Dewey is best understood as a social theorist,
not as a philosopher or even an educator. This thesis
demonstrates that a series of popular essays, written by
Dewey during the Great Depression of the 19305, seek to
orient America's government, political authority, and work
ethic toward a new, universal class of workers. Yet "rad—
ical" as the depression years may seem, Dewey's ideology
changed little from the previous decade. His full-length
works of the 19205 present a social vision aimed at pre-
cisely the same end, though perhaps less forcefully.
Scholars may therefore obtain a more accurate understanding
of Dewey by beginning in his later years and "reading back-
ward," rather than reading chronologically from the Pro—

gressive Era.

Copyright by
Douglas Robert Rose

1993

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter

1. John Dewey and the Historical Problem
Of Class. O O O O O O O C O O O O O I O O O O 1

2. Workers as Workers: From Rugged Individuals
to 'Corporate' Humanitarians. . . . . . . . . 23

3. Reason as the Rationalization of

Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

4. Science as Method and the Birth of
Associative Living. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5. Conclusion. Dewey and Class Reconsidered. . . . 86
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Bibliography 0 O O O O I O O O O O O O O I O O O O O O 107

iv

Chapter I

John Dewey and the Historical Problem of Class

In the late 19203 John Dos Passos, a novelist-historian
of anarcho-individualist sensibilities, gained a reputation
as a proletarian ally among Marxist intellectuals. Incensed
by atrocities committed by the ruling class of society,
his iconoclastic writing style characteristically contains
bitter outbursts of class hatred. Witness, for example,
his rage emerging from the controversial Sacco-Vanzetti
trial of 1927, involving the execution of two Italian

laborers for their alleged murder of a Boston paymaster:

they have clubbed us off the streets they are stronger
they are rich they hire and fire the politicians the
newspapereditors the old judges the small men with
reputations the collegepresidents the wardheelers
(listen businessmen collegepresidents judges America
will not forget her betrayers) they hire the men with
guns the uniforms the policecars the patrol wagons. . .

we stand defeated America1
Such criticism would have little in common with the
soft-spoken educator, philosopher, and university professor
John Dewey--or so it would seem. As a foremost innovator
of the Pragmatist movement in philosophy, Dewey's name

often appears in the annals of American history next to

that of William James. Both these philosophers are known

2
for developing the famous pragmatic notion of truth, which
states that the validity of an idea depends upon the conse-
quences resulting from its actions. Though James is perhaps
more respected in philosophical contexts, Dewey's legacy
endures as the father of "progressive education," which
incorporated Pragmatist thinking. As author of the concise

and lucid School and Society, first published in 1899 and

 

reprinted almost annually for over a decade, Dewey pioneered

the "learning by doing" method of pedagogy. The School

 

and Society, along with his more mature Democracyiand Ed-

 

ucation (1916), enjoy continued circulation within teachers'
colleges and among educational theorists.2

In the realm of social history, Dewey is mostly noted
as a middle-class reformer. Through his University Elemen-
tary School at the University of Chicago, he devised methods
of acquiring knowledge which no longer depended upon regi-
mented book learning or rote memorization. These antiquated
techniques he considered part of "a medieval conception
of learning," when knowledge was used by an esoteric class
of leisured scholars. Instead he considered the desire
for learning inherent within the child, as part of a natural
energy promoting incessant curiosity and seeking its own
fulfillment through action. No longer attaining knowledge
for its own sake, the Deweyian child works with fellow
students in participation and cooperation. In this manner,
it is impossible for knowledge to become the possession

of a traditionally learned, aristocratic class. During

3
this early Chicago period, Dewey is now remembered for
coupling his efforts with settlement house pioneer Jane
Addams, as well as the Superintendent of Chicago Schools,
Colonel Francis W. Parker.3
Such an interpretation of Dewey, common as it is and

true to certain key facts, is not the whole truth. In
1933, during the depths of the Great Depression, Dewey
asked rhetorically "what are the most evident sore spots
of the present?" His answer was clear:

Unemployment, extreme inequality in the distribution

of the national income; enormous fixed charges in

the way of interest on debts; a crazy, cumbrous,

inequitable tax system that puts the burden on the

producer, and the ultimate consumer, and lets off the

parasites, exploiters and the privileged . . . [paying]

them4a premium for imposing a burden on honest indus-

try.
Though certainly not as incendiary as Dos Passos, this
class element is commonly not recognized by students of
John Dewey who focus on his works during the Progressive
Era.

Yet the radical tone and specifics of such writings

were common for Dewey during the depression years. Fre-

quently contributing to the New Republic, his attention

 

turned to the hardships of the 19303. True to his pragmatic
manner, he focused on actual consequences of a broken capi-
talist system, and found the working classes to be the

chief bearers of economic plight. He was quick to respond
with a voluminous pen, and set his intellectual sights

on the inequalities of a fundamentally competitive,

laissez-faire society. He began writing for a non-academic

 

4

audience, though not particularly for the "proletariat."

Nevertheless, Dewey's socioeconomic vision aimed at
restructuring society on the basis of a universal class
of workers. He hoped to eliminate what are usually con-
sidered the "middle classes" of professionals (e.g., doc-
tors, lawyers, scientists, etc.) by orienting their en-
deavors toward a nonprofit end. To achieve his goal,
he called for an end to the system of manipulating capital
for personal gain. He believed that not only did the use
of capital drive society into invidious class distinctions,
but it also led to the catastrophic conditions of the de-
pression. In transforming the middle classes, Dewey did
not seek to eliminate their occupation, per se, but hoped
their status distinctions in society. More importantly,
he did not distinguish the "middle" classes from the
"elite," since both manipulated capital. In Dewey's mind
there were only two types of socioeconomic groups:
non-manipulative, laboring producers, and capitalist, lei-
sured individuals; that is, upper classes and lower
classes.5

Considering the 19303 in Dewey's long career (he con-
tinued writing until his death in 1952 at age ninety two),
it is difficult, therefore, to perceive him as a mild,
"middle-class reformer." He did not seek to balance the
economic scales by merely removing the vestiges of aris-
tocracy. Nor did he merely promote facile "reform legis-

lation" that was characteristic of such Progressives as

5
Theodore Roosevelt or, say, the Bull-Moose Party of 1912.
In short, he sought more than remedial aids to uplifting
the unemployed poor suffering from what were commonly held
as "temporary" economic ills.

Instead, Dewey saw the economic depression as part

of a broader, more seriously flawed social structure and
ideology. The jobless and the poor were the products of
social hierarchy, both in terms of status and wealth.
The true course to "recovery" thus depended on a radical
overhaul of all aspects of a bourgeois society, since the
very notion of a "bourgeois," or middling, sector of society
involved more than economic factors. At the base of

laissez-faire capitalism lay the notion of a competitive

 

individual, one who would use any available resource, in-
cluding human labor, as a means of advancement. Supporting
this archetypal individual was a set of carefully devised
legal and political institutions. For Dewey, true equality,
and hence true democracy, depended upon the removal of
capitalism. But above all, the supporting elements of
the upper c1asses--legal, political, and even philosoph-
ical-~must be dissolved by a methodology designed to promote
humanitarian conditions and non-competitive ends.

Thus, on the one hand, Dewey foresaw a restructuring
of the entire political system. The "state," he argued,
must no longer be considered an abstract protector of indi-

vidual "rights,' since property ownership inevitably took

precedence over what was to be protected in a capitalist

6
system. Nor should the state be defined strictly in terms
of jurisprudence, since the conditions of the depression
proved that nominal legislative protection of rights was
no guarantee against ge‘fggtg deprivation. Political sci-
ence must instead correspond to the associations formed
in industrialization, with its cooperative integration
of raw materials, machinery, labor, and management. Under
the old legal system, "sacred" documents such as the Amer—
ican Constitution, with their pre-industrial conception
of legalistic, formal liberty, served only to protect the
"vested interests" of the upper classes.

On the other hand, Dewey believed the subconscious
notions of competition and hierarchy that paralleled this
political structure must also be eliminated. All of his
social theory revolves around challenging the conception

' a term used during the depression

of "rugged individualism,‘
and signifying the work ethic of the aspiring middle classes
in America. This ethic, extremely effective in the small,
agrarian communities in the nineteenth century, was no
longer applicable in the amalgamated, corporate world of

the twentieth. Americans had mistakenly, out of sheer
habit, carried competitive individualism into the realms

of "supply and demand," finance, stock trading, and pro-
duction. Recurring depression, the worst of which had
struck in 1929, was the devastating outcome.

In Dewey's view, rugged individualism was a cultural

phenomenon that could best be overcome through education.

7
For this reason, this paper will sketch the outlines of
Dewey's educational ideas of the '303. He believed edu-
cation must provide a "learning environment" in which knowl-
edge would no longer be treated as something attained for
the sake of personal advancement. Students in this environ-
ment would learn from each other, fostering cooperative
habits of exchange and mutual help. The teacher-to—student
relationship would not be premised on that of a superior
to an inferior, similar to way a boss instructs an employee.
Nor would the student he "taught" subjects in a manner
that required a complacent attitude. These methods, Dewey
argued, were counter to the active, inquiring processes
of the mind. What is more, they left the child ingrained
with a predisposition toward either complacent labor or
competitive striving--the two basic principles of a capi-
talist economy.

He even extended his views on pedagogy to knowledge
itself, which he felt was a subtle means of "inculcation"
by businessmen seeking to maintain a hierarchical, class
order. Knowledge, given as "ready-made" fact to the child,
implied that the present economic patterns of production,

exchange, and consumption were the "right" modus operandi

 

of society. Should actual conditions be wanting, even
to the degree experienced during the Great Depression,
students were made to believe it was the fault of them-
selves, not the system of private profit. So, too, did

ready-made information leave unchallenged the supporting

8
political and legal structure. The Constitution was readily
accepted, despite its protection of class interests, since
it was presented as a factual, rational "Truth."

The entire system of schooling, therefore, must be
used to set the child free from this oppressive education
which bred anonymous, irresponsible "captains of industry."
Dewey did not, however, become very specific in his details
for a better society. He was primarily concerned with
demonstrating to both teachers and informed citizens that
the educational system was a function of capitalist hier-
archy. He continually suggested that the child in the
school, like the worker in the world of production, must

' or concrete

continually be aware of the "actualities,'
realities, in existence. Only then could the child recog-
nize private profit system for what it was-—unequal in
material wealth, manipulated by the upper classes, and
inherently undemocratic.

The process, and to a lesser degree the content, of
learning was thus the critical element in preparing the
child for a new, labor-based society. Dewey devised his
educational process from the methods of science, in which
no abstract "laws" were deduced g priori. In the dispas-
sionate world of the scientist, knowledge was considered
a means of obtaining results, leading to tentatively held
hypotheses. Ideas and any supposed "first principles"

of "Truth" were continually scrutinized by an academic

community and, if need be, challenged by counterfactual

9
evidence based on direct observation. In all cases, the
emphasis remained upon the consequences of the action pre-
scribed by an idea. Knowledge was not dogmatically pre—

sented as "right, with an air of certainty, but as a possi-

"warranted assertibil-

bility containing what Dewey called
ity."

Scientific method, however, applied to more than epis-
temology or even the child in the schoolroom. Dewey advo-
cated that the nation's entire economy be controlled intel-
ligently through scientific, centralized planning. Experts
who were capable of comprehending the magnitude and intri~
cacies of industrialization would be best able to govern
production. Individuals adhering to a blind desire for
personal wealth should not and, in fact, could not deal
with the community's material needs. The ruthless compe—
tition and risky speculation that had caused the depression
was unnecessary, according to scientific methods, and con-
trary to the corporate tide of industry. Outmoded, pre-
industrial forms of state institutions and government must
therefore be adjusted similarly.

From Dewey's 19303 analysis, it is clear he did not
premise his social theory on any tenets of the bourgeoisie.
His theoretical proposals prevented every means of the
usurpation of laborers by those who did not actually pro-
duce. Scientific method would orient society's upper
classes to the actual needs of the lower classes. Mean-

while, laborers would use method to obtain a more egali-

10
tarian degree of political, economic, and intellectual
authority. In essence, Dewey's social theory, carried
to its logical extent, leads to a unification of all social
levels based on the transformed, menial masses.

Several of these elements in Dewey's social thought
may be traced to his earlier writings of the Progressive
Era. Yet during the 19203 and '303 his arguments became
broadest in their scope and most refined in their logic.

It is, therefore, during this later period that one obtains
true insight into the mind of John Dewey. Accordingly,

he may not be considered a technical philosopher. Nor

may he even be considered an pedagogue. He is instead

most accurately understood as a radical social theorist.

Dewey, however, was no Karl Marx seeking a violent
class overthrow through fiery revolution.6 His writings

in the New Republic and his works in the '203 were clearly

 

intended for a highly literate audience, and do not contain

any language of "proletariat" upheaval.7 Nevertheless,

the very nature of the changes he promoted, as well as

the extent to which those changes applied, make him a "rad-

ical." Though his vision of a planned economy depended

upon those with specialized knowledge, his social theory

was not elitist. He was confident a new, cooperative indi-

vidual, educated and living in a society no longer based

on formal political rights, would ensure actual subservience
of "leaders" to common citizens.

In addition, Dewey's ideas during the depression were

11
not simply the product of the depression. All of his rad-
ical social theory may be found in a several important
works which were published before the great Stock Market
Crash of 1929. These sources begin with the seminal book

Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920), in which the impact

 

of modern scientific methods upon western philosophy is
fully elaborated. All traditional thought, he argued,
was embedded within an elaborate system of "Reason" that
was used to uphold authority. Reason was necessary to
maintain social order and to ensure that the members of
a community would follow the facts of nature that led to
successful patters of survival. In this way, society was
assured a relatively stable and certain existence.

During ancient times, however, this theory of retaining
"tried and true" knowledge quickly stagnated. It lost
its innovative capacities and came to abhor change. "Real-
ity" was ignored to protect the "superiority" of what had
been useful in the past. Dogmatism eventually spread to
the realm of political authority. The rise of experimental
science, however, challenged the very basis of this stag-
nation. Hypotheses based on observable evidence disproved
old knowledge both in the field of natural science as well
as ideas of the state. Adaptation and creativity became
the criteria for all innovation. This scientific revolution
undeniably proved that, in terms of social institutions,
"fixed" principles could only lead to class oppression.

In Experience and Nature (1925), Dewey focused on

 

12

the importance of recognizing empirical methods in any
philosophical endeavor. He reinforced his belief that
to deny the importance of science was to be "indifferent
to human interests." Knowledge of existence and the process
of its attainment must no longer be based on purely sub-
jective means. Instead, the individual must obtain knowl—
edge through the interaction of both the natural and human
environment. In short, mind and matter must become one.

Interaction, though more at the societal level, was

the critical factor in The Public and Its Problems (1927).

 

This book most nearly approached what could be considered

a political treatise written by Dewey. In it, he argued
that the individual could not perform a completely "private"
act, such as a business transaction, without indirectly
affecting others. This phenomenon was due to a "universal
trait" of association existing among all things. The con-
sequences of any single act varied, but actions which af-
fected large groups of people entailed the definition of
"public" matters. The rise of industrialization, with

its unprecedented intensity in the exchange of materials,
wealth, and ideas, vastly enlarged the scope of the public.
On this large scale, it was impossible for any single person
to identify the ramifications of so many new transactions.
Thus, the notion of "private" must be eliminated and an
enlarged "state" must be created to monitor the public.
Should society fail to promote these changes, the public

would continue to be "eclipsed" by ruling elite.

13

In The Quest for Certainty (1929), Dewey elaborated

 

on the importance of experimentation. He explained that
the "laws" of science were continually broken by new dis-
coveries. The need for an official "authority" to maintain

established "principles,"

such as nature rights, was there-
fore unnecessary. To continue to do so was only an outmoded
attempt by philosophy to cope with the uncertainties of
survival.

Finally, Dewey presented many similar ideas in Iggi:

vidualism, Old and New (1930). This work itself began

as a series of essays in the New Republic, written from

 

early 1929 through 1930. It is therefore important as

a transitional work from the 19203 to the depression years.
The tone of these essays became increasingly one of dis-
illusionment as Dewey observed the extent of economic hard-
ship. What is noteworthy, however, is that there are no
fundamental ideological changes from his pre-depression
works in the 19203 pertaining to the use of philosophy

in society. Dewey simply continued his assertion that
antiquated forms of dogmatism, rationality, and a lack

of experimentation had created a economically competitive,
"individualistic" individual.

Many of these ideas live on in current debates re-
garding economics, politics, and public policy, having
become the object of intense scholarly study. The subject
of social class, however, with all of Dewey's supporting

ideological threads, is often forgotten among students

14
of Dewey studies. Class is usually considered secondary
to, or as a product of, his more technical philosophical
writings. As a result, the core of his thinking remains
buried within a dim fog of interpretations. Worse still,
it is neglected entirely.8

In all fairness to many devoted scholars, the inac-
curate perceptions surrounding Dewey's class insights are
largely due to the nature of the secondary literature it-
self. It is voluminous, discussing Dewey at all different
levels of sophistication and from widely divergent fields
of study. Educators, for example, routinely trace their
debates on modern educational practices to Dewey. Philos-
ophers use his name as a watershed mark in many contexts:

a decline of nineteenth-century idealism; an American
revolt against British empiricism; a beginning of twen—
tieth-century naturalism; a forerunner to logical posi-
tivism. Scholars of jurisprudence have also recognized
Dewey for his influence. Even economists have found Dew-
eyian ideas useful to policy makers.

Meanwhile, historians have traced these subjects in
all of their manifold forms, and have become confused in
the process. Surveys of American history tend to be much
too general, leaving the reader with the ambiguous concep-
tion of Dewey as merely an "instrumentalist."9 Biographies

tersely present Dewey through his "life and mind, neither

of which is explained by any unifying theme.1O By contrast,

specialized articles and essays narrowly focus on Dewey

15
at the microscopic level. In all cases, the novice is
left devoid of Dewey's broader socioeconomic perspective.11
In general, the foremost deficiency among historians
is to ignore the importance of political ideology emerging
in his later life. As a result, they portray his ideas
in terms of restoring some form of "community" that had
been lost in America with the rise of urban industrial-
ization. With the demise of small, agricultural-based
towns, people no longer worked and interacted on a personal
level. Through "learning by doing" the schools aimed at
fostering cooperation in a new, mechanized society. The
weakness of this interpretation is its emphasis on rehabil-
itating the capitalist system, rather than completely elim-
inating the basis of all economic manipulation on the part
of the upper classes. It falsely associates Pragmatism
with its contemporary, Progressive "reform," at the turn
of the century. Dewey's scientific methodology, or what
he specifically termed "instrumentalism," interpreted as
a remedial measure seeking a "more exigent standard in
philanthropic activities."12
Furthermore, this analysis considers Dewey fundamen-
tally a pioneer in bureaucracy. Since he believed industri-
alization threatened the old agrarian patterns of life,
it is argued that he focused on collective organization.
All the while, however, he supposedly sought to preserve

the notion of individualism. Dewey's founding of the Amer-

ican Association of University Professors, a group that

16

countered business influences in higher education, is usual-
ly cited as supporting evidence. In this context, scholars
place him among a small group of academics who favored
the use of government as a panacea for unequal standards
of living. The actual process of government, however,
with its elected officials of patronizing, upper-class
background, remained essentially intact under his policies.
The ideals of the nineteenth century, it is concluded,
were to be maintained through notions of "pure, rational
democracy."13

Well within the bounds of tradition, Dewey is scarcely
an active "reformer" in the eyes of other historians.
He supposedly saw change only in the distant future. Be-
lieving in Darwin's theory of evolution, instrumentalism
would "dissolve away conservatism's steel chain of [abso—

lute] ideas" at glacial speed. The changes in education

promoted in School and Society would initiate this process

 

by becoming "intelligently progressive." Rife with ambiv-
alent discussions of "democracy," these histories often
contain such statements as "equal opportunity for equal
growth" in their summations. Dewey appears to be something
of a modern utopian who benignly confronted socioeconomic
problems within a conservative, "established institutional
k."14

framewor

Paul Conkin's classic, Puritans and Pragmatists (1968),

 

readily illustrates this type of interpretation. Focusing

on the period up to about 1915, Dewey is portrayed as moving

17

from "youthful idealism" to "a tremendously broad and humane
form of naturalism." Much of his thought had "close par—
allels [to] . . . traditional Catholic theology." Dewey
used reason to illustrate the flaws inherent to modern
philosophy, and by the 19303 was "the pre-eminent American
Fabian." On the other hand, Dewey was "often a conser-
vative" since he ultimately believed nature "reached its
highest development and organization at the level of mind."
He remained in the ancient Greek tradition, seeking "the
good life" in order to find a "natural" basis of authority.
This "rational reform" became his way of addressing "problem
situations" in order to promote the "enhancement of life."
In conclusion, however, Conkin offers no suggestions as
to which class sector this vision applies, and even fewer
specifics of what it entails.15

Some historians have attempted to improve this analysis
by placing greater emphasis on the social aspects of Dewey's
thought. In fact, the term "social" has recently enjoyed
a renaissance within the Dewey literature, and phrases
such as "socially productive endeavor," "biosocial con-
ception of mind," "social renewal," "social situation,"

"social sensibility,‘ and "socializing function" are now

almost inescapable. Rarely, however, are these terms clari-
fied through precise definitions'16
Along Conkin's "conservative" line of analysis, some

Marxist scholars consider Dewey and other Progressives

part of an entrenched status quo. According to this view,

 

18
the "captains of industry" were left intact by Dewey's
reform measures since nothing was done about the size and
extent of industrialization. In addition, he made no chal-

lenge to the basic laissez-faire means of acquiring wealth.

 

Instead, his Progressivism turned to governmental regulation
as a beneficent way of alleviating the poor and disadvan-
taged. Somewhat inadvertently, Marxists conclude, these
changes took the reins of government out of the hands of
the peOple. By doing so, a political "vacuum" was created
that eventually would be filled by business interests later
in the twentieth century. In this sense, they argue that
Dewey must be considered among a group of "conservative
liberals" who "threatened few in power" and were "function-
ally useful in developing the capitalist system."17
Such are the shortcomings of those who examine Dewey's
social outlook and policy, per g3. Yet there is a second
group of historians who also fail to capture the signifi-
cance of Dewey's class analysis. As historians of phi—
losophy, these scholars tend to concentrate on the particu-
lars of his methodological "instrumentalism," without em-
phasizing its pertinence to social class. They are equally
guilty of placing Dewey in the Progressive Era, since they
too often ignore his later works. Their faults, however,
are more serious than those of social historians, since
readers are often left with the impression that Dewey was
iny a philosopher.

Foremost among this sort of analysis is Morton White's

19

study, Social Thought in America: The Revolt Against For-

 

malism (1943). White portrays Dewey as one among several
critics who believed that equality, in all of its forms,
could not be guaranteed on purely contractual, legal, or
ideological grounds. Hence, they challenged syllogistic
logic, which was the basis of purely "formal" means of
reasoning. In the case of Dewey, "creative intelligence"
attacked the traditional notion that all human experience
was "primarily a knowledge-affair." Instead, he promoted
"experience" as "an affair of the intercourse of a living
being with its physical environment." Dewey's conception
of knowledge was not something existing in pure thought
and applied to the difficulties of a situation, as asserted
by the orthodox view. It rather was part of experience,
and must be used only to illuminate the actual conditions
facing the individual. In essence, Dewey's theory of knowl—
edge was a form of questioning and discovering--what he
called "inquiry."18
On the basis of this description, White makes some
rather tantalizing allusions. "Political action," he as-
serts of Dewey, "takes place in an economic context" and
is part of the broader conception "that thought issues
from other types of situations." Though White correctly
describes this phenomenon as "organicism," he offers nothing
more specific. He writes that Dewey himself "was not com-
mitted to anything so specific in his epistemology" since

his ideas promoted "extra-intellectual types of behavior."

20

Ignoring the social significance of this way of acting,
White continues by comparing Dewey to economic historian
Charles Beard and a wide array of philosophers, such as
Immanuel Kant, David Hume, and G. W. F. Hegel.19

Other explications of instrumentalism have been made
in a similar fashion. Historian Henry May, for example,
has given special attention to Dewey's attempts at bridging
a "gap between theory and practice." The true meaning
of democracy depended upon a group of people acting as
a whole, which Dewey considered to be natural among human
beings. The machine age, however, had accelerated a "rad-
ical separation of man and nature" in philosophical terms,
leading to serious injustices in the social milieu. Thus,
unification of actions, experiences, mind, and thought
would lead to democratic "co-operation."20

"Harmony" has also been used by intellectual historians
to explain instrumentalist methodology. In this context,
there are many discussions of ethics, knowledge, and polit-
ical science. "Social theory" is often confined to a brief
closing chapter, as a part of the "applied" use of Dewey's
philosophy. Though some of these accounts emphasize Dewey's
radicalism to a certain degree, they do not devote suf-
ficient attention to the topic.21

Dewey is usually not considered a significant figure
after World War One in American history. He had, in his

early years, uniformly denounced the aggressive tactics

of the elite. The emergence of aggressive, totalitarian

21

atrocities in Europe, however, led him to make fine distinc-
tions between "force" and "aggression." He supported a

war which Woodrow Wilson felt would make the world "safe

for democracy." Dewey therefore claimed that the use of
force was valid for the sake of ending human suffering.

Many intellectual supporters of instrumentalism, however,
most notably the prewar literary figure Randolph Bourne,
found Dewey's reasoning in direct conflict with his earlier
pacifist ideals. Unfortunately, because Dewey lost support

among this socially radical avantegarde, historians have
22

 

lost interest in his later works.
Yet some studies of the inter-war period have remem-
bered Dewey's strong class-based writings. They have placed

his essays contained in the New Republic within the context

 

of the American socialist movement of the 19303. They
often, however, portray him as a political "activist,"

which he often was.23

But in so doing, treat the

full-length books of the '203 as a discrete part of his

thinking from the '303. The illuminating potential of

both decades, even when compared to each other, is therefore

lost.24
80 too did the ideological climate among intellectuals

in the depression make Dewey appear to be less of a "rad-

ical" than he really was. For this reason, historians

have considered his later works a "shift" toward a more

active liberalism. Many reformers became indignant at

the conditions of the depression years, while retaining

22

their paternalistic baggage. Though making a brief flir-
tation with communism in the early '303, these writers
propagated "a middle road" ideology. The old middle-class
trust in legislative reform continued. In action as well
as in theory, this approach timidly recoils from any genuine
"challenge to capitalism."25

As indicated by the content of all these historical
works, Dewey's radicalism deserves much greater emphasis.
Therefore, the following chapter will present a synthetic
study of his essays of the '303 written for lay readership.
It will emerge that when these works are placed in juxta-
position to those of the '203, Dewey's central emphasis
on class emerges. The remained of this paper will demon-
strate that there was no "shift" in Dewey's social philo-
sophy. The state, the individual, as well as the instru-
mentalist components of experience, certainty, and scien-
tific method, are consistent throughout his work. What
Dewey clearly intended was the removal of the ideological
basis of the existing social hierarchy and a transformation

of the menial masses.

Chapter Two

Workers as WOrkers: From Rugged Individuals to
'Corporate' Hunanitarians

In 1934, an article Dewey wrote appearing in the Social
Frontier began with the assertion that "upon the whole
the schools have been educating for something called the
status quo can hardly be doubted by observing persons."

The status guo which the educational system fostered could

 

be summarized by the simple phrase "rugged individualism."

Within this term was embedded the "assumption" that the

individual exists in a free economic society and has the

capacity to act independently and attain economic mobility.

Economic opportunities supposedly provided advancement,

so that equal liberty was the possession of all. The sur-

rounding legal and political order was designed to protect

these opportunities and to ensure a degree of fairness.1
Dewey, however, was skeptical of this theory, since

he felt individualism no longer pertained to the concrete

actualities of modern life. At one time a healthy part

of small, agrarian societies, individualism was now defunct

in a large, industrial complex. To continue to believe

in ruggedness proved that "no grosser myth" had ever been

received by "large masses of the population." Those who

23

24

already possessed capital used money as a means of main-
taining their social positions. Meanwhile, workers toiled
away with few material rewards, and were trapped in an
endless search for employment and wages. As the object
of upper-class repression, the rugged individual had in
fact become only "ragged."2

In these less scholastic, popular writings of the
early 19303, Dewey's critique of the capitalist "regime"
is clearly visible. He explored how all aspects of
society——politics, government, capital, labor~-were manip-
ulated by those who did not actually produce anything.
In this sense his work is simply descriptive of the under-
lying hardships workers felt, but did not entirely under-
stand. Yet these revealing qualities were meant to be
more than simply description, since they point to a need
for an entire restructuring of the socioeconomic and polit—
ical order. This new system, he believed, must replace
every aspect of the competitive, rugged individual. "Cor-
porate," in its true sense of a unified body, became the
adjective Dewey used to describe the cooperative individual
who no longer worked for pecuniary gain. In Dewey's cor-
porate world, all social groups would come recognize the
needs of each other through scientific method, and conse-
quently separate classes would no longer exist.

A new, cooperative rocess, therefore, is the key
to understanding Dewey's social theory. The interaction

between individuals would never stagnate, since they would

25
be in constant motion. More importantly, this fluidity
would not allow for certain individuals to direct the act-
ions of others. Since a one-sided "directing" ultimately
led to domination, through either politics or economics,
the cooperative process would eliminate the very basis
of social hierarchy. It is for this reason that Dewey
turned to the empirical nature of science. Trial and error,
not rigid capitalist ideas to protect wealth, would allow
workers to be in control of their environment.

The institution primarily responsible for initiating
cooperation was education. The crises of the depression
focused his thinking, forcing him to make explicit associ-
ations between a capitalist system and authoritative peda-
gogy. He believed the schools must promote "intelligence"
among children, so that they may effectivly reveal causes
of economic hardship and class oppression. The mechanics
of Dewey's egalitarian teaching and educating thus become
one with his theory of classless social harmony.

These two components of Dewey's writing in the '303,
the results of rugged individualism and new cooperative
processes, both share a common element. They are the vis-
ible shadows of the light of theory. They suggest many
philosophical points for a restructuring of the social
order, all of which are contained in the works of the 19203.
To examine, however, Dewey's theory by beginning in an
earlier decade fails to reveal his inherent opposition

to capitalism and callings for a universal class of workers.

26

The later, more popular works of the depression are there-
fore worth a detailed consideration.

Dewey believed that, at base, a g; fagtg absence of
freedom was the real detriment of rugged individualism.
"It is a significant and sinister fact," he wrote, that
"those who cry 'liberty' with the greatest vehemence are
representatives of the class that is more responsible than
any other for the loss of actual liberty by the mass of
our citizens." A steady adherence to the "glory of the
Constitution" made liberty "the monopoly of the business
man and the employer." The rise of industrial capitalism
since the eighteenth century created a legal order which
identified "rights, or liberty, with property interests."
In so doing, the state repudiated the importance of other
rights such as freedom of speech. It was therefore the
"financial system . . . now administered" that was the
"great foe" of the civil liberties the Constitution intended
to protect. In short, the machine age made "the 'golden
dream' of our forefathers a hideous nightmare for uncounted
millions."3

Without property, the masses could not function much
above the level of bare existence. They were forced to
remain at their wage-earning positions, and were paid very
little. "The machine and the control of power make it

possible to abolish poverty,"

while "actually improvements
in the machinery of production and distribution are working

in the opposite direction." The net wealth of the nation

27
had improved dramatically, but most had gone toward re-
warding a few competitive individuals who governed dis—
tribution in the private profit system. Meanwhile, it
was in fact technological forces that were responsible
for the "ultimate creation" of wealth. Ironically, the
workers who harnessed these forces had little purchasing
power and remained utterly desolate. Until these conditions
were recognized, argued Dewey, "all steps toward economic

in the depression "may be temporarily helpful
4
ll

recovery

while in the long run useless.
Due to this web of legal and economic usurpation,

workers in the twentieth century remained in a position

of servitude. The tendency of the machine was to destroy

the ability of the workman to become his own employer,

reducing him "to the position of a mere feeder or attendant

. . . [and dispensing] with judgment, skill and brains."

A banal, dictatorial "regimentation" pervaded all aspects

of working life and was often euphemistically called "loyal-

" "Those who are engaged in the outward work of pro-

ty.
duction and distribution" of commodities had "no
share--imaginative, intellectual, emotional--in directing
the activities in which they physically participate."

They only executed "plans which they do not form, and of
whose meaning and intent they are ignorant." "Profit for
others" and "a wage for themselves" were the only principles
5

workers could comprehend.

Faced with this determinism in production, most Ameri-

28
cans possessed "an immense amount of political immaturity
and economic illiteracy." They concentrated on the
high-minded "ideals" of fairness and liberty and sought
to redefine those ideals in an evolving system of
capitalism. They did not, however, recognize that the
real difficulty lay in fulfilling basic notions of social
justice. It was thus the "method of action," both in
politics and economics, that if left unaltered would
continue to fuel the hardships of reality. With their

laissez-faire tactics, businessmen would continue to use

 

property to maintain their status and use capital to hold
workers in the lowest "place" of the socioeconomic regime.6
To ignore "the processes of change" was therefore
a wishful denial of the "drift into greater chaos." The
upper classes exercised monopolistic control through their
ownership of the means of production. Powerful bankers
and financial houses operated heavy industry, and protected
their interests through the use of such legal means as
tariffs. Land speculators and investors in the stock market
kept capital out of the pockets of workers. What is more,
investors selfishly left their assets frozen in the hopes
of greater profit, "compelling the closing of thousands
of banks." Meanwhile, farmers working the rural landscape
suffered from "unpayable mortgages" and wage earners living
in urban areas faced "the slums of the cities." The plight
of the poor, however, could not easily be rectified, since

land and other raw materials could not be freed from private

29

profit without an entire restructuring of society's economic
base. The economic base, in turn, could not be restructured
without substantially altering competitive individualism
in politics, workers' roles, and the forces of production.7

In a "democratic" state such as America, therefore,
the "living embodiment of free men" was ironically con-
ceptualized as the "unhampered flourishing of capitalism."
The competitive economic habits of the capitalist regime,
in denying the inquiring methods of science, subjected
the masses to an "open play of class interests." To insure
their competitive advantage, the upper classes used "the
weight of unquestioned custom and tradition" as well as
brute force. Notions of liberty were developed 3 priori
to maintain economic status. Dewey therefore agreed with
the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume that "reason
is and always must be the slave of passion." In the case
of modern industry, that passion was best defined as self
interest. The state, as a rational framework of "law and

' served only as the businessman's protection of

8

order,‘
pecuniary gain.
Under such conditions, it was almost impossible for
a government based on anachronistic, agrarian notions of
the state to give any substantive relief to the poor.
Controlled in fact by those who maintained industry and
private wealth, the government provided only "tragic inse-
curity and essential anarchy." Federal authorities somehow

felt justified in paying farmers to plow under millions

30

of acres of vital foodstuffs while many among the poor
starved in the streets. Certainly the government ruled
the people, but it did not actually govern. "For government
implies order and security at the very least." There was
widespread evidence of "millions living scantily and pre—
cariously upon the dole of waning private charity." Pres-
ident Franklin Roosevelt meant well, and had truly made
the necessary preparations for "the nationalization, or
better the popularization, of power of production, distri-
bution and exchange." Nevertheless, he and his advisors
were "blind and half-hearted," with a chief desire "to
bolster and repair the present system . . . of complete
power and rule to the very elements that have brought the
nation to its present pass."9

Roosevelt's governmental "reforms" failed, therefore,
in more than simply their philanthropic efforts. (They
lacked any real ability, or even intention, to end class
coercion. "Genuine social control of money and credit,"
which was the "greatest single source of power in the exist—
ing system" was left conspicuously intact, while government
analysts contemplated the use of deliberate inflation.
The aim was clearly to strengthen big business, and sur-
render "the interests of labor in the matter of genuine
collective bargaining as to wages." There was even an
"eager willingness of the Administration to use the methods
of coercion [and] intimidation . . . to suppress free dis-

cussion and to mislead opinion" in order to maintain lais-

31

. . 10
sez-faire enterprise.

 

The ineffectiveness of government was part of a broader
collapse in the democratic process in politics. In the
days of artisan production and small town life, the ballot
and elected officials served as representatives of the
people. Cataclysmic depression in the twentieth century,
however, illustrated that such was no longer the case.
"Why have power and rule passed from the people to a few"

Dewey asked rhetorically. It was quite simply due to "

an

oligarchy of wealth." In theory, politics and economics

operated in separate realms. In practice, "money not only

talks but acts." The accumulation and concentration of

wealth was the "outstanding fact" affecting politics in

the machine age. Until people realized the need to remove

raw materials, banks, and modes of transportation from

entrepreneurial manipulation, politics would continue to

neglect the interests of the menial masses.11
In failing to recognize that political system was

a function of industry and finance, common citizens suffered

from "mental confusion" as to the nature of the state.

They believed that the concept of "public control" must

be instituted only in times of severe economic distress.

On other occasions, the state was to uphold the older notion

of competitive individualism. With "corporate forces"

in industry now a prevalent actuality, this "confused sen-

timent" of rugged individualism led to political ineffec-

tiveness and ultimately political apathy. Its principal

32

defect was a "lack of consciousness" of the present politi-
cal needs, and the inability to create an economy for the
future.12

A means of empowering the individual was therefore
the most urgent need of society. Politics must be guided
toward a heightened awareness of actual conditions and
formulating new checks upon upper class rule. Since "the
economic problem which weighs so heavily upon us" was an
illustration of "the new social impact of science" and
mechanization, it was scientific methods in which social
cures could be found. Technological applications of science
had "produced the potentiality of plenty," but lagging
legal and political institutions were left paradoxically
"unaffected as yet by the advance of science." This phe—
nomenon was due to claims by those in power that science,

" was not a "method of ap-

"writing it with a capital 8-,
proach but a kind of self-enclosed entity and end in itself,
an . . . authoritatively revealed inherent and absolute
Truth." This misconception was part of the "older indi-
vidualism" of self-interest that sought to use applied
science purely for monetary gain and political authority,
while keeping its motives "below consciousness."13
A government using scientific means could best resolve
this sort of chaos. Science had the capacity to do more
than extend the "quantitative range and penetration" in

examining economic problems. It could provide "understand-

ing through bringing relationships and interactions into

33

View." The government could thus foresee the needs and
consequences in production and distribution. "The future
seems to hold in store an extension of political control
in the social interest." This aim could best be accom—
plished through such agencies as the Interstate Commerce
Commission and the Federal Reserve Board. Outlets for
production could be found efficiently, overproduction pre-
vented, and surpluses distributed among those in need.
Gone would be the days of risky speculation. What is more,
no single individual could profit unfairly by manipulating
conditions with capita1.'4

This more integrated form of governmental planning
would come to foster a individualism that incorporated
personal satisfaction with economic cooperation. In the
future, machinery would lead to more than a mere mastering
of natural resources and mechanical energy. "We hardly
have commenced to dream of managing" physical power "for
the sake of projected purposes and prospective goods."
A new form of culture would focus on non-pecuniary means
of satisfaction that are similar to esthetic pleasure,
so that one day the "intellectual and moral hebetude" of
factory work might be removed. If "ideals" of society
were made along these lines, it would not be long before
the machine served as "liberation and enrichment of human
life" rather than hopelessly attempting to harness the
power to the dollar. "Organized planning to effect these

goods" would produce a "new individual" who was not only

34

considerate of others, but truly in control of the means
of production.15

The individual would not only become more cooperative,
but also escape the complacent and thoughtless qualities
of industrial life. "When the patterns that form indi-
viduality of thought and desire" correspond to "outwardly
corporate" nature of civilization, individuality "will
be released for creative effort." Through group activity,
individuals would discover a "positive and constructive
energy" for "a new culture expressing the possibilities"
immanent in a machine world. Workers would never be
"molded" into the "fixed and static" habits of competition,
but freed as "constant makers of a continuously new so-
ciety." They would thus no longer be dependent solely
upon politics and government to ameliorate their workings
conditions.16

Government planning based on science could then lead
to much more than an equitable economic system. It could
foster an environment conducive to intellectual honing,
so that wage earners would employ "the use of thought and
emotion in their daily occupations." The "fact-finding"

"in

methods of governmental technicians would be imitated
the thoughts of those who tend the machines." Laborers
would no longer be "warped, frustrated, and unnourished"
in performing activities, since they would come to under-

stand the physical factors involved in their tasks. In

the process, a desire for "related knowledge, physical

35

and social, would be created and rewarded" by an "enormous
liberation of mind." Initiative and responsibility "would
be demanded and achieved" from what were once the dominating
upper classes. In fact, work, as a form of intellectual
activity, would form the quintessential unification "of
mind and body" expressed by philosophers for centuries.17

As intelligent methods provided knowledge that empower
the machine operator, so too would the traditional sep-
aration of "the intellectual worker from the wage earner"
disappear. There would always be a "comparatively small
number of selected minds that have both taste and capacity"
for certain scientific fields, but science-as-method had
the potential to instill "attitudes of open-mindedness,
intellectual integrity, observation and interest" in most
people. No longer would the retention of "masses of facts
and principles" be the essential foundation of knowledge
and the possession of an esoteric few. Instead, facts
would serve as a foundation to method, or as a "power to
think with respect to conduct of social life and the re-
making of traditional institutions." As was the case with
any scientific inquiry, the results of an intellectual
endeavor would not belong to any particular individual,
say an inventor, but rather "the community of workers."
Thus, "every new idea and theory" would be submitted to
the working community for confirmation and test.18

Yet even before this new, advanced age in government

planning and worker control arose, science could at least

36

reveal the subterfuge under which the industrial system
of the depression operated. Intelligence, observation,
and reflection could "discriminatingly" relate the causes
of economic hardship to economic competition. By using
the powers of method, the common people would not be forced
into acceptance of harsh conditions due to any preconceived,
capitalist notions. They would realize that America's
antiquated legal and political institutions actually in-
hibited the great industrial strides made by technological
advances. They would demand vast institutional restruc-
turing in order to implement a "classless society." Only
then would the country be in a position to develop "a gen-
uine culture" relieved of financial considerations, and
able to plan industry "in behalf of a significantly human
life."19

In the more distant future, science used by the govern-
ment and workers could control the social effects of tech-
nology and promote better standards of living. A "genuine
socialization" of industry through collective ownership
would put an end to the present system of "values in use,"

in which sale values determined prices. Instead, "

con-
sumption-values" would determine prices. Though Dewey

was not entirely specific in his details, he clearly be-
lieved a "psychological emancipation" would accompany this
means toward material security. Once society was freed

from the necessity of subsistence, the average person could

enjoy the "cultural consequences" of mass—produced goods.

37

Material items would thus become not an object of acqui-
sition, but more of a means to a "liberating spiritual-
ization." In essence, the particulars of society would
be governed by the adage "regiment machines and money and
other inanimate things, and give liberty to human beings."20

Dewey's industrial culture was also to be the possess-
ion of all, not just the upper classes. The work of poets,
painters, novelists, dramatists, and philosophers would
no longer find an appreciative audience at a level of so-
ciety "on top of an industrial and political substructure,"
striving "for a cultivated elite supported on the backs
of toiling masses." Instead, culture would become "a new
habit of mind and sentiment" among all involved in material
civilization. It would be part of the very nature of so-
ciety. Even work itself would become "an instrument" allow-
ing "the masses [to] share freely in a life enriched in
imagination and esthetic enjoyment." Culture would be
intrinsically humanitarian, and show that while "mind is
connected with matter, humanity and its collective intel-
ligence are the means by which nature is guided to new
possibilities."21

This humanistic world, however, could not be imple-
mented easily under the socioeconomic conditions of capi-
talism. An entrenched business class manipulated science
for personal wealth. Individualism was stoutly adhered

to in its "individualistic" sense of competition and lais-

sez-faire. America's cultural heritage was selfishly cov-

 

38

eted by a relatively small class of businessmen. These
"monopolists of capital" formulated notions of ultimate
good and "beauty" to maintain their status. Even intel-
lectual and literary figures separated the "refined" forms
of artistic achievement from the material items and methods
pertaining to use. All upper classes combined their efforts
to derogate the patterns and habits of utility among labor-
ers. By doing so, the elite kept the working classes ig—
norant and subservient.22

Even though "intelligence" based on scientific method-
ology could be extremely effective in breaking this capi-
talist and cultural nexus, Dewey believed there must be
an additional institutional means designed to remedy rugged
individualism. The government set guidelines and provided
economic relief, but it could do little to alter people's
worn patterns of individualistic thought. The greatest
hope for society lay in future generations. Dewey therefore
turned to the schools for methodological aid. Many critical
aspects of his social theory are thus ingrained in his
prescriptions for less competitive forms of learning, his
ideas on student interaction with the curriculum, and his
conception of activity among students and teachers.

Within the existing schools themselves, however, there
were many elements designed to protect class hierarchy.
A capitalist mentality pervaded even the average high
school. "The subject-matter of actual economic and social

facts" was disguised to prevent the use of critical, in-

39
quiring methods of thought. The establishment made pupils
"ready victims of propaganda and publicity agents" who
doubtlessly veiled the shortcomings of capitalism. In

this manner schools educated for the present status guo

 

that entailed a "static social order." At the top of the
social pyramid "a nationwide conspiracy" of bankers "and
other pecuniary groups" presented a "dictation of policies"
to teachers and students. The culminating effect was to
"build up and strengthen a class division" of those possess-
ing cultural subjects while the masses were left with "a
few and simple mechanical skills."23
In addition, traditional schools that lacked scientific
methods were in "close connection" with the economic ca-
tastrophe of the depression. Pedagogy based on rote learn-
ing, discipline, drill, and an acquisitive emphasis on
knowledge combined to produce a child who was industrious,
self-seeking, and manipulative. In an age when an evolving
industrial revolution demanded group harmony and inter-

action, such patterns of learning could only lead to disas-

ter. The laissez-faire social order that pervaded society

 

was tightly bound to school techniques of the old patterns
of individualism. Due to this relationship, any successful
effort to "remove or mitigate the forces which brought
about the collapse of industry" would at once impose a
"beneficial effect on education."

With the school and society so mutually reinforcing,

there was a direct correlation between educational tech-

 

 

"L

40
niques and the individual's socioeconomic "mentality."
The "executive type" of school manifested itself in methods
that "think for the sake of doing." Ideas in the curriculum
were presented only for their utilitarian potential, 30
that one day they might be manipulated in various modes
of production. By contrast, schools designed outside the
capitalist matrix exhibited dramatically different methods
and ideas. In these cases, "inquiring and artistic types"
of children incorporated guiding patterns of "directing
and enriching emotional and intellectual experience."
To cultivate "growth toward harmony" in a capitalist society

thus began with an approach to pedagogy as "direction 9:

 

movement" within the child, rather than presenting ideas
of a specific, "definitely formed" nature.24
So too would the teacher play an entirely new role
in order to promote a more cooperative social order. "Con-
trolling methods of teaching and discipline" that contained
"the traditional individualistic aim" would be substituted
by methods with "social purpose." These methods would
be based on inquiry and "mutual consultation and discussion"
in the student-to-teacher relationship. Such a technique
would prevent the dominating, capitalist methods of "im-
position and inculcation." No longer would the teacher
emphasize the "right answer" in the curriculum, thereby
avoiding ideas imbued with implications of a "money motif."

The teacher would only "guide" the discovery of cooperative

tendencies inherent in the child, who would then be free

41

of any "dictation" by a "boss" in the school. The child
would learn better and faster, since "the force of the
worker's spontaneous interest and desire to accomplish
something" would stimulate intellectual abilities.25

According to this futuristic model, the child would
become a miniature worker who finds activity pleasurable
since it is no longer for pecuniary gain. There would
no longer be prescribed "tasks" in learning, but rather
actions that foster "the diversity of capacities and needs
of different human beings." The child, acting through
new materials and methods, would discover "what tendencies
are especially seeking expression." Judgment, learning,

and ideas would all emanate from a physical, moral, and

social "interaction with existing powers and preferences."

 

A form of control would then emerge, since the student
ultimately graduates without a slavish desire for "business
success" and open to the realities of economic life. Ulti-
mately, the child would reach a mature level of "discrim-
inating criticism" and an ability "to direct economic forces
in new channels" as an adult.26
All the while, teachers would serve as "fellow-workers"
in the activities of the student. The child would be con-
tent and self-motivated, making formal disciple unnecessary.
Teachers would present material that is not to be "learned,"
but instead made a part of living. A set of common inter-

ests would then generate out of this process, since sharing

would be an integral part of the entire educational exper-

42
ience. No longer would "success" be determined by the
fulfillment of "egoistic" desires for material and pecuniary
gain. In short, the teacher and the student would discover
a "realization that knowledge is a trust for the furthering
of the well-being of all." Genuine freedom would prevail
as individuals, "in doing each his own work," contribute
to "an equal right to share in the cultural and material
fruits of collective human invention, industry, skill and
knowledge."27

This vision of the school complements Dewey's notion
of a labor-oriented, classless society. Students would
have participatory habits formed at an early age, and dis-
cover a life that is truly egalitarian. Cooperation would
make the old patterns of capitalist competition impossible.
The material culture would be subservient to the needs
of the child, who grows to be a discriminating worker in
control of the laboring environment. A new sense of aware-
ness of the worker's surrounding conditions would thus
begin at a level of interaction of the child with the cur-
riculum. So empowered, and with so many powers at their
disposal, students would feel comfortable cooperating with
teachers and each other.

It is in the schools, therefore, as well as in all
other critical aspects of Dewey's thinking, that one finds
the notion of the "rugged individual" eliminated. He under-
mined the very basis of class domination, and replaced

it with a universal type of cooperative individualism.

43
With the economic system no longer competitive, the laboring
masses found enjoyment in work that heightens intellectual
achievement.

The schools, however, were not simply the application
of some humanitarian effort on the part of Dewey to allevi-
ate the plight of future workers. They did not, for ex-
ample, seek to "adjust" the student to a labor market or
merely to survive under the harsh conditions of a capitalist
society. Nor did Dewey's notion of schooling seek to impart
traditional knowledge of the upper-classes upon the
lower-classes. Instead, his educational theory was part
of his much broader conception of scientific method that
would heighten the masses' sense of actual hardships and
provide a means of attaining economic equality in reality.

More importantly, education reflected Dewey's belief
that society was dominated by an oppressive "democratic"
theory based on purely rational ideals of liberty.
Upper-class businessmen used the schools to indoctrinate
the child into a rigid class hierarchy. The elite
formulated such "ideals" as minimal government, formal

constitutional rights, and laissez-faire competition and

 

presented them "ready-made" to the masses. As we shall

see next, Dewey believed in the previous decade of the

19203 that these basic concepts corresponded to an elaborate
intellectual framework designed by the upper-classes to
maintain their political authority.

It is this continuity between the realities of the

44
depression and the ideological foundations of authority
that make Dewey's 19303 works most valuable. The depression
years illustrate the type of society Dewey had in mind
all along, when he discussed his interactive forms of learn-
ing and his scientific, "instrumentalist" methodology as
a substitute for traditional "Reason." By reading backward,
his more "philosophical" points of a the pre-depression
period acquire a vitality lost when examining his works
chronologically. What is more, the intellectual signif-
icance of the depression may even extend to the Progressive
Era, making Dewey primarily an underclass "revolutionary"

all his life.

Chapter Three

Reason as the Rationalization of Authority

The schools played a highly functional role in Dewey's
vision of a classless society. He advocated the use of
scientific method in determining the subject matter of
the curriculum and the active means by which the child
learned. In this process, the child prepared for a life
of group harmony through cooperation and democratic control
of the means of production. As part of Dewey's broader
social theory, the schools served to rectify the conse-
quences of a competitive socioeconomic order he saw through-
out the country during the depression.

The depression, however, was the result of much more
than a capitalist industrial system gone awry. For Dewey,
the elaborate existing political structure associated "lib-
erty" with property, and often subjected the former to
the rule of the latter. Hence, those already possessing
property maintained a high degree of political authority
over those who depended solely on their labor for their
'livelihood. Property owners stressed the importance of

laissez-faire, and falsely assured the community that

 

"rugged individualism" was a valid vehicle for menial-class

mobility even in the age of industrialization.

45

 

46
By asserting that this manipulation by the state served
only those who controlled the means of production, Dewey's
writings of the '303 focused on the laboring masses. If
one reviews his works of the '203, as will be done in this
chapter, there are few strikingly new ideas. Competitive
individualism was consistently his principal target. He

saw an existing status guo in society, and believed that

 

all traditional philosophy was based on the goal of main-
taining the "place" of individuals in society, especially
those involved with menial skills.

Dewey's full scale works of the 19203, unlike the
essays of the '303, attempt to reveal the philosophical
generalities behind the class oppression he later found
starkly evident during the depression. As a result, in
the '203 he wrote few words pertaining to the injustices
of industrial labor, finance, government reform, manipu-
lation of capital, or an "oligarchy of wealth." Nor did
he address the crumbling forms of democracy that were the
conscious attempts of businessmen to maintain their status.
Quite simply, he did not vigorously elaborate upon the
hardships resulting from "ruggedness."

The works of the '203 do, however, contain elements
of society's class-based, capitalist oppression, though
in a somewhat different style than presented during the
'303. Though Oppression was not evident to the extent
we see during the depression, Dewey made reference to the

same theme repeatedly. He made only occasional references

47
to economics, but still found the entire ideological foun-
dation of the state, western morality, and theory of knowl-
edge to be centered upon class hierarchy. Much of the
work during the '203 is thus devoted to tracing the develop-
ment of modern philosophy, and sketching its intrinsic

"order." More importantly, it demonstrates phi-

forms of
losophy's exclusion of the menial masses.
This historical trend of Western thought embodied
everything that was the antithesis of scientific method.
It was, for Dewey, the systematic repudiation of any form
of questioning the positions of the elite and the
middle—class followers of the elite. The unscientific
methods of traditional philosophy included much more than
a retention of the independent, self-sufficient, and acquis-
itive individual. There was a conscious denial of any
form of uncertainty, such as individual inquiry, group
interaction, or hypothetical knowledge. In this way, cer-
tainty, reason, and authority were mutually reinforcing.
In short, they were a rationalization of class domination.
Dewey's works of the '203 present a differing, but
parallel, form of social realism compared to those of the
'303. In the earlier works, ruggedness is not a condition
of suffering the consequences of economic life, but is
instead a condition of being enveloped in ideological hier-
archy as a static individual. The "place" of the worker,

therefore, is still the concern of his social reconstruc-

tion, though less explicitly stated. There are many points

48
of correspondence in these two eras, making the historical
roots of reason and philosophy worthy of explication.
Dewey's theory of the state provides the most critical
link between his description of the realities of the de-
pression and his already formed hierarchical conception

of society. In The Public and Its Problems (1927) he ex-

 

plained how traditional Western politics deve10ped as a
means of protecting the economic self-interests of the
ruling business classes. These "authorities" formulated
a theoretical distinction between the purely individual
nature of business transactions and the needs of the a
collective "public." On this basis, rulers argued in favor
of a limited government in economic matters, and retained
high ideals of independent political action and represen-
tation. Dewey, however, found a close historical connection
between strictly "private" interests and "public" insti-
tutions in the rise of Western democracy.1

Contrary to many popular understandings of his day,
Dewey believed history proved "ideals" had not, in fact,
created institutions of "democratic" government. "There
is a current legend," he wrote, "that the movement [of
democracy] originated in a single clear-cut idea, and was
preceded by a single unbroken impetus to . . . a predestined
end." The e priori principles of government based on "theo-
ries of the nature of the individual and his rights, of
freedom and authority, progress and order, liberty and

law, of the common good and a general will, of democracy

49

itself" were only a myth. The rise of representative gov-
ernment was instead the product of "scientific and economic
changes which finally took effect in the political field,
being themselves primarily non-political and innocent of
democratic intent."2

The lofty notions of democracy were only the result,
or the reflection in thought, of more practical concerns
of society. Specifically, there was a revolt against auto-
cratic government and monarchy, giving birth to a deep
desire to reduce government itself "to a minimum so as
to limit the evil it could do." Many of the surrounding
institutions which had traditionally unified society, such
as the church, were associated with the oppressive govern-
ments, and were categorically rejected in democratic intel-
lectual currents. Consequently, "freedom presented itself
as an end in itself" and became exclusive of any other
considerations of equality during the great "movements
of revolt" throughout Europe. The chief desire was to
minimize government. Thus "'individualism' was born, a
theory which endowed singular persons in isolation from
any associations, except those which they deliberately
formed for their own ends, with native or natural rights."3

In this context, John Locke's "contract theory" of
the state found a welcoming audience during the tumultuous,
individualistic reforms of seventeenth-century England.

It became the basis of subverting the authority of oppres-

sion to the autonomous will of the individual. It was

50
premised on the notion that the individual existed alone
in a pristine state of nature, and only gradually entered
a collective agreement with the state. "Though worthless
as a record of fact, [the theory was] of great worth as
a symptom of the direction of human desire." The state
became the medium of satisfying human needs "by human in-

tention and volition,"

not by the predetermined ideals
of an aristocracy.4

Dewey fully endorsed these liberating elements of
contractual political theory, though rejected the concept
of natural rights because of a parallel historical develop-
ment. The rise of modern science, fostered by the dis-
coveries in physics made by Francis Bacon during the Ren—
aissance, paved the way for an age of mechanical inventions.
Rather than providing social benefits, however, Bacon's
discoveries fueled individualism. Once machinery was put
to use in production and commerce, there followed "the
creation of new[,] powerful social conditions, personal
opportunities and wants." In essence, the burgeoning pro-
ductive capacity of the machine gave way to an age of eco-
nomic acquisition. Monarchical governments, however, con-
tinued to restrict the individual's acts by enforcing feudal
guild associations and the vestiges of a barter and trade
system, while opposing a system of private profit. To
reverse this dichotomy, Adam Smith, in the eighteenth cen-
tury, formulated economic "laws" in which labor "springing

from natural wants and leading to the creation of wealth"

51
demanded "natural" government of individualism that would
unleash the potentials of science.
Modern political theory, therefore, may have relieved
society of autocracy, but it simultaneously justified ex-
cessive material wealth on the basis of "science." "The

economic theory of laissez-faire,‘ equating personal profit

 

with social benefits, "readily fused with the doctrine
of natural rights." Governmental power came to protect
profit, and, in addition, profit came to protect and utilize
government. Kings then consolidated and centralized their
power to increase their own revenues. Later, in industrial
times, the same phenomenon manifested itself "when modes
of private business become 'affected with a public interest'
because of quantitative expansion" in the form of monopoly.
The "democratic" state, therefore, actually acted in an
oppressive manner that subordinated the individual while
supposedly providing rights. So equipped, "new governmental
agencies were grasped and used to suit the desires" of
a "new class of business men."6
Thus, the early founders of democracy, including those
who framed the American Constitution, did not base their
ideas on objective, e priori doctrines. The movement toward
popular government proceeded from "technological discover-
ies" that brought "change in the customs by which men had
been bound together." For this reason, Dewey declared

that "there is no sanctity in universal suffrage, frequent

elections, majority rule, congressional and cabinet govern-

52
ment." Such institutional forms only expedited the useful
"departure from antecedent custom and law." The doctrines
exuding from natural rights, however, were "political
war-cries . . . in justifying some particular practical

polity struggling for recognition,"

7

namely, acquisitive
economic individualism.
In addition to the mere "pragmatic need" of these
ideals, they were "asserted to be absolute truths of human
nature or of morals." As time progressed, these truths
lived to "cumber the political grounds" since they were
unable to respond to the collectivism emerging in mechan-
ized, industrial production. They effectively discredited
any notion of a government based on the interaction of
individuals. This dichotomy resulted in "a stratification
of society into immemorial classes within which each person
performed his stated duties according to his fixed
position." The public became subservient to its officials.
Officials ensured that politics were subservient to leig;

sez-faire economics. All involved parties fostered a busi-

 

ness-dominated, hierarchical, and competitive class order.8
What is more, this framework was designed by its cre-

ators, and henceforth endorsed by its participants, to

keep the producers on the bottom rails of society. All

intellectual aspects of the new democratic theory were

based on a philosophy of "reason" and were a conscious

scheme to maintain hierarchy. Menial individuals in an

industrial age participated in an agrarian political process

53
based on capital, and was grounded in principles of epis-
temology, morality, and unscientific methodology that left
them powerless. Hence, in Dewey's mind the existing polit-
ical structure subordinated not only the social status
of the lower classes, but their intellectual status as
well.

The specious equality provided by the notion of natural
rights was overlooked due to a traditional belief in care-
fully deduced principles of guiding "truth." As a somewhat
arbitrary object of philosophy, truth made itself supreme
in "judgment concerning authoritative value." It ignored
the "practical character" of philosophy by not considering
the bearing of theory upon practice. It became a philo-
sophical means of supporting preexisting "moral habits"
of what was good or bad, right or wrong. More importantly,
it "acquired a definite social and political value . . .
of a higher class directly associated with the ruling
elements in the society." Antithetical, "experimental"
knowledge, which was most often the possession of "workers

and craftsmen,"

portance.9

was hastily denied any philosophical im-

Ultimate values of truth developed not in terms of
providing a "good" for all, as many philosophers claimed,
but in an acquisitive, self-seeking sense. A preindustrial,
medieval conception of a religious individual seeking sal-
vation was transferred to more secular elements of political

and intellectual thought during industrialization. With

54

this "underlying" acquisitiveness of religion already in
place, "the power of the established institutions proceeded
from the . . . supreme end of the individual," that is,
the desire for wealth. Hence, the upper classes added
changing views on religion to their "fusion of individual
capitalism, of natural rights, and of morals founded in
strictly individual traits and values." The philosopher's
conception "of all things that make life worth while" cor—
responded to this amalgamation by generating moral ideals
"as a special kind of action chiefly concerned with either
the virtues or the enjoyments of individuals in their per—
sonal capacities."1O

As this type of reasoning became a justification for
personal wants, and as politics were framed accordingly,
the upper class of thinkers fabricated a conception of
individualistic psychology as well. "The very structure
of the individual," even in a non-political sense, was
considered inherently oppositional to any "associations"
with other beings. The eighteenth—century defined psychol-
ogy as "an introspective and introverted account of isolated
and ultimate private consciousness." Personal consciousness
became identified with mind itself, or the ego, rather
than as interaction with the surrounding social environment.
It was easy, therefore, for authorities to justify a polit-
ical theory that made the invidious individual "the court
of ultimate resort."11

Philosophy even extended the notion of a "closed mind"

55

"in-

into a fixed, rigid view of nature. Philosophers and
telligent men of olden times" put their trust in "a closed
world, a world consisting internally of a limited number
of fixed forms and having definite boundaries externally."
Contrary to the "open world" of modern scientific method,
they thought and imagined "a limited number of classes,
kinds, forms, distinct in quality . . . and arranged in
a graded order of superiority and inferiority." In this
"definitely closed universe," the "self-involved revolution
of mind" turned upon "its own ideal axis of reason." With
little variation permitted in nature, the social ideal
prescribed was that "each individual has a fixed career
to pursue." Pre-arranged into distinct classes, the "castes
of nature" were constituted on an "aristocratic, one can
truly say a feudal, plan."12
Thus, the emerging political patterns of "democracy"
had a long heritage in the traditions of Western thought.
Even as early as ancient Greece, however, Dewey found a
pervasive, upper-class repudiation of the empirical knowl-
edge of artisans that did not correspond to truth. The
Greeks created an ideological realm of "technical and ab-
stract" philosophy to support distinctions of birth and
privilege. Classic thought was embedded in a process of
"holding" rules of conduct and service "to an inferior"
while granting authority to one of "superior" capacities.

Even ancient "science,' while apparently empirical, de-

veloped "laws" of nature as an explanation of the patterns

56

that "govern" the relation of the ruler to the ruled.
Hence, there was a "reading [of] social relationships into
nature" through ideological concepts "impregnated with
a sense of guiding . . . influence from above on what is
naturally inferior."13

In this way, the ancients deceptively made "the reason
of things" a veil of autocratic social custom. They
claimed, as did Socrates, that all tradition was subject
to question, since man was a "questioning being" because
he was intrinsically a "rational" being. Dewey, however,
argued that rationality was a false precept of investigation
because it ignored actual circumstance, and was in fact
"a method of thought and knowledge which while purifying
tradition . . . preserve[d] its moral and social values."
Its work "was critical and in the interests of the only
true conservatism," namely, that of preserving the value
of hierarchical order. Reason became "the leading theme
of the classic philosophy . . . and [was] restated by the
Christian philosophy of Medieval Europe.14

Even subsequent discoveries in science did not alter
this symbiotic relationship of rationality, scientific
law, and society. Sir Isaac Newton, for example, despite
his great experimental challenges to "natural" science
in the seventeenth century, was not fundamentally an em-
piricist. He employed mathematical calculations to physical

objects to reveal that objects were not ultimately "known"

in pure thought, as was traditionally held, but were known

57
from the human senses. Experimentation, dependent upon
direct human observation, was therefore a necessity in
any endeavor of knowledge. In this manner, he avoided
the determinism of scientific "law" by arguing "whatever
is not derived from phenomena is to be called a hypothesis,"

not an element of "truth." Curiously, however, Newton

believed ultimate physical realities,’ understandable
only in the mind, shared common qualities with sensibly
perceived things. For this reason he postulated the maxim
that matter must contain irreducible, insensible particles
in its composition.15
Dewey believed this qualification in Newton's empiri-

cism was part of a deep desire to see that "nature may

 

be lasting." In fear of discovering the natural world

was in "chaos," Newton imparted a degree of permanence

on all "the various separations and new associations and
motions" in the universe. Dewey concluded that this arti-
ficial "guarantee" was a retention of "the old notion that
reality . . . must consist of those fixed immutable things
which philOSOphy calls substances." It was a continuation
of the Greek belief that "only the certain and exact is
knowledge." Science may therefore have altered many of
its rational "principles" through the ages, but "the pro-
cedures and conclusions of experimental knowing" were ulti-
mately dictated by the restrictive, deductive patterns

16

of tradition.

Newton's conception of particle matter, defined by

58

mathematical properties, even made "ultimate principles"
of the rational mind the guide to what egglg possibly be
found experimentally. Ideals, not pertaining to observable
reality, became the primary source of all knowledge. The
test of direct observation was reduced to "identifying
objects" within properties "previously employed." The
place of all things could be predicted, and two centuries
later, despite the success of truly empirical science in
overturning the dogmatism of rationality, "this conception
of knowledge still dominates thought in social and moral
matters." On the political side, it accrued "adherents
of order and organization, those who feel that reason alone
gives security."17

On the philosophical side, reason reflected a motion
toward defining the "real" of all existence antecedently.

' wrote Dewey, from what it con-

"Philosophy hurries away,’
ceived as "gross experience" so that "it has no surprises
in store, . . . [and] that it will stay put." The great
sages of the past possessed the "predilection for mathe-
matical objects" and predictable phenomena:
Spinoza with his assurance that a true idea carries
truth intrinsic in its bosom; Locke with his 'simple
idea'; Hume with his 'impression'; the English
nee-realist with his ultimate atomic data; the American
neo-realist with his ready-made essences.
With such epistemological, or knowledge-based, certainty,
philosophy became a means of protecting the social order.

‘Hence, all the traits that were desirable, such as nobility

and permanence, were made into the notion of "real Being."

 

59

The philosopher, "belonging by status to a leisure class
relieved from the urgent necessity of dealing with con-
ditions," portrayed life as good, "something which i ,
even if it does not exigt."18

It is precisely this fallacy which political theorists
made in their formulation of the "democratic state." They
postulated that there were fixed properties, inherent to
the individual, which could not be altered through societal
interaction or group association. The nature of the state
was therefore devised e priori upon the "natural" aims,
functions, and limits of the individual. The state became
an entity existing in and of itself, and derived from ante-
cedently determined "state-forming forces" such as the
"general will." The state was theoretically isolated from
the vicissitudes of everyday society, and, as Dewey would
later argue in the '303, from the needs of the populace
as well. The government, as the manifest form of the state,
could be questioned and even overthrown by its constituents,
but ultimately the ruling classes retained their philosoph-
ical justification of power. In the machine age, the state

effectually came "to legalize and idealize the status quo"
"19

 

of an extensive "pecuniary culture.
In addition to the e priori means of conceiving ideas,

the "teleological" nature of traditional metaphysics con-

tributed to philosophical hierarchy. The notion of what

the ancients called "the Good" consisted of a set of "first"

principles, in keeping with truth, upon which all ideals

60

rested. These principles corresponded to what existed
in "ultimate Being" and allowed for such rational types
of mental functions as logic and Euclidian geometry. It
is along these lines that Aristotle devised a system that
later generations termed his "First Philosophy." A number
of "certain and finished" ends supposedly furnished all
existence with "a fixation of ranks or grades of necessity
and contingency so sorted that necessity measures dignity
and equals degree of reality." It was these highest, "nat-
ural ends" of teleology that made the universe predictable,
or in Dewey's understanding "static," by providing a "final
causation" to all occurances.20

The graded ranks of teleology provided a consoling
ideology "to those who enjoy[ed] a privileged status."
In a "systematic way" the classic philosophies of Being
were given "with malice prepense." They were responsible,
Dewey felt, for an enduring separation of theory and prac-
tice, and a division between the "ultimate aims" of phi-
losophy and the actualities of their repeated failure.
Among those with "leisure and the aptitude to pursue their
preference" that mind is complete and self-sufficient,
came a disparaging view of everyday activity. The artisans
caught in the affairs of implementing teleological first
principles were made to feel personally deficient if there
emerged any practical flaws or frustrations. Though these
aspects of traditional philosophy were nominally extinct

in the twentieth century, they continued "to influence,

61

unconsciously, the minds of those who no longer give intel—
lectual assent" to their tenets. Dewey did not specify
"the minds" to which he alluded, but he pointed to the
"familiar grading of activities from the servile . . .
to the liberal, the free and socially esteemed."21

In this context, the state became an everlasting ideal
of what egght to be. The operations of the body politic
were attributed to a "direct causative power" dependent
upon nature. Should one disagree with the outcome of these
forces, especially pertaining to socioeconomic class, there
were no grounds for disagreement. Based on individualistic
premises "explained in terms of an 'essence' of man real—
izing itself," traditional philosophy premised a flourishing
democracy upon a society unhampered by government inter-
ference.22

As unjust as teleology may be, it went unnoticed be-
cause of its seemingly "nature" foundations. Notions of
"the isolated individual possessed of inherent rights"

as well as "the idea of economic laws" were therefore "

a
skew, a defection and distortion, in democratic forms."

They did not allow, believed Dewey, for the more associative
qualities of human organization. They resulted in an in-
vidious economic system, one which was more properly termed
"artificial" than natural. They "supplied the manmade
instrumentalities by which the new governmental agencies
were grasped and used to suit the desires of the new class

of business men [sic]." The e priori state, as a good

62

' allowed this class "to form constitutions

or true state,’
offhand and impose them ready-made on peoples." The state
became monolithic, and prevented "the use of intelligence
to judge consequences."23
It was therefore the element of control, indirectly
relating to government and politics, that became the prin-
cipal aim of the upper classes. Ideologically, there
emerged a striving toward the regulation of all uncertain-
ties, all contingencies natural and social. The empirical
activities, and potential factual discoveries, of the common
artisan or laborer were systematically prevented from making
any intellectual incursions into the first principles of
authoritative science. Hence, philosophy, beginning with
Aristotle, developed a "bias in favor of the fixed, certain
and finished." Any changes that could be readily observed
were associated with "degrees of deficiency in Being."
It became "the genteel tradition" to identify what was
fixed and regular with a superior quality, while "asserting
that change is illusory."24
Philosophy even sought to constrict the very conduct
of individuals through rigid ethical theories based on
some "final end or good." The feudal organization of the
past that consisted of a "bounded, ordered cosmos" passed
on a tradition that "the irregularity of special cases"
in the moral decision-making process necessitated "the

guidance of conduct by universals." As a result, "the

urgency and pressure of 'lower' ends" were "covered up

63

by polite conventions." The ulterior motive was "that
the [elite] few might be free to attend to the goods that
are really or intrinsically worth while [sic]." Yet these
"so-called intrinsic goods" remained "divorced from those
interests of daily life which because of their constancy
and urgency form the preoccupation of the great mass" of
people.25

Thus, the uncertainty of daily "experience" among
the common folk was the element most antithetical to the
rational, determinative philosophy of the upper classes.
Reason became a function of thought "outside experience
and above it to supply assured principles to science and
conduct." Like Newton's atoms in nature, the particulars
of incidents were subordinated to a set of pre-established
kinds, or rational categories. The individual's actions
remained within "a certain organized ability in action."
The idealism of formal philosophy was thus socially in-
variable.26

This fundamental division between the contingent world
of reality and the world of the mind was the fountain from
which the upper classes drew their "source of oppression."

The "refined objects of reflection,"

supposedly confirmed
by natural science, were used "to describe a path by which
some goal is designated or denoted." In this process,
however, the intricacies of experience itself went unob-
served and consequently held no place in the formation

of "rational" ideas. New "problems,' which Dewey found

64

within "yhet men do and suffer, EQQE they strive for, love,
believe and endure, and also get men act," may arise, but
only to be dealt with through more categorizing and syste-
matization.27

The traditional theory of mind, dependent upon its
own internal functions in isolation from events, led to
the classic separation of a knowing subject and a known
object. Positively, this division was a necessary step
toward a more dispassionate analysis of nature, leading
to the genesis of true science that opposed the human mis-
leading predilection for mores, customs, and rites. Nega-
tively, Dewey found one very detrimental consequence in
this development. Pure, reflective discovery was intel-
lectually linked to the notion of a self-sufficient mind
capable of operating without considering other thinking
beings. The irrational, "subjective" element was taken
out of primary experience by empirical science, but further
weight was added to the individualism that was rapidly
becoming the centerpiece of all social and political
thought. As a result, science EE£.§2 began a course toward
objectivity and interaction, while the resulting social

institutions as a whole floundered in a dark age of sub-

. . . 28
jective e_prior1ty.

Finally, the hierarchical basis of epistemology, ex-
perience, conduct, and political theory was supplemented
by an acquisitive theory of apprehension. Learning became

entirely dependent upon reflective and "grasping" ante-

65
cedently derived theories. Practice and activity, involving

more attention to circumstantial conditions, were disparag-
ingly considered "menial" among philosophers. Hence, the
"exaltation of pure intellect . . . [was] fundamentally
connected with the quest for a certainty which shall be
absolute and unshakable." The "liberal arts," consisting
of such studies as grammar and rhetoric, were carefully
distinguished from the arts dependent upon the practical
master of a craft. The liberal arts took precedence among
"those who were to be in some position of authority, occu-
pied with some exercise of social rule." The use of physi-
cal materials and tools was completely eliminated from
the schools, while the preponderance of intellectual "facul-
ties" ensured the continuation and domination of the
"learned professions."29
Once again, the schools correSponded closely to Dewey's
broader social theory. In his historical analysis, they
serve the upper classes as a capstone to a hierarchical
social order. They reflect the traditional belief in the
supremacy of rationality, used to benefit all classes except
those performing productive labor. Reason, with its "first
principles" and intricate deductions, invalidated the wor-
thiness of activity by finding a pre-existing "order" to
nature. It was on this basis that "natural" rights were
founded, leading to the construction of a state of "democ-
racy" that only nominally preserved civil rights. Mean-

while, those who succeeded in an "individualistic" manipu-

66

lation of property slighted law and authority in favor
of preserving their own social status. The menial masses
were left epistemologically vacant, politically deceived,
and economically poor.

So poor, in fact, that if a complete depression struck
a "democracy" such as America, the results could be devas—
tating. If the machine age brought the masses down to
a substandard level of income, as it would in the '303,
there were no institutions, either legal or political,
that could restore prosperity. The entire socioeconomic
structure revolved around preserving the wealth and status
of the upper classes. The lower classes were led to believe
that there was no alternative to the "rational" doctrines
of acquisition and competition. In Dewey's mind, therefore,
the hardships of the Great Depression were the cataclysmic
extension of Western intellectual history. "Rugged indi-
'vidualism" was nothing more than the e priori reasoning
intended to maintain the "fixed position" of the menial
masses.

It was impossible, Dewey felt, to break the pattern
<1f history by arguing for another "ideal" of democracy.
1TH; very means of formulating any formal conception of
equality were themselves hierarchical, since only the upper
cihasses were involved. What was needed, therefore, was
a numre empirical, truly scientific methodology that was
INJt derived from a "social order" in the natural world.

Onlat then would knowledge become accessible to the masses,

67

and ideas of economics and government be really democratic.

Chapter Four

Science as Method and the Birth
of Associative Living

Dewey's historical analysis illustrated what he per-
ceived to be the repressive nature of all philosophy.

Not only was western thought premised on the notion of
hierarchy, but it also systematically kept the menial indi-
vidual at the very base of the hierarchical structure.
"Reason" was among the vagaries of a leisure class of phi-
losophers, fabricated to prevent any lower-class realization
of upper-class domination and usurpation. It was the rea-
soning mind that justified the deceptive notion of a "nat-
ural" harmony in the universe, and the corresponding "order"
in legal rights based on property. So too did reason pro-
vide economic "laws," gaving birth to competition. From
thie world of "first principles" came a conception of "demo-
cracy" founded upon an isolated individual--isolated not
only from any governmental institution, but from other
individuals as well.

In this class—based ideology, there was no connection
with the realities of common experience and the consequences
of ideas. Dewey therefore concluded that the philosophy
of reason was nothing more than a product of imagination

68

69
and fancy. It was part of the mind's primordial, self-pre—
serving capacity to overlook the hardships of existence
while dreaming of a better future. Founded in ancient
times, it was refined down through the ages and presented
ready-made to artisans and common folk. America's Consti-
tution was its modern manifestation. Reason was syste-
matically removed from any questioning, and was more of
a mental habit than true thinking. With such a hiatus
between theory and practice, it was small wonder the
"reason" behind the economic hardships of the Great De-
pression went unnoticed.

This chapter will present Dewey's reconstruction of
social philosophy by examining how he reversed the
upper-class pattern of employing "pure thought" in the
formulation of ideas. His theory of knowledge stressed
the actualities of existence in the creation and
implementation of ideas. In this way, he sought to give
epistemological validity to the direct analysis of the
social consequences of ideas-in-action. No longer would
the everyday living of the lower classes be associated
with foreordained ideals of what is "right." Consequently,
philosophy could bring the center of intellectual authority
down.to the level of the menial masses. The path toward
genuine democracy could then be opened, since the upper
classes could no longer justify property manipulation and
rugged individualism to maintain their political control.

In order to break the ideological pattern of imposing

70
teleological "truths" from above, Dewey substituted scien-
tific "method" for rationality. He believed that the his-
tory of science illustrated the importance of the empirical,
"trial-and-error" approach in understanding natural phe-
nomena. Furthermore, modern scientific discoveries, many
of which occurred as recently as the twentieth century,
undeniably proved the inherent ttcertainty of nature.
Now the work of philosophy would be simply to transpose
uncertainty and experimentation into the realm of social
science. The certainty of hierarchical "order"--in reality
only a thin disguise of upper-class rule-~would thus become
a thing of the past. Physical activity, demanding careful
observation and testing, would ensure a constant effort
among all to recognize alternatives to the artifical theor-
ies of competitiveness.

Once oriented to the masses, the new approach in philo-
sophy would eliminate the "individualistic" basis of poli-
tics and economics. Method would entail the recognition
of many other objects beyond the realm of first principles.
In economics, method would end the slavish adherence to
the guiding "laws" of Adam Smith that made personal wants
the basis of a rational system. By definition, therefore,
method would intrinsically embody the needs of others.

The individual who employs empirical thinking, in the form
of doing, would necessarily be less competitive and more
Ihumanitarian. In politics, activity would ensure that

no leaders claimed a right to authority due to their

 

 

71
"natural" superiority.

Dewey knew the workers under the capitalist system
already lived a life of activity, and would readily adopt
these new patterns of thinking and activity. In so doing,
they would see themselves as part of a collective endeavor,
more precisely conceived as "conjoint associated living."
In Dewey's vision, therefore, the menial masses would not
merely be placed on an equal intellectual footing with
any other class. They would be raised to a new level of
cooperation among themselves. Eventually, the lower classes
would expand to include everyone who once used capital,
politics, and authoritative ideology to manipulate pro-
ducers.

At base, this new "conjoint individualism" rests upon
an infusion of everyday experience into what was tradition-
ally considered the exclusive realm of thought. In this

approach, ideas become directive of action rather than

 

prescriptive. Though this distinction may appear subtle,

 

for Dewey it made a fundamental shift toward what the indi-
vidual actually ggee, rather than what gtght to be done.
The mind no longer automatically responds to predetermined
value of each physical phenomenon encountered. Hence,

the individual discovers an independent course of action
emerging out of the situation itself. The individual ap-
preciates the many aspects of what Dewey termed the "pri-
mary," or actual, experience of any circumstance by pro—

voking a continual stream of adjustments in the mind in

 

72

order to better guide action. Thought, therefore, is always
"organically" connected to the realities of experience
itself. In fact, thought becomes only a "secondary" form
of experience.2

On this basis, "nature" includes the "contingent,"
less certain aspects of existence rather than only what
is immutable and unchanging. Such things as "reverie and
desire" are necessary considerations among ideals. Hence,
"the phenomena of social life are as relevant to the problem
of the relation of the individual and universal as are
those of logic." The factors denied philosophical validity
by teleology, factors of "ignorance as well as of wisdom,
of error and even insanity," gain recognition in the mind
instead of pure "truth." No longer are defects of society
"explained away" by the philosophical derogation of "mere
'appearance'" by means of what is "ttgyg." Reality is
instead judged according to its particular context, and
the newly perceived "subject-matter" will lead to a more
desirable social consequences.3

In this manner, reflective thought prepares for the
diversity of all occurrence, and becomes adaptative to
what is changing, temporal, and partial. This "denotative"
or "empirical" method, in recognizing the particulars of
existence, assumes the "starting point" of thought to be

"the actually problematic, and that the problematic phase

 

resides in some actual and specifiable situation." In

no instance is there "any jump outside empirical, natural

 

 

73

objects and their relations." Reason is incorporated into
mental analysis, as is pure thought, but neither one is
granted any specific or superior powers. In essence, Dewey
summarized denotative method as "a continuous process of
reorganization" the minds thoughts and "dissolving" past
intellectual habits by clearing the "cloud over the things
of ordinary experience."4

Dewey was careful, however, to include the use of
general ideas in his epistemology. But his works maintain
that generalities are not definitive, since the source
of ideas, namely experience, is not so certain as to become
predictable by an idea. Experience is not, however, so
contingent that the mind may directly assimilate subject
matter. Such an attempt would revive the "determinism"
of the same "sense-data" upon which Newton developed his
view of nature. Instead, Dewey combined a speculative
"plan of action," evaluated against a backdrop of partic-
ulars, in his notion of a general idea. Ideas and abstrac-
tions serve to reduce the number of variables in a situ-
ation, to clarify uncertainties, and to act as guides to
revising the mind's initial formulations. In this way,
he qualified his empiricism as "experimental" in order
to distinguish it from traditional empiricism, which sub-
verts experience to rational principles.5

All the while, direct observation of an idea's conse-
quences remains foremost in defining and judging knowledge

under the denotative method. The "actual procedure and

 

74

the results of knowing" carry greater significance than
the old "properties" of mind and knowledge that were deter-
mined antecedently. Observation, therefore, is part of
the "testing" of an essentially theoretical scheme. This
ensures that the conception of an idea returns to the par-
ticulars of experience. The data from observation is not
absorbed, but processed for the sake of altering old ideas.
The observer, therefore, does not "understand" through
apprehending, in the sense of a mental grasping, but rather
through constructing or developing. Hence, Dewey believed
"nature is intelligttte and understandette. There are
operations by means of which it becomes an object of knowl-
edge, and is turned to human purposes."6

These processes of knowledge and direct observation
are clearly reciprocal operations. Knowledge is scrutinized
until it may be verified through successful "interaction"
with the environment. If knowledge does not correspond
with observed phenomena, it is rejected. Meanwhile, new
ideas and theories present new predictions about the en-
vironment, which in turn promote innovative "inquiries"
into verification. In short, the subject-matter of ex-
;xerience "called respectively sensible and conceptual are
seen to be complementary in effective direction of inquiry
to an intelligible conclusion." Though this process of
knowing might be familiar to the scientist in the labor-
atory, it requires no Special skill. The direct social

:hnplication is that knowledge becomes the possession of

 

75

all. In fact,

the poet may know stars, rain and clouds as well as

the meteorologist; the statesman, educator and dra-

matist may know human nature as truly as the profes-

sional psychologist; the farmer may know soils and. 7

plants as truly as the botanist and mintrologist [Sic].

Observation and inquiry, as part of the denotative
method, both become the basis for Dewey's broader concept
of "intelligence." Intelligence signifies, quite simply,
"operations actually performed in the modification of con—
ditions, including all the guidance that is given by means
of ideas, both direct and symbolic." It is more than,
say, the mere quantity of ideas held in the mind or the
mental ability to manipulate the outcome of an event.
It requires not only physical concepts, but "human values
in behalf of a human interest" to regulate the consequences
of an act. It does not allow, for example, a blind appli-
cation of physics in improving factory production without
considering the worker, who would otherwise might become
"an attachment to a machine for a number of hours a day"
with no influence over his circumstances.8

The realm of ideas and concepts, traditionally con-

"re-

sidered pure thought, are now of value only for their
lational" capacity to experience. An idea may even carry
the import of an experience that is not actually performed;
hence Dewey's definition of a "symbol." Whether gestures,
words, or elaborate mathematical constructions, symbols

embody experiments which do not "commit us to actual or

existential consequences." Representing the result of

 

76
an occurrence or interaction, symbols help the mind envision
a situation without encumbrances and irrelevancies. They
are derived from the comprehensive "local context" of ex-
perience. It is therefore a fallacy on the part of "intel-
lectual specialists" to consider symbols as merely arbitrary
objects, and relating to each other only as such. A symbol
may reveal a relation in thought "independent of the in-
stances in which it is overtly exemplified, although its

meaning is found only in the ppssibility of these actual-

 

izations."9

Conceptualizations, and their logical extensions,
ideals, have a similar function. They serve as models
of a desired end, and help prescribe the means to its real-
ization. There are no transcendental or immutable char-
acteristics to an ideal, only indications "that tt one
is to attain a specified result one must conform to the
conditions which are means of securing this result." The
ideal is grounded in the concrete of experience and contains
relationships that are identifiable in, though not derived
from, the mind. These relationships may be analyzed through
deduction, but at no point are they held in isolation from
their actual implementation. The ideal thus involves dis-
crete processes bearing a "serial relation" to one another.
The purpose of deduction and of a rational mind is to iden-
tify the possible combinations of relations and the effects
of those relations upon outcomes. The aim is not merely

internal elaboration and consistency.10

77

These main tenets of Dewey's epistemology of method,
later presented in his educational ideas of the 19303,
were directly aimed at liberating the individual from hier-
archical intellectual and social control. Since knowledge
derives from the mind's reconstructing of experiences,
people "do not tend to think when their action, when they
are amid difficulties, is dictated to them by authority."
This fact, unfortunately, was

too true of most workingmen under present economic

conditions. Difficulties occasion thinking only when

thinking is the imperative or urgent way out, only

when it is the indicated road to a solution. Wherever

external authority reigns, thinking is suspected and
obnoxious.

Dewey therefore believed the capitalist system did not
allow for intelligent inquiry. The upper classes made
thought the "the habit of treating observation as something
outside of and prior to thinking,"

and thinking as something which can go on in the head
without including observation of new facts . . . It
leads to that type of Idealism which has well been
termed intellectual somnambulism. It creates a class
of 'thinkers' who are remote from practice and hence
from the testing their thought by applicatign--a
socially superior and irresponsible class.

 

The experimental, or denotative, method of knowledge
leads to a more democratic theory of political power.
It imputes a continual degree of political awareness upon
the individual, since "it implies a direct challenge to
all authority, due to a dependence on concrete verifica-
tion." Leadership and governmental forms, if based on
method, would not be conceived as implements of a good,

or true, state using constitutional axioms. Instead, "di-

78

versity of political forms rather than uniformity" would
be the rule. States would "'grow' or develop instead of
being made," and therefore would generate out of the needs
of those who were traditionally ignored by rational phi-
losophy. The purpose of law whould not be to restrict

the individual, but "to forecast and estimate all conse-
quences, establish certain dikes and channels so that act-
ions are confined within prescribed limits, and insofar

have moderately predictable consequences. In this man-

ner, the invalid government of "law and order, so clearly

visable in the depression years, would be replaced by the
"authority" of method.14
Stripped of its legal and institutional dogmatism,
the state would be more accessible to critical inquiry.
The individual would reveal the relationships between the
state and the populace, and thus understand how activity
may be directed toward humanitarian ends. The working
classes would not only reap the benefits of basic economic
security, but would also become integral participants in
governmental operations.15
More broadly, Dewey suggested that his methodology
would heighten the workers' awareness not only of politics,
but of economic matters as well. No longer would the upper
classes wield an unfair advantage through knowledge of
economic laws and capital. In addition, notions of liberty

and fairness would not be developed and adhered to for

the sake of preserving status. Economic ideals would in-

79
stead be formulated outside of any support for the system
of capitalism, and would thus be attuned to the actual
needs of all. There would be more general prosperity,
rather than the human "passion for wealth" so evident during‘
the depression. The primary beneficiaries of this alter-

native to laissez-faire is the worker, who would no longer

 

be subjected to an "open play of class interests" by the
covert manipulation of capital. In short, Dewey's "democ-
racy" is oriented toward empowerment and mobility, not
toward the socioeconomic "place" of the menial individual.
So, too, is Dewey's epistemology the basis of a society
no longer wracked by the upper-class, individualistic de-
sires that accompany laissez-faire capitalism. Those frus-
trated by economic competition would enjoy a psychological
emancipation, or liberation, from the endless quest for
material and pecuniary gain. History, after all, demon-
strated "that the desires, aims and standards of satisfac-
tion which the dogma of 'natural' economic processes and
laws are themselves socially conditioned phenomena." The
use of scientific method in philosophy, politics, and eco-
nomics could simply restructure cultural institutions and
customs on the basis of cooperative desires instead of
acquisitive ones. Society would thus slough off the out-
moded agrarian habits of independence, and adopt the modern,
industrial character of interdependence based on wide—scale
exchange of materials and labor.16

Dewey's method, in eliminating the intellectual foun-

80
dation of an upper-class, profit economy, would lead to
an egalitarian class structure. Yet it also, he believed,
would interject a large measure of sharing among all indi-
viduals, thereby creating a shared culture. Philosoph-
ically, the change in knowledge from "contemplative to
operative" signified "that the prime function of philosophy

is that of rationalizing the possibilities of experience,

 

especially collective human experience." The old notion
of mind as a "passive" receptacle of knowledge limited
the individual's conception of experience as something
from which to take in, or fulfill personal wants. When
the conception of mind involves an inquiring, generative
tool, however, the individual actively turns knowing and
experiencing into acts of giving out, or fulfilling the
needs of others. Since there is nothing inherently ac-
quisitive about the nature of human beings, philosophy
could employ method to change the motives of the individ—
ual's productive capacities.17
Once sharing is the basis of society, the menial masses
would not be the sole beneficiaries of empirical method-
ology. The former manipulators of knowledge would lose
their desire for excessive wealth. The upper-classes,
like their menial counterparts, become more in control
of their own acts as the individualistic character of
society declines. Invidious wants would be replaced by
a collective want to help society as a whole and diffuse

the benefits of scientific knowing. In short, the "new

 

81

individualism" of sharing would lead to "a more general
equitable distribution of the elements of understanding
and knowledge in connection with work done, activities
undertaken, and a consequent freer [sic] and more generously
shared participation in their results."18

Denotative method, once applied to economics and the
state, would thus lead to the ability to control wants.
Selfish desires, preconceived in the mind, would no longer
determine the individual's actions. If a desire led to
actions that have readily observable detriments, it would
be empirically disregarded. Dewey carried this "plastic"
nature of human action even one step further by arguing
that the individual seeks to fulfill a desire ggty if the
consequences are socially positive.19

The individual would then discover himself as an in-
separable member of a group, or as part of "conjoint act-
ion." The associations in which one participates would
mold ones desires, values, and even emotions. Society,
in keeping with the trends of industrialization, would
become an infinite overlapping of all human interactions.
As the wants and needs of people varied, so too would the
very ideals of the state and its corresponding government.
The static "abstraction" of the state could never satisfy
this condition of constant flux. Society must be in a
constant socialization process, encompassing "the reflex

modification of wants, beliefs and work because of share

in a united action." In fact, such a state would be as

82

natural as "the baby seeks the breast and the breast is
there to supply its need."20

Clearly, Dewey believed that as the old forms of indi-
vidualism dissolved, so too would the distinctions among
groups within society. His reconstruction of traditional
epistemology therefore carried implications far beyond
the subject of knowledge pet ee. It extended into the
realm of political theory and economics. It began as an
alternative to e priori reasoning, and continued as a hu-
manitarian concern for others. It was thus a way of ensur-
ing that the needs of the menial classes, who experienced
the consequences of ideas first hand, were recognized in
the very formulation of ideas. Yet he also provided an
outlet for the upper classes who, as a result, sought more
selfless ends. In short, methodology not only empowered
the lower classes, but it raised and expanded them to in-
clude the former upper classes.

It is precisely this concern for altering the basis
of individualism that unifies Dewey's social theory of
the 19203 with his works in the 19303. Society did not
take his prescriptions of the '203 seriously, or at least
not seriously enough. It is for this reason he responded
so vehemently to the Great Depression. He realized in
the '30s that, had his methodology been employed, class
manipulation would have been non-existent and the hardships
of the poor avoided. Individualism, manifested in the

"individualistic" forms of pure thought in the '203, became

83
the individualistic manipulation of capital in the '303.
It is, therefore, no surprise he proclaimed "rugged" indi-
vidualism to be "ragged" during the depression.

Even in the '203, however, Dewey was confident that
his epistemology, based on "denotative" empiricism, would
end class injustice by revealing the negative social conse—
quences of acquisitive individualism. Once the masses
were in interaction with their environment, he implied
that they would discover the hierarchical nature of author-
ity. The overall result would be a popular desire for
change, since workers would not be tied to any weight of
authority and would owe nothing to preconceived "ideals."
The conditions of the competitive economy and the lack
of government responsibility would be recognized for what
they really were-~the product of upper-class usurpation.

So too did Dewey's method of the '203 seek to reverse
the oppressive pattern of intellectual history. Knowledge
conceived as a process of learning would prevent the upper
classes from presenting the competitive social order as
"truth." His learning process was to be a tentative guide
of action, without any knowledge adhered to for the purpose
of fulfilling some historic, e priori ideals of democracy,

' or ultimate "teleological ends." With

scientific "laws,'
method, therefore, the lower classes could realize that
the traditional knowledge they were taught was part of

a scheme fabricated to preserve the sanctity of "rights,"

especially pertaining to property. By scientific means,

 

84
the lower classes could ensure that the government provided
actual liberty from oppression, thereby ending the ineffec-
tive doctrine of "equality" based on "natural" rights.

When placed in juxtaposition to his critique of "rugged
individualism" and the history of "reason," Dewey's method
of the 19203 takes on a radically new class element. His
theory of knowledge during the non-depression years cannot,
therefore, be understood in isolation from his vision of
a radically restructured society. The details of his work,
regarding such aspects as the "interaction" of the knowing
subject to the environment, the importance of "experience,"
and the "contingent" basis of knowledge, are elucidated
by understanding Dewey's concern for laboring individuals.
There is more, for example, to Dewey's instrumentalism
than simply a desire to "bridge the gap between theory

' as some historians have suggested.

and practice,‘
Though as revealing as the class element may seem

to scholars, there was nothing "new" about Dewey's social

orientation in the later decades of his life. He was re-

markably consistent in all aspects of his thought in re—

lation to individualism. In fact, it is probable that

the chief intention of his epistemology was always to under-

mine class hierarchy. The Great Depression is therefore

most representative of his life's work, since hard times

most likely strengthened his beliefs in the inequalities

of a capitalist regime. Devastating conditions and a less

academic audience allowed him to present his class analysis

 

85
more cogently and concisely in the '303 than at any other
time. Such being the case, there was evidently no sig-
nificant "shift" in his thinking in later life nor any

marked increase in his "radicalism."

Chapter Five

Conclusion. Dewey and Class Reconsidered

In examining the later works of John Dewey during
the 19203 and early 1930s, it is clear that he was primarily
a social theorist. Whether Dewey was discussing the nature
of western philosophy, epistemology, the theory of the
state, or even public education, he always had in the mind
the relationship of the upper classes to lower classes.
Specifically, he believed upper classes systematically
sought to maintain their status position in a hierarchical
social structure. They did so through the possession and
manipulation of capital, the government, as well as the
sheer labor of the menial masses.

Dewey's entire social theory aimed at terminating
this class domination and restoring all forms of political,
economic, and intellectual authority to the laboring
classes. He called for an end to purely formal, consti-
tutional means of ensuring democracy. He therefore advo-
cated a theory of the state consisting of legal and govern-
mental institutions based on pg tegtp equality in the new
age of industrialization. This shift toward recognizing
the actualities of democracy would, he argued, prevent

upper-class businessmen from denying liberty for the sake

86

 

87
of preserving their property interests. In addition, it
would end the very means of attaining property and wealth

under the laissez-faire economic system of competition.

 

The menial masses would no longer be rendered subservient
simply because they lacked capital and lived upon subsis-
tence wages.

Dewey traced the inception of America's class-based
social hierarchy directly to a theory of knowledge founded
in antiquity and formulated solely by the upper classes.
Philosophers traditionally considered ideas relating to
the structure of the government, democracy, or even mind,
as part of the "first principles" within an everlasting,
ultimate truth. These principles manifested themselves
under various names, such as the universal "laws" of
physics, the "ideals" of society, and the "good" life of
the Greeks. What is more, the metaphysical concept of
"teleology" made these ultimate principles into a graded
order. These principles could be comprehended solely by
the mind, obviating the need for common experience through
deduction and e priori reasoning.

Classical philosophy, adopted by all upper-classes
seeking to maintain their authority, presented hierarchical
forms of mental choices to the lower classes as part of
the "right" social order. Foremost among these was the
notion that the individual operated independently of all
other human beings. In the historical development of democ-

racy, this individualism translated into a minimalist ap—

 

88
proach to government. In terms of economics, Adam Smith's
"laws" based on an "individualistic," competitive, and
acquisitive desire for wealth became the normative value.
Philosophers, who were always of a leisure class, worked
unceasingly to support this individualistic nexus of the
state and economics by denying any validity to the more
empirical, everyday experiences of artisans and workers.
Rationality became philosophy's primary intellectual tool
as a result. The lower classes were left with no alter-
native to complacently obeying this intricate system of
power.

In order to establish the rightful social status of
the lower classes, Dewey's social theory began with a re-
construction in philosophy. His epistemology was derived
from, and dependent upon, the uncertain, empirical qualities
of everyday experience. All ideas were premised on contin-
gency, not first principles. Thinking was fundamentally
related to the physical realities of existence, and there-
fore included an empirical realm beyond the mind. In ad-
dition, Dewey equated ideas as well as class "ideals" with
"plans of action" in a perpetual state of tentative for-
mulation. They must be, he argued, tested according to
what the individual directly observes. Should a course
of action prove an idea detrimental to the well-being of
the individual, it was simply disregarded in favor of some
alternative. No longer would e priori principles be blindly

adhered to for the sake of upholding some antecedently

89
determined, teleological order.

Dewey's new philosophy, variously termed "denotative

methodology, naturalism," or "instrumentalism,' was thus
primarily, though not exclusively, beneficial to the menial
masses. It was a means of empirically challenging the
upper-class principle that individuals naturally think

and act independently and competitively. It incorporated
the experiences of everyday living in the modern state,

and thereby stressed the harsh consequences of the acqui—

sitive individualism. Both laissez-faire capitalism and

 

the political theory of natural rights did not meet the
"test" of ideas in experience, and they were thus denounced
by Dewey as part of individualistic tradition and habit.
His methodology is one inherently containing a cooperative,
interactive foundation that he felt would return power

in economics and politics to the lower-classes.

Since all forms of competitiveness were to be elimi-
nated by Dewey's social theory, the capitalist basis of
hierarchical class delineations would become non-existent.
Not only were the highest of the "elite" stripped of their
means of oppression, but so too were the means of all
classes who manipulated ideas, reason, capital, and law
for personal aggrandizement. It is therefore impossible,
either through Dewey's specific wording or the spirit of
his thought, to construct any type of "middle" class re-
formism. He moved beyond the sociological concept of "mo-

bility" in terms of wealth and status, since all individuals

9O

worked cooperatively in their ideas and actual practices
toward producing consequences beneficial to all. Everyone,
without regard to any profession, ability, or skill profited
equally from the outcome of an idea.

Dewey's mind always stretched into a wide—ranging
set of intellectual fields. In this respect there is noth-
ing unusual about his later decades. But without the in-
sight gleaned from the depression, one may easily miss
sight of his class perspective when examining the works
of the 19203 and perhaps even the earlier, Progressive
Era. His social theory may be, and often is, characterized
as some vague attempt at restoring an industrial-age "com~
munity." He has been generally considered a "middle-class

reformer,’ implying he sought merely to ameliorate working

conditions while ideologically leaving laissez-faire capi-

 

talism intact. Some historians, such as the Marxists,
portray Dewey as consciously seeking to maintain upper-class

" and therefore econom-

authority by making "intelligent,
ically efficient, workers. Other scholars elaborate various
elements of his thought, most often pertaining to the

schools, while completely neglecting the class relationship

' scientific method, empirical activity

of "individualism,'
and a host of other Deweyian concepts.

Dewey's less philosophically technical writings of
the '203 clarify many of these interpretive misunderstand-

ings. These first examples of his later works sketch a

broad social theory aimed at replacing the e priori doc-

91
trines of tradition. They develop the importance of ex-
perience in epistemology, and promote a complete implemen-
tation of a classless society. They call for a democracy
consisting of a universal class that is not dependent upon
(or rather subjected to) purely constitutional rights.
Above all, Dewey's books written in the '203 provide a
theoretical framework of cooperation that replaces the
invidious, individualistic habits of society grounded in
"reason."

Dewey's historical analysis of rationality, inter-
spersed throughout the writings of the '203, are particu-
larly illuminating. He demonstrated that the development
of reason, beginning with the ancient Greeks, was covertly
designed to maintain authority, both politically and eco-
nomically. Here philosophy was entirely the product of
men of leisure seeking to deny workers and artisans any
position of status. Philosophers constructed specious
notions of individualism to justify the subordination of
the masses to authority. Dewey's social theory, when placed
beside this perspective of history, becomes a detailed
intellectual map for restoring the menial individual.
Every aspect of Dewey's theory, in fact, is not only a
challenge to authority, but a prescription for a single,
transformed class based on activity and collective inter-
action.

It is therefore not surprising to read Dewey's per-

spicacious and lucid, though radical, charges against

92
"rugged" individualism during the 19303. The hardships
of the depression confirmed his long-standing conviction
that society was essentially hierarchical. Catastrophic

economic conditions proved that laissez-faire capitalism

 

and "natural" rights were manipulated by the upper classes.
It showed that America's high ideals of democracy were
in fact a disguised form of authority. Small wonder Dewey
was incensed to find the federal government paying farmers
to use grain as fuel and plow under crops while casually
observing the plight of starving millions.

In addition, Dewey's discussion of the schools in
the '303 demonstrate the traditional philosopher's manip-
ulative abilities by presenting knowledge as indisputable
"truth" to the masses. Based on idealistic forms of reason,
capitalist schools systematically prevented the infiltration
of everyday experience through the use of rote learning
methods. They established hierarchical student-teacher
relationships in order to prepare the child for an adult
life of political complacency and subordination. Moreover,
the schools conceived the nature of knowledge along the
lines of traditional empiricism; that is, as sensory data
to be categorized among ultimate "first principles." Em-
ploying unscientific methodology, the schools were simply
part of the rationalization of authority Dewey traced during
the '203.

The tenets of Dewey's social philosophy are in fact

so clearly embodied in his essays of the '303 that he may

93
be most effectively understood by "reading backward."
The student of intellectual history may thus circumvent
his occasionally rhetorical arguments of the '203 and avoid
getting lost in details. The depression years in fact
contain associations between the government, epistemology,
and capitalism not distinctly evident in either his Pro-
gressive phase or the '203. There are, however, many par-
allels that warrant Dewey's later years a careful historical

reconsideration.

NOTES

NOTES, Chapter One. John Dewey and the Historical
Problem of Class

1. John P. Diggins, Up from Communism (New York:
Harper & Row, 1975), 7.

 

2. The standard texts containing this general
information are: John M. Blum, et al., The National
Experience (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963),
519, 799; Oscar Handlin, America: A History (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), 211, 836-837, 1020;
Samuel E. Morison, et al., The Growth of the American
Re ublic, Volume Two (New York: Oxford University Press,
1969), 198-199, 223; Carl N. Degler, et al., The Democratic
Experience (Dallas: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1981),
345-346, 518-519; Douglas Tallack, Twentieth-Century
America (New York: Longman Singapore Publishers, 1991),
147, 159-160, 178-180. For a representative example in
educational history, see Robert L. Church and Michael W.
Sedlak, Education in the United States (New York: The
Free Press, 1976), 251-287.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. American Council of Learned Societies, Dictionary
of American Biography, Supplement Eight (New York: Charles
Schribner's Sons, 1964), 169-172. See also John P. Diggins,
"John Dewey: Philosopher of the Schoolroom," The Wilson
Quarterly 13 (Autumn 1989) 4: 76-83.

 

 

 

4. John Dewey, "Steps to Economic Recovery," in

John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953, ed. Jo Ann Boydston
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
1981-1991), 9:64.

 

5. John Dewey, "The House Divided against Itself,"
in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:45.

 

6. Dewey was opposed to violence, and the absolutist
notion among many Marxists that class conflict was
inevitable. For further discussion on this point, see
Alfonso J. Damico, "Dewey and Marx: On Partisanship and
Reconstruction of Society," The American Political Science
Review 75 (September 1981) 3: 654-666; Jonathan D. Moreno
and R. Scott Frey, "Dewey's Critique of Marxism," the
Sociological Quarterly 26 (1985) 1: 21-34.

 

 

7. The subject of Dewey's audience, and hence the
perceptions of him by the public, is perhaps worthy of

95

96

NOTES, Chapter One (continued)

an entirely separate study. He was carefully followed
by left-wing academic readers in the 19303, such as James
Farrell, Jim Cork, and Sidney Hook. His addresses and
speeches, however, were often given to labor unions and
other workers' organizations. For the purposes of this
paper, a survey of 828 subscribers to the New Republic,
conducted in 1931, is most pertinent. It reveals the major
categories and percentages of readers as follows:
Educators, professors, teachers...................34.5
Lawyers, doctors, engineers, scientists,
clergymen......................................18.5
Businessmen and executives........................17.0
Housewives, social workers, students, clerks,
secretaries....................................1
Artists, journalists, editors, librarians,

 

writerSOOOOCCOOOOOOOO0.0.0000COOOCOCOOOOOOOOOOOC

3
7.5
Public officials...................................1.0
Farmers and ranchers...............................1.5
Miscellaneous......................................4.5
Taken from C. Wright Mills, Sociology and Pragmatism (New
York: Paine-Whitman Publishers, 1964), 326.

 

8. For a useful overview of the historiographic
literature, see David A. Hollinger, "The Problem of
Pragmatism in American History," The Journal of American
History 67 (June 1980) 1: 88-107.

 

9. Some of the more popular among these works are
discussed below, though a somewhat representative example
is Morton White, Origins of Dewey's Instrumentalism (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1943).

 

10. Included among the full-length biographies of
Dewey are Richard J. Bernstein, John Dewey (New York:
Washington Square Press, 1967); George Dykhuisen, the
Life and Mind of John Dewey (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1973); J. E. Tiles, Dewey (London:
Routledge, 1988). These works generally lack a lucid
synthesis, as is the case in a more recent work by Robert
B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1991). The most noteworthy
exception, however, is still Sydney Hook, John Dewey:
An Intellectual Portrait (New York: John Day, 1939), though
James T. KloppenbergTs Uncertain Victory (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986) and Neil Coughlan's Younngohn
Dewey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975) offer
penetrating interpretations of Dewey's early years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

11. Among the more blatant examples are David Fott,
"John Dewey and the Philosophical Foundations of Democracy,"
The Social Science Journal 23 (1991) 1: 29-44; Jesse

 

97

NOTES, Chapter One (continued)

Goodman, "Education for Critical Democracy," Journal of
Education 171 (1989) 2: 88-116; William Shea, "John Dewey
and the Crisis of the Canon," American Journal of Education
97 (May 1989) 3: 289-311.

 

 

 

12. William L. O'Neill, The Progressive Years (New
York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1975), 92-97; Mills, Sociolegy,
279-306; Christopher Lasch, The New Radicalism in America
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), 157-158; Lewis S.
Feuer, "John Dewey and the Back to the People Movement
in American Thought," Journal of the History of Ideas 20
(1959): 545-576.

 

 

 

 

13. Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1965), 154, 199; Robert H. Wiebe, the
Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang,
Inc., 1967), 152.

 

 

14. Eric F. Goldman, Rendezvous with Destiny (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), 155-160. See also Lawrence
A. Cremin, The Transformation of The School (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1961), 115-126; Rush Welter, Popular
Education and Democratic Thought in America (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1962), 277-281; Marvin Lazerson,
"If All the World Were Chicago: American Education in
the Twentieth Century," History of EducatiopZQuarterly
24 (Summer 1984) 2: 165-179.

 

 

 

 

15. Paul K. Conkin, Puritans and Pragmatists (New
York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1968), 345-402.

 

16. Steven Biel, Independent Intellectuals in the
United StatesL 1910-1945 (New York: New York University
Press, 1992), 126-130. Within this brief passage, Biel
has created over twenty-five different varieties of these
"social" terms.

 

 

17. R. Jeffrey Lustig, Corporate Liberalism
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), IX-XIII,
1-36; Clarence J. Karier, Paul C. Violas, and Joel Spring,
Roots of Crisis: American Education in the Twentieth
Century (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1973), 88-107;
George Novack, Pregmatism versus Marxism (New York:
Pathfinder Press, Inc., 1975), 237. This analysis has
been the basis of many attacks on modern "progressive
education." These scholars argue that the "learn by doing"
methods devised by Dewey were used to make efficient,
complacent children who were well-versed in vocational
occupations. Manipulated by capitalist endeavors,
instrumentalism translated into "mental engineering" that
would ensure that workers remained in their "place." As

 

 

 

98

NOTES, Chapter One (continued)

a result, capitalists fostered a working class "harmony"

the protected the interests of the middle classes. For

an example of this argument, see Gilbert G. Gonzalez,
Progressive Education: A Marxist Interpretation
(Minneapolis: Marxist Educational Press, 1982), 36, 86-104.
Gonzalez illustrates his points in a case study of a Los
Angeles school district, 151-171.

For comparisons of Dewey's ideology with Marxism,
written by a contemporary, see Jim Cork, "John Dewey, Karl
Marx, and Democratic Socialism," The Antioch Review 9
(December 1949) 4: 435-452; Idem, "John Dewey and Karl
Marx" in John Dewey: Philosopher of Science and Freedom,
ed. Sidney Hook (New York: The Dial Press, 1950), 331-350.

 

 

 

 

18. Morton White, Social Thought in America: The
Revolt Ageinst Formalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1947),
128-130.

 

 

19. Ibid., 131, 132-146. White later mentions
Dewey's Reconstruction in Philosophy in a chapter pertaining
to the 19203 (PPS. 180-202). In this latter discussion,
he introduces instrumentalism with the bold statement "Marx
couldn't have been more forthright in his attempts at
'exposing' the ideological commitments of bourgeois
thought." Unfortunately, White provides no elaboration
on this comparison of Dewey with Marx.

 

20. Henry F. May, The End of American Innocence
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959), 147-153.

 

21. See, for example, Elizabeth Flower and Murray
G. Murphey, A History of Philosophy in America (New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1977), 811-882. This account's closing
section on "social theory," though brief, is nevertheless
adaquate in portraying Dewey's arguments against the
bourgeois. It does not, however, integrate Dewey's class
element into other aspects of instrumentalism. See also
Arthur E. Murphy, ed., Reason and The Common Good (Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 49-66; Paul A. Schilpp,
ed., The Philosophy of John Dewey (New York: Tudor
Publishing, 1951), 335-268; Richard J. Bernstein, "One
Step Forward, Two Steps Backward," Political Theory 15
(November 1987) 4: 538-563; Richard Rorty,_"Thugs and
Theorists," Political Theory 15 (November 1987) 4: 564-580.

Examples of a weak social analysis are pervasive.
Timothy Kaufman-Osborn has argued that Dewey sought to
place "common sense" back into political science, so that
such ethical notions as "do unto others" would become a
normative value once again in American society. The
implication is that Dewey believed the middle classes must
treat the underprivileged with paternalism. See also

 

 

 

 

 

99

NOTES, Chapter One (continued)

Kaufman-Osborn's "John Dewey and the Liberal Science of
Community," The Journal of Politics 46 (1984) 4: 1142-1165;
and for even further elaboration see Idem, Politics/Sense/
Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991),
113-157. For a sampling of how class becomes masked behind
an interpretation of cultural "symbols" in education, see
Forrest H. Peterson, John Dewey's Reconstruction in
Philosophy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1987).

Works clearly honoring Dewey are notoriously
deficient, such as Sidney Ratner, et al., The Philosopher
of The Common Man (New York: G. P. Putnast Sons, 1940).
In certain instances it is even argued that Dewey did not
seek any social change at all. See J. O. C. Phillips,
"John Dewey and Social Control Reconsidered," History of
Education 12 (March 1983) 1: 25-37.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22. A clear example of this account appears in
Roderick Nash, The Nervous Generation (Chicago: Rand
McNally & Co, 1970), 35-40. See also John P. Diggins,
"John Dewey in Peace and War," The American Scholar 50
(1981): 213-230.

 

 

23. James Weinstein, The Decline of Socialism in
America, 1912-1925 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1967),
80. See also Edward J. Bordeau, "John Dewey's Ideas About
The Great Depression," Journal of the History of Ideas
32 (January-March 1971) 1: 67-84. For an examination by
a contemporary, see Mark Starr, "Organized Labor and the
Dewey Philosophy," in Hook, ed., John Dewey: Philosopher
of Science, 184-193.

 

 

 

 

 

24. Gary Bullert, The Politics of John Dewey
(Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1983), 21-34; Wayne A. R.
Leys, "Dewey's Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy,"
in Guide to the Works of John Dewey, ed. Jo Ann Boydston
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970);
R. Alan Lawson, The Failure of Independent Liberalism (New
York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1971), 99-130. For an
examination of the later works in relation to Dewey's
confrontation with Walter Lippman's political theory in
the 19203, see John P. Diggins, "From Pragmatism to Natural
Law," Political Theory 19 (November 1991) 4: 519-538.

 

 

 

 

25. Richard H. Pells, Radical Visions and American
Dreams (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 52-53; Frank A.
Warren, Liberals and Communism (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1966), 6-33. In neither of these
instances is Dewey's radicalism explored within the
principal works of the 19203.

 

 

100

NOTES, Chapter Two. Workers as Workers: From
Rugged Individuals to 'Corporate' Humanitarians

1. John Dewey, "Can Education Share in Social
Reconstruction," in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953,
ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1981-1991), 9:205.

 

2. Dewey, "The House Divided against Itself," in
Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:45.

 

3. Dewey, "American Ideals (I): The Theory of
Liberty vs. the Fact of Regimentation," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 9:87, 89.

 

4. Dewey, "Steps to Economic Recovery," in Later

Works, ed. Boydston, 9:62, 63; Idem, "Toward a New
Individualism," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:85; Idem,
"What Keeps Funds Away from Purchasers," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 9:81.

 

 

' in Later

5. Dewey, "Steps to Economic Recovery,’
Works, ed. Boydston, 9:63; Idem, "American Ideals," 1
Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:87; Idem, "Capitalistic or

Public Socialism?," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:104.

 

 

6. Dewey, "Unity and Progress," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 9:73-74.

 

7. Dewey, "Steps to Economic Recovery," in Later

Works, ed. Boydston, 9:63-65; Idem, "What Keeps Funds,"
in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:83.

 

8. Dewey, "Toward a New Individualism," in Later

Works, ed. Boydston, 5:84; Idem, "American Ideals," in
Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:88-89; Idem, "Intelligence

and Power," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:108-109.

 

 

9. Dewey, "Imperial Need: A New Radical Party,"
in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:77-78.

 

10. Ibid., 78-80.
11. Ibid., 76-770

12. Ibid., 77; Dewey, "Capitalistic or Public
Socialism?," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:95-97.

 

13. Dewey, "The Supreme Intellectual Obligation,"
in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:98; Idem, "Toward a New
Individualism," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:88-89.

 

 

101

NOTES, Chapter Two (continued)

14. Dewey, "Capitalistic or Public Socialism?,"
in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:94-95.

15. Dewey, "Toward a New Individualism," in Later
Works, ed. Boydston, 5:86-87.
16. Dewey, "The Crisis in Culture,"
ed. Boydston, 5:108-109.

in Later Works,

 

17. Dewey, "Crisis in Culture," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 5:104-105; Idem, "Intelligence and Power,"
in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:110.

 

 

18. Dewey, "Supreme Intellectual Obligation," in
Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:98-100.

 

19. Dewey, "Crisis in Culture," in Later Works,

ed. Boydston, 5:109-110; Idem, "A Great American Prophet,"
in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:104-106.

 

 

20. Dewey, "Crisis in Culture," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 5:105, 107. Idem, "American Ideals," in
Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:90.

 

21. Dewey, "Crisis in Culture,"

ed. Boydston, 5:101, 105, 107.

in Later Works,

 

22. Dewey, "Individuality in Our Day,‘
Works, ed. Boydston, 5:117.

in Later

23. Dewey, "Education and the Social Order," in
Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:181; Idem, "The Crisis in
Education," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:115; Idem,
"Education and Our Present Social Problems," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 9:134; Idem, "Shall We Abolish School

'Frills'? No," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:145.

 

 

 

 

24. Dewey, "Education and Our Present Social
Problems," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:130; Idem,
"The Activity Movement," in Later Works, ed. Boydston,
9:170, 172.

 

 

25. Dewey, "Education and the Social Order," in
Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:180. Idem, "Why Have
Progressive Schools?," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:155;
Idem, "Activity Movement," in Later Works, ed. Boydston,
9:173; Idem, "Crisis in Culture," in Later Works, ed.
Boydston, 5:102.

 

 

 

 

26. Dewey, "Crisis in Culture," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 5:102-103; Idem, "The Need for a Philosophy

 

102

NOTES, Chapter Two (continued)

of Education,' in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:196, 199.

 

27. Dewey, "Can Education Share in Social
Reconstruction," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 9:207;
Idem, "Why Have Progressive Schools," in Later Works, ed.
Boydston, 9:157; Idem, "A Need for a Philosophy," in Later
Works, ed. Boydston, 9:202-203.

 

 

 

103

NOTES, Chapter 3. Reason as the Rationalization
of Authority

1. John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (New
York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927), 17-18.

 

2. Ibid., 81’850
3. Ibid., 85-88.

4. Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (New York:
Henry Holt and Company, 1920), 44-45.

5. Dewey, PUbliC' 88-91.

6. Ibid., 48, 95-96. For an affirmation of this
concept in Dewey's post-Stock Market Crash analysis of
political theory in 1930, see Dewey, "The United States,
Incorporated," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:61.

70 Dewey, PUbliC, 144-145, 86-870

8. Ibid., 114-117.

9. Dewey, The Quest for Certainty (New York: G.

P. Putnam's Sons, 1929), 32-33, 68; Idem, Reconstruction,
12-13; Idem, Quest, 14, 32-33.

 

10. Dewey, Experience and Nature, in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 1:324-325; Idem, Quest, 31-32. See also
Idem, "Toward a New Individualism,‘ in Later Works, ed.
Boydston, 5:77-78, for affirmation in Deweyrs post-1929
analysis.

 

 

11. Dewey, Reconstruction, 42; Idem, Public, 22,
50, 88; Idem, Quest, 45, 85.

 

12. Dewey, Reconstruction, 54-60; Idem, Quest,
5.

13. Dewey, Reconstruction, 60-64, 67; Idem, Quest,
17-18, 27-28, 50.

 

14. Dewey, Reconstruction, 16-23; Idem, Quest,
114-118.

15. Dewey, Quest, 114-118.
16. Ibid., 118-120, 150, 180, 209.

17. Ibid., 21, 170, 186.

104

NOTES, Chapter Three (continued)

18. Dewey, Experience and Nature, in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 1:32-34; Idem, Quest, 17, 19, 209.

 

19. Dewey, Public, 21, 64-69; Idem, Quest, 194;
Idem, "The House Divided against Itself," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 5:48-49.

 

20. Dewey, Experience and Nature, in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 1:47-48, 78-79, 83-85; Idem, Quest, 254-287.

 

 

21. Dewey, Reconstruction, 23-25, 171; Idem,
Experience and Nature, in Later Works, ed. Boydston,
1:88-89; Idem, Quest, 7-9, 34, 75-77.

 

 

 

22. Dewey, Public, 8-12, 19-22, 65.
23. Ibid., 44-45, 94-96.

24. Dewey, Experience and Nature, in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 1:46-48, 51, 54, 65; Ibid., 67-68, for
Dewey's presentation of the U. S. Constitution as an
intellectual ploy for certainty.

 

 

25. Dewey, Reconstruction, 161-171. For related
aspects of authority in contingency, see Dewey, Public,
31-34; Idem, QueSt’ 7-8, 39-40, 51' 208.

 

26. Dewey, Reconstruction, 77-81, 83. Dewey did
note, however, that Hume used his empiricism as a temporary
means of challenging the social balance of power (as did
Locke a century earlier), but was forgotten when, in the
nineteenth century, Kant and his followers denied the
"totally destructive results of the new empirical
philosophy."

 

27. Dewey, Experience and Nature, in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 1:16-21.

 

 

Reconstruction, 94-95; Idem, Quest, 13, 219, 230, 232,
236.

 

29. Dewey, Ques , 3-5, 74-76.

105

NOTES, Chapter Four. Science as Method and the
Birth of Associative Living

1. Dewey considered "habit" in philosophy to be
the principal reinforcing agent of "shrewd businessmen"
in their machinations with economics and politics. For
examples of this recurrent theme from the 19203, see Dewey,
Reconstruction, 1-10, 25-26, 103-109; Idem, Experience
in Nature, in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 1:42; Idem, Public
and Its Problems, 3-6, 158, 160-161, 169-170; Idem, Quest,
9-10, 40, 127, 185, 223-227. For a 19303 confirmation
of this concept, see Dewey, "The Lost Individual," in Later
Works, ed. Boydston, 5:74; Idem, "Toward a New
Individualism," in Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:81.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. For one the most lucid accounts of this concept,
see Dewey, Experience and Nature, in Later Works, ed.
Boydston, 1:26-28.

 

3. Dewey, Experience and Nature, in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 1:28-32; Idem, Quest, 181, 216.

 

 

4. Dewey, Experience and Nature, in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 1:42, 61-68; Idem, Quest, 71-73.

 

 

5. Dewey, Qheet, 112-113, 123, 124, 178, 217-218.
6. Ibid., 72, 82-83, 209-210.

7. Ibid., 180-181, 204-205, 221.

8. Dewey, Experience and Nature, in Later Works,

ed. Boydston, 1:325-326; Idem, Public, 45; Idem, Quest,
186, 199-200.

 

 

9. Idem, Quest, 151-153, 154-155, 158-159, 160.
10. Ibid., 163-165.

11. Dewey, Reconstruction, 139.

 

12. Ibid., 140.

13. Ibid., 47-49, 51-52, 159-160; Idem, Public,
44-47, 52-53. Idem, Ques , 70-71, 205-206, 212-213.
14. Dewey, ""America'--By Formula," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 5:56; Idem, Public, 37, Idem, Quest, 171.

 

133.

16. Dewey, "'America'--By Formula,‘ in Later Works,

 

106
NOTES, Chapter Four (continued)
ed. Boydston, 5:55; Idem, Public, 89, 103-109, 111; Idem,
17. Dewey, Reconstruction, 120-123, 156-157; Idem,

"'America'--By Formula," in Later Works, ed. Boydston,
5:56-57; Idem, Quest, 196.

 

18. Dewey, "'America'--By Formula," in Later Works,
ed. Boydston, 5:56-57; Idem, Public, 100-101; Idem, Quest,
81.

 

19. Dewey, Reconstruction, 68-70.

20. Dewey, "The United States, Incorporated," in
Later Works, ed. Boydston, 5:58; Idem, Public, 150-154.

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107

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BIBLIOGRAPHY (continued)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY (continued)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY (continued)

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