Equality Beyond Debate: John Dewey's Pragmatic Idea of Democracy
Cambridge University Press (forthcoming, October 2018).
For description, see Research page.
“Dividing Deliberative and Participatory Democracy through John Dewey”
Democratic Theory 2, 1, 2015.
This article challenges the prevalent interpretation of John Dewey as a forefather of deliberative democracy, and shows how Dewey’s theory can help turn democratic theory toward participatory democracy, which is widely seen as having been incorporated by deliberative democracy. I argue that Dewey would find deliberative principles to be abstracting from our unequal social conditions by attempting to bracket the unequal social statuses that individuals bring with them to the deliberation. Dewey traces the deficiencies of current political debate to these unequal social conditions, and he thus claims that democratic theorizing should focus on enacting effective plans for overcoming social inequality, plans which may require non-deliberative practices that compel concessions from advantaged social interests. Deliberative democrats have increasingly aimed to account for such practices, but I claim that participatory democrats can draw on Dewey to illustrate how their theory can more comfortably accommodate these practices that directly attack inequality than can deliberative democracy.
“The Resolution of Poverty in Hegel’s ‘Actual’ State”
Polity 46, 3, 2014.
This article makes a Hegelian argument in favor of significant measures for reducing poverty that go beyond typical welfare policies. The common views of Hegel and poverty have been (1) that Hegel’s system must tolerate poverty as part of the state preserving the autonomy of civil society, or (2) that Hegel does provide for the welfare of the poor through the civil society institutions of the “corporations” and the “police.” I will show that, when we account for Hegel’s dialectical method, the Hegelian state becomes “actual” to the extent that it “sublates” civil society—i.e., to the extent that it preserves the elements of civil society that promote freedom, and negates the elements that hinder freedom. This entails state action to eliminate poverty, though Hegel also expresses concern over how welfare policies targeted at the poor may reinforce the poor’s subordination. I thus identify universal basic income as a policy that can more adequately realize Hegel’s aim of the “sublation” of civil society by the state.
“The Democratic Individual: Dewey’s Back to Plato Movement”
The Pluralist 9, 1, 2014.
This article investigates Dewey’s notion of “democracy as a personal way of individual life” by exploring his relationship to Plato. Though Plato is an anti-democrat, Dewey still expresses admiration for Plato’s goal of bringing individuals into “harmony with the universe of spiritual relations.” Dewey objects to the ontological and epistemological principles which lead Plato to idealize an aristocratic “universe of spiritual relations” and an aristocratic individual character-type, but I argue that Dewey’s admiration for Plato helps illuminate Dewey’s call for a democratic individual character-type. I also claim that this Platonic reading of democratic individuality helps us respond to arguments—like those of Robert Talisse—that Deweyan democracy effectively denies pluralism.
“Reconstructing Dewey: Dialectics and Democratic Education”
Education and Culture 28, 1, 2012.
This essay aims to demonstrate the theoretical purchase offered by linking Dewey’s educational theory with a rigorous account of dialectical development. Drawing on recent literature which emphasizes the continuing influence of Hegel on Dewey’s thought throughout the latter’s career, this essay reconstructs Dewey’s argument regarding the detrimental effects of “external aims” (e.g., grades, standardized test scores) in education with a specifically Hegelian framework. The goal is to show how emphasizing and drawing out the dialectical character of Dewey’s conception of individual experience clarifies his case for why external aims hinder the continuous individual growth that democratic education aims to cultivate.
