The Political Philosophy of John Dewey: Towards a Constructive Renewal

Terry Hoy seeks to establish the enduring relevance of John Dewey’s political philosophy. As Professor Hoy illustrates, Dewey focused on the distortions in American political thought resulting from the Lockean-Utilitarian tradition of classical liberalism; the growing standardization and quantification of American life; the erosion of traditional face-to-face communal public life; the manipulation of public opinion by mass media propaganda; and the ascendancy of capitalist economic priorities.

Dewey was convinced that a corrective to such distortions would require a renascent liberalism requiring a radical change in the structure of American capitalism in order to achieve a reconciliation of freedom and equality. As Professor Hoy points out, while Dewey can be faulted for an overoptimism regarding political possibilities within the American political tradition, the distinctive merit of his contribution is his pragmatic approach to social reform that encompasses an imaginative vision, rooted in the actual potentialities of human nature, that can be a stimulus to the possibility of creative innovation. This is an important study for scholars and students of American political thought.