The Public and Its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry

by John Dewey, Melvin L. Rogers (Editor)

More than six decades after John Dewey’s death, his political philosophy is undergoing a revival. With renewed interest in pragmatism and its implications for democracy in an age of mass communication, bureaucracy, and ever-increasing social complexities, Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems, first published in 1927, remains vital to any discussion of today’s political issues.

This edition of The Public and Its Problems, meticulously annotated and interpreted with fresh insight by Melvin L. Rogers, radically updates the previous version published by Swallow Press. Rogers’s introduction locates Dewey’s work within its philosophical and historical context and explains its key ideas for a contemporary readership. Biographical information and a detailed bibliography round out this definitive edition, which will be essential to students and scholars both.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Education, Academic, Sociology, Political Science

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology. He was a major representative of the progressive and progressive populist philosophies of schooling during the first half of the 20th century in the USA.

In 1859, educator and philosopher John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont. He earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University in 1884. After teaching philosophy at the University of Michigan, he joined the University of Chicago as head of a department in philosophy, psychology and education, influenced by Darwin, Freud and a scientific outlook. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1904. Dewey's special concern was reform of education. He promoted learning by doing rather than learning by rote. Dewey conducted international research on education, winning many academic honors worldwide. Of more than 40 books, many of his most influential concerned education, including My Pedagogic Creed (1897), Democracy and Education (1902) and Experience and Education (1938). He was one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism. A humanitarian, he was a trustee of Jane Addams' Hull House, supported labor and racial equality, and was at one time active in campaigning for a third political party. He chaired a commission convened in Mexico City in 1937 inquiring into charges made against Leon Trotsky during the Moscow trials. Raised by an evangelical mother, Dewey had rejected faith by his 30s. Although he disavowed being a "militant" atheist, when his mother complained that he should be sending his children to Sunday school, he replied that he had gone to Sunday School enough to make up for any truancy by his children. As a pragmatist, he judged ideas by the results they produced. As a philosopher, he eschewed an allegiance to fixed and changeless dogma and superstition. He belonged to humanist societies, including the American Humanist Association. D. 1952.

Reviews

[Sarah Clement · Rating 5 out of 5]

I became obnoxious to everyone around me whilst reading this book, mainly because - even almost a century after its publication - so much of it rings true. All of us know democracy isn't perfect. Young people in the western world have mostly lost faith in democracy, according to most recent surveys, but it seems to me that we've lost interest in discussing this social experiment and how we can make it better. Some of what Dewey has to say will seem absolutely out of reach in the modern world, and some of it will seem simply naive, but if you can accept the premise about what is broken and what needs to be fixed, then there's a lot to latch onto here.

Present day pragmatists have kept Dewey's spirit alive, especially through deliberative democracy, but I do find it surprising that there aren't more of them in academia. Among this group word pragmatism has come to mean, as far as I've seen, either a word that biophysical scientists use when they don't understand what social scientists have to say, or a word to describe research driven by political expediency. While those casual meanings are all well and good, I wish we'd reconnect with pragmatism as a philosophy, and along with that what it has to say about matters that Dewey discusses in this book, like defining the public, exploring the relationship between the public and the state, providing room for conflict and a diversity of legitimate interests, etc.

One of my biggest frustrations with the present day view of democracy is that the role of the citizen (and the 'mandate to govern') is boiled down to the act of voting. And then once that flawed process is complete, there's no ongoing dialogue about what we expect (save the clever quips on the internet from otherwise disengaged publics...and disengaged for good reason). This book taught me that this simple view of voting is certainly not new. Even early in the 20th century, he was saying: "...the heart of the matter is found not in voting nor in the counting the votes to see where the majority lies. It is in the process by which the majority is formed. The minority are represented in the policy which they force the majority to accept in order to be a majority; the majority have the right to "rule" because their majority is not the mere sign of a surplus in numbers, but is the manifestation of the purpose of the social organism." The purpose is found through deliberation. Many (including me, on my dark days) would say that deliberation is unrealistic in the modern era, but I'd actually say that the time is even more right than in Dewey's day. Quips and memes on the internet do not have to be the entirety of discussion. We have many more ways to deliberate, but we also have to be sure someone is actually listening, which most of us are not.

This book is dense and thought-provoking, but I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in politics and social science,

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

As in his other writings, Dewey's social philosophy is centered around the interconnectedness of individuals and social groupings. No person or grouping acts entirely in isolation. Every action is modified by its connection with others. "The actions and passions of individual men are in the concrete what they are, their beliefs and purposes included, because of the social medium in which they live." Ideas of the individual and the social are hopelessly ambiguous when each is seen as the antithesis of the other. But association does not in itself make a society or a community. Shared experience, communicated experience, dialogue, shared ideas, and personal intercourse in the local community are all aspects of Dewey's vision of a Great Community--

"A society in which the ever-expanding and intricately ramifying consequences of associated activities shall be known in the full sense of that word, so that an organized, articulate Public comes into being. The highest and most difficult kind of inquiry and a subtle, delicate, vivid and responsive art of communication must take possession of the physical machinery of transmission and circulation and breathe life into it. When the machine age has thus perfected its machinery it will be a means of life and not its despotic master. Democracy will come into its own, for democracy is a name for a life of free an enriching communion. It had its seer in Walt Whitman. It will have its consummation when free social inquiry is indissolubly wedded to the art of full and moving communication."

As for his political philosophy, Dewey asserts that the form of the State is always an experimental and a trial process. He wholly rejects absolutistic and dogmatic concepts. Even ideas/ideals such as fraternity, liberty, and equality are empty when isolated from meaningful communal life. There is no single format, general principle, or theory that should be followed to create a "good" State. "In no two ages or places is there the same public. Conditions make the consequences of associated action and the knowledge of them different." The State must always be rediscovered. It is always an experiment, a trial process.

His logic of method involves the following factors:
1) "The concepts, general principles, theories, and dialectical developments which are indispensable to any systematic knowledge are to be shaped as tools of inquiry" (not dogma)
2) "The polices and proposals for social action should be treated as working hypotheses, not as programs to be rigidly adhered to and executed."

I always love engaging in Dewey's writings and ideas. There is much more to this little volume than I summarized here. What I value the most, though, is his prioritization of "enriching communion" for meaningful communal life and his emphasis on continual processes of improvement, not final answers.

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A normative and functionalist analysis of policy and the state as experiments in problem-solving.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book reminded me why I'm not a poli-sci or sociology major. It's not that there was anything awful about the book, it's just not my 'cup o tea' as it were.

The book is actually a collection of thoughtful and insightful lectures-turned-essays contemplating the form of democracy and what truly constitutes a "public", a "society", a "community" and what government's involvement should be in all these.

For me, the writing had some great nuggets scattered throughout but unfortunately I found myself bogged down by writing that felt otherwise tedious. Dewey is obviously very smart and full of great ideas. Too often for my taste, this resulted in (what I felt) lengthy passages where he took a ton of effort to try and expound on a single thought without getting to a clear point until wandering around the subject for 5 or 6 pages.

Again, my distaste is mainly due to not having any real deep interest in the subject (which is part of what he exposes as one of the problems of a public…that there are far too many things out there such that a person can't truly be educated or even interested in everything). I found my eyes growing heavy many times and had to put the book down at risk of falling asleep.

Still, as I persevered an applied heavy concentration, I found myself enjoying and agreeing with many of his premises.

I really appreciated his assertion on the importance of consequences and how it is the consequences of a thing that brings people together. Where a lot of the problems come about is that there are far too many distractions out there such that an individual, or even a collective "public" can't focus on all of the necessary consequences. As a result, even in a "democracy", there are only a handful of individuals sufficiently knowledgeable to properly react to the stimuli around us and predict the consequences to the extent that they can ensure a promising future.

Along with the 'uneducated' implication of having all these stimuli, we also have a problem in that everyone is being pulled in so many disparate directions that we've lost any real sense of community. There are "too many publics" out there. We can't have a solid national or global community because everything is truly a microcosm of each of our individual interests, needs and desires. Any "community" we have is generally very small based on a handful of common interests with others and a single person may be a member of multiple "publics" or "communities", sometimes even at odds with one another.

Until society can find some way to use its collective knowledge and advances in technology and communication, we can never truly have a "Great Community" in the sense of a solid national or global community all united and on the same page.

What was very intriguing to me is that this book was written 80 years ago and many of the anecdotes he uses could be used today without changing any of the language. If anything, in the past 80 years, I would suggest that the world has gained even more "publics" and an even more disparate society that continues to lack in a great sense of "community." At the same time, some technologies such as the various social networking sites, tweeting, and the blogosphere are helping to create a sense of community. But this isn't the type of community Dewey would have preferred as he was a proponent of truly getting to know the individual…and when we're veiled behind the mask of the Internet and technology, we lose something.

***
2.5 stars (though I can definitely recommend this higher to a follower of poli-sci or sociology)

[annabelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

horrendous. inaccessible. boring. reading this book was genuinely such a bad experience. i honestly couldn’t even tell you what this book is about lmfao.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

In The Public and Its Problems, John Dewey offers an explanatory account of what he terms the “public,” or political community, and the state, a critical account of how the public has been “eclipsed,” or disappeared, in complex industrial nations, and a constructive account of what conditions must obtain for the public to be able to identify itself once more in democratic societies. While relatively brief, The Public and Its Problems covers an immense amount of territory: in addition to the above aims, Dewey critiques abstract and absolutist theoretical conceptions of the state, provides a historical explanation for the rise of democratic institutions, upends modernist assumptions about an essential, pre-political human nature, and explains the close connections between classical liberal democratic theory and free-market capitalism. Overall, Dewey presents a persuasive vision of democracy not merely as a form of political constitution, but as a way of life with its attendant habits and virtues. In this, Dewey is a kind of liberal communitarian, but his radically democratic political theory ultimately resists easy classification.

In the first part of the book, Dewey claims that most philosophical attempts to account for the cause or the nature of the state use an a priori method that discounts empirical realities and erroneously posits as a causal force the effects that need to be accounted for. For example, Aristotle asserts that humans are social animals in order to explain why humans form political communities, but why humans are social (i.e. form political communities) is exactly what is in question. Dewey therefore aims to deploy a different, a posteriori method that starts with the facts of human activity in order to identify the marks of political behavior. This method leads to the observation that “human acts have consequences upon others, that some of these consequences are perceived, and that their perception leads to subsequent effort to control action so as to secure some consequences and avoid others” (12). The distinction between the private and public domains, the latter of which implicates the state, lies in the fact that some consequences affect those directly involved in a transaction, while others affect persons beyond those immediately concerned. The “public,” then, “consists of all those who are affected by the indirect consequences of transactions to such an extent that it is deemed necessary to have those consequences systematically cared for,” and the state is the coordination of the public into a political body by officials “who look out for and take care of the interests thus affected” (15-16). It is the function of the state, in short, to administer over and channel indirect consequences of social interaction for the sake of the public interest.

Dewey’s conception of the state entails that there is no one form of state constitution that is best. He insists that “the formation of states must be an experimental process” attuned to the character of the public whose interests the state is meant to promote and protect (33). The public, moreover, is not a static entity; publics rise and fall, form and reform, based on which indirect consequences need to be controlled and channeled. And this means, in turn, that states are fluid, or at least should be fluid, lest the constitution of a new public with new needs results in revolution. Put differently, there is no absolute conception of the state as an archetypal entity with a certain “essence or intrinsic nature in virtue of which any particular association is entitled to have applied to it the concept of statehood” (45). The concept of the state is relative to the public which its officials coordinate into a political body. At the same time, simply because there is no one form of state constitution that is best, this does not mean that there are not better and worse states. Dewey offers two criteria in view of which to evaluate political communities: first, the extent to which state officials have formed the public into an effective and efficient political body capable of collective action; and second, the extent to which state officials administer public affairs in accordance with the common interests of the public.

Government, for Dewey, is identified with the officials who form a public into a state. Whether or not these officials are elected democratically, their responsibility is to represent the public and serve its interests. As Dewey explains, “since those who are . . . affected [by indirect consequences of transactions between parties] are not direct participants in the transactions in question [over which the state administers], it is necessary that certain persons be set apart to represent them, and to see to it that their interests are conserved and protected” (16). It seems that Dewey thinks this a descriptive, not a normative claim; insofar as the state serves a necessary function in every political community (66), its officers necessarily represent the public, no matter how well or to what extent they act in accordance with this role. And that such officials may not serve the public interest, since they, like everyone else, have their own private interests, is precisely what sets up one of the principal problems of the public: what measures can the public adopt to ensure that the conflict between private and public interests faced by officials is minimized? Democratic political institutions, Dewey observes, serve this function: “They represent an effort in the first place to counteract the forces that have . . . determined the possession of rule by accidental and irrelevant factors, and in the second place an effort to counteract the tendency to employ political power to serve the private instead of public ends” (83).

Herein lies the unique value of what Dewey calls “political democracy,” understood as a form of political constitution in which citizens wield political authority and elect representatives to serve the public interest on their behalf (82). Yet while political democracy offers an ostensibly effective solution to the primary problem of the public, the particular history of its ascent in Western Europe and the United States, which Dewey traces in the second part of the book, underscores why political democracy by itself does not and cannot resolve the tension between private and public interests. Dewey claims that the popular narrative that a certain set of philosophical ideas account for the establishment of democratic institutions is a myth; while theoretical notions of the pre-political individual in the state of nature, endowed with inalienable entitlements to life, liberty, and property, certainly reflected and subsequently influenced the democratic movement, the real drivers of democracy in concrete political contexts were dramatic social, scientific, and economic transformations. In particular, Dewey explains that political democracy was born out of the desires of a nascent middle-class to cast off established forms of political constitution that threatened their economic interests. And “since established political forms were tied up with other institutions, especially ecclesiastical, and with a solid body of tradition and inherited belief, the revolt also extended to the latter” (86). Hence the early democratic movement aimed at freedom as an end in itself, where freedom really meant liberation from oppression and tradition, and promoted an individualistic ethos in accordance with freedom thus understood. Concomitant with and inextricably bound up with the rise of democracy was economic liberalism, which reinforced the individualistic ethos with its emphasis on the individual and her desires as the basis for all economic transactions. Individualism, then, was a core component of the democratic movement, buttressed by philosophical and economic theories that invented fictions like the state of nature and “natural” economic laws that in turn influenced the particular forms that democracy would take. Government, on the view that prevailed, was a threat to individual autonomy whenever it unduly meddled in free-market economic transactions which, left to themselves, would inexorably result in the maximum possible social prosperity (91).

Yet just as the cult of individualism reached its apex in the minds of democratic theorists, many of the same social, scientific, and economic forces that propelled the rise of democracy led to the industrial revolution and, ironically, the demotion and belittlement of the individual worker. These same forces also eviscerated local communities and replaced face-to-face interactions between fellow community members with “impersonal and mechanical modes of combined human behavior” (98). Put differently, nineteenth-century moderns extolled individualism while social and economic structures premised on individual autonomy deprived citizens of local communal bonds. Importantly, for Dewey, this did not mean that individuals actually existed as the disassociated atoms classical liberal theory envisioned them as; impersonal and mostly invisible structural forces continued to shape their desires and unite them, however distantly, into a society, even if “the Great Society created by steam and electricity . . . is no community” (98). Yet, for Dewey, perhaps the most lamentable fact of the modern democratic state is that economic powers have captured and appropriated it for their own ends. He compares the modern economic establishment to the monarchical dynasties that political democracy either overthrew or rendered impotent: neither has or had the public interest at heart (108). In short, political democracy, when coupled with the philosophical and economic fictions of individualism, did not successfully resolve the first and most important problem of the public: the democratic movement as it developed in most industrial nations could not counteract the tendency to employ political power for the sake of private ends.

Related to this failure is, for Dewey, an even deeper and more profound problem in modern democratic societies, one which he terms the “eclipse” of the public. The eclipse, or disappearance, of the public is closely tied to the history of political democracy, economic liberalism, and the industrial revolution described above: the public cannot identify itself because, due to the erosion of local communities replaced by abstract forms of institutional attachment and the enormous complexity of economic structures, citizens can neither perceive the indirect consequences of transactions nor identify the causes of those transactions in the first place. As Dewey explains further, the industrial era “has so enormously expanded, multiplied, intensified and complicated the scope of indirect consequences, [has] formed such immense and consolidated unions in action, on an impersonal rather than a community basis, that the resultant public cannot identify . . . itself” and so cannot be formed into a real political body (126). Somewhat paradoxically, concomitant with the eclipse of the public is that “there is too much public, a public too diffused and scattered and too intricate in composition.” And there are also “too many publics,” since the indirect consequences of modern collective action produce various associations of citizens especially affected with little to unite them that would render perceptible what those consequences actually are (137). While, to be sure, the eclipse of the public is attributable to a deficiency in citizens’ comprehension of complex social, economic, and institutional structures, Dewey nevertheless rejects a technocratic solution to the problem: we have no reason to believe that an intellectual aristocracy of policy experts would necessarily serve the public interest over and above their private interests, and in any case, to the extent that such experts become a specialized class, they soon become out of touch with the needs of the people whom they are supposed to serve (206).

If technocracy is not the solution to the eclipse of the public, then what is? While Dewey previously explained why political democracy is not, in and of itself, sufficient to ensure that state officials serve the public interest, he is nevertheless deeply committed to the idea of democracy in its fullest sense, both as a form of political constitution and, more importantly, as a “social idea” or way of life. Democracy in this latter sense is the key to the re-formation of the public as an identifiable and coordinated political body. This is because, for Dewey, democracy “is the idea of community life itself. . . . The clear consciousness of a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of democracy” (148-49). If the eclipse of the public is due in part to the erasure of authentic forms of community, then democracy, insofar as it denotes the emotional, intellectual, and conscious maintenance of communal life, is essential for the reconstitution of the public.

More specifically, Dewey names two necessary, if not necessarily sufficient, conditions for the social idea of democracy to flourish and the public to reappear from its eclipse. He refers to the first condition as free social inquiry: not only must there be an absence of overt coercive forces that prohibit social and scientific study and experimentation, but also citizens must be liberated from “emotional habituations and intellectual habitudes” that inculcate a kind of reverence for and idolization of established institutions (169). Dewey recommends “an experimental method in physical and technical matters”: both intellectual experts and ordinary citizens should cultivate an open-mindedness to social and political experimentation—not even the Constitution, or private property, is sacrosanct and inviolable (170). The second condition is the widespread communication of the results of social inquiry, disseminated in a manner conducive to public comprehension. Dewey is confident that ordinary citizens can understand complex scientific, economic, and political phenomena when experts in these fields publicly communicate their ideas in an artful, non-technical vocabulary and medium (183). Ultimately, the aim of both conditions is a more well-informed, better-educated citizenry capable of the sort of observation and critical analysis needed to ascertain the effects of complex social-structural processes so as to form a self-aware political body. As he puts it, “the essential need . . . is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion. That is the problem of the public” (208). It is no wonder, then, that Dewey placed such stress on the importance of education to democracy.

Lastly, Dewey thinks that local community life must be restored in order for the public to “find and identify itself” (216). While, to be sure, the vast size of the United States in terms of both territory and population presents a whole host of obstacles to the reconstitution of the public as a political body (114), Dewey does not endorse the breakup of the United States or other similar nation-states. He does, however, underscore the centrality of face-to-face interactions in which citizens can communicate ideas and discuss pertinent political issues (218). “There is no substitute,” he insists, “for the vitality and depth of close and direct intercourse and attachment” (213). Thus, for the modern “Great Society” to become a “Great Community,” democracy must start at home—i.e. citizens must practice democracy as a way of life between themselves at the local, face-to-face level before it can be realized at the national (or even international) level. In fact, Dewey hopes that the impersonal and abstract forms of “trans-local” association will ultimately enrich local community life just as the cultivation of democratic virtues at home will help sustain the public (212). In this way, the complex social and economic forces of the industrial revolution and the forms of association they have created need not inhibit or undermine local community life (215). Modernity, in short, is compatible with democracy as a way of life, even if we have yet to achieve this harmony.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my committee members suggested I re-read John Dewey's The Public and Its Problems because my dissertation is dealing with issues of privacy, publicity, and the social. It was a delight to return to early 20th century pragmatism, since I haven't read much (except for Josiah Royce) since my master's program. Here's a few (disjointed) notes and quotations from Dewey.

Dewey argues that the public/private distinction is not simply an individual/social distinction, because private acts can be social: "their consequences contribute to the welfare of the community or affect its status and prospects" (13). For Dewey, "any transaction deliberatively carried on between two or more persons is social in quality. It is a form of associated behavior and its consequences may influence further associations" (13). Thus, private acts between individuals can be social. Dewey seems to define social as something that is largely good for society, and thus some public acts are not "socially useful" (14).

Dewey's ontology of humanity is one of becoming: unlike other things that associate, a human "becomes a social animal in the make-up of his ideas, sentiments and deliberate behavior" (25). Becoming human: "To learn to be human is to develop through the give-and-take of communication an effective sense of being an individually distinctive member of a community; one who understands and appreciates its beliefs, desires and methods, and who contributes to a further conversion of organic powers into human resources and values. But this translation is never finished" (154).

The same is true for democracy: it is an ideal, a becoming, rather than a fact: "the tendency and movement of some thing which exists carried to its final limit, viewed as completed, perfected. Since things do not attain such fulfillment but are in actuality distracted and interfered with, democracy in this sense is not a fact and never will be" (148).

The Public occurs when "association adds to itself political organization" (35). For Dewey, the Public is intricately tied to the state, involving organization and representation (35). The problem of the Public is that it cannot recognize itself. Dewey writes that "'The new age of human relationships' has no political agencies worthy of it. The democratic public is still largely inchoate and unorganized" (109).

Method: He is also less interested in causes of events and phenomenon, which can lead to wild "interpretation" (19) and tautological arguments (I'm reminded here a bit of Eve Sedgwick's critique of hermeneutics of suspicion). Instead, he is more interested in an "empirical and historical treatment of the changes in political forms and arrangements, free from any overriding domination such as is inevitable when a 'true' state is postulated" (46). Thus, Dewey proposes that in order to create a more vital democratic public, we need to turn to a scientific method, one that attends to consequences and criteria. "Intelligence" itself is not enough, for we are stuck in habits that are conservative (157-159). His proposal is ultimately a "logic of method" like the experimentation in laboratories (202).

On technology: "Industry and inventions in technology, for example, create means which alter the modes of associated behavior and which radically change the quantity, character and place of impact of their indirect consequences" (30). Technology create means that affect how we associate.

Finally, "the first and last problem" that we must address "is the relation of the individual to the social" (186). "The individual" is hard to define because it is a matter of perspective: something can appear to be individual, until you either break it up more or look at the connections that it depends upon (187). Dewey defines individual as "A distinctive way of behaving in conjunction and connection with other distinctive ways of acting, not as self-enclosed way of acting, independent of everything else" (188). For individuals to be "social" together, instead of just "associative" there must be common interest and joint action (188). Dewey is suspicious of "evolutionary" claims about sociality (that we are moving to or from collectivism) because there is a "continuous re-distribution of social integrations on the one hand and of capacities and energies of individuals on the other" (193).

Reading this was useful in getting a discussion of the social, public, and individual/collectivism. I was mostly familiar with some of Dewey's arguments already, but it was nice returning to him. A few concerns: Dewey privileges the local community as necessary for improved democracy (216). What to do with this in today's social climate, where local communities seem fragmented and associations seem to be transnational or distributed over space and time? He also privileges face-to-face over print (218), which is understandable, but also limiting.

[Pierre-Olivier · Rating 2 out of 5]

Argumentaire vague et lunaire allant un peu partout. Arrêté la lecture au 3/4. Le pragmatisme, selon ce que j’en comprend de la théorie de Dewey, est au dessus des idéologies,elle est le réel, elle représente plus une technique ou un processus qu’une réelle philosophie, très influencé par l’empirisme. Me semble très corollaire au position de l’extrême-centre moderne. Le pragmatisme : ancêtre du macronisme ??

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little obtuse in its wording, Dewey still manages to make some cutting critiques of the public's role in governance. Being a bit of a newcomer to the political scene, some of it was a bit confusing to me, but it was definitely an interesting read.

[GMO Burt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this three stars not because it didn't contain interesting ideas and insights but only because I had a hard time getting into it. It became a bit of a chore to read at times but that is to some degree tied to my attention span.

What I found most engaging was Dewey's critique of Individualism as a functional component of the political thought which broke some chunk of humanity out of the feudal order. He does not deny the existence of the individual but wants to always remind us that the individual is in every case developed, nurtured and constituted by various and sundry group associations or relationships. There is no free-floating "individual" who can be severed from the social groupings that molded them. If the individual feels oppressed by current conditions, then it is because those social conditions are inadequate for their full development. Thus, we need to study and understand the current social conditions, how and whom they oppress, and decide in some democratic manner how they might be changed.

In the final chapter, Dewey surmises that this must begin at the local level. We must find democratic ways of being within the groupings in which we are most intimately involved (family, neighborhood, religious institution, civic organization, etc.). In this way we may become aware of ourselves as parts of a Public and we can then make determinations about how we fit in with other groups to which we are not so closely bound. This is important because, in an increasingly complex and technological society, we ARE more closely bound and dependent than we realize. The ways of democratic engagement must begin in our most intimate relations and radiate outward to larger and larger assemblages of human beings.

The fact that capitalistic economic organization and technocratic political organization tend to hamper many individuals in their own flourishing should show us that these institutions need amendment. That these institutions are made to serve only a miniscule elite in flourishing should show their inherent inadequacy. We need a way of engaging democratically which will allow our institutions to keep up with the dizzying pace by which technological change upends old ways of human culture and organization. If this is not done then we are only generating a new type of feudalism- which has an anchor in social institutions which still retain some kernel of feudalism such as law and economic arrangements- that may be much uglier and more stultifying than the one it replaced.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dewey makes a systematic inquiry into the makeup of the public (or, perhaps more accurately, publics) and its connection with democracy. On the most basic level, Dewey asserts that publics are fundamentally about social relations and that democracy is a particular mode of social relations oriented toward the good of the community, rather than about the particular mechanics like voting.

He makes the case that a public is oriented toward itself through the ways in which its members interact. This fundamentally involves a challenge to the very notion of "individualism," which Dewey suggests has been immensely destructive of the fabric of social life because it has encouraged the manifestly false notion that human beings (or any entity) can lead a self-contained existence. The problem with this notion (apart from it being demonstrably false, as Dewey shows) is that it weakens the interconnections between people, upon which the consciousness of a public depends. When a public doesn't recognize itself as such (i.e., when the individuals within the public don't recognize their shared relations which give them a common interest), then self-government becomes impossible because no individual is invested in the collective good.

Under these conditions, democracy becomes impossible--the public doesn't recognize itself as a public, and individuals don't acknowledge any responsibility to the greater good of society as such, only their private interests. Obviously this does affect the goings on of elections and voting and things like this, but Dewey argues that this is just the machinery of political democracy and fails to get to the truth of what democracy as such is. For Dewey, democracy is a mindset, a habit, and a way of looking at the world and at social relations. It is rooted in communities (local communities especially, where face to face interactions happen) which combine to form what he calls the Great Community--a kind of network of communities all with a consciousness of their responsibility to one another and to the good of the Great Community as a whole. This whole process--democracy as a social mode--depends on individuals to perceive themselves not as "individuals" but as interdependent members of communities, as being responsible to other beings in the world. This, for Dewey, is the true meaning of democracy.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Public and its Problems is an essay on political theory and actions. I read this during Election Day 2024 and finished it the next morning immediately upon seeing the results. The issues facing the public that John Dewey outlines have only intensified over the past 70 years.

The public has been eclipsed and is unable to identify itself. The public is incapable of understanding the socioeconomic structures that control their lives. The public can no longer serve as a legitimate source for democratic order.

The public supports baseless claims, hate speech, explicit threats to human lives, impeached and criminal politicians.

Dewey's solution to un-eclipse the public from the shadow of disillusion feels truly difficult to reach to me. I find it unlikely that true progress will occur in my lifetime, but Dewey's path is the most worthy path to forge and it must be pursued by good-faith actors.

He claims that to regain an identifiable public, an approach of open-mindedness and critical thinking in the areas of social and political issues is necessary. In such, the public must progress towards the experimentation and implementation of new social and political systems to combat the current political system which serves the private needs of the those in power. The catalyst for this shift in mindset and approach towards sociopolitical progress is "face-to-face" human connection.

Dewey's prescient view: to regain an identifiable public that benefits from modern advances in quality of life, we must engage with our neighbors. In his words, happiness "is found only in enduring ties with others."

The barriers towards this type of necessary connection are large:

Our world is too big for people to perceive how the actions of one party affects others.
We do not connect. We are exploited by the "emotional habituations" levied upon us by propagandists and we have habituated to division.

Despite these hurdles (which, admittedly, feel insurmountable), forming face-to-face community with neighbors (no matter their ideations) is the path towards a Good Society.

[Aidan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was jampacked with Golden Nuggets, but it was definitely a slog at certain parts. This is maybe the most frigid, Technical John Dewey’s riding has gotten for me. A lot of very important work is here, and I plan on looking back at this many times, but wow, he critiques others is readability, the call may be coming from inside the house.

“An interesting phase of the transition from the relatively private to the public, at least from a limited public to a larger one, is seen in the development in England of the King's Peace.

Justice until the twelfth century was administered mainly by feudal and shire courts, courts of hundreds, etc.

Legislatures are more ready to regulate the hours of labor of children than of adults, of women than of men.
In general, labor legislation is justified against the charge that it violates liberty of contract on the ground that the economic resources of the parties to the arrangement are so disparate that the conditions of a genuine contract are absent; We have simply been engaged in pointing out the marks by which public action as distinct from private is characterized.

Transactions between singular persons and groups bring a public into being when their indirect consequences-their effects beyond those immediately engaged in them —are of importance.

The problem of the relation of individuals to associations— sometimes posed as the relation of the individual to society —is a meaningless one.

We might as well make a problem out of the relation of the letters of an alphabet to the alphabet. An alphabet is letters, and "society" is individuals in their connections with one another.

But, after all, individual men and women exercise the franchise; the public is here a collective name for a multitude of persons each voting as an anonymous unit.

We have insisted that the development of political democracy represents the convergence of a great number of social movements, no one of which owed either its origin or its impetus to inspiration of democratic ideals or to planning for the eventual outcome.

The political problem thus conceived is essentially a problem of discovering and instating a technique which will confine the operations of government as far as may be to its legitimate business of protecting economic interests” 8)

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Dewey's "The Public and Its Problems" is a remarkable exploration into the mechanics of societal structures and their intersection with individual actions. Through the lens of pragmatism, Dewey offers a profound perspective that underscores the paramount importance of understanding consequences over causal forces. He places great emphasis on individual responsibility, asserting that our private acts significantly impact the societal framework, and thus necessitate a deep awareness and consideration of their broader effects. Rooted firmly in the pragmatist tradition, Dewey delves into theories of truth-making and challenges our preconceived notions of 'facts.' He encourages us to redefine the essence of reality by fostering an active and participatory relationship with our environment. This approach transfigures our perception of knowledge and truth, advocating for a more engaged and dynamic understanding of our collective reality (Readers of Rorty, James et al will be acquainted with this).

Dewey's philosophy champions the virtues of open-mindedness, courage, and creativity, inspiring us to continuously reevaluate and reshape societal structures in response to evolving needs. Dewey posits an argument for the state's experimental nature, encouraging us to conceive our role within the societal framework as one of active participation and agency.

In the podcast "Reviving Virtue," I've taken the initiative to unpack Dewey's philosophical treasure over six episodes, each dedicated to a chapter of this book. Through our journey, we unpack the concepts Dewey explicates and move them into our current conjuncture and confront the issues we face in modernity - the rise of social media, democratic mechanisms like the Electoral College, global trade, immigration, creativity in government, and many more topics. The podcast also celebrate the timeless virtues of empathy, collaboration, and open-mindedness that Dewey champions and apply his insights into the project of articulating a new set of moral narratives for our time.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have to admit, Dewey wields two-edged abstraction adroitly. With the one edge, his unceasing analytical and assertive obscurities softly bludgeon the audience into intellectual stupor, at the conclusion of which they are forced to pronounce Dewey a sagacious sociological ubermensch…due to their inability to argue a single point put forward (blinded to the reality that he didn’t really put ANY specific point forward). Which leads to the second edge—utilitarian ambiguity. The vagueries and hovering universalities give Dewey plenty of room in the future to post-script any manner of specificity into these equivocations, piggybacking on the discombobulated approval/authority status he has already gained.

Why read Dewey? To see the unraveling of any lingering positive outlook on corporate humanity in the shift from utilitarianism to pragmatism. He really doesn’t see humans at all capable of governing even the most basic aspects of their lives. They’re pathetic sheep. They’re idiots who need a smarter, more educated, more aware, more vision-oriented set of benevolent overseers to guide their entire lives, cradle to grave…even as he simultaneously warns of the dangers of such, and still positions himself to be such. And THIS is the sociological worldview of the person we turned over the development of our national education to.

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is maybe the clearest, simplest, and most important of Dewey's works that I've read (so far). In his discussion of the public, the state, and individuals he finds a way to articulate the core problems of logic that plague typical discussions of government and policy, while also providing fairly clear ideals for how this conversation can be moved productively forward. His recommendations are, he notes, ideals, and not necessarily prescribed courses of action, but they seem (to me, at least) eminently practical anyways, and are at the very least articulated in an inspiring enough way to spur thinking and desire for action in the direction fo their accomplishment. The one element that is explored some here but could use further teasing out is the role that technology and technique play in the constitution of publics, the state, and governance. There are hints throughout the book at the new and important mass role that technology plays, but Dewey never fully follows those thoughts to their conclusion in a major way. The principles he articulates are nonetheless applicable to our contemporary mediated, technological, networked situation, and the ideals he asks us to aspire to are beautifully elaborated on here.

[Brandon]

"The final obstacle in the way of any aristocratic rule is that in the absence of an articulate voice on the part of the masses, the best do not and cannot remain the best, the wise cease to be wise."

"No government by experts in which the masses do not have the chance to inform the experts as to their needs can be anything but an oligarchy managed in the interests of the few."

"The essential need, in other words, is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion, and persuasion. That is the problem of the public."

"Evils which are uncritically and indiscriminately laid at the door of industrialism and democracy might, with greater intelligence, be referred to the dislocation and unsettlement of local communities. Vital and thorough attachments are bred only in the intimacy of an intercourse which is of necessity restricted in range."

"Unless local communal life can be restored, the public cannot adequately resolve its most urgent problem: to find and identify itself."

[Moud Barthez · Rating 3 out of 5]

it is a hard book to warp your head around, it's tiny but delicate book, it's mainly about hypothesis between The Public as a whole and it's role in the society and the societies role as individuals in constructing a Governmental rule, and the role of democracy and communication on the Public.
it is kinda of a book that gives you headache, i don't recommend it to anyone, it a bit academical advanced and not using examples to simplify the theories just the cheer hypotheses by itself to justify and epitomizing the ideas.

i read that book twice, one of which in a fortnight, the second in a whole day.
and i cannot say i fully grasped all the ideas that Dewey wanted to discuss
but i understood the objective in the end.

it is a good and important political book but i didn't enjoy it though.

[Public Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished at last! This was supposed to be a quicker read mixed in amongst longer stuff. Sigh. Oh well. The abstract ideas bogged me down and I totally lost my flow. This brief volume turned into an endless slog. There were moments of genius, however, that made this worth my time. I was especially fond of his examination of the cult of individualism versus the public at large, which I think is crucial to understanding how capitalism undermines democracy.

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly good introduction into the epistemics of democracy. We discussed Dewey's theory and I like his framework. There are some points of criticism though, which mostly have to do with the vagueness of certain definitions.

Dewey does not come with many concrete examples of what he is talking about, and the level of abstraction stays a bit too high in the sky.

[Alex Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Dewey: *punches me* talk to your neighbours
me: fuck you ass hole
John Dewey: *throws a chair at wall* the great society can only become the great community through the development of local communal life
me: got o hell

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

some good points, but honestly I expected more given rorty's account of him. i guess it's all in rorty

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have kept trying to find some Dewey that makes sense to me. I’ll keep trying.

[Leonora Shiell]

Had to read it for class.

[Nils · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve rarely read so tedious a book

[Sara R]

I <3 the idea of everyone enacting democratic princples

[JimV · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makes the case that local self-governance is the only way to have a healthy and robust democracy. Written at a time when democracy was in crisis in America and across the world. Much like today.

[Kevin Hogan]

Read in July 2025. Each sentence was salt in an open wound.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Dewey argues that the public is “in eclipse” because it is bewildered. (121-123) “There are too many publics and too much of public concern for our existing resources to cope with.” (126) This, Dewey asserts, is without historical parallel. (126) He attributes the public’s bewilderment primarily to the social changes wrought by the industrial revolution as well as the continuing technological transformation of society. (141-142, among others) These changes dislocated the public by shattering the associations they depended on for their political consciousness. (141) Dewey believed that until communities re-form, the public “will remain in eclipse” (142) because it is only community that can generate the knowledge and understanding necessary for the public to come to grips with complex issues. (158)  

How did this come to pass? And what are the ramifications for politics? Dewey points, in the first instance, to WWI, which he believes showed "existing political and legal forms and arrangements” to be insufficient. (128) He also shows the impossible task individuals face in trying to come to terms with complex issues — and Dewey, like Lippmann, argues that most issues of the day are complex and thus beyond the capacity of the individual to understand them, let alone influence or dictate their resolution. (129-132) Without the ability to understand issues on the merits, Dewey also agrees with Lippmann that the public depends on cues and symbols to guide their political participation. (133) Dewey attributes this as much to social change as a result of industrialization as to the individual’s general incapacity. (133) In essence, Dewey argues that people — even those who continue to participate in the political process — depend on heuristics. (134-135) 

Dewey distinguishes between democracy as an idea and political democracy as a form of government. (143-144) He believes it is wrong to credit/blame the idea of democracy for the creation of all of the existing institutions of government. (144) The idea of democracy is “the idea of community itself.” (148) Dewey proceeds to offer an impassioned articulation of the idea of community and the value of it. (148-155) Communication is a necessary condition of community (155, among others) and openness and transparency — drawing on the spirit of scientific inquiry — are essential prerequisites for a democratically organized public. (167) It is not enough, Dewey argues, for legal restrictions on thought and communication to be removed. (168) The results of social inquiry must be communicated, because that is how public opinion forms. (176-177) And the results of social inquiry must be communicated continuously, otherwise public opinion will only appear in moments of crisis. (178) 

Dewey warns that as long as the public remains dislocated, powerful interests will “have an unresisted motive for tampering with the springs of political action in all that affects them.” (182) To balance this, Dewey looks to artists as the key to breaking through “crust of conventionalized and routine consciousness.” (183) “Artists have always been the real purveyors of news” because they kindle “emotion, perception, and appreciation.” (184) 

Dewey ends on a marginally optimistic note. (184). 

Interesting Tidbits

Dewey makes a compelling case for writing history that comes right down to the present day on the logic that if historians leave gas in their narratives, the public must guess at connecting the dots to their present situation. (179-180)

Historiography

Dewey’s attempt to engage Walter Lippmann’s provocative claims results in more hair-splitting than meaningful distinctions. The two men differ slightly on the causes of public political apathy, but generally agree on the results. 

Dewey seems to agree with Lippmann that the nature and complexity of contemporary issues exceed the capacity of the individual to come to terms with them. (131-132) However, where Lippmann attributes this incapacity to general human shortcomings in the face of impossible complexity, Dewey argues that the missing knowledge reflects the absence of association/community, which give individuals the habits that lead to thinking. (158-160) Dewey agree that the period of growing prosperity in the 1920s distracted citizens from political affairs. (139) Unlike Lippmann, however, Dewey believes there is a public — but that the problem is that there “is too much public, a public too diffused and scattered and too intricate in composition.” (137) This is a thin, perhaps meaningless, distinction, since the result is the same.

Similarly, Dewey agrees with Lippmann that public opinion tends to emerge only in moments of crisis, though Dewey's reasoning differs slightly and is premised on his idea of community/communication/scientific inquiry. (178)

[Yapaag · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like it.