John Dewey: Closet Conservative?

Abstract

Several well-known scholars, including Clarence Karier, Walter Feinberg, and Eamonn Callan, have offered arguments suggesting that John Dewey was more politically conservative than is generally thought. Karier and Feinberg base their respective cases on Dewey’s involvement with Polish community during World War I, while Callan relies heavily on some remarks offered in one of Dewey’s later works, Ethics. In the following account, it is suggested that neither of these analyses withstands careful scrutiny. In the case of the Polish affair, Karier and Feinberg are not able to marshal sufficient evidence to condemn Dewey convincingly, and there is a significant quantity of counterevidence which indicates that Dewey’s intentions were benign. Callan’s case, though seemingly convincing, is undermined by the joint authorship of the Ethics and by information contained in Dewey’s correspondence. In conclusion, it is argued that the more popular understanding of Dewey as a left-liberal reformer is, in fact, correct.

Keywords:

• John Dewey,
• Conservatism,
• Albert Barnes,
• Report on the Poles,
• Liberalism,
• Leftism,
• Ethics