DEWEY AND RORTY ON DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

Published Jun 17, 2026, 4:39 AM

Miklos Nyiro

In this paper I’ll try to compare, even to contrast in some important respects, but also to adjust to one another the views of John Dewey and Richard Rorty on two interrelated topics, namely, democracy and education. Since Rorty has often been criticized for a kind of betrayal of the heritage of Dewey’s radical liberalism, it is advisable, first, to investigate to some extent the specifics of the notion of democracy Rorty may have entertained. Therefore, I begin with a short attempt at reconstructing what appears to be Rorty’s non/Deweyan, although latent, concept of democracy (1). One of the central features of Dewey’s views on democracy is the emphasis he has put on the model value of the experimental sciences for the publics. In the second section I concentrate on a recurring type of criticism leveled against that stance of his, and also Dewey’s possible answer to such a charge, namely, the one stressing the fact that a risk of the so called „tyranny of the ignorant” is inherent in his approach (2). Rorty’s main criticism over against Dewey arrives from a different angle, however. In the third section I try to demarcate one of the important points where Rorty decisively departs from some of the basic views of Dewey. I do so by briefly reconstructing Rorty’s philosophical objections against Dewey’s metaphysical project, and by summarizing his own starting point and some of the consequences of it for his alternative view of large scale community (3). Finally, I attempt to show that the main differences between Dewey’s and Rorty’s ideas on education are due to a large extent – in accordance with their enumerated views – to the differing role they ascribe to cooperation in community life (4).

As an introductory note, first of all I’d like to emphasize the fact, however, that beyond all the differences one may find between Dewey’s and Rorty’s respective convictions and suggestions, there is a fundamental kinship between their intellectual outlook, a kinship due to their exceptional commitment and devotion to democracy, to progress in democratic institutions, as well as to the democratization of society. Both of these pragmatist philosophers are equally concerned with individuality and social freedom, and they are to a large extent in agreement, also, concerning the final goals of philosophical reflection and the ultimate role such a reflection might play regarding culture as a whole. With that in mind, and hoping to contribute to a possible exchange of ideas derived from the works of these two champions of democratic thought, rather than trying to show some alleged superiority of one of them at the expense of the other, now I turn to my topic.

1. Rorty’s Latent Non-Deweyan Notion of Democracy

In his article titled „Democracy without Illusions? Rorty and Posner on Liberal Democracy,” the young Hungarian scholar György Pápay examines the following question: How eligible is it to criticize Rorty

– as it had often been done

– by saying that „he himself became a defender of social status quo, and thereby proved to betray the heritage of radical liberalism, above all that of John Dewey”?

In answering that question, Pápay proceeds by showing that there are two important features of Dewey’s notion of democracy which are not shared by Rorty. The first of them is what Putnam regards as an „epistemic justification” of democracy.

Such a justification would ultimately reside in the claim that it is democracy that can guarantee the most the appropriate conditions of „intelligently conducted inquiry”, the kind of inquiry desirable according to Dewey not only within the sciences but also in solving social problems. The second feature is Dewey’s vision of a „creative democracy”. Just as Dewey emphasizes cooperation in scientific inquiry and rejects all individualistic models of acquiring knowledge, he also stresses cooperation in political matters. Accordingly, his creative democracy demands as much participation of the citizens in political matters as possible, and therefore it regards democracy as a way of life – as opposed to the merely negative freedom warranted by democratic institutions.

Rorty, in turn, is skeptical whenever any form of „rationality” is being privileged and an attempt is made to show that democratic praxis and politics embody – or at least it is desirable that it embody – just that kind of rationality. Then again, it is quite obvious that Rorty emphasizes the sort of

2 negative freedom John Stuart Mill had advocated, and that he regards the institutional guarantees of democracy as of primary importance, without exhorting an extensive participation of citizens in public matters.

The contrast between Dewey and Rorty regarding these two issues seems to be fairly clear, and the main question is whether one can find plausible reasons for Rorty’s obvious departure from these aspects of Dewey’s notion of democracy. One of the obstacles in answering this question is the fact that Rorty’s views on democracy are generally not elaborated systematically – it is characteristic of him, indeed, that he refers to „liberal democracy” mostly in broad terms. However, as Pápay attempts to show, there is a conception of democracy – namely, that of the practicing judge and jurisprudent professor Richard Posner

– that seems to challenge to a considerable extent the views of Dewey, and that conception is in accord – at least in some important respects – with Rorty’s pertaining views.

It is not my intention here to present Posner’s approach extensively. Few points will suffice.

Posner differentiates between Concept I and Concept II democracy, which more or less correspond to a deliberative and a competitive notion of democracy, respectively (and I will refer to the two concepts by using the latter names).

Deliberative notions of democracy – such as Dewey’s, Hannah Arendt’s republicanism, and other, contemporary theories of it – tend to have a rather normative aspect. They characteristically prefer political participation on the citizens part as opposed to, or at least besides, their representation, and accordingly build upon more or less well/informed citizens who are also willing to get directly involved in public issues. Therefore, as Posner claims, they ascribe moral rights – such as that of participating on equal terms in governmental work – and corresponding moral requirements (if not duties or responsibilities) to the citizens. Moreover, deliberative conceptions tend to favor the kind of discussion that is consensus/oriented and is pursued with public interest in view. For Posner, such conceptions are inspired rather theoretically, being regulated by some kind of a vision.

As opposed to them, the so called competitive model of democracy tries to take extant social praxises as its starting/point. It is a rather practically/oriented notion also in the sense that it takes into account and builds upon individual, selfish, often utterly a/political, interests, instead of proceeding from a requirement to recognize interests of the narrower or broader community, or society itself. In general, this approach is skeptical toward the demand of consensus, takes into account the limits of discussion, and thinks of democracy – accordingly – as being fundamentally pervaded by conflicts. On this account, it is not adequate to regard the system of representation as a field where social conflicts are to be resolved by means of discussion aiming at consensus, but rather, it should be seen as a procedural system which operates on the principle of trial and error. Such a competitive view – as opposed to the deliberative one – demands much less of political activity on the part of the voters, and devotes much more attention to the institutional dimensions of democracy. As a whole, the competitive model is much less idealistic, less normative, less illusion/laden, and more accepting than the deliberative ones, whereas the latter typically tend to display a certain impatience toward existing conditions and practices.

As I see the matter, Pápay is justified in claiming that Rorty’s views „on several points advocate, or even explicitly presuppose a pragmatic notion of democracy in a Posnerian sense.”

Rorty’s emphasis on the public/private distinction, on the incommensurability of so called „final vocabularies”, and again, the fact that instead of stressing consensus he takes into account the unavoidable conflicts among group/interests, and that he urges proceeding from extant political practices and institutions over against normative social theories, etc. – all these seem to testify to that claim. From this perspective, then, it is advisable to acknowledge the fact that Rorty’s departure from important notions in Dewey’s vision of democracy might be due to a deliberate commitment of his to an other kind of conception of democracy. It is also important to note, however, that this account corresponds only – as Pápay is well aware of it – to the „more pragmatic, less illusion/laden side” of Rorty, at the expense of the „more romantic, utopian” Rorty who exaggerates hope in democracy into a kind of civil religion.

2. The Question of the Model Value of the Experimental Sciences for the Publics

In his paper titled „Representative Democracy, Participatory Democracy, and the Trajectory of Social Transformation” Larry Hickman calls attention to the fact that controversies pertaining to the question of deliberative versus so called competitive democracy are not at all something new, and that Dewey himself was also engaged in a debate, one with Walter Lipmann during the 1920’s, where the case at issue was the more or less same topic, namely, the question of representative democracy versus participatory democracy.

One of the highly important upshots of Hickman’s reconstruction is that Dewey „had [...] argued for [a dynamic] balance or reciprocity between participatory and representative dimensions of democracy that anticipated some of the basic concepts of what contemporary political theorists now term »deliberative democracy«. But [...] Dewey went well beyond most contemporary treatments of deliberative democracy in ways that anticipated some of the thinking behind some of the more radical experiments in participatory democracy [...].”

As Hickman points out, Dewey argued for the indispensability of the experimental potential of exercises within both the participatory and the representative dimensions of democracy, precisely in order to secure the desirable, continual renewal and mutual adjustment of these two dimensions.

Dewey’s idea of democracy is comprehensive. It goes far beyond mere „political democracy”, and includes „a democracy of rights”, „social democracy”, and also „economic democracy”, where „the first theme lays out the basis for representative democracy – Hickman emphasizes –, but the remaining three themes lay out the conditions under which participatory democracy can be engendered and fostered.”

To that extent, these ideals also embody an implicit critique of corporate capitalism, as well as an „implicit formula of redress” (Hickman).

As far as I see, Rorty is no less explicit on the need to conceive democracy in such a broad, Deweyan terms. Instead of explicitly referring here to the pertaining aspects of his work, I’d like only to mention that in one of his last talks he has differentiated between „two distinct meanings” of the word „democracy”, namely, between what he calls „constitutionalism,” and in turn, „egalitarianism”, corresponding more or less to Dewey’s first and the other three aspects of democracy.

„In its narrower, minimalist meaning [the term ’democracy’] refers to a system of government in which power is in the hands of freely elected officials. I shall call democracy in this sense ’constitutionalism’ – Rorty writes. In its wider sense, it refers to a social ideal, that of equality of opportunity. In this second sense, a democracy is a society in which all children have the same chances in life, and in which nobody suffers from being born poor, or being the descendant of slaves, or being female, or being homosexual. I shall call democracy in this sense ’egalitarianism’.”

To my mind, then, no one who is concerned in democratization can find anything objectionable in these ideals pursued by both Dewey and Rorty, that is, in the emphasis laid on the need to go beyond the merely political democracy of constitutionalism, and the need to extend those ideals to the spheres of rights, economy, and society as a whole in the spirit of egalitarianism. And for that reason, the question of difference between these two thinkers concerning the issue of democracy is not so much that of ends, but – perhaps – of means.

As opposed to most of the contemporary proponents of deliberative democracy, Dewey thought – using the words of Larry Hickman – that „deliberation must go beyond conversation and debate to include matters that are at basis technoscientific.”

Since he was committed above all to experimental methods in the sciences, and he thought that „the methodological successes of the sciences [...] in large measure depend on dynamic reciprocity between participation and representation” (Hickman), therefore, this reciprocal relation within the communities of scientific inquiry served for him as a model for informing other democratic practices, eventually most part of the public sphere.

Cornel West, in his The American Evasion of Philosophy, said that to the changes taking place in Dewey’s time – such as population shifts, the rise of industrial capitalism and increasing immigration, etc. – he basically responded by stressing three points: the need of radical journalism; association with WASP efforts to amalgamate the immigrants; and urging reform and leadership in teaching and education.

In Hickman’s account, the first and third of these points appear also as the most important means on the ground of which one is to reject the key argument in Lipmann’s advocacy of an elitist version of representative democracy – the claim that „the intelligence and skills of citizens were insufficient (or unnecessary) to provide the basis for the choices that would determine the shape of community life and the activities of various publics, including the state” (Hickman). Dewey’s extended experimentalism, his call for improved education and radical journalism, are supposed to reinforce one another.

West’s criticism of Dewey includes – among others – the charge that his ideal of democracy is that of the small homogeneous community, not the new, urban, heterogeneous society of the U.S.

Hickman addresses the same issue when he takes into account a possible criticism of the model value of experimental sciences for the publics, the criticism according to which scientific communities are relatively narrow, having more or less well defined interests and norms, which is not the case in politics. The problem he deals with, however, is that extensive participation in the public fields runs the risk of „the tyranny of the ignorant” (Phillip Kitcher), the risk that significant questions may be undervalued, as well as „methods that threaten to terminate deliberation” may gain importance. In reconstructing Dewey’s possible answer to that matter, Hickman refers to two arguments. First, to a „preclusionary one” that basically limits the scope of participation in deliberative democracies, and it does so on the ground that there are norms of deliberation – which arise out of democratic practices and remain revisable if necessary. The second, „inclusionary argument” resides in Dewey’s philosophy of education.

Before we turn to the problem of education, however, we must ponder – I’d like to suggest – whether the problem of the model value of small homogeneous communities, such as the scientific ones, is or is not exhausted by that of „the tyranny of the ignorant”, that is to say, whether or not there are obstacles to the creation of a well operating and as much participatory as representative public sphere other than ignorance or lack of willingness within one and the same community.

3. Rorty’s Answer: Incommensurability and the Need for Moral Change

In The Public and Its Problems (1927) Dewey spoke about „the great community” and took into account as such obstacles to its creation mainly the followings: popular cultural diversions, bureaucratization of politics, geographical mobility, and cultural lag in ideals and communication.

This is a point where – as I see it – Rorty decisively transcends, but without denying it, the general perspective of Dewey. For his very starting point – as it is first displayed in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, without mentioning critically his intellectual hero, Dewey – is the distinction between what he calls commensuration and conversation, i.e. commensurable and non/ commensurable, „normal” and „abnormal” discourses. This distinction corresponds in philosophy to the epistemological and hermeneutical discourses according to Rorty, where „epistemology proceeds on the assumption that all contributions to a given discourse are commensurable, [whereas] hermeneutics is largely a struggle against this assumption.”

The point is that these two types of discoursing correspond to two different types of community, one concerned with inquiry, and the other concerned with something which is more elementary, and pragmatically or existentially prior to the otherwise desirable democratic interest in inquiry, that is, with peaceful coexistence. „Epistemology views the participants [of discussion] as united in [...] an universitas – a group united by mutual interests [and norms, one should add – M. Ny.] in achieving a common end – Rorty writes.

Hermeneutics views them as united in [...] a societas – persons whose paths through life have fallen together, united by civility rather than by a common goal, much less by a common ground.”

From this perspective, the greatness of Dewey’s „great community” resides not so much in an ideal of a cooperative community of inquiring citizens, but rather in a kind of pluralist democracy which is „a community of communities”: a societas of a plurality of universitas, wherein neither a „common ground” nor even a mutual interest in arriving at a consensus can be taken for granted. And this means that the two philosophers, Dewey and Rorty address different levels of the problems, where these levels do not at all exclude one another, but rather, the second one emerges beyond, or on the top of the first, and in that sense presupposes and includes it. Regarding the relation between epistemology and hermeneutics Rorty writes, indeed, that „it seems clear that the two do not compete,

5 but rather help each other out.”

Accordingly – and put in a rather simplistic way –, all that Dewey said regarding democracy could remain intact and valid within the frames of Rorty’s neopragmatism, as far as more or less homogenous communities are concerned. As to the coexistence of heterogeneous communities, however, the hermeneutically inspired pragmatism of Rorty should come into play.

What I’d like to suggest, then, is that Rorty’s approach does not deny or exclude any of the practically important aspects of Dewey’s philosophy. Although Dewey doesn’t seem to, because for historical reasons he could not, take into account plurality in the sense that is central to Rorty’s post/ Kuhnian and post/Heideggerian work, namely, radical incommensurability, Rorty never criticizes him on that ground.

In the articles devoted explicitly to Dewey, the only really important critique is – as I have shown it elsewhere

– what Rorty levels against Dewey’s constructive attempt to give a kind of metaphysics of experience and nature. The reason for critique is that Dewey’s project, in its attempt to give non/dualistic accounts of phenomena by finding „continuities between lower and higher processes”

– very reminiscent, by the way, of his early panpsychism –, tries to dissolve both spirit and nature in a way that merges them in the one and perpetual process of „evolving,” a way that acknowledges differences only in degree. As opposed to such an approach, in the Mirror Rorty devotes a chapter to the Spirit/Nature distinction, and says: „Nature is whatever is so routine and familiar and manageable that we trust our own language implicitly. Spirit is whatever is so unfamiliar and unmanageable that we begin to wonder [...] whether we do not need to change our vocabulary, and not just our assertions.”

Clearly, at stake is something that is of moral significance. For the difference between Dewey and Rorty on this point is the difference between emphasizing change in degree, due to intelligent reconstruction of our practices, and emphasizing the possibility of change of identity, of personality as a whole, of becoming an other person, via redescribing ourselves and creating or choosing a new „final vocabulary” and thereby a new self. „The notion that the empirical self could be turned over to the sciences of nature, but that the transcendental self, which constitutes the phenomenal world and (perhaps) functions as a moral agent, could not, has indeed done as much as anything else to make the spirit/nature distinction meaningful”

– a distinction Rorty finds it important to adhere to (although to a pragmatic reformulation of that metaphysical distinction), precisely for its moral impact.

For the Deweyan notions of evolving and growth, fundamental as they are in his thought, suggest only continual alteration, rather than a possible, overall, qualitative change.

4. Consequences for Education

Now, there can be no doubt that both Dewey and Rorty assign to education a decisive role in democracy. As we saw it, Dewey’s answer to the problem of „the tyranny of the ignorant” is twofold: direct preclusion and indirect inclusion via education. Rorty agrees with both. He writes: „There are credentials for admission to our democratic society [...]. You have to be educated in order to be a citizen of our society, a participant in our conversation [...].”

There are some important differences, however, regarding the way they conceive the role of education, respectively.

In his Democracy and Education, Dewey – in his own words – „connects the growth of democracy with the development of the experimental method in the sciences, evolutionary ideas in the biological sciences, and the industrial reorganization, and points out the change in [...] education indicated by these developments.”

From these achievements he extracts the notions central to his educational – and democratic – philosophy, namely, experimentalism, growth, and reconstruction. He says, for example:

„Since growth is the characteristic of life, education is all one with growing; it has no end beyond itself.”

„The idea of education advanced [...] is formally summed up in the idea of continuous reconstruction of experience [...].”

„The result of the educative process is capacity for further education.”

Or elsewhere: „What Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good.”

Compared to Dewey’s perhaps somewhat one/sided emphasis on the continuity of organic interaction, and growth in the sense of intelligent reconstruction of experience – the importance of which is nowhere called into doubt by Rorty, of course –, in his educational writings Rorty puts forward the difference between two tasks of education which do not stand in such a continuity, but rather, mostly clash with one another, namely, socialization and individualization. It should be realized – he warns –, that „education is not a continuous process from age 5 to age 22. [...] the word ’education’ covers two entirely distinct, and equally necessary, processes – socialization and individualization. [It is but a] trap of thinking that a single set of ideas will work for both high school and college education.”

Although Dewey was obviously well aware of these aspects of education, the very fact that he described the process and the end of education in terms of growth, formation of habits, perpetual reconstruction, etc., seems already to imply that it is the aspect of socialization, rather than that of individualization – in the radical sense, as Rorty has it in view –, that concerned him more.

The following words of Rorty on the theme of edification are especially telling if we read them with Dewey’s notion of education in mind:

„I shall use »edification « to stand for [the] project of finding new, [...] more fruitful ways of speaking. The attempt to edify [...] may consist in the hermeneutic activity of making connections between our own culture [...] or discipline and another [culture or] discipline which seems to pursue incommensurable aims in an incommensurable vocabulary. But it may instead consist in the »poetic« activity of thinking up such new aims, new words, or new disciplines [...]. In either case, the activity is [...] edifying without being constructive – at least if »constructive« means the sort of cooperation

[...] which takes place in normal discourse. For edifying discourse is supposed to be abnormal, to take us out of our old selves by the power of strangeness, to aid us in becoming new beings.”

Exercise in edifying, abnormal discourse is less cooperative and more individualistic, yet, it can serve equally well both making connections between people holding incommensurable views, and coming up with something incommensurably new. „Hermeneutics is not »another way of knowing« [...]. It is better seen as another way of coping [...] with our fellow humans” – Rorty stresses.

In turn, it is poetic activity in a broad sense which introduces whatever is originally new.

Thus, when we compare Dewey’s and Rorty’s overall approach, it is not the ends – as we said already –, but not even the means that differ significantly. It is rather the emphasis that shifts considerably.

This shift is displayed in their case for example in that from accent laid on reconstruction of experience to that laid on redescription of practices; from accent laid on intelligence, and education in experimentalism to that laid on imagination, and education in humanities; from accent laid on the technoscientific aspect of deliberation to that laid on the issue of moral progress. And such a shift is prompted – in my view – not so much by the need of the growth of democracy, but above all by the need to secure peaceful coexistence, and thereby the very survival of democracy itself, in the midst of the plurality of individuals and communities holding more or less incommensurable views.

NOTES

* This work was supported by the MTA/TKI, the OTKA / project No. K 76865 /, and was carried out as part of the TÁMOP/4.2.2/B/10/1/2010/0008 project in the framework of the New Hungarian Development Plan.

The realization of this project is supported by the European Union, co/financed by the European Social Fund.

1. György Pápay, „Democracy without Illusions? Rorty and Posner on Liberal Democracy”. In. Miklós Nyírı ed., Filozófia a globalizáció árnyékában: Richard Rorty [Philosophy under the Shadow of Globalization:

Richard Rorty], Budapest, L’Harmattan, 2010, pp. 94/109.

2. Pápay refers to the following two articles written by important critics of Rorty: Richard Bernstein, „One Steps Forward, Two Steps Backward. Richard Rorty on Liberal Democracy and Philosophy.” Political Theory 15.

(1987) p. 540.; Thomas McCarthy, „Ironist Theory as a Vocation. A Response to Rorty’s Reply.” Critical Inquiry 16. (1990) p. 655.

3. See Hilary Putnam, „A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy.” In. his Renewing Philosophy. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1992.

4. See Richard Posner, Law, Pragmatism and Democracy. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2003.

5. György Pápay, ibid. p. 104.

6. Ibid. p. 109.

7. Larry A. Hickman, „Representative Democracy, Participatory Democracy, and the Trajectory of Social Transformation” [henceforth: „RDPD”]. In. John Ryder and Radim Sip eds., Identity and Social Transformation. Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume Five, Amsterdam / New York, NY, Rodopi Press, 2011, p. 174.

8. Larry A. Hickman, „RDPD”, p. 175.

9. Richard Rorty, „Democracy and philosophy,” In. Kritika & Kontext 34 (May) 2007.

10. Larry A. Hickman, „RDPD”, p. 176.

11. Cornel West, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism. Wisconsin, 1989, pp. 80/ 85.

12. Ibid. pp. 101/2.

13. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Oxford (UK) / Cambridge (USA), Blackwell, 1980 (henceforth: PMN) pp. 315/16.

14. Ibid. p. 318. [Emphasis added – M. Ny.]

15. Richard Rorty, PMN, p. 346. [Emphasis added – M. Ny.]

16. Miklós Nyírı, „Rorty, Dewey, and the Issue of Metaphysics.” Pragmatism Today, Summer 2010, http://www.pragmatismtoday.eu/summer2010

17. Richard Rorty, „Dewey Between Hegel and Darwin.” In. Herman J. Saatkamp, Jr. ed., Rorty & Pragmatism.

The Philosopher Responds to His Critics. Nashville/London, Vanderbilt University Press, 1995, p. 4.

18. Richard Rorty, PMN, pp. 352/3.

19. Ibid. p. 343.

20. On this difference, explicitly drawn also by Gadamer in contrasting the Kantian notion of culture with the Humboldtian and more generally humanist notion of Bildung, see Gadamer’s chapter on Bildung in his Truth and Method.

21. Richard Rorty, „Universality and Truth,” in. Robert B. Brandom ed., Rorty and his Critics, Oxford, Blackwell, 2000, p. 22. [Italics are in the original – M. Ny.]

22. John Dewey, Democracy and Education, Preface. The Middle Works, 1899-1924, Volume 9. Carbondale and Edwardsville, Southern Illinois University Press, p. 3.

23. Ibid. p. 59.

24. Ibid. p. 86.

25. Ibid. p. 74.

26. John Dewey, „What Humanism Means to Me,” first published in Thinker 2 (June 1930): 9/12. Dewey: Page lw.5.266, The Collected Works of John Dewey 1882-1953, The Electronic Edition.

27. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope, London/New York, Penguin Books, 1999, p. 117.

28. Richard Rorty, PMN, p. 360. [Emphases are mine – M. Ny.]

29. Ibid. p. 356.