John Dewey and American Democracy (review)

15o JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31:1 JANUARY 1993 None of these critical comments should obscure the fact that this book is a major contribution to Nietzsche studies. Indeed, of the many books written on Nietzsche over the last ninety years, Clark's study must rank as one of the three or four most intelligent and rewarding. All students of Nietzsche will learn from reading this valuable work. BRIAN LEITER University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Robert B. Westbrook. John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, i99i. Pp. xix + 57o. Cloth, $29.95. When James Gouinlock's John Dewey's Philosophy of Value appeared in 1972, it commanded a field virtually empty of any extended treatments of Dewey's thought? Twenty years later, over a dozen major volumes have appeared, from intellectual biographies to studies of his metaphysics, logic, aesthetics, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of religion.' Westbrook's contribution, which is both a political biography and an inquiry into Dewey's philosophy of democracy, may be one of the most important. It is certainly the best book treating Dewey's role in American history. I think it is also the best general introduction to Dewey's thought as a whole. And while I have a few points of contention, I will begin by simply stating that Westbrook, an assistant professor of history at the University of Rochester, has produced nothing short of a masterpiece. If it exerts its proper influence, it will serve to educate historians , social theorists, political scientists, educators, and, last but not least, philosophers about Dewey, his troublesome heritage, and the unfinished task of democracy still before us. Westbrook recognizes that the full biography of Dewey remains to be written. He has focused on "Dewey's career as an advocate of democracy" because "his democractic theory goes to the heart of his philosophy" (x-xi). Insofar as this includes Dewey's complex philosophical anthropology, this is true. The purpose is that "it is high time to reassess [Dewey's] place in the history of modern American culture" (xiii). Against the dominant view, which sees Dewey as a major influence in the formation of modern, liberalism, Westbrook argues that Dewey's impact has actually been rather limited. "It is more accurate to see Dewey as a minority, not a majority spokesman within the liberal community, a social philosopher whose democratic vision failed to find a secure place in liberal ideology--in short, a more radical voice than has been generally asThe major exception to this was G6rard Deledalle's important L7dle d'ex~'ience dans la philosophiedeJohnDewey(1967). , Among such studies should be mentioned: George Dykhuizen's The Life and Mind ofJohn Dewey (x973), Victor Kestenhaum's The PhenomenologicalSense of John Dewey 0978), Ralph Sleeper's The Necessityof Pragmatism0986), my own John Dewey'sTheoryof Art, Experienceand Nature: The Horizons of Feeling 0987), Raymond Boisvert's Dewey'sMetaphysics(a988), Larry Hickman'sJohnDewey'sPragmaticTechnology(x99o), and Steven Rockefeller'sJohnDewey:Religimo FaithandDemocraticHumanism(1991). BOOK REVIEWS 151 sumed" (xiv). What set Dewey apart from the mainstream liberals, the "political realists " like Reinhold Niebuhr or "managerial elitists" like Walter Lippmann, was his faith in the ideal of genuine participatory democracy. The story Westbrook tells, tracing the young Vermont idealist through his confrontation with the "stormy, husky, brawling" Chicago of the x89os, the First World War, the revolutionary world of China, Mexico, and the Soviet Union, the Depression, the Second World War, and the beginnings of the Cold War, is the story of a man whose ultimate commitment to the democratic ideal gradually forced him to become more and more radical. He does this with a lively lucidity combined with an impressive scholarship. Westbrook provides an invaluable guide to the historical literature of this complex, transformative period. He has also researched the scattered archives of Dewey's massive correspondence, giving his account a personal depth and angle of vision not necessarily available from Dewey's public writings. In the course of his discussion, Westbrook provides insightful and sensitive summaries of many of Dewey's major books, including the 19o8 Ethics, Democracyand Education, Experience and Nature, The Public and Its Problems, The Questfor Certainty, Art asExperience, and A Common Faith. He...