The Centrality of Dewey’s Lectures in China to his Socio-Political Philosophy

I provide an analysis and reconstruction of Dewey’s Lectures in China that supports making the text central to understanding Dewey’s socio-political philosophy and the source of insights for any contemporary pragmatist’s approach to socio-political problems. Dewey is in these Lectures, for the first time, making explicit his methodological and normative commitments that would guide the rest of his career as a socio-political philosopher. Moreover, one finds in them the key building blocks to Dewey’s approach to the themes of injustice, conflict, the dynamics of power and domination—topics that are important to understand his later writings and that can sharpen the critical and political teeth of Pragmatism.