Dewey’s Social Philosophy: Democracy as Education by John R. Shook

Abstract

Reviewed by: Dewey’s Social Philosophy: Democracy as Education by John R. Shook Jeff Jackson (bio) John R. Shook, Dewey’s Social Philosophy: Democracy as Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 189 + vii pp. ISBN 978-1-137-46734-8. $90.00 (hbk). In his most recent work on John Dewey, John Shook explores Dewey’s political thought in order to illuminate Dewey’s conception of democracy and demonstrate the interlocking quality of his democratic and educational theories. As the book’s subtitle indicates, Shook sees democracy and education as inseparable enterprises for Dewey, with democracy being fundamentally defined by the continuous education of individuals, and with specifically educational spaces (e.g., schools) serving to directly promote this definitive purpose of democracy. The particular educational goal that Shook identifies in Dewey’s thought is the cultivation of “social intelligence,” a quality that allows individuals to effectively engage opposing viewpoints and peacefully resolve conflicts over policies for addressing our pressing social problems—a quality that Shook rightly associates with deliberative democracy (the most prominent model in contemporary democratic thought). There is much to recommend in Shook’s analysis, for he does identify some crucial elements in Dewey’s often-perplexing account of democracy. However, the analysis does not adequately account for the more radical—and in particular, anticapitalist—qualities of Dewey’s democratic and educational theories, and concurrently does not account for how Dewey’s thought goes beyond the tenets of deliberative democracy. The first chapter of Shook’s book establishes that, for Dewey, democracy and education are not distinct undertakings. Shook points out that attempts to first conceive a democratic theory or an educational theory, and then to construct the other in relation to the first, are fundamentally un-Deweyan: “Democracy itself must be fully understood in the course of asking how education can help develop democratic citizens. If unrelated definitions of democracy and education are brought together for comparison, there could be little surprise at their failure to automatically cohere” (5). Shook identifies democracy with the practice of citizens coming together to intelligently resolve their common problems, and education with the cultivation of individuals’ capacity to engage in this continuous problem-solving. Chapter 2 explains that, because the need for intelligent problem-solving never ends, a democracy must ensure that adult life is as educative as possible and that adult individuals can continue to develop their social intelligence: “Because democracy is [End Page 113] a form of life that provides extensive opportunities for intelligent problem-solving, democracy is an education for adults as well as for children” (32). Individuals get further education in the process of exactly the type of problem-solving with others that they are to be educated for, which makes it essential—for both democratic and educational purposes—that adults have the opportunity to deliberate together about how to solve pressing social problems. Chapter 3 directly classifies Dewey as a deliberative democrat, and more specifically as an advocate of what Shook calls “public deliberation polyarchy,” which is defined by different activist groups “[competing] for the general public’s sympathy and the government’s attention” (57). To the extent that such groups put their own views up for challenge by others, and also give reasonable consideration to the views of competing groups, we would have the type of deliberative democracy that Dewey seeks. The last three chapters of the book move from the more abstract discussion of Dewey’s democratic principles to more concrete social issues. Chapter 4 explores how Dewey seeks to promote equal opportunity with his educational methods, and the way Dewey’s approach to schooling can help illuminate several present-day social issues. The discussion of equal opportunity in this chapter is focused on the equal opportunity to participate in public deliberation to resolve public conflicts. The pressing social issues discussed involve the attempts of racial, ethnic, and cultural minorities to integrate with the broader society while also preserving their distinct identities, as well as the efforts to protect public education from privatization (103–12). In chapter 5, Shook constructs a Deweyan account of punishment—an account that is opposed to mere retribution and focuses on the moral education, and enhancement of the social...