Normatividad y deliberación práctica en John Dewey: elementos para una lectura contemporánea

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore John Dewey’s solution of the problem of normativity that has confronted skeptics and dogmatists for centuries. Dewey’s main strategy is to elaborate a hypothesis to explain how the de jure or normative principles have an anchor and a starting point in practical, de facto activity. In order to reconstruct Dewey’s conception of normativity, and taking into account the misinterpretations it has received, we will first analyze the nature of the problem -a problem that, from Dewey’s point of view, is a political one. Second, we will show how our author’s conception of rationality diverges from the dominant conception, which making reference to the still prevalent distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification, takes justification as its basic component. Third, after emphasizing the centrality of the practical problem-solving process as the core of rationality in Dewey’s thought, we will analyze his conception of practical deliberation, which is thus seen as the origin of all normativity.