ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the debate over Deweyan democracy. It presents a streamlined version of the case against Deweyan democracy and then reviews and dispenses with a few lines of response. The chapter argues that the broader orientation of Dewey's political theory, specifically his insight that democracy is fundamentally an epistemological proposal, is among the most important contributions to democratic theory in the twentieth century. Deweyan democracy adopts a view of democratic participation that is rooted in Dewey's conception of growth. The Deweyan democrat is committed to the view that democracy is a way of life, a congeries of social norms, political institutions, and personal habits and attitudes, aimed at growth and thus fit to govern "all modes of human association". Deweyan democracy rejects the neutralism of contemporary democratic theory and adopts a kind of perfectionism. Deweyan democracy is inconsistent with a due acknowledgment of reasonable pluralism.
