ABSTRACT
With respect to Dewey's devotion to democracy, to his determination that knowledge shall be cultivated and used in the service of the democratic way of life, there can be no doubt that Hook is right. Even more clearly, then, than in the discussion of the state, Dewey's explanation of democracy may serve to bring his pragmatic philosophy to its pragmatic test. Dewey's discussions of democracy fall into four different moods or stages. The first of these is pre-pragmatic, pre-Deweyan, as it were. The second, third, and fourth express the pragmatic movement in varying forms. The study of democracy in The Public and Its Problems takes both the "backward" and the "forward" look. The attempt to explain democracy as itself a consequence of social conditions has always been an alluring one for Dewey. It plays a considerable part in Democracy and Education.
