ABSTRACT

Stefan Neubert explores an important component in the contemporary reconstruction of Deweyan pragmatism against the background of important new developments in philosophy and the social sciences since Dewey's death. He discusses the late Michel Foucault's theory of “technologies of the self” as a promising instrument for broadening and further developing Dewey's cultural contextualism, especially regarding issues like the construction of moralities – moral practices, moral knowledge, moral truths, etc. The theoretical frame from which Neubert launches his interpretation is the Cologne program of interactive constructivism, which has, for many years now, worked toward the reconstruction of Dewey's philosophy and educational theory in and for our own times. Neubert identifies some significant affinities as well as differences between Dewey's and Foucault's approaches. He then engages in a kind of philosophical dialog between Foucault's views on the arts of living and Dewey's philosophy of experience and growth.