ABSTRACT
The intellectuals who trod that path enacted the positive role that universalist ideas of knowledge could play in the diminution of ethno-racial and religious bias in American life. The distinction between the generic, enduring, scientific 'attitude', on the one hand, and, on the other, the specific contents of scientific knowledge at any given point in time turned out to be profoundly important. The racist intellectuals who treated contemporary eugenics as if it were written in stone displayed a view of scientific knowledge entirely alien to John Dewey. Science was an agent of cultural integration not on account of the knowledge that citizens might learn, but on account of its ability to unite persons of various backgrounds into a single and noble discipline of the mind. The epistemic universalism of science had helped to diversify the community of knowers and placed on the defensive those who resisted this diversification.
