Domination and Resistance: The Political Theory of John Dewey ^☆

Portions of this paper were presented at two sessions of the Couch/Stone Symposium at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, on April 23 and 24, 2012.

Abstract

Dewey, through his contributions to pragmatism (America’s sole original philosophy), has long been considered relative to symbolic interactionism (SI), which emerged from that philosophy. His impact on SI, while falling short of those of Mead and Cooley, has mainly come from (and has been limited to) concepts and insights developed in Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology (1922/1957) and his earlier, seminal, article, “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” published in 1896 during his tenure at the University of Chicago (1894–1904). SI, however, has wrongly ignored Dewey’s political theory, especially his concept of domination. In order to rectify this inattention, I summarize the social and historical contexts that motivated Dewey’s turn toward domination; outline the radical nature of his political theory; illustrate similarities of his political theory with Marx’s; expatiate on his concept of domination, including his argument for social practices to reduce surplus domination; and explicate the theoretical and political implications of taking his political theory seriously.

Citation

Musolf, G.R. (2013), "Domination and Resistance: The Political Theory of John Dewey ^☆

Portions of this paper were presented at two sessions of the Couch/Stone Symposium at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, on April 23 and 24, 2012.

", Radical Interactionism on the Rise (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 41), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 83-121. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-2396(2013)0000041008