Context over Foundation: Dewey and Marx

254 Pages·1988·28.2 MB·English

by  William J. Gavin (auth.)

CONTEXT OVER FOUNDATION
Dewey and Marx
SOVIETICA
PUBLICATIONS AND MONOGRAPHS
OF THE INSTITUTE OF EAST-EUROPEAN STUDIES AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG / SWITZERLAND AND
THE CENTER FOR EAST EUROPE, RUSSIA AND ASIA
AT BOSTON COLLEGE AND THE SEMINAR
FOR POLITICAL THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH
Founded by J. M. BOCHENSKI (Fribourg)
Edited by T. J. BLAKELEY (Boston), GUIDO KONG (Fribourg) and
NIKOLAUS LOBKOWICZ (Munich)
Editorial Board
Karl G. Ballestrem (Eichstiitt) Bernard Jeu (Lille)
Helmut Dahm (Cologne) George L. Kline (Bryn Mawr)
Richard T. DeGeorge (Univ. of Kansas) James J. O'Rourke (St. Anselm's)
Peter Ehlen (Munich) Friedrich Rapp (Dortmund)
Michael Gagern (Munich) Tom Rockmore (Duquesne)
Philip Grier (Dickinson Coil.) Andries Sarlemijn (Eindhoven)
Felix P. Ingold (ETH St. Gall) James Scanlan (Ohio State)
Edward M. Swiderski (Fribourg)
VOLUME 52
CONTEXT OVER
FOUNDATION
Dewey and Marx
Edited by
WILLIAM J. GAVIN
Department of Philosophy.
University of Southern Maine. U. S.A.
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
A MEMBER OFTHE KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP
DORDRECHT / BOSTON I LANCASTER / TOKYO
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Context over foundation: Dewey and Marx / edited by William J. Gavin.
p. cm. - (Sovietica; v. 52)
Includes bibliographies and index.
ISBN-13: 978-94-010-7808-5 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2903-6
DOI:1O.1007/ 978-94-009-2903-6
1. Marx, Karl,-1818-1883. 2. Dewey, John, 1859--1952. I. Gavin,
W. J. (William J.), 1943-- . II. Series: Sovietica (Universite de Fribourg.
Ost-Europa Institut); v. 52.
B3305.M74C59 1987
191-dc 19 87-35599
CIP
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland.
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A. and Canada
by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A.
In all other countries, sold and distributed
by Kluwer Academic Publishers Group,
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All Rights Reserved
© 1988 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
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CONTENTS
William J. Gavin, Introduction
PART ONE The Human Context
Vincent Michael Cola pietro, From 'Individual' to
'Subject': Marx and Dewey on the Person 1 1
William L. McBride, Science, Psychology, and
Human Values in the Context of Dewey's
Critique of Marx 37
William J. Gavin, Text, Context, and the Existential
Limit: A Jamesian Strain in Marx and Dewey 49
PART TWO The CulturallPolitical Context
Garry M. Brodsky, Politics, Culture and Society
in Marx and Dewey 77
James Campbell, Dewey's Understanding of
Marx and Marxism 1 19
Peter T. Manicas, Philosophy and Politics:
A Historical Approach to Marx and Dewey 147
Alfonso J. Damico, The Politics After Deconstruction:
Rorty, Dewey, and Marx 17 7
PART THREE The Metaphysical Context
Gerald J. Galgan, Marx and Dewey on the Unity of
Theory and Practice 209
John Ryder, Naturalism, Dialectical Materialism,
and an Ontology of Constitutive Relations 229
INDEX 255
INTRODUCTION
"I should venture to assert that the most pervasive
fallacy of philosophic thinking goes back to neglect of
context. III
John Dewey
" ... philosophers do not grow like mushrooms, out of
the earth; they are the outgrowth of their period, their
nation, whose most subtle, delicate and invisible juices
abound in the philosophical ideas. ,,2
Karl Marx
Few issues are more heatedly debated in contemporary philosophy
circles than that of con textual ism vs. foundationalism. The genesis for
the debate was the publication in 1979 of Richard Rorty's Philosophy
and the Mirror of Nature, which announ~ed the death of traditional
philosophy. By "traditional" here is meant the quest for a certain or
apodictic bedrock upon which an overall general theory or schema
might be erected. This approach, for Rorty, characterized most
previous philosophy, but especially the era from Descartes to Kant.
Further, the three major philosophic thinkers of the 20th century,
Dewey, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, each initially tried to construct a
foundational philosophy but
each of the three, in his later work, broke free of the Kantian
conception of philosophy as foundational, and spent his time
warning us against those very temptations to which he himself had
once succumbed. Thus their later work is therapeutic rather than
constructive, edifying rather than systematic, designed to make the
reader question his own motives for philosophizing rather than to
supply him with a new philosophical program.3
This attack on foundationalism was impressive in that it transcended the
boundaries of three particular schools of philosophic thought, e ,g "
analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, and pragmatism.
Nonetheless, it, perhaps inevitably, brought forth the criticism that, in
trying to show what various thinkers had in common, it omitted
important features of their thought. This criticism is particularly acute
when one turns to the interpretation of John Dewey, whose view of
philosophy, as arising from, and subsequently informing needs,
W. J. Gavin (ed.), Context over Foundation, 1-7.
© 1988 by D. Reidel Publishing Company.
2 WILLIAM J. GAVIN
questions, and concerns of a particular culture, is replaced by a view of
philosophy as merely narrative, as conversational. As one commentator
put it, the "most obvious result of Rorty's replacement of criticism,
evaluation, and work with edification, conversation, and play is the loss
of philosophy as a tool in social reconstruction".4
The issue of context vs. foundation is also of immediate concern
when one turns to the work of Karl Marx. Marx can be, and has been,
read as a reductionist thinker for whom philosophic thought is
controlled by the economic "base" or, "sub-structure", and for whom
the philosophic endeavor is ultimately to be replaced by the proletariat.
Such approaches have, appropriately, been rejected in favor of a more
"organic model". Thus, for example, in Marx's Interpretation of
History, Melvin Rader argues that, in
recognizing that philosophy, science, morality, and art often
transcend the relativities of class and economic period, Marx shows
that he is not entrapped by the base-superstructure model. He is
aware that all these modes of culture have their intrinsic norms of
truth or validity, and he recognizes that all have an important impact
upon the base.5
Differently stated, Marx, no less than Dewey, was dissatisfied with
a view of philosophy as foundational, as merely reflecting or copying a
pre-existent static reality or ideal. This is obvious in his oft-quoted
statement that "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various
ways; the point, however, is to change it".6 But whereas Dewey's
contextualism has been shorn of its political/social dimension in the
current debate, Marx' contextualism is oftentimes undervalued in favor
of a more objective economic determinism. In the first case,
philosophy would become fantasy; in the second, philosophy would
give way to propaganda.
The present series of articles attempts to avoid such extreme
alternatives. While centering on the general theme of context vs.
foundation, the articles are clustered into three specific themes, though
some overlap is unavoidable. The areas of focus are: the human
context, the political/cultural context, and the metaphysical context.
Turning to the first of these, in 'From "Individual" to "Subject":
Marx and Dewey on the Person', Vincent Colapietro explores how both
thinkers have deepened our understanding of the person by replacing
the free, conscious individual of classical liberalism with the situated,
divided (conscious/unconscious) subject of postmodernity. To move
from "individual" to "subject" means abandoning the isolated individual
as the foundation of the social order, and accepting the historical context
as the matrix of human subjectivity. However, for both Marx and
INTRODUCTION 3
Dewey, the historicity of the human subject does not preclude the
universality of human nature. This is, at least, what Colapietro
endeavors to show near the conclusion of his paper, a work which pays
close attention to a variety of texts by both thinkers. In 'Science,
Psychology and Human Values in the Context of Dewey's Critique of
Marx', William L. McBride has selected five Deweyan references to
Marx, made approximately one decade apart from each other. These
texts, he argues, show a considerable interest in, \is well as some
substantial misunderstandings of, Marx' philosophy on Dewey's part.
Going further, he shows that Dewey's charge that Marxism "is a
thoroughly anti-scientific procedure" is not valid, although it makes
some sense as a critique of Leninism, whereas some of Dewey's
criticisms of Marx concerning psychology are found to be more
plausible. Finally, McBride finds Dewey and Marx to be much closer
than Dewey believed with respect to assigning priority over economic
considerations to human values that are not strictly economic. In 'Text,
Context, and the Existential Limit: A Jamesian Strain in Dewey and
Marx', William J. Gavin argues that James' doctrine of "the will to
believe" becomes operative at a crucial stage in the reconstructed
outlooks of both Marx and Dewey. Dewey moved from content to
form by choosing, in a Jamesian fashion, the pragmatic method of
science; in moving from philosophy to the proletariat, Marx moved
from form to content, again, through exercising the will to believe.
More generally, it would seem that any non-foundational or
contextualist position demands, at some level, a Jamesian will to
believe. An epilogue to the piece argues, through a discussion of
Michael Ryan's Marxism and Reconstruction and Richard Rorty's
Consequences of Pragmatism, against reducing the context to the text in
either the outlook of Dewey or that of Marx.
The second area of focus is that of the political/cultural context. In
'Politics, Culture and Society in Marx and Dewey', Garry M. Brodsky
argues that both Marx and Dewey are postmodern, contextualist
thinkers. After a brief discussion of postmodernity and contextualism,
he sketches Dewey's socio-political views and thus clarifies Dewey's
position as well as the postmodern approach to political philosophy.
He shows how Dewey attacks Marxism on the grounds that it is
foundationalist rather than postmodern, but presents some grounds for
holding that, even if this is true of Marxism, it is not true of Marx'
philosophy. The upshot of his paper is that thinkers sympathetic to
Marx and to Dewey would do well to stress the postmodern features of
Marx' thought and the radical features of Dewey's thought.
In 'Dewey's Understanding of Marx and Marxism', James
Campbell lays out the general framework of John Dewey's beliefs
about capitalism and Communism. He explores, among other themes,
4 WILLIAM J. GAVIN
Dewey's critique of the operations of capitalism in America, his
familiarity with the works of Marx and with American Marxists, the
Communist Party in the United States, Dewey's own proposed brand
of democratic socialism, and the relative importance of political
democracy and economic justice. His article is intended both as part of
an examination of the historical influence of Marx in America and as
part of a consideration of the overall contribution of Dewey to American
social thought. In 'Philosophy and Politics: A Historical Approach to
Marx and Dewey', Peter T. Manicas argues that both Marx and Dewey
advocated a non-foundationalist politics. The critical means for this
was the idea of democracy, viz., that those affected by the con
sequences of acts had to be participants in the decisions which had
those consequences. The problem of modem politics, then, is not the
loss of foundations for a politics, in human nature, God, or history, but
rather that of the absence of a genuine democratic politics. Manicas
agrees that Marx was clear about this, that, for him, the 'state' was
inconsistent with democracy, that while in agreement with anarchists
(>ver goals, Marx was essentially correct in arguing, against them, that
one had to use the state in order to eliminate it. But, Manicas maintains,
Marx was wrong in supposing that advancing capitalist development
would generate the political capacities of "the working class" to
reconstitute the social order. This error led, by the end of the century,
to a redefinition of Marxist politics, with disasterous consequences for
the future. Manicas argues that Dewey and Marx were close as regards
their views of the alienated politics of the state and of democracy. But
Dewey, responding to the Marxism of his day, rightly rejected "class
politics". On the other hand, he did not offer a clear and viable
alternative. Manicas concludes by suggesting that the valuable insights
of both Marx and Dewey might be conjoined for a refashioned
democratic project
In 'The Politics After Deconstruction: Rorty Dewey and Marx',
Alfonso J. Damico argues that foundational political theory (e.g.,
Rawls, Ackerman) is often more backward than forward looking, more
concerned with the philosophical foundations of political principles than
with their modus operandi. He argues that Rorty, Dewey and Marx are
all non-or anti-foundational political thinkers, and that each provides an
account of politics and the role of political reflection minus foundational
commitments. Going further, each of these argues that the manner of
doing something generates its own criteria for controlling what is to
count as a true or just practice. Whether conceptualized as a "con
versation" (Rorty), as "inquiry" (Dewey), or in terms of a "movement"
(Marx), it is practice itself, Damico maintains, not epistemology and
axiology, that privileges one or another account of political life.
The last area of focus is the broadest - that of the metaphysical
INTRODUCTION 5
context. In 'Marx and Dewey on the Unity of Theory and Practice'
Gerald J. Galgan first delineates the classical view of human life as a
"festival", as found in the ancient Greek tradition, with its clear
distinction between the observers, theoria, or philosophers, and those
involved in the actual proceedings, i.e., praxis; he then traces the
distinction between praxis and poiesis, as found in Aristotle. Galgan
carefully traces the rejection of these distinctions as it takes place in
Marx and Dewey, in whose outlooks observers give way to pilgrims,
wayfarers involved in history. In this latter outlook, for a person to
know anything he must transform or remake that thing. Galgan's
contention is that the new status given to individual particularity in
so-called modem empiricism actually has its origins in the nominalist
thinkers of the medieval world, especially William of Ockham; he
further argues that Marx' and Dewey's unification of theory and
practice stems from this tradition, however much they may have
forgotten it; and, finally, that just as philosophy gave way to theological
input or faith in that medieval tradition, so too the Marxian and
Deweyan unifications of theory and practice, in the end, are not
positions that can justify themselves in purely philosophical or
metaphysical terms. In 'Naturalism, Dialectical Materialism, and an
Ontology of Constitutive Relations' John Ryder argues that, despite
their many and important metaphysical differences, the traditions of
modem American naturalism and dialectical materialism exhibit an
ontology of constitutive relations which distinguishes them from other
major philosophic schools. For Ryder, this point about their respective
ontological commitments can best be seen through two aspects of their
concepts of nature. First, both traditions regard nature to be exhaustive
of what exists, and thus reject any form of an absolute or supernatural
reality. Second, nature is not constituted by ontological simples, or, in
other words, an ontology of substance is rejected, and natural
phenomena are seen as constitutively relational.
* * *
In sum, the articles examine Dewey and Marx from several
perspectives, disclosing both similarities and differences. Viewed as a
whole they tend to reject at least an overly simplistic foundationalism on
the part of both philosophers. Finally, the articles tend towards the
conclusion that, while giving up objectivity or certainty, neither Marx
nor Dewey would be satisfied with a view of philosophy as merely
conversational or playful. This is only as it should be, for to set up a
new dualism of certainty vs. playfulness would be to reintroduce the
very type of "false problematic" which both philosophers argued so
strongly against.