Democracy and the Scientific Method In the Philosophy of John Dewey

1969 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph G. Metz
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Political Democracy ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Experimental Science ◽  
Philosophical Orientation ◽  
Normative Content

John Dewey was both a devoted student of politics and an eminent philosopher. He constructed his theory of political democracy according to his own philosophical orientation. At the same time, he believed that political science should be pursued independently of political philosophy on the assumption that the “scientific method” alone is meaningful in resolving political questions. It is through his philosophy of “experience,” instrumentalism, that Dewey resolved the potential antithesis between philosophy and experimental science as he understood it. It is the scientific method alone, Dewey insists, that can do justice to the integrity of “experience.” Moreover, through its application to political democracy, the scientific method is the link connecting philosophical instrumentalism and democracy. Accordingly, this essay will attempt to show: 1) the threefold relationship among philosophy, science, and democracy provides the key to an understanding of Dewey's political thought; 2) the philosophical antecedents of instrumentalism, being inseparable from Dewey's “scientific method,” provide normative content for his democratic theory; and 3) the purpose of Dewey's application of the scientific method to political democracy is to reshape traditional values in accordance with the philosophical — and not necessarily scientific — antecedents of instrumentalism.

The Political Science Discipline in Argentina: The Political Scientist's National Association's Role

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (03) ◽  
pp. 616-618
Author(s):  
Diego Mazzoccone ◽  
Mariano Mosquera ◽  
Silvana Espejo ◽  
Mariana Fancio ◽  
Gabriela Gonzalez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Science Discipline ◽  
The Social ◽  
The One

It is very difficult to date the birth of political science in Argentina. Unlike other discipline of the social sciences, in Argentina the first distinction can be made between political thought on the one hand, and political science in another. The debate over political thought—as the reflection of different political questions—emerged in our country in the nineteenth century, especially during the process of constructing the Argentine nation-state. Conversely, political science is defined in a general way as the application of the scientific method to the studies on the power of the state (Fernández 2001).

Political Theory and the Study of Politics: A Report of a Conference

1956 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 475-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harry Eckstein
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sharp Distinction ◽  
Basic Issue ◽  
Political Inquiry ◽  
The One

The issues which arose during the discussions of the conference fall fairly conveniently into three compartments.First, we obviously had to settle, with reasonable clarity, what we were talking about: what “political philosophy” is, what “political science” is, and whether they are really distinguishable. The basic issue of the conference was to determine the relevance of the one to the study of the other, and if we had decided that they were really the same thing, there would simply have been no problems for us to discuss. On the whole, we felt that a valid, if not necessarily sharp, distinction was to be made between the “philosophical” and the “scientific” approaches to the study of politics and that we were not discussing absurd or tautological issues. We agreed, however, that all types of political inquiry involve the construction of theory, implicit or explicit, and that the title “political theory” has been unjustifiably appropriated by the historians of political thought.

The Political Philosophy of Quantification

2020 ◽  
pp. 73-86
Author(s):  
Theodore M. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
State Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Individual Freedom

This chapter investigates the political philosophy of quantification. The intellectualist defense of quantification bears on the ethical issues. A system of demonstrably false or untestable dogmas, the product of state power and not of free persuasion, has obvious moral implications to anyone concerned about individual freedom. This point, indeed, has been at the heart of some of the most influential philosophical defenses of science in this century. John Dewey considered science an ally of democracy, and argued that scientific method means nothing more than the subjection of beliefs to skeptical inquiry. Karl Popper held it up as antidote to the century's totalitarianisms. While Popper did not stress quantification in his political philosophy of science, his terms could easily be applied to it. Although it is of course possible to use numbers casually and informally, quantification for public as well as scientific purposes has generally been allied to a spirit of rigor. The chapter then explores objectivity and objectification, as well as French statistics.

Representative Government and Constitutional Reality: Spain between Literature and Political Thought

Pólemos ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-105
Author(s):  
Daniel Fernández Cañueto
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Law And Literature ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
Multidisciplinary Perspective

Abstract The article analyses how the features of modern political representation have developed in Spanish constitutional history from a multidisciplinary perspective (political philosophy, political science, constitutional law and literature). Between the eighteenth- to the twentieth-century, indeed, the Kingdom of Spain experienced transformations in the concepts of sovereignty, periodic suffrage, free public opinion, and the free and non-revocable mandate. The article also takes into account how the evolution of concepts at stake affected the evolution of the others.

The History of Political Thought: A Very Short Introduction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Whatmore
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
History Of Political Thought ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cambridge School

‘A History of Political Thought: A Very Short Introduction’ explores the core concerns and questions in the history of political thought, considering the field as a branch of political philosophy and political science. The approaches of core theorists, such as Reinhart Koselleck, Leo Strauss, Michel Foucault, and the so-called Cambridge School of Quentin Skinner and John Pocock are important to this topic. There is ongoing relevance for current politics which can be seen by assessing the current relationship between political history, theory, and action. There are some areas of political thinking that tend to draw on history because of the comparisons and contrasts that the past can offer to contemporary dilemmas.

scholarly journals POLITIKOS MOKSLO ATSIRADIMO FILOSOFINĖS PRIELAIDOS

Problemos ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 115-128
Author(s):  
Mindaugas Stoškus
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Political Science

Straipsnyje analizuojamos pagrindinės politikos mokslo atsiradimo prielaidos. Įprasta manyti, jog politikos mokslo gimimą iš esmės lėmė pozityvizmo filosofija. Šiame straipsnyje bandoma parodyti, kad tam tikros politikos mokslo prielaidos buvo suformuotos gerokai anksčiau. Klasikinės politikos sampratos atmetimas ir naujos, modernios politikos sampratos formavimasis, pastebimas jau Renesanso pasaulėjautoje, N. Machiavelli’o ir Th. Hobbeso politinėse teorijose, leido iškelti žmogaus ir politikos „konstruojamumo“ idėjas. Teigiama, jog moderni politikos samprata buvo viena iš būtinų politikos mokslo sąlygų. XVII a. mokslo revoliucija paskatino mąstytojus į filosofiją perkelti gamtos mokslų metodus. Gamtos mokslų metodais pakelti filosofiją į naują mokslinį lygmenį buvo vienas didžiausių daugelio Apšvietos filosofų tikslų. Taigi, kai pozityvistai prakalbo apie būtinybę sukurti naujus pozityvius mokslus apie žmogų ir visuomenę, intelektualiems pokyčiams jau buvo visiškai pasirengta.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: Renesansas, Apšvieta, pozityvizmas, Millis, Comte’as.Philosophical Presuppositions of the Emergence of Political ScienceMindaugas Stoškus SummaryThe paper deals with the main presuppositions of the emergence of political science. The aim is to show that the rupture in the history of political philosophy in the Renaissance, the refusal of the classical political thought about human nature as zoon politikon and about purpose of state, and the birth of modern political ideas about politics as mechanics, was conditio sine qua non for the emergence of the new political science. Main philosophers who initiated this rupture were N. Machiavelli and Th. Hobbes. The 17th century scientific revolution and Enlightenment helped to bring the methods of natural sciences into philosophy. All those ideas were fused together in Positivism which played a pivotal role in the emergence of Political science.Keywords: Renaissance, Enlightenment, positivism, Mill, Comte.

Utopophobia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Estlund
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Justice ◽  
Sound Theory ◽  
Theory Versus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Practical Guidance

Throughout the history of political philosophy and politics, there has been continual debate about the roles of idealism versus realism. For contemporary political philosophy, this debate manifests in notions of ideal theory versus nonideal theory. Nonideal thinkers shift their focus from theorizing about full social justice, asking instead which feasible institutional and political changes would make a society more just. Ideal thinkers, on the other hand, question whether full justice is a standard that any society is likely ever to satisfy. And, if social justice is unrealistic, are attempts to understand it without value or importance, and merely utopian? This book argues against thinking that justice must be realistic, or that understanding justice is only valuable if it can be realized. The book does not offer a particular theory of justice, nor does it assert that justice is indeed unrealizable—only that it could be, and this possibility upsets common ways of proceeding in political thought. The book's author engages critically with important strands in traditional and contemporary political philosophy that assume a sound theory of justice has the overriding, defining task of contributing practical guidance toward greater social justice. Along the way, it counters several tempting perspectives, including the view that inquiry in political philosophy could have significant value only as a guide to practical political action, and that understanding true justice would necessarily have practical value, at least as an ideal arrangement to be approximated. Demonstrating that unrealistic standards of justice can be both sound and valuable to understand, the book stands as a trenchant defense of ideal theory in political philosophy.

Kierkegaard's Socratic Alternative to Hegel in Fear and Trembling

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Matthew Dinan
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Fear And Trembling

Abstract Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling has traditionally attracted interest from scholars of political theory for its apparent hostility to political philosophy, and more recently for its compatibility with Marxism. This paper argues for a reconsideration of Kierkegaard's potential contributions to political theory by suggesting that the work's shortcomings belong to its pseudonymous author, Johannes de Silentio, and are in fact intended by Kierkegaard. Attentiveness to the literary development of the pseudonym allows us to see a Kierkegaard who is a deeper and more direct critic of Hegel's political philosophy than is usually presumed. By creating a pseudonym whose argument ultimately fails, Kierkegaard employs Socratic irony in order to point readers to the need to recover Socratic political philosophy as the appropriate adjunct to the faith of Abraham, and as an alternative to Hegelian, and post-Hegelian, political thought.

William Rathbone Greg, Scientific Liberalism, and the Second Empire

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Alex Middleton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
European Politics ◽  
Second Empire ◽  
Liberal Thought

William Rathbone Greg's name is well known to historians of nineteenth-century Britain, but the content of his political thought is not. This article, based on a comprehensive reading of Greg's prolific published output, has two aims. The first is to pin down his politics. The article positions Greg as a leading spokesman for the rationalistic, antidemocratic strand of mid-Victorian Liberalism. It argues that his thought centered on the idea that politics was a science, and that scientific statesmanship might solve many of the problems of the age. The article's second aim is to show that Greg was a sophisticated thinker on politics overseas. He developed distinctive arguments about the structures of European politics, and especially about France under the Second Empire (1852–70). Greg's writings cast important light on the connections between abstract, domestic, and European issues in less familiar reaches of Liberal thought, and on how Victorian political science grappled with Continental despotism.

Teaching Political Philosophy as Plausible Reasoning

1985 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 8-8
Author(s):  
Larry Arnhart
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
State University ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Idaho State University ◽  
Plausible Reasoning ◽  
Northern Illinois University ◽  
The University

I have taught courses on political philosophy at four schools — the University of Chicago, Rosary College, Idaho State University, and Northern Illinois University. I have had to adjust the style of my teaching to conform to the distinctive character of each school. But I have found that the most fundamental obstacles to winning the attention of students have been the same.Many students have begun my courses with four unfavorable preconceptions. They believe that political philosophy is too abstract. And for that reason they also believe that it has no application to contemporary political issues. Moreover, many students assume that since the classic texts of political thought are old, the ideas they contain must therefore be obsolete. And finally they think that political philosophy is ultimately subjective because no philosopher can prove his ideas to be absolutely true.

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