The Tough Process of Formulating Shared Solutions: Dewey, Gramsci, and the Method of Democracy

Introduction The philosophies of John Dewey (1859-1952) and Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) parallel in many respects. Cornel West describes Dewey and Gramsci as “the two great figures of the third wave of Left romanticism (West 1987, 945),” referring to their extensions of the thinking of their forerunners 1 in light of challenges of their own times (ibid.). In this presentation we will focus on the ideas of these two philosophers regarding the methods of solving social problems. We will consider the potentialities of Deweyan and Gramscian conceptions particularly in relation to the challenges of genuinely multivoiced discussion, which have gained ever-increasing importance in the contemporary world characterized by complexity and pluralism. Our viewpoint 2 to philosophical pragmatism is flavored with the perspectives from philosophy of education and Development Studies. 3 These backgrounds imply the awareness of the various ways in which philosophical conceptions are applied both to empirical research and to the contexts of education and development cooperation. For example, such concepts of Deweyan origin as “the community of inquiry” and “the method of democracy” are sometimes quite uncritically used as pedagogical methods or as background theories for empirical research. Similarly, the interpretations of “transformative learning” based on the Gramscian legacy are widely applied, for example, to the practices of participatory development. In our view, interaction between academic philosophy and these empirical and practical contexts is potentially very beneficial to both fields. There is, however, a real