Abstract

Many commentators on John Dewey’s pragmatism contend that, after an early emphasis on the role of transcendent ideals in his philosophical studies of aesthetics, ethics, religion, and education, Dewey gradually but conclusively adopted an instrumentalist account of reason and a thoroughgoing naturalism. Stanley Cavell, for example, suggests that Dewey’s pragmatism has little place for transcendence and does not take metaphysical distinctions seriously. Kestenbaum’s elegantly written book makes a convincing case for the thesis that Dewey’s philosophy always remained committed to the “atmospheric” priority of transcendent ideals, to a horizon of meaning which “outruns” the empirically verifiable. Dewey’s striking reference to “the grace and severity of the ideal” provides the title and leit-motif for this study, for it suggests that the transcendent ideals are experienced as guides in the pragmatic struggle for the good. Dewey also describes our relationship to the ideal as “the most far-reaching question” of philosophy.