Abstract

This is a historical account of Niebuhr's and Dewey's relationship which spans the thirties, forties, and early fifties, when Dewey was philosophy professor emeritus at Columbia and Niebuhr was professor of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary. The author advances two claims of interest to the general philosophical reader: first, that the two thinkers' ethical and political visions were much closer in substance and method than either they or their followers tended to acknowledge; and second, that Niebuhr was in his practice, if not in his self-understanding, a kind of theological pragmatist.