Abstract

The idea of the “public” is used in two different ways in Dewey's The Public and Its Problems: first, as a conceptual tool for thinking about the nature of politics, and second, as a hypothesis about the democratic aims that might be achieved through political association over time. By attending to this distinction we can better understand the connections between Dewey's political thought and his larger philosophical position, and the ways in which the former might be called into question by those who share the latter