Abstract

Despite differences between Cornel West's prophetic pragmatism and Dewey's pragmatism, they both conceive of “creative democracy” as an ethico-religious ideal. Accordingly, this article examines how Deweyan creative democracy is an ethico-religious ideal, in the sense of being a religious humanist ideal. This article concludes with an explanation of how a contemporary Deweyan democrat living in the United States cannot help but recognize the tragicomic undercurrents of creative democracy