Review Of "Pragmatism And Social Hope: Deepening Democracy In Global Contexts" By J. M. Green

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

2009

Published In

Teachers College Record

Abstract

Pragmatism and Social Hope offers a broad roadmap for “achieving our world” (p. 7) by drawing on and furthering “yearnings for deep democracy” (p. 6). The democracy in question is the Deweyan vision of a comprehensive “quality of social living” (p. 2) rather than a matter of life under procedural institutions alone. It is the democracy that Whitman, James, Dewey, and Baldwin dreamed of and gestured toward: a democracy of the reciprocal construction of more continuously meaningful and fulfilling human life. Both in moving toward such a democracy and in sustaining it, philosophers will serve not as theorists of eternal forms of the good, but rather as “liaison officers” promoting conversations among different disciplines, cultural formations, and habits of thought and practice. Green develops her vision of deep, global democracy by using the work of Richard Rorty as a continuous foil. Rorty turned officially to Whitman, James, and Dewey in order... (preview truncated at 150 words.)

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