Argumentation, Conflict, and Teaching Citizens: Remarks on a Theme in Recent Dewey Scholarship

Two new monographs by political scientists on aspects of John Dewey's social and political theory, along with a new collection of essays, primarily by philosophers, which develops interpretations of the whole of Dewey's work from a particular theoretical perspective, send me back to a fourth book, which I read a decade ago and to which I have returned often. In this essay, I would like to commend these books to argumentation theorists by focusing on their relevance for those of us interested in alternative conceptions of argumentation, particularly as they might be applicable to both our vocation as teachers of argumentation and our participation as citizens in democratic endeavors. In what follows, I will describe each book's focus and comment on some of the themes the authors develop that provoke reflection on both the teaching and theorizing of argumentation. William Caspary notes, early in his Introduction to Dewey on Democracy, that his book is inspired by recent work in democratic theory as it intersects with revived interest in Dewey. "After decades of neglect," Caspary writes, "Dewey appears as a major contributor to the emerging theory of participatory democracy [...] Far from having left Dewey behind, we may just now be catching up with him" (pp. 1-2). He goes on to focus on Dewey's recognition of conflict as intrinsic to the human condition, and thus, as inescapable in democratic political life. This characterization suggests that, rather than wishing it away, we can value conflict as an impetus for deliberation toward meliorative ends-in-view that emerge in discourse. The crux of that reinterpretation of conflict as productive is Dewey's understanding of inquiry as following a scientific model. Caspary adroitly counters criticism of that understanding with an extended discussion of Dewey's anti-positivistic philosophy of physical and social science. Contrary to the positivistic orientation of logical empiricism, which pursues an epistemology based in dualisms (internal mind and external matter; knowing subject and known object; social meanings and physical reality; individual and community), Dewey understood science as an attitude of inquiry relying on "exploratory experimentation in which the premium is upon bold innovation-'large and far-reaching ideas,' audacity of imagination, and dramatic interventions based upon them" (p. 92). This conception of inquiry is as applicable in social as in physical science. Seen from within this conception of discovery through experimentation, conflict resolution is not a matter of argument between propositions that seeks "to validate or falsify a given hypothesis" as to how things are, but of experimental intervention in the world "to create new phenomena and discover new relations" (p. 92). Caspary provides a variety of illustrations of such a method at work: the Mondragon Cooperative System, which constitutes a "major social intervention in the economic sphere" in the Basque region of Spain (p. 74); the School Development Project, in which "tension between experts and citizens is overcome" through methods developed during "several years of conflict and confusion, dealt with through organizational development and human relations methods" (p. 179); and the "pioneering efforts" of the Common Ground Network for Life and Choice, "motivated by dismay at the escalating incivility in [abortion] clinic protests and public debates" as well as by "a perceived stalemate in the courts and legislatures" (p. 148). He interprets each of those cases as exemplifying Dewey's emphasis on seeking alternatives through dialogue and action; through discovering, in communication, ways to intervene creatively in actual situations, rather than withdrawing from those situations into debate about the merits of extant optio ns. The breadth of public sphere domains in which Caspary traces this Deweyan conception of conflict at work reminds us of the breadth of Dewey's own interests. …