From Rawls to Dewey: Autonomy as Growth in the Ends of Education

• In Event: 75.041 - MTCC Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: 75.041-12 - Deweyan Attention to Process

Abstract

John Dewey and John Rawls are widely regarded as the most important philosophers of the 20th century, though the former has greater influence in education and the latter in politics. By developing a response to Robert Talisse, who objects that Dewey’s view of public education and politics is oppressive in Rawlsian terms, I aim to show that Rawlsians and Deweyans ought to see themselves as committed to the same ideal of supporting learning within democratic education and politics. In light of this fact, both Rawlsians and Deweyans have reason to forge a more unified agenda of research, policy, and practice coordinated under the aim of learning as our common end.

Author

• Nicolas Jordan Tanchuk, Teachers College, Columbia University