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support of men in doing what we now know how to do. Thus by rights
Dewey's philosophy should culminate in the earnest consideration of
the social techniques for reorganizing beliefs and behavior-tech–
niques very different from those dealing with natural materials. It
should issue in a social engineering, in an applied science of political
education-and not merely in the hope that some day we may
develop one." (Schilpp, p. 91.)
But Hook would disarm all critics who, like Professor Randall, attack
Dewey's failure to construct a political technology. He claims that "Wher–
ever fundamental problems of evaluation are to he considered, there is the
post for a philosopher,
not because he lws the answers but because he lws
a critical theory vf wlwt constitutes a possible answer
and
why."
(Italics
mine. M. G. W.) (Ibid., p. 37.) We are led to believe that a philosopher
has only to formulate a theory of the critical answer
in general,
but not to
provide critical answers to our social problems.
If
this were the extent of
a philosopher's job, it is obvious that he could finish it quickly by writing
on the theory of inquiry, for that is where he would discuss the nature of
problems and answers
in the abstract.
On this view, Dewey is not obliged
to formulate a specific theory of social change, nor to take part in political
action. He may rest upon the achievement of a definition of intelligence.
Such a conception of philosophy as mere proposal diverges sharply
from the thesis of Marx to which Hook has also subscribed: "The philos–
ophers have
interpreted
the world in various ways; the point however is
to change it." For Marx, change was the order of the day, and philosophy
was active, i.e.,
revolutionary
critique. He conceived no sharp dualism
between proposing a plan of action, and carrying it out; he built a social
science to guide revolutionary action. It is difficult indeed to agree with
Hook when he calls Dewey's
Liberalism and Social Action
"a hook which
may very well be to the twentieth century what Marx and Engel's
Com–
munist Manifesto
was to the nineteenth." (Ibid., p. 158.) Marx and Engels
in
their book, were not content with urging the use of intelligence, they
suggested a specific course of action. This "theory and practice of pro–
letarian revolution," whatever one's estimate of it, was a program,
in
Dewey's language, an idea. It is the idea Prof. Hook has been talking about
these many years. He has been one of the most brilliant students of Marx
in America. His writings are evidence of his considered estimate of
Marx's philosophical thought. In view of his study of Dewey and Marx,
many had hoped he would discuss in detail his theories about the relations
of instrumentalism to Marx's philosophy. But he hasn't. In this respect
he is hardly alone, for of all the contributors to the Schilpp volume only
Russell notes the closeness of Marx's comments on knowledge to
pragmatism.
Although he omits comparison of Marx and Dewey on the nature of
knowledge, Hook does compare their respective political and social
thought. He describes Dewey as a democratic socialist and a Jeffersonian
liberal. But, "leaving aside certain secondary differences of terminology,"
