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pervasive and general features of Experience and Existence. Yet Hook
recognized that in the Pragmatic tradition the truths of metaphysics can–
not transcend the boundaries of the empirical truths of science.
Accordingly, in the second area, that is, methodology, Pragmatism
considered the methods of science to be paradigmatic for all reliable
knowledge. John Dewey argued for the application of scientific method
to issues of education, democracy, or societal reconstruction. Hook
shared the Deweyan desire and hope for methods analogous to scientific
inquiry in public policy. But he recognized the significant distance
between experimental research in the natural sciences and research on
educational issues, or between the progression of knowledge in the nat–
ural sciences and the limits to progress in historical studies or social
thought. Hook emphasized the narrower but still optimistic thesis that
"critical intelligence" could arrive at better confirmed and, conse–
quently, more adequate beliefs on political and social issues.
Third, in its epistemology, Pragmatism rejected prevailing accounts of
knowledge as a passive process in which individuals "mirror" or
"cohere" the objects of a given world. Rather, knowledge was an active
process which necessarily involved prediction and its verification by
future experience. Consequently, Truth for the Pragmatist was an instru–
ment both for adaptation to the environment and for the control and
future change of the "given" realities.
Finally, the moral theory of Pragmatism interpreted moral decisions
as hypotheses about what policies or actions would optimally and effec–
tively resolve the needs and conflicts within a concrete "problematic sit–
uation." This interpretation, with its rejection of the traditional
absolutism of ethical imperatives, requires great confidence in the abil–
ity of human beings to exercise critical intelligence in evaluating moral
conflict and in developing social norms. Sidney Hook's career found its
greatest fulfillment in attempting to use critical intelligence on the most
important moral issues confronting the society in which he lived.
Alongside his continuing commitment to Pragmatic philosophy,
Hook emerged as a major interpreter of Marxism. He traced the devel–
opment of Marxist thought through a series of precursors to its
Hegelian roots in
From Hegel to Marx.
Subsequently, in
Towards the
Understanding of Karl Marx,
Hook examined the grounds for reconcil–
iation between Marxism and Pragmatism.
Hook emphasized two elements of affinity. First, Marx had been the
philosopher of scientific socialism as opposed to Utopian socialism.
Accordingly, Hook presented Marx's theory in the form of a scientific
hypothesis that represented a prediction-subject to confirmation or
