WHAT ’S TRUTH GOT TO DO WITH IT? JOHN DEWEY AND MICHAEL OAKESHOTT ON NON - FOUNDATIONAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT NIHILISM A Doctoral Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Government. By Conor P. Williams, M.A. Washington, DC April 11, 2013 Copyright 2013 by Conor P. Williams All Rights Reserved ii WHAT ’S TRUTH GOT TO DO WITH IT? JOHN DEWEY AND MICHAEL OAKESHOTT ON NON - FOUNDATIONAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY WITHOUT NIHILISM Conor P. Williams, M.A. Thesis Advisor: Richard Boyd , PhD . ABSTRACT At the beginning of the twentieth century, philosophers were searching to find their role in an uncertain political world. Scant one hundred years after the universal aspirations of Enlightenment-era ethics, Nietzsche declared that moral ideals took their vitality from the stirrings—and strength—of the human will. Humans, in other words, are free—and able—to construct their own moral ideals on their own terms. How should politics be conducted in a world where certainty has been fundamentally shaken? Or, alternatively, if philosophy can no longer credibly offer substantive, fixed truths, what remains for it do? John Dewey and Michael Oakeshott both took these questions very seriously. Importantly, each argued that modern liberal pluralism could be defended without making recourse to metaphysically grounded absolutes. In their view, Western philosophers were in dire need of better reflection on the commitments implied by their particular historical traditions. In subsequent decades, many Western philosophers responded to the same theoretical conditions in a variety of ways. These can largely be grouped into two rough categories: 1) those who seek to reestablish monism and ethical consensus, and 2) those who celebrate epistemological uncertainty to such a degree that their work culminates in nihilism. I argue that Dewey and Oakeshott’s response to this situation represents a significant improvement on the last century of political philosophy. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This is, in so many ways, a project about doubt. At a variety of points during the process of writing it, I found myself infected by my theme. When I ran short of confidence, when my frustrations clouded my vision, my wife Gwennan saved me from myself. She is the best part of my life. Throughout my life, I have been fortunate to receive inspiration and encouragement from a great many thoughtful people. Karen and Doug Williams, A.J. Paulus, and Dr. Paul Franco were especially helpful in guiding me to think deeply about difficult things. This project would have been much less successful without the guidance from several key mentors. Dr. Richard Boyd repeatedly took extra time and interest in my work, even when it ranged into territory unfamiliar or unfriendly to his own. Dr. Joshua Mitchell urged me to build a project that aimed at more than finding and filling a niche in the literature—in other words, he asked me to write something that matters. Whatever the dissertation’s ultimate “cash value,” I have taken that objective as my lodestar and the project is better for it. Dr. E.J. Dionne has been a mentor, critic, and friend over the last several years. He has helped me resist the cynical downward pull that accompanies doctoral work. From time to time, his faith in my work exceeds my own, which is a truly exceptional trait in a professional mentor. Finally, I lack the space (and the memory) required to name and thank every person who had a hand in the project. Innumerable friends, colleagues, and even strangers helped me in more ways than I can name. That said, I have been especially grateful for the friendship of Matthew Sitman and Nathan Pippenger; the patience of Steve Hollingworth and Ann Griffith; and the ineffable enthusiasm of Owain and Carys Williams. -Conor P. Williams April 11, 2013 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Absolute or Nothing: The Search For New Modern Political Foundations 13 Chapter 2 Method, Science, and Politics: Deweyan Discourse and Oakeshottian Conversation 57 Chapter 3 A Contingent, Earthly Anchor: Turning to History for Political Foundations 96 Chapter 4 Balancing Uncertainty Across Theoretical Boundaries 144 Bibliography 183 v INTRODUCTION This project begins with a philosophical breakdown in the waning years of the nineteenth century, and thus, it begins with William James. Few early-twentieth century intellectuals were more thoroughly concerned with the state of philosophy than James. At the end of 1906, he gave a lecture at Boston’s Lowell Institute, where he spoke of a sort of crisis within the field: “Believing in philosophy myself devoutly, and believing also that a kind of new dawn is breaking upon us philosophers, I feel impelled, per fas aut nefas , to try to impart to you some news of the situation.” He went on to describe a fractured discipline, with warring camps separated by a wide, substantive gulf. “Empiricists” and “Rationalists” (or “Idealists”) were separated, he thought, by more than just casual philosophical differences—they disagreed as a matter of core epistemological principles. They posited radically distinct starting places for philosophical reflection and adopted mutually exclusive sets of postulates. This polarization hardly conduced to profitable debates within the field. 1 James was hardly the only philosopher to recognize that philosophy arrived in the twentieth century in uncertain condition. John Dewey and Michael Oakeshott both took epistemology extremely seriously—each argued that modern liberal pluralism could be defended without making recourse to metaphysically grounded absolutes. In their view, Western philosophers were in dire need of better reflection on the strengths and commitments of their historical tradition. In subsequent decades, many Western philosophers responded to the same 1 William James, Pragmatism in Pragmatism and the Meaning of Truth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), 10, 13. Cf. 29, 97: In the rest of that introductory lecture, James set out to demonstrate that this situation was as unprofitable as it was unnecessary. “Tough-minded” empiricists were right to insist on the importance of facts, just as “tender-minded” rationalists were right to build their philosophical systems around principles—the problem lay in assuming that these options were truly binary. In ensuing lectures, he argued that our ideals consisted of whatever “conceivable effects of a practical kind” they implied. He demanded to know “What concrete difference will [a principle’s] being true make in anyone’s actual life?” 1 theoretical conditions in a variety of ways. These can largely be grouped into two rough categories: 1) those who seek to reestablish monism and ethical consensus, and 2) those who celebrate epistemological uncertainty to such a degree that their work culminates in a sort of subjectivistic nihilism. In the ensuing chapters, I argue that Dewey’s and Oakeshott’s response to this situation represents a significant improvement on the last century of epistemologically- driven political philosophy. This introduction is designed to give some context to the broader historical, political, and theoretical narratives that inform my argument. Both John Dewey and Michael Oakeshott began their careers during a period of shaky political and philosophical certainty. In the United States, this uncertainty took many forms, but it was most clearly marked by the outbreak of the Civil War. As Louis Menand put it, For the generation that lived through it, the Civil War was a terrible and traumatic experience. It tore a hole in their lives. To some of them, the war seemed not just a failure of democracy, but a failure of culture, a failure of ideas. As traumatic wars do…the Civil War discredited the beliefs and assumptions of the era that preceded it. Those beliefs had not prevented the country from going to war; they had not prepared it for the astonishing violence the war unleashed; they seemed absurdly obsolete in the new, postwar world. The Civil War swept away the slave civilization of the South, but it swept away almost the whole intellectual culture of the North along with it. It took nearly half a century for the United States to develop a culture to replace it, to find a set of ideas, and a way of thinking, that would help people cope with the conditions of modern life .2 The United States had fought other wars, but the Civil War conclusively disabused American pretensions about the stability of the principles at the nation’s core. It was a thorough intrusion of practical, prudential calculations upon territory once supposed to be ruled by principle. In terms of culture, the end of the war settled little. The culmination of hostilities only set the stage for debates over what, precisely, had been won. In his Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln 2 Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2001), x, emphasis added. Cf. 440–42. 2 promised that the war’s end would eventually signify “a new birth of freedom”—it remained to be seen what that would mean. 3 Post-war changes only exacerbated the situation. Rapid technological development drove corresponding economic shifts and astonishing new political problems. Equally rapid industrialization and corresponding demographic and cultural trends proved equally challenging. For instance, new national (and international) economic forces challenged political institutions designed for a nation made up of largely self-sufficient agrarian communities. Railroad mileage increased ninefold from 1860 to 1920. Many growing industries consolidated into several corporations by taking advantage of outdated legal structures regulating their behavior. In 1894, American journalist Henry Demarest Lloyd wrote that insular corporate interests “assert the right, for their private profit, to regulate the consumption by the people of the necessaries of life, and to control production, not by the needs of humanity, but by the desires of a few for dividends.” He worried that existing moral language was being pressed into the service of new masters and for inegalitarian ends.