In the Summer Institute of Civic Studies, we read chapter 5 of John Dewey’s The Public and its Problems, which exemplifies pragmatism as a method or as a theory of knowledge and value. This year, we are also reading a lecture by Hilary Putnam entitled “The Three Enlightenments” (from “Ethics without Ontology”), which I find helpful for elucidating Dewey’s method.

Putnam distinguishes three stages of enlightenment, of which the last is the “pragmatic” stage inaugurated by Dewey. We can consider Putnam’s three stages using an example–voting–that he does not use himself.

1. The Greek stage of enlightenment is exemplified by Socrates’ going around Athens, asking “why?” Socrates won’t do or endorse anything until his “why?” question is answered. As Putnam says, Socrates seeks “reflective transcendence” as he tries to throw off both “conventional opinion” and “revelation” and make his own reason the only judge.

If Socrates encountered our practice of regularly voting for our leaders (which, of course, originated in his culture), he would say, “Why do you do that?” We could not reply: “Because it’s in the Constitution.” Or “Because it is our custom.” We would have to give a reason that could overcome his skepticism.

2. The Age of Enlightenment stage repeats this skepticism but adds two big ideas capable of offering answers: the social contract and natural science. Actually, each offers a potential justification of voting. If society is and ought to be a social contract, then giving everyone a vote to select their leaders is a means of renewing the contract. Or one could say that voting is a right that people would demand before they entered the contract in the first place. Further, we can study whether voting leads to good outcomes, such as social welfare. That kind of investigation employs the tools of natural science to study a social phenomenon.

3. The third stage is Deweyan and pragmatic. It is a “criticism of criticisms.” It rejects enlightenment reason. For instance, the concept of a social contract is an invention. Even if we accept it, it does not answer all the “Why?” questions. Why should there be a social contract? Why should persons be equal? Further, no empirical study of voting can vindicate it by demonstrating its positive outcomes. Why, after all, should we value those outcomes? Why did we decide to measure them as we do?

In contrast, Dewey would say that he was formed by a society in which voting is a norm. He does not have a vantage point completely independent of that society. That is the basic reason that he and the rest of us vote. It is not appropriate to ask the “Why?” question as if one could stand apart from this society. That kind of skepticism leads nowhere. As Dewey puts it (p.158), “philosophy [once] held that ideas and knowledge were functions of a mind or consciousness that originated in individuals by means of isolated contact with objects. But in fact, knowledge is a function of association and communication; it depends upon tradition, upon tools and methods socially transmitted, developed, and sanctioned.”

However, we do not have to continue doing what we have done. It is appropriate to ask whether we should change our political system. The evidence we need to make that decision is much more than data about causes and effects.

As Putnam says, Dewey is “simultaneously fallibilist and anti-skeptical.” To be fallibilist is to presume that what you believe today may be wrong. To be anti-skeptical is to believe that you ought to go forward even if you cannot answer every “Why?” question adequately. Putnam adds that “traditional empiricism is seen by pragmatists as oscillating between being too skeptical, in one moment, and insufficiently fallibilist in another of its moments.” For instance (a pragmatist might argue), empirical political science is too skeptical when it treats value-judgments about matters like democracy as mere matters of subjective opinion; but it is insufficiently fallibilist when it treats data about things like voting as reliable bases for deciding what to do. And political philosophy is insufficiently fallibilist when it strives for permanent answers to questions like, “Should we vote?” The answer will be different a century from now.

Putnam writes:

For Dewey, the problem is not to justify the existence of communities, or to show that people ought to make the interests of others their own [that much is natural and unavoidable]; the problem is to justify the claim that morally decent communities should be democratically organized. This Dewey does by appealing to the need to deal intelligently rather than unintelligently with the ethical and practical problems that we confront.

So what about voting (as an example of a social practice that we should assess)? It is what we have inherited, so we must start with it. It has arisen as a tool for making our social life more intelligent–or it is useful for that purpose, regardless of its original reasons. But it is merely a tool, and there may be better ones.

[We] must protest against the assumption that the [democratic] idea itself has produced the the governmental practices which obtain in democratic states: General suffrage, elected representatives, majority rule, and so on. … The forms to which we are accustomed in democratic governments represent the cumulative effect of a multitude of events, unpremeditated as far as political effects were concerned and having unpredictable consequences. …

The strongest point to be made in behalf of even such rudimentary political forms as democracy has already attained, popular voting, majority rule and so on, is that to some extent they involve a consultation and discussion which uncover social needs and troubles.

See also “Dewey and the current toward democracy.”

We are almost halfway through the 2014 Summer Institute of Civic Studies at Tufts University. A group of 24 professors, graduate students, and civic leaders from many countries (only half are from the US) are deep into discussing several thousand pages of theoretical readings. We present the readings as an emerging–and disputable–canon for a field we call “civic studies.”

What qualifies an author to be included?

I have argued here that the only serious question for human beings as members of communities is: “What should we do?” Importantly, the question is not “What should be done?” which is much more commonly addressed in modern scholarship. Thus we must reform scholarship to make it address the citizen’s essential question.

A contributor to the nascent discipline of civic studies helps us to decide what we should do. A theorist of civic studies is someone who doesn’t just address that question in a particular context (e.g., “What should we parents of X school do to improve it?”). Instead, she or he offers guidance about broad categories of situations–perhaps about all situations that confront human beings. That is the screen through which I put potential contributors to the canon of civic studies.

So far this week, we have considered Jurgen Habermas, Elinor Ostrom, Robert Putnam, Harry Boyte, Albert Dzur, and Bent Flyvbjerg. Roberto Mangabeira Unger is up next.

As an example, Habermas addresses the question, “What should we do?” roughly as follows. It is a moral question, about what is right or just to do. It is not the question: “What do we want?” nor “What does our perspective, bias, or interest cause us to want?” We may have to choose against our desires or interests. The claim that something is right is like the claim that something is true. In both cases, we put the proposition before other human beings and seek their free agreement. If, for example, I assert that it would be right or just for me to pay lower taxes, then–if the conversation is free and public–I will have to give reasons persuasive to my fellow citizens. It won’t matter what my motives are. My arguments will have to be valid from others’ perspectives.

(By the way, if I make a claim about my motives–e.g., “I really only want to pay lower taxes because I want to help others,” that is a separate proposition that can also be tested by other human beings. They can look for consistency and other evidence of sincerity. Claims of justice, truth, beauty, and sincerity require different justifications but are alike in that they are all requests for free assent and they all promote reasonable inquiry.)

Thus what we should do is (a) whatever we decide to do in a very good conversation. But that implies (b) that we must participate in such conversations. And since they do not occur automatically, we must (c) work to make them happen, which is not just a matter of organizing and facilitating discussions but also of changing the incentives and rules that apply in public life so that democratic discussions flourish more. Finally, discussion by itself is insufficient to accomplish justice, so we must (d) press the economic and political systems to respond to reasonable public opinion.

This leaves much to be worked out–and is not ultimately satisfactory to me–but it qualifies Habermas as a civic theorist.

You are a citizen of a group (regardless of your legal status) if you seriously ask: “What should we do?”

The question is what we should do because the point is not merely to talk but to change the world. Thinking is intrinsically connected to action. We don’t think in focused and disciplined ways about the social world unless we are planning to act; and we don’t think well unless we learn from our experience.

The question is what we should do, not what should be done. It’s easy enough to say what should be done (enact a global tax on carbon, for instance). The tough question is what we can actually achieve. That requires not only taking action but obtaining leverage over larger systems. Since our tools for leverage are mostly institutions, this question requires careful thought about real and possible institutional forms. It is also, by the way, not the question “What should I do?” Of course, that is also important, but I cannot achieve much alone and–worse–I cannot know on my own what I ought to aim for. I must collaborate in order to learn enough about what to do.

The question is what should we do, so it is intrinsically about values and principles. We are not asking “What do we want to do?” or “What biases and preferences do we bring to the topic?” Should implies a struggle to figure out what is right, quite apart from what we may prefer. It is about the best ends or goals and also the best means and strategies. (Or if not the best, at least acceptable ones.)

Finally, the question is what we should do, which implies an understanding of the options, their probabilities of happening, and their likely costs and consequences. These are complex empirical matters, matters of fact and evidence.

Academia generally does not pose the question “What should we do?” The what part is assigned to science and social science, but those disciplines don’t have much to say about the should or the we. Indeed, the scientific method intentionally suppresses the should. In general, philosophy and political theory ask “What should be done?” not “What should we do?” Many professional disciplines ask what specific kinds of professionals should do. But the we must be broader than any professional group.

“Civic Studies” is a nascent effort to pose the citizen’s question again. We have an emerging canon of authors, which is merely exemplary and not complete. They are all recent or current thinkers and each offers a distinctive method for combining normative, empirical, strategic, and institutional analysis in the service of action.

I don’t offer my own method but merely some eclectic principles. I think:

Our methods should be interactive and deliberative. I will not decide what we should do; we will. Yet procedures will not suffice. It is not enough to say that a diverse mix of affected people should sit together and decide what to do. If I am seated at that table, I must decide what to advocate and how to weigh other people’s ideas. A deliberative process creates the framework for our discussion, but we still need methods to guide our thinking.

Our methods should be conscious of intellectual limitations. This is what I take from conservative thought: a serious doubt that we will come up with a better plan than what our predecessors devised, what the community in question already does, or what emerges from uncoordinated individual action. That doubt can be overcome by excellent thought; but we must be reasonably cautious and humble about ourselves.

We should not pay excessive attention to ultimate ends, to a theory of the good (let alone the ideal) society. First, the path toward the ideal is probably not direct, so knowing where you ultimately want to go may send you in the opposite direction from where you should set out. Second, we should be just as concerned about avoiding evil as achieving good. Third, our concept of the ideal will evolve, and we should have the humility to recognize that we do not believe what are successors will. And fourth, we are a group that has value– the group may even give our lives the value they have. It is just as important to hold the group together as to move it forward rapidly toward the ideal state.

We should not look for “root causes.” That is a misleading metaphor. Social issues are intertwined and replete with feedback loops and reciprocal causality. There is no root. Sometimes it is better to address an aspect of a problem that seems relatively superficial, rather than attack a more fundamental aspect without success.

Our critique should be “immanent,” in the jargon of the Frankfurt School. That is, we should try to improve the implicit norms of a community rather than imagine that we can import a view from nowhere. However, I would alter the idea of immanent critique in two ways. First, we should not only look for contradictions and hypocrisies. Holding contradictory ideas is a sign of maturity and complexity, not an embarrassment. And if you look for contradictions in order to advance your own view, then you are not actually practicing immanent critique. You’re hoping to score debating points in favor of a position external to the community. The immanent critique I recommend is subtler and more respectful than that. Second, it is not always directed at communities, whether geospatial, ethnic, or political. Sometimes it is directed at practices and fields. In fact, I see special value in intellectual engagement with fields of practice whose expressed aims are appealing but which need help with the details.

Finally, we should pay attention to whether our substantive beliefs are structured so as to permit interaction and learning. The question is not (only) whether you believe in equality or liberty, in God or science. The question is how you use those ideas in your overall thinking. If, for instance, you immediately return to a few core principles, that frustrates deliberation, collaboration, and learning. It is equally damaging to drop ideas quickly in order to avoid conflict. The ideal is genuine intellectual engagement with other people, through both talk and action.