The Paradox of freedom : John dewey on human naTure , CulTure , and eduCaTion

In this paper, I argue that John Dewey's view of human nature entails that culture is a necessary but not sufficient condition for freedom. A surprising corollary of this argument is that, if left to run its natural course, culture in fact tends not to enable but rather to preclude freedom. Hence, there are specific cultural practices—habits acquired through education—that are required if we are to realize our freedom and thereby also fulfill our nature as human beings. In his 1938 essay “Does Human Nature Change?” John Dewey advances the position that human nature both does and does not change.1 This initially perplexing answer to the question that is the subject of his essay reflects a methodological principle that Dewey employs in his argumentation throughout Experience and Education.2 According to the principle articulated in that book, when one is theorizing, one ought not to fall prey to the human tendency “to think in terms of extreme opposites.”3 Doing so can lead one to a mistaken understanding of the matter about which one is theorizing, which can in turn have pernicious practical consequences. Instead, when theorizing, one ought to depart from rigid “eitheror” thinking; that is, one ought to recognize other possibilities, intermediate options between two polar opposites, in terms of which to think. This methodological principle informs Dewey’s thinking on many different issues. In the case of the question of whether human nature changes, the principle is manifested in Dewey’s resistance to the temptation to argue (at least in response to the theoretical side of the question) either that human nature changes or that human nature does not change. In this essay, I shall explain both the conception of human nature that enables Dewey to answer the question at hand as he does and the implications of Dewey’s answer for the closely related question of human freedom. As we shall see, 1) Dewey views human beings as creatures who are by nature inextricably bound up in culture, 2) this view entails that human beings are by nature free, but that freedom is not a given quality or feature of human life, and 3) this state of affairs in turn entails that education is crucial for the achievement of freedom and thereby also for human fulfilment.