From calculation to deliberation: the contemporaneity of Dewey

ABSTRACT

The word crisis comes from Ancient Greek κρίσις which can be translated as ‘power of distinguishing’ and is related to modern κρίνω which means ‘to pick out’. This is apt, because the pandemic of 2020 has exposed the limitation of approaches to social governance premised on calculation. The – some would argue false – choice between either saving lives or the economy, is the highest profile example of the necessity to ‘pick’ between different qualitative options. This has brought into relief something suppressed by the calculation approach, namely the need to adjudicate between multiple and competing value orientations in public life. With this, an alternative way of decision making in the public domain is needed, one that does not revert back to mere politics and subjective decisions. This article turns to the writings of John Dewey to look for alternatives. It shows that the model of deliberative inquiry found in Dewey, even though not without its own challenges, presents a viable option to replace metrics-based valuation approaches, without falling back on the whimsy of political judgement. This suggests that Dewey is not just contemporaneous, but that translating his insights into action could not be more urgent.

KEYWORDS:

• Deliberation
• calculation
• value judgement
• commensurability
• Pragmatism
• Dewey

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Patrycja Kaszynska

Dr Patrycja Kaszynska is Senior Research Fellow, Social Design Institute, University of the Arts London and Research Associate at Culture, King’s College London. She is also Research Affiliate at New College of the Humanities at Northeastern where she was Head of the Art History Faculty before joining UAL. She was Project Manager for the Cultural Value Scoping Project – an initiative supported by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and King’s College London, in partnership with Arts Council England. Prior to this, she was Project Researcher for the AHRC Cultural Value Project – an influential research programme concerning the value of arts participation and cultural engagement. After graduating from Oxford, she worked in policy research for Westminster-based think tanks. Patrycja’s interests are at the cross section of critical theory, pragmatic philosophy, cultural studies and design with the key focus on the theory of value and valuation studies.