We, John Dewey’s audience of today

Abstract

This article suggests that John Dewey’s Democracy and Education does not describe education in an existing society, but it conveys a utopia, in the sense coined by Mannheim: utopian thought aims at instigating actions towards the transformation of reality, intending to attain a better world in the future. Today’s readers of Dewey (his audience, according to Aristotle’s Rhetoric) are responsible for choosing to act, or not to act, in order to realize his utopia.

Keywords:

• John Dewey
• utopia
• dystopia
• rhetoric

Additional information

Funding

Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.

Notes on contributors

Marcus Vinicius da Cunha

Marcus Vinicius da Cunha is a professor of Philosophy of Education, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil; email: [email protected]. His research interests are John Dewey's philosophy of education, history of education in Brazil and Rhetoric. He is the author of two books and many articles on Dewey and a chapter in G. Pappas’ Pragmatism in the Americas.