Abstract

The concept of progress figures centrally in pragmatism in two apparently distinct ways. In the writings of Dewey, concepts of ethical and social progress play a major role: the task of philosophy is to promote progress across many domains of human inquiry and practice. Philosophers should foster progressive shifts with respect to the urgent problems of the age. Democracy is unfinished, and both Democracy and Education and The Public and its Problems are concerned with ways in which the progress of democracy could be promoted. Social progress would be made if art were no longer divorced from human life but integrated with it. Religious progress would be achieved by focusing on the...