Saturday, September 8, 2012

New Edition of Dewey's The Public and Its Problems

*The Public and Its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry*

*By John Dewey, and Edited and with an introduction by Melvin L. Rogers*

The revival of interest in pragmatism and its practical relevance for
democracy has prompted a reconsideration of John Dewey’s political
philosophy. Dewey’s *The Public and Its Problems *(1927) constitutes his
richest and most systematic meditation on the future of democracy in an age
of mass communication, governmental bureaucracy, social complexity, and
pluralism. Drawing on his previous writings and prefiguring his later
thinking, Dewey argues for the importance of civic participation and
clarifies the meaning and role of the state, the proper relationship
between the public and experts, and the source of democracy’s legitimacy.
These themes remain as important today as they were when Dewey first
engaged them, and this is the work to which scholars consistently turn when
assessing Dewey’s conception of democracy and what might be imagined for
democracy in our own time.

In this carefully annotated edition, Melvin L. Rogers provides an
introductory essay that elucidates the philosophical and historical
background of *The Public and Its Problems* while explaining the key ideas
of the book. He also provides a biographical outline of Dewey’s life and
bibliographical notes to assist student and scholar alike.

208 pages
ISBN 978-0-271-05569-5 | cloth: $69.95
ISBN 978-0-271-05570-1 | paper: $20.95

Here's the URL of the web page for that title:
http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-05569-5.html

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