Sociologies (Feb 2015)
Individualité et culture, de Boas à Dewey
Abstract
The theory of ‘culture’ has an important place in the philosophy of Dewey. Freedom and Culture, was for example one of his final texts. He even suggested towards the very end of his career that the reader should read ‘culture’ wherever he saw ‘experience’ written. This paper deals with two main points: firstly it shows that at the very root of Dewey’s thinking is the work of the founders of an anti-evolutionist cultural anthropology, notably Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski; then it analyses how ‘culture’ for Dewey forms a bridge between his psychological and moral theory of individuality on the one hand, and his idea of democracy as both a social and political reality on the other.
