opinions (doxa). But because this is all the cave prisoners have ever experienced, and because
everyone else in the cave repeats the same things in conversation, they are prevented from realizing
the limitations of their“knowledge.”Those who are most adept at describing and predicting which
images will follow are hailed by their peers as expert knowers. From the Socratic perspective, the
pragmatist–by privileging practical learning, assigning readings that mirror back only current
opinions, by cutting off access to great authors from the past, and denying Being (replacing it with
endless historical change)–simply condemns the student to live within the environs of the cave and
to acceptuncriticallythe dogma broadcast on the cave walls. The immersion into the actual, into the
realm of flux and becoming, is merely the consequence of denying the significance of universal
norms.^38 This is why Neatby called Dewey’s approach to education“totalitarian”and called
attention to the fact that it is incompatible with responsible self-government properly understood.
Dewey’s understanding of the future of democracy, and the education he proposes as the suitable
pathway to its realization, is much closer to the democracy criticized by Socrates in Book Eight of
Republic. Democratic man, and the soul after whom the democratic regime is patterned, denies that
there are stable truths, particularly about moral questions. Such a man living in democracy, explains
Socrates,
doesn’t admit true speech or let it pass into the guardhouse, if someone says that there are some
pleasures belongingtofineandgooddesires andsomebelongingtobaddesires,andthattheones
mustbepracticedandhonoredandtheotherscheckedandenslaved.Rather,heshakeshis headat
all this and says that all are alike and must be honored on an equal basis. (Republic,561c)From the Socratic perspective, Dewey simply fastens on to one of the most predictable, self-
destructive, and least attractive features of untutored democracy and makes this the goal of his
educational endeavors. Moreover, as we have seen, there is nothing particularly“new”or twenty-
first century about this approach: it was already pointed to by Socrates some 2,500 years ago as the
typical and not particularly well thought out response that a sophist in a democracy is likely to give
to the question of how to educate its citizens. For the genuine health of the citizens and their souls,
Socrates always found it best to try to resist this approach that Dewey hails. Yet Socrates also knew
that the citizens of a democracy are always more inclined to hear the siren song of“progress”and
“egalitarianism”and be less likely to see that these can ultimately be fatal to deeper principles that
underlie the way of life and the freedom they enjoy.
For Dewey, however, the Socratic emphasis on Being over becoming is a non-starter. The new
situation we find ourselves in is the result of Charles Darwin’s insights, which, he believes, compel
us to alter our definition of knowledge:
The development of biology clinches this lesson, with its discovery of evolution. For the
philosophic significance of the doctrine of evolution lies precisely in its emphasis upon
continuity of simpler and more complex organic forms until we reach man. The development
of organic forms begins with structures where the adjustment of environment and organism is
obvious, and where anything which can be called mind is at a minimum.^39As a result, Dewey places his hopes in scientific positivism:
The development of the experimental method as the method of getting knowledge and of
making sure it is knowledge, and not mere opinion–the method of both discovery and proof–
is the remaining great force in bringing about a transformation in the theory of knowledge. The
experimental method has two sides. (i) On one hand, it means that we have no right to call
anything knowledge except where our activity has actually produced certain physical changes
in things, which agree with and confirm the conception entertained.^40The Socratic Method and John Dewey 87