Abstract
John Dewey (1859–1952) wrote a handful of essays on various legal topics, and he made sprinkled references to law in his voluminous body of work (for informative analyses of Dewey’s perspective on law see Patterson (1950); Donoso (1959)). He did not elaborate a special theory of law, but rather analyzed legal matters from a pragmatic standpoint, treating law like other social institutions. This entry therefore begins with a summary of pragmatism. Then it addresses, in order, three topics Dewey covered with enduring significance: his critique of natural law, his account of judicial decision-making, and his social theory of law.
Originally published in Mortimer Sellers and Stephan Kirste, Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, © Springer Nature B.V. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_600-1.
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Notes
- 1.
For an elaboration of Dewey’s focus on method rather than substantive propositions, see Manicas (1981).
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Tamanaha, B.Z. (2023). Dewey, John. In: Zanetti, G., Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Handbook of the History of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Studies in the History of Law and Justice, vol 24. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-19550-1_5
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