Overview
John Dewey (1859–1952) was the American pragmatist philosopher whose work on democracy, education, and practical intelligence provided background for Agre's thinking about citizenship skills and democratic practice. While Agre cited Dewey less directly than Commons, the pragmatist framework — with its emphasis on learning through doing, the social nature of intelligence, and democracy as a way of life rather than a set of institutions — runs throughout Agre's late political writings.
Significance for Agre
Dewey's influence is most visible in Agre's concept of the social skills of citizenship and his insistence that democratic competence is practical and learned rather than innate or purely cognitive.