Enquête sur les enjeux politiques de l'opinion publique : John Dewey et la science politique de son temps
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Abstract EN:
What is or what should be the political function of the public in a modern liberal democracy? this work is a twofold inquiry about the correlation between the way public opinion is defined and the way democracy is construed. The first part opposes a process of depolitization of public opinion that was initiated by earlier american political science during the twenties. Backing itself on a refutation of classical liberal anthropology, this science ended up in interposing a body of experts between the public and the government. On the contrary, as shown in the second part, john dewey's philosophy aimed at reconstructing the inchoate public into the conscious, socially minded and politically active public without which the continuity of a democratic associated experience would no longer be possible. This priority forms the core of the public and its problems, the more important text of john dewey's political theory. But it's also a priority one can discover in every aspect of dewey's pragmatism: in his social psychology, which insists on the social conditions of "the development of individuality" and preludes a cultural anthropology; in his philosophy of experience, which substitutes for the determinist scheme an interaction scheme; also in his knowledge theory according to which what is known is the product of a subject activity, while pragmatic ethics shows that freedom is reached only by the individual exercising of freedom; in his education philosophy which seeks to transform the schools into an agency for promoting a community of inquirers; lastly in his political thought, which subordinates political activities to an experimental identifying of the fluctuating limit between the public and the private.
Abstract FR:
Quelle est ou quelle devrait etre la fonction politique du public dans une democratie liberale moderne ? ce travail est une enquete sur la correlation entre les diverses definitions de l'opinion publique et les diverses conceptions de la democratie. Il expose deux perspectives, qui en forment les deux parties: la premiere se developpe en opposition a une depolitisation de l'opinion publique par la science politique empirique qui nait aux etats-unis au cours des annees vingt et qui, sur la base d'une refutation de l'anthropologie liberale, aboutit a preconiser l'interposition d'un corps d'experts entre le public et le gouvernement. La seconde partie recherche a travers la philosophie de john dewey en quoi la formation de l'opinion publique est essentielle a l'emergence du public et, correlativement, en quoi un public effectif est essentiel a la continuite de l'experience democratique. Cette preoccupation forme le coeur de the public and its problems, le texte de theorie politique le plus important de john dewey, mais on la retrouve egalement dans tous les aspects du pragmatisme de dewey: dans sa psychologie sociale qui insiste sur les conditions sociales de ce qu'il appelle le + developpement de l'individualite ;, prelude a une anthropologie culturelle; dans sa theorie de l'experience, qui substitue au scheme du determinisme le scheme de l'interaction; dans sa theorie de la connaissance, qui montre comment ce qui est connu est le produit des activites d'un sujet, et non le fruit d'une adequation; mais aussi dans sa morale, qui insiste surtout sur la continuite des moyens et des fins, et par ricochet, sur le fait que la liberte ne peut etre atteinte que par l'exercice de la liberte; dans sa theorie de l'education egalement, qui montre comment l'ecole pourrait contribuer a former une communaute d'enqueteurs, et enfin dans sa theorie politique, qui subordonne les activites politiques au reperage experimental des limites fluctuantes entre le prive et le public.