The Center for Dewey Studies presents a lunchtime talk by visiting scholar Joseph Urbas titled "An Emersonian ‘Deposit’ in Dewey’s Philosophy? The Case of the Ethical Writings". 

John Dewey held Ralph Waldo Emerson in high esteem as a moral philosopher. If Emerson may be said to have left a mark on Dewey’s moral philosophy, its precise nature and extent remain to be fully determined.  A careful examination of Dewey’s ethical writings—with particular attention to the patterns that emerge from the various references to Emerson’s essays—suggests that the Emersonian “deposit,” while neither as profound nor professorial as the Hegelian, left its own peculiar imprint on his thinking. Even in an age of professionalization, Emerson was, for Dewey, still very much a usable philosopher. 

Joseph Urbas is Emeritus Professor at the Université Bordeaux Montaigne. He is the author of Emerson’s Metaphysics (Lexington, 2015) and The Philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Routledge, 2021). He is currently preparing a book on Emerson’s theory of justice.