About the show

About Dewey or Don't We?

Dewey or Don't We? takes practical philosophy out of the seminar room. Each episode starts with a question people are actually facing right now and works through it out loud, with a current-events instinct on one side of the table and decades of philosophical training on the other.

Why "Dewey"

The name is a double reference: the Dewey Decimal System that organizes a library's shelves, and John Dewey, the philosopher whose pragmatism treats ideas as tools for living rather than abstractions to admire from a distance. The show borrows both the organizing instinct of a card catalog and the pragmatist habit of asking what an idea is actually for.

What "practical philosophy" means here

Practical philosophy, on this show, means starting from something a listener is actually dealing with, whether that is a shift in technology, a question about work, or a debate playing out in the culture, and working through it the way philosophy is meant to be used: to think more clearly about a real situation, not to score points in an abstract debate.

What gets discussed

Dewey or Don't We? is not restricted to what people usually file under "philosophy class." Technology, work, relationships, and current events are all fair game, because the show's core belief is that philosophy is a way of examining what people are actually dealing with right now, not a fixed list of approved subjects.