The schools of Locke and Descartes, however much they were opposed in other respects, agreed in this, differing only as to whether the sentient or rational nature of the individual was the fundamental thing.
John Dewey
The Public Record
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
gutenberg.org
Henceforth moral and political individualism could appeal to “scientific” warrant for its tenets and employ a vocabulary made current by psychology:--although in fact the psychology appealed to as its scientific foundation was its own…
The “individualistic” movement finds a classic expression in the great documents of the French Revolution, which at one stroke did away with all forms of association, leaving, in theory, the bare individual face to face with the state.
The use of machinery in production and commerce was followed by the creation of new powerful social conditions, personal opportunities and wants.
The established custom of states, expressed intellectually in the theory of mercantilism against which Adam Smith wrote his account of “The (True) Wealth of Nations,” prevented the expansion of trade between nations, a restriction which…
Thus fear of government and desire to limit its operations, because they were hostile to the development of the new agencies of production and distribution of services and commodities, received powerful reënforcement.
The economic movement was perhaps the more influential because it operated, not in the name of the individual and his inherent rights, but in the name of Nature.
The economic theory of laissez-faire, based upon belief in beneficent natural laws which brought about harmony of personal profit and social benefit, was readily fused with the doctrine of natural rights.
Thus the protest of the utilitarian school, which sponsored the economic theory of natural law in economics, against natural right theories had no effect in preventing the popular amalgam of the two sides.
Each person is naturally the best judge of his own interests, and, if left free from the influence of artificially imposed restrictions, will express his judgment in his choice of work and exchange of services and goods.
The new technology applied in production and commerce resulted in a social revolution.
If one wishes to realize the distance which may lie between “facts” and the meaning of facts, let one go to the field of social discussion.