Theory in the Archives: Fred Newton Scott and John Dewey on Writing the Social Organism

This article reconstructs a writing theory on which Fred Newton Scott and John Dewey collaborated in the 1890s. Drawing on technology theorists’ discussions of “technological determinism,” this article critiques the deterministic aspects of Scott’s and Dewey’s thinking, and it suggests that their errors can illuminate determinism’s dangers for contemporary writing theory. The article also discusses some questions that Scott’s and Dewey’s theory raise for study of their later ideas.