This article re-visits the critiques of anthropocentricism levied against John Dewey by his contemporaries and offers a reading of this critique through the lens of nonhuman agency using the theoretical work of Bruno Latour and Jane Bennett, particularly the latter’s coverage of Dewey’s theory of democracy. This work culminates into an argument for envisioning Dewey’s publics as constituted by human and nonhuman bodies, anticipating in some ways the work of contemporary posthumanists and new materialists. This leads us to not only re-think Dewey’s typecasting as unabashedly anthropocentric but also reinvigorates the use value of Dewey’s thinking in the context of contemporary ecological issues.

本文再次回顾了约翰·杜威（John Dewey）的同时代人对人类中心主义的批评，并使用布鲁诺·拉图尔（Bruno Latour）和简·贝内特（Jane Bennett）的理论著作，通过非人为代理的视角对这一批评进行了解读，特别是后者对杜威的民主理论的报道。这项工作最终形成了一个论点，即设想杜威的公众是由人体和非人体组成的，并以某种方式预料了当代后人类主义者和新唯物主义者的工作。这不仅使我们不仅将杜威的类型转换重新思考为以人类为中心，而且在当代生态问题的背景下重新激发了杜威思想的使用价值。