Human Nature and Conduct: An introduction to social psychologyDewey, John
Philosophy
Human Nature and Conduct: An introduction to social psychology
Dewey, John
Habit; Social psychology
The trinity of these forecasts, perceptions and remembrances form a
subject-matter of discriminated and identified objects. These objects
represent habits turned inside out. They exhibit both the onward
tendency of habit and the objective conditions which have been
incorporated within it. Sensations in immediate consciousness are
elements of action dislocated through the shock of interruption. They
never, however, completely monopolize the scene; for there is a body of
residual undisturbed habits which is reflected in remembered and
perceived objects having a meaning. Thus out of shock and puzzlement
there gradually emerges a figured framework of objects, past, present,
future. These shade off variously into a vast penumbra of vague,
unfigured things, a setting which is taken for granted and not at all
explicitly presented. The complexity of the figured scene in its scope
and refinement of contents depends wholly upon prior habits and their
organization. The reason a baby can know little and an experienced adult
know much when confronting the same things is not because the latter has
a "mind" which the former has not, but because one has already formed
habits which the other has still to acquire. The scientific man and the
philosopher like the carpenter, the physician and politician know with
their habits not with their "consciousness." The latter is eventual, not
a source. Its occurrence marks a peculiarly delicate connection between
highly organized habits and unorganized impulses. Its contents or
objects, observed, recollected, projected and generalized into
principles, represent the incorporated material of habits coming to the
surface, because habits are disintegrating at the touch of conflicting
impulses. But they also gather themselves together to comprehend impulse
and make it effective.
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