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 most general, if vaguest issue, concerns the nature of the organ of
moral knowledge. As long as knowledge in general is thought to be the
work of a special agent, whether soul, consciousness, intellect or a
knower in general, there is a logical propulsion towards postulating a
special agent for knowledge of moral distinctions. Consciousness and
conscience have more than a verbal connection. If the former is
something in itself, a seat or power which antecedes intellectual
functions, why should not the latter be also a unique faculty with its
own separate jurisdiction? If reason in general is independent of
empirically verifiable realities of human nature, such as instincts and
organized habits, why should there not also exist a moral or practical
reason independent of natural operations? On the other hand if it is
recognized that knowing is carried on through the medium of natural
factors, the assumption of special agencies for moral knowing becomes
outlawed and incredible. Now the matter of the existence or
non-existence of such special agencies is no technically remote matter.
The belief in a separate organ involves belief in a separate and
independent subject-matter. The question fundamentally at issue is
nothing more or less than whether moral values, regulations, principles
and objects form a separate and independent domain or whether they are
part and parcel of a normal development of a life process.
These considerations explain why the denial of a separate organ of
knowledge, of a separate instinct or impulse toward knowing, is not the
wilful philistinism it is sometimes alleged to be. There is of course a
sense in which there is a distinctive impulse, or rather habitual
disposition, to know. But in the same sense there is an impulse to
aviate, to run a typewriter or write stories for magazines. Some
activities result in knowledge, as others result in these other things.
The result may be so important as to induce distinctive attention to the
activities in order to foster them. From an incident, almost a
by-product, attainment of truth, physical, social, moral, may become the
leading characteristic of some activities. Under such circumstances,
they become transformed. Knowing is then a distinctive activity, with
its own ends and its peculiarly adapted processes. All this is a matter
of course. Having hit upon knowledge accidentally, as it were, and the
product being liked and its importance noted, knowledge-getting becomes,
upon occasion, a definite occupation. And education confirms the
disposition, as it may confirm that of a musician or carpenter or
tennis-player. But there is no more an original separate impulse or
power in one case than in the other. Every habit is impulsive, that is
projective, urgent, and the habit of knowing is no exception.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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