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
Intelligence becomes ours in the degree in which we use it and accept
responsibility for consequences. It is not ours originally or by
production. "It thinks" is a truer psychological statement than "I
think." Thoughts sprout and vegetate; ideas proliferate. They come from
deep unconscious sources. "I think" is a statement about voluntary
action. Some suggestion surges from the unknown. Our active body of
habits appropriates it. The suggestion then becomes an assertion. It no
longer merely comes to us. It is accepted and uttered by us. We act upon
it and thereby assume, by implication, its consequences. The stuff of
belief and proposition is not originated by us. It comes to us from
others, by education, tradition and the suggestion of the environment.
Our intelligence is bound up, so far as its materials are concerned,
with the community life of which we are a part. We know what it
communicates to us, and know according to the habits it forms in us.
Science is an affair of civilization not of individual intellect.
So with conscience. When a child acts, those about him re-act. They
shower encouragement upon him, visit him with approval, or they bestow
frowns and rebuke. What others do to us when we act is as natural a
consequence of our action as what the fire does to us when we plunge our
hands in it. The social environment may be as artificial as you please.
But its action in response to ours is natural not artificial. In
language and imagination we rehearse the responses of others just as we
dramatically enact other consequences. We foreknow how others will act,
and the foreknowledge is the beginning of judgment passed on action. We
know _with_ them; there is conscience. An assembly is formed within our
breast which discusses and appraises proposed and performed acts. The
community without becomes a forum and tribunal within, a judgment-seat
of charges, assessments and exculpations. Our thoughts of our own
actions are saturated with the ideas that others entertain about them,
ideas which have been expressed not only in explicit instruction but
still more effectively in reaction to our acts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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