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
We may sum up the discussion in a few generalized statements. In the
first place, it is unscientific to try to restrict original activities
to a definite number of sharply demarcated classes of instincts. And the
practical result of this attempt is injurious. To classify is, indeed,
as useful as it is natural. The indefinite multitude of particular and
changing events is met by the mind with acts of defining, inventorying
and listing, reducing to common heads and tying up in bunches. But these
acts like other intelligent acts are performed for a purpose, and the
accomplishment of purpose is their only justification. Speaking
generally, the purpose is to facilitate our dealings with unique
individuals and changing events. When we assume that our clefts and
bunches represent fixed separations and collections _in rerum natura_,
we obstruct rather than aid our transactions with things. We are guilty
of a presumption which nature promptly punishes. We are rendered
incompetent to deal effectively with the delicacies and novelties of
nature and life. Our thought is hard where facts are mobile; bunched and
chunky where events are fluid, dissolving.
The tendency to forget the office of distinctions and classifications,
and to take them as marking things in themselves, is the current fallacy
of scientific specialism. It is one of the conspicuous traits of
highbrowism, the essence of false abstractionism. This attitude which
once flourished in physical science now governs theorizing about human
nature. Man has been resolved into a definite collection of primary
instincts which may be numbered, catalogued and exhaustively described
one by one. Theorists differ only or chiefly as to their number and
ranking. Some say one, self-love; some two, egoism and altruism; some
three, greed, fear and glory; while today writers of a more empirical
turn run the number up to fifty and sixty. But in fact there are as many
specific reactions to differing stimulating conditions as there is time
for, and our lists are only classifications for a purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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