Reconstructive Habits: Dewey on Human Functioning
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Date
2018
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Wydawnictwo Naukowe Instytutu Filozofii UAM
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Abstract
The academic strife to parse, investigate and adjust human functioning
establishes varieties of at least three key concepts: behavior, action, activity. Depending
on the general approach chosen, human functioning is therefore defined in a certain
way and in a certain understanding of freedom. Within this paper, the pragmatist
considerations of John Dewey (1859-1952) offer a sophisticatedly formulated theory
of human functioning that, undoubtedly, takes action-theoretical paths but formulates
underlying assumptions in a significantly unusual way. The main focus is to outline the
theory in such a way that clearly shows the unusual as part of the usual and the usual as
part of the unusual. For this purpose, the first section defines action as the basic category
of Deweyan human functioning where sensory stimuli, registering elements and motor
responses play a leading role, but according to Dewey questions the today still popular
model of behaviorist psychology, that positions isolated and a-cultural stimulus-responseprocedures
in the human organism. The second section affirms the theoretical inclusion
of deliberative elements that constitute human action, but according to Dewey witnesses
their substantial and rather sporadic significance in a predominantly habitual human
functioning. The conclusive section outlines the possibilities and limits of transforming
habitually inured patterns of human conduct by means of reconstructive habits.
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Keywords
human functioning, habit, reconstruction, pragmatism, John Dewey
Citation
Ethics in Progress, Volume 9 (2018), Issue 1, pp. 4-24.