Human Nature and Conduct · Chapter
Habit and Intelligence explained
Dewey examines the interplay between habit and intelligence, arguing that habits both constrain and enable thought.
What happens
Dewey examines the interplay between habit and intelligence, arguing that habits both constrain and enable thought. He critiques the philosophical fallacy of treating specific ends as universal ideals, and asserts that concrete habits—not a separate mind or consciousness—are the true agents of perception, judgment, and reasoning. Intelligence emerges from the delicate combination of habit and impulse, especially during moments of disruption and reorganization.
Themes in this chapter
Habit and Custom as the Foundation of Conduct
Dewey argues that habits are the sole agents of perception, memory, and judgment, and that they both restrict and enable intellectual efficiency.
Impulse and Intelligence as Agents of Change
Intelligence arises from the conflict and reorganization of habit and impulse; impulse directs inquiry while habit supplies content.
Critique of Traditional Morality and Dualisms
Dewey critiques the philosophical fallacy of universalizing specific ends, targeting Aristotle, Spencer, Kant, and others for positing static perfection as an ideal.
Characters to notice
- Aristotle
Cited for his conception of an end that exhausts all realization and excludes potentiality, defining the highest excellence as self-revolving thought.
- Herbert Spencer
Mentioned for his evolutionary ideal of complete and final adaptation of organism to environment.
- Kant
Referenced for his ideal of eternal union of virtue and joy, though only as a symbolic approximation.
- Bergson
Noted for his philosophy of intuition, which Dewey critiques as merely elaborating the popular notion that instinct constitutes knowledge.
- William James
Referenced for his description of the stream of consciousness as alternation of flights and perchings.
Key passages
“Habits are conditions of intellectual efficiency. They operate in two ways upon intellect. Obviously, they restrict its reach, they fix its boundaries. They are blinders that confine the eyes of mind to the road ahead.”
Habits both enable and limit thought: they focus attention on immediate tasks but also narrow the scope of intellectual vision.
Dewey emphasizes the dual role of habit as both a necessary condition for and a constraint on intelligence.
“Concrete habits do all the perceiving, recognizing, imagining, recalling, judging, conceiving and reasoning that is done. 'Consciousness,' whether as a stream or as special sensations and images, expresses functions of habits, phenomena of their formation, operation, their interruption and reorganization.”
It is not a separate mind or soul but our actual habits that carry out all cognitive activities; consciousness is merely the expression of habits in flux.
Dewey rejects the notion of a distinct knower, grounding all mental operations in embodied habits.
“A certain delicate combination of habit and impulse is requisite for observation, memory and judgment.”
True knowledge requires a balanced interplay between stable habits and fresh impulses.
Intelligence emerges not from habit or impulse alone but from their dynamic interaction.