Resumen
Resumen de La naturaleza humana y la conducta
Para quién es
For readers who want a serious but practical account of why people act as they do and how character can change, and anyone interested in habits, social psychology and moral growth.
De qué trata este libro
Human Nature and Conduct is a book by the American philosopher John Dewey, published in 1922. Its subtitle in the first edition called it an introduction to social psychology, and that is a fair description. Dewey wrote it in the years after the First World War, when many people were asking why humans keep acting in ways they know are foolish or cruel, and whether any reform of conduct is possible at all.
His answer is practical and surprising. Most of our behavior, he argues, is not driven by fixed instincts, and it is not steered by pure reason either. It is driven by habits, which we learn from the people around us. Impulses give those habits their energy, and intelligence can reshape both when it is used well. So morals are not a set of commands handed down from above. They are a human project, tested in daily life like any other kind of inquiry.
The book gives you a clear way to think about your own routines, your own temper and your own chances of changing. It also gives you a way to think about why societies resist reform. The book is easiest to follow if you start where Dewey starts, with the humble idea of habit, which is the first key point.
En este resumen
- 1Habits make up the selfFree
- 2Habits are skills that can grow
- 3Custom holds morals in place
- 4Change habits by changing conditions
- 5Impulses are raw energy, not enemies
- 6Intelligence works as a rehearsal
- 7Ends are guides, and means matter
- 8Morals are human and social
- 9The book has lasted and drawn criticism
Idea clave 1 de 9
Habits make up the self
Dewey begins with habit, and he gives the word a wider meaning than usual. A habit, for him, is not only a bad routine like biting your nails. It is any settled readiness to act in a certain way when a certain situation arises. Walking, speaking a language, holding an opinion and feeling anger at an insult are all habits in this sense.
From this he draws a bold claim. Habits do not merely belong to the self, they are the self. Your character is the sum of your acquired ways of responding. When people say a person has a good or bad character, they mean that his habits, taken together, lean in a good or bad direction.
This changes how we should think about will. Many people picture will as a power that stands outside habit and gives orders to it. Dewey rejects that picture. A habit is a form of will already, because it is a settled direction of desire and action. What we call a choice usually works through habits that are already in place.
He also points out that habits are not private. We pick them up in a world of other people, from parents, teachers, neighbors and customs. A child does not first form a self and then join society. The self is built out of social material from the start.
For a reader today, the lesson is plain. If you want to understand why you or anyone else behaves in a certain way, look at the habits behind the behavior rather than at some hidden inner force. And if you want to change behavior, you will have to work on habits, which leads to the next point.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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