Abstract
Although Dewey never fully articulated a theory of personhood, some of his later works, such as Unmodern Philosophy and Modern Philosophy (2012), allow for a reconstruction of his concept of person in a way that is consistent with his philosophical work. In this paper, I set out to reconstruct Dewey’s concept of person by building upon, as well distinguishing it from, his concepts of individual and self. Rejecting substance metaphysics, Dewey defines the individual as what manifests temporal seriality of action. Individuality is demarcated through temporal, serial (trans)actions: the individual is that who has a developing career. Ultimately, connecting individuality to action through time means, for Dewey, connecting it to habits, i.e., to those modes of action responsible for structuring the organism-environment transaction both at the physical and psychological level. This transactional and embodied understanding of individuality carries over to Dewey’s concepts of selfhood and personhood. Dewey describes the person as a self that has acquired, through socio-cultural exchange, a “representative office,” a social role. The acquisition of a representative capacity happens through the incorporation of social demands, which endow the individual self with rights and duties. The person is thus the locus of normative action, as well as an inherently social entity. The role of habit in individuality and selfhood assures a transactional and richly embodied approach to personhood. Such an approach is of use to feminist pragmatist analysis: understanding personhood as a concrete, active participatory role in society, rather than as an abstract, universalistic concept, ties it to emancipatory social action, and allows its use in the critique of oppressive social structures.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
The manuscript was probably composed between 1941 and 1943, and lost shortly thereafter; thus, Dewey never completed it. Nonetheless, “Things and persons” is fairly complete and the occasional missing words, bracketed in quotes, are easily reconstructed. See Deen’s Introduction (2012) to the book for further details on both the manuscript’s puzzling history and the editorial choices made for publication.
- 4.
Whereas “‘Figure’ counts because of its connection with specifiable modes of activity (interactivity)” (Dewey, 2012, p. 200): that is, bodily differences matter because they are coupled to modes of interactivity. Similar formulations are found in contemporary works of Dewey, such as The Public and its Problems (Dewey, 1927/1984, p. 352), Individualism Old and New (Dewey, 1930/1984, p. 121), Time and Individuality (Dewey, 1940/1988).
- 5.
For a current reevaluation of the pragmatist notion of habits at the crossroads of philosophy, cognitive science, social theory, and neuroscience, see Caruana and Testa (2021).
- 6.
Dewey sketches a brief history of the evolution of the concept of person through different socio-historical and philosophical contexts; he individuates four influential declinations of the concept. The first is the Greek and Christian idea of the person as a “metaphysical spiritual entity”; the second, the epistemological notion of the person as a cognitive centre, a knower detached from and opposed to its object; the third, due to political and economic liberalism, is that an individual subject opposed to the socio-institutional sphere; and the fourth is that of the person as a private consciousness (p. 184ff). Dewey quickly rejects all such definitions as they are not based on observed facts, nor empirically verified; further elaboration on these themes can be found throughout his philosophy, especially in his other writings on the concept of person (see note 2), and in works such as The Unity of the Human Being (1939/1988) and Experience and Nature (1925/1981, especially Chap. 6, “Nature, mind and the subject”).
- 7.
By “impulses” and “instincts” Dewey (1922/1983, p. 65ff) designates the “unlearned activities which are part of man’s endowment at birth”.
- 8.
Compare this with the following passage from the 1932 Ethics on the concept of right: “The Romans spoke of duties as offices. An office is a function which has a representative value; that is, it stands for something beyond itself. It is as a parent, not just as an isolated individual, that a man or woman imposes obligations on children; these grow out of the office or function the parent sustains, not out of mere personal will. […] The legislator, judge, assessor, sheriff, does not exercise authority as his private possession, but as the representative of relations in which many share. He is an organ of a community of interests and purposes.” (Dewey, 1922/1983, p. 228). See also Experience and Education (Dewey, 1938/1988, p. 33).
- 9.
- 10.
Ikäheimo and Laitinen (2007) offer a comprehensive discussion of these topics.
- 11.
A similar position is suggested by Schechtman (2014, p. 125ff). The natural follow-up question is: what critical space is there for oppressed groups to develop a reflection on their own condition, and for subversive action? Answering would require an investigation of Dewey’s social ontology that is not possible here: Gregoratto & Särkelä (2020) offer an incisive perspective of social reproduction as “a site of critique, resistance and transformation”, starting from Dewey’s notion of a pluralistic social life.
- 12.
While Dewey reflected widely on these topics through his works, he never fully spelled out a theory of injustice and oppression (Seigfried, 1996, p. 62).
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Roversi, T. (2022). From Individuality to Personhood in Dewey’s Later Works. In: Miras Boronat, N.S., Bella, M. (eds) Women in Pragmatism: Past, Present and Future. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00921-1_11
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