Abstract

Volume 14_ _of _The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899–1924_,_ _series provides an authoritative edition of Dewey’s _Human Nature and Conduct. A Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition._ __ _Human Nature and Conduct _evolved from the West Memorial Foundation lectures at Stanford University. The lectures were ex­tensively rewritten and expanded into one of Dewey’s best-known works. As Murray G. Murphey says in his Introduction, “It was a work in which Dewey sought to make ex­plicit the social character of his psychology and philosophy—something which had long been evident but never so clearly spelled out.” Subtitled “An Introduction to Social Psy­chology,” _Human Nature and Conduct _sets forth Dewey’s view that habits are social functions, and that social phenomena, such as habit and custom and scientific methods of inquiry are moral and natural. Dewey con­cludes, “Within the flickering inconsequen­tial acts of separate selves dwells a sense of the whole which claims and dignifies them. In its presence we put off mortality and live in the universal.”