Human Nature and Conduct evolved from the West Memorial Foundation lectures at Stanford University. The lectures were ex tensively 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 ex plicit 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 Psy chology," 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 con cludes, "Within the flickering inconsequen tial 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."
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