Book contents
- Habits
- Habits
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- The Pragmatist Reappraisal of Habit in Contemporary Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Social Theory: Introductory Essay
- Part 1 The Sensorimotor Embodiment of Habits
- Part II The Enactment of Habits in Mind and World
- Part III Socially Embeddded and Culturally Extended Habits
- 14 Growing Minds
- 15 “Habit Is Thus the Enormous Flywheel of Society”
- 16 Habit and the Human Lifespan
- 17 Habits and the Enculturated Mind
- 18 Brain, Body, Habit, and the Performative Quality of Aesthetics
- 19 A Habit Ontology for Cognitive and Social Sciences
- 20 Social Ontology between Habits and Social Interactions
- 21 Social Reproduction Feminism and Deweyan Habit Ontology
- Index
- References
16 - Habit and the Human Lifespan
Toward a Deweyan Account of Aging and Old Age
from Part III - Socially Embeddded and Culturally Extended Habits
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2020
Book contents
- Habits
- Habits
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- The Pragmatist Reappraisal of Habit in Contemporary Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Social Theory: Introductory Essay
- Part 1 The Sensorimotor Embodiment of Habits
- Part II The Enactment of Habits in Mind and World
- Part III Socially Embeddded and Culturally Extended Habits
- 14 Growing Minds
- 15 “Habit Is Thus the Enormous Flywheel of Society”
- 16 Habit and the Human Lifespan
- 17 Habits and the Enculturated Mind
- 18 Brain, Body, Habit, and the Performative Quality of Aesthetics
- 19 A Habit Ontology for Cognitive and Social Sciences
- 20 Social Ontology between Habits and Social Interactions
- 21 Social Reproduction Feminism and Deweyan Habit Ontology
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter examines habit across the human lifespan to develop a Deweyan account of aging and old age. After explaining Dewey's notion of habit in terms of growth and plasticity in youth, I extend Dewey's account of habit to old age. A Deweyan understanding of aging contests lay person understandings of old age that equate it with decline and an end to growth, and it offers an alternative to the implicit biology–culture dualism that can be found in the contemporary field of gerontology. As I develop this account, I challenge Dewey's racially problematic association of “civilized” habits with mature adulthood and “savage” habituation with immature children. The result is a useful Deweyan appreciation of habit in old age that neither glosses over the difficulties of being elderly nor condemns elderliness to inevitable decline.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- HabitsPragmatist Approaches from Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Social Theory, pp. 337 - 351Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
References
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