Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:09:49.414Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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

By
Shannon Sullivan
Edited by
Fausto Caruana  and
Italo Testa
Fausto Caruana
Affiliation:
Institute of Neuroscience (Parma), Italian National Research Council
Italo Testa
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi, Parma
Get access

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.

Keywords

Deweyhabitgrowthagingenvironmental gerontology
Type
Chapter
Information
Habits
Pragmatist Approaches from Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Social Theory
 , pp. 337 - 351
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addams, Jane. 1914. “Need a Woman Over 50 Feel Old?” The Ladies’ Home Journal, October. Available online: www.aarp.org/giving-back/volunteering/info-08-2010/need_woman_over_50_feel_old.html, accessed May 4, 2019.Google Scholar
Baltes, Paul B. 1993. “The Aging Mind: Potential and Limits.” Gerontologist 33 (5): 580–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bederman, Gail. 1995. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1990–1917. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cavendish, Camilla. 2019. “Life Begins at 60 – the Rise of the ‘Young-Old’ Society.” The Straits Times, May 4, A36.Google Scholar
Chen, Xi, Hertzog, Christopher, and Park, Denise C.. 2017. “Cognitive Predictors of Everyday Problem Solving across the Lifespan.” Gerontology 63: 372–84.Google Scholar
Cowdry, Edmund Vincent, ed. 1939. Problems of Ageing: Biological and Medical Aspects. Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins.Google Scholar
Cutchin, Malcolm P. 2013. “The Complex Process of Becoming At-Home in Assisted Living.” In Environmental Gerontology: Making Meaningful Places in Old Age. Edited by Rowles, Graham D. and Bernard, Miriam, 105–23. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1980. “Democracy and Education.” In The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 9: 1916, Democracy and Education. Edited by Boydston, Jo Ann, 1–370. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1983. “Human Nature and Conduct.” In The Middle Works, 1899–1924, vol. 14: 1922, Human Nature and Conduct. Edited by Boydston, Jo Ann, 1–227. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, John. 1988. “Introduction to Problems of Ageing.” In The Later Works, 1925–1953, vol. 14: 1939–1941, Essays, Reviews, and Miscellany. Edited by Boydston, Jo Ann, 341–50. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Fallace, Thomas. 2010. Dewey and the Dilemma of Race: An Intellectual History, 1895–1992. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Kim Q., ed. 2011. Feminist Disability Studies. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
James, William. 1950a. The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
James, William. 1950b. The Principles of Psychology, vol. 2. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Lachs, John. 2012. Stoic Pragmatism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Locke, John. 1980 [1689]. Second Treatise on Government. Cambridge, MA: Hackett.Google Scholar
Menzel, Annie. 2014. The Political Life of Black Infant Mortality. Dissertation. Seattle: The University of Washington. Available online: https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/26159/Menzel_washington_0250E_13773.pdf?sequence=1, accessed July 23, 2020.Google Scholar
Schwarz, Benyamin. 2012. “Environmental Gerontology: What Now?” Journal of Housing for the Elderly 26: 4–19.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×