Abstract: In this chapter, English examines Human Nature and Conduct (1922) through the lens of Dewey’s broader theory of how humans learn. The chapter shows how Dewey’s emphasis on the productive role of uncertainty in human learning processes relates to how he differentiates between a habit as “a vital art” and a habit as “a mechanical routine.” The chapter then examines how Dewey expands his critique of traditional education by showing how traditional schooling separates habits from thought, creating mechanistic habits that do not allow for young people to learn the habit of learning – the habit to grow through encounters with difference. Using an example of classroom dialogue, English discusses how classrooms can become educational environments that foster the types of habits associated with educative growth. The chapter concludes by emphasizing that Human Nature and Conduct offers insight into not only the education of young people but also the education of grown-ups. Accordingly, adult society must construct environments for themselves that nurture thought and thereby help them develop rich perceptions of interdependencies between humans. Ultimately, the chapter provides an understanding of why making learning a habit is essential for the growth of an equitable, democratic future of education and society.

Abstract: This chapter examines John Dewey’s concept of moral education as growth, emphasizing its implications for moral development beyond his earlier work. While Moral Principles in Education (1909) presents Dewey’s approach to moral education through social participation, it does not incorporate his later view of growth as the sole moral end. Waks points to the need for the reconstruction of Dewey’s moral education theory in light of Human Nature and Conduct (1922), where he defines morality as the expansion of conduct in meaning. As Waks illustrates, Dewey’s later theory of growth introduces a tension between cooperative participation and individual moral development. The chapter shows how, for Dewey, true moral growth requires openness to new experiences, creative problem-solving involving new ends and new means, and self-transformation, sometimes in conflict with established social norms and cooperative action. This challenges educators to cultivate both group cooperation and individual moral experimentation. Waks concludes that a reconstructed Deweyan moral education must balance social engagement and cooperation with fostering independent growth, requiring educators to create environments that encourage both communal participation and personal moral discovery.

Abstract: In Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Dewey writes that bad habits are ones that have a “command over us” making us “do things we prefer not to do,” because as he puts it, “we are the habit.” In this chapter, Striano describes how education has a role in our understanding of the command of habit over our lives. The chapter considers how within the process of growth we can start reshaping our habits, making them increasingly intelligent so as to inform “intelligent dispositions.” Intelligent dispositions are central to helping us come to perform new, more reflective, courses of action in the world. The chapter concludes with the ideas that such intelligently reconstructed habits − ones that have been channeled through educative experiences which account for both human plasticity and the changes and “obstacles” in our environment − have the power to determine an effective transformation of our attitudes, behaviors, and understandings and, therefore, of our selves.

Abstract: In this chapter, Saito examines what the contemporary significance of Deweyan growth can be, if indeed it continues to have significance. In Human Nature and Conduct (1922), John Dewey elaborates his apparently paradoxical idea that growth means growing, “continued growth.” Today, the word “growth” has become something of a fad, in a somewhat perverse way. In the boom of what in Japan is known as Jiko-Keihatsu (whose literal translation is self-enlightenment, self-development, or self-improvement) people aspire to more growth and are encouraged to think that growth is to be achieved by brushing up their knowledge and skills. This chapter explores the significance of Dewey’s perfectionist idea of growth in the age of self-enlightenment and attempts to reclaim this idea of growth in terms of philosophy as a way of life. By doing so, the chapter elucidates the practical nature of pragmatism, exploring a third way, beyond neoliberal conceptions of utility and the potentially reactionary turn into self-cultivation in traditional liberal arts education. The chapter concludes by considering the contemporary significance of Deweyan growth lies in the fact that it opens up a way beyond the self, toward an idea of growth based not upon fear and anxiety but upon trust.

Abstract: In this chapter, Waks examines John Dewey’s concept of growth in Human Nature and Conduct (1922) and its relation to the good. Growth, for Dewey, is not biological or economic but an evolving moral and intellectual responsiveness to changing circumstances. Dewey defines morality as the “growth of conduct in meaning,” linking ethical life to an expanding awareness of action’s conditions and consequences. As Waks shows, Dewey argues that meaning develops through experience as habits are reconstructed in response to feedback. Conduct, unlike mere behavior, involves conscious ends-in-view, and growth occurs when experience expands our meanings – that is, deepens our understanding of how means connect to our ends. Waks distinguishes between proto-meanings in instinctual behavior and the fully articulated meanings made possible by language. Dewey defines the good as the expansion of meaning resulting from the resolution of conflicting impulses into a unified course of action, rejecting moral absolutism in favor of norms shaped by lived experience. Waks concludes by connecting personal growth with democracy as a moral ideal. The good person, in this view, is one who adapts, learns, and creatively responds to new social challenges and freely communicates with others – that is, the person with a democratic personality.

Abstract: This chapter discusses Dewey’s understanding of change developed in Human Nature and Conduct (1922), with particular focus on the impact of evolutionary theory on his thinking. How does Dewey define the connection between individual development and changes in society? And, centrally, what is the role of education therein? Dewey rejects the categorical division between individual and environment underpinning the two common perspectives that change begins in either the individual or the environment. He proposes a third, interactive view of change. Nardo argues in this chapter that Dewey’s “third view” is grounded significantly in his engagement with evolutionary theory. She shows how Dewey rethinks human behavior, ethics, and morality as evolving in relation to the environment rather than as fixed metaphysical principles. Dewey terms this process “growth.” The chapter shows how creating environments for growth, where the formation of intelligent habits is made possible, is central to the work of the teacher. Nardo discusses how schools can be places where albeit not ideal but at least improved circumstances can be imagined and created to direct individual and societal growth, such that the school, for Dewey, is the realm of (admittedly small) revolutions.

This chapter analyzes different methodologies for using the history of international development and economic growth to study US foreign relations. Early efforts to historicize development, driven largely by the scholarship of anthropologists, political theorists, and historical sociologists, focused on the intellectual origins and discursive effects of development and growth discourse. I show how, over the past two decades, historians have expanded upon this work in multiple ways. They have used governmental and nonstate archival collections to analyze the intellectual and political origins of ideas about development and growth in the United States. They have used documents in foreign languages from across the world to analyze how those receiving development assistance alternately resisted, challenged, accepted, adapted, and integrated US foreign aid into their domestic state-building and development initiatives. Historians have likewise integrated analytic frameworks from other subfields and disciplines – such as environmental history, science and technology studies (STS), and the history of economic thought – to assess the short- and long-term legacies of development initiatives. The chapter explores these approaches to analyzing development and growth as entry points to study how, why, and to what ends the United States exercised power in myriad ways across the world.

This chapter provides an introduction to the book. It sets the stage by highlighting contrasts in India’s economy, democracy, and society. It then discusses the main topics covered in the book – democracy and governance, growth and distribution, caste, labor, gender, civil society, regional diversity, and foreign policy. The chapter also outlines the three themes that comprise the main arguments of the book. First, India’s democracy has been under considerable strain over the last decade. Second, growing economic inequalities that accompanied India’s high-growth phase over the last three and a half decades are associated with the country’s democratic decline. Third, society has reacted to changes from below but there are limits to societal activism in contemporary India.

This chapter focuses on the domain of the vegetative soul that represents some of the simplest activities that distinguish the organic from the inorganic. It examines the central vegetative system consisting of the liver, the veins and their supporting organs, as well as the vegetative capacities present in all the tissues that are subservient to this system. The chapter not only discusses the relationship between the central parts and capacities in all of the body, but also examines the ways in which these capacities manifest themselves, arguing they represent Galen’s attempts to grapple with the notion of basic vitality. On some occasions, Galen also calls them ‘demiurgic’, implying a creative capacity. A discussion of how he engages with the pre-existing philosophical tradition and the notion of a biological demiurge helps to delineate the scope of these capacities.

1. What does the statement “The shortest distance between two people is a story” mean to you? 2. What do you think might inspire growth after loss? 3. How might you, as a social worker, amplify hope in the most complex of times? 4. What strengths do you have that promote positive human connections?