Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“Character is the interpenetration of habits.”
- Source
- Human Nature and Conduct
- Date
- 1922
Meaning of “Character is the interpenetration of habits.”
Dewey describes character as the interaction of repeated habits rather than a collection of isolated acts, emphasizing how established ways of acting continually reinforce or modify one another.
Where does it come from?
Human Nature and Conduct (1922), Part One, Section II, “Habits and Will,” printed page 38, Project Gutenberg #41386. Dewey says character would not exist if habits operated in insulated compartments; “Character is the interpenetration of habits” summarizes his account of habits continuously modifying and reinforcing one another. This is part of Dewey’s historical philosophical / early social-psychological framework, not a modern clinical definition of personality.
