Habits of Transformation
Hypatia 26 (3):535-553 (2011)
| Abstract | This essay argues that according to feminist existential phenomenology, feminist pragmatism, and feminist genealogy, our embodied condition is an important starting place for ethical living due to the inevitable role that habits play in our conduct. In bodies, the phenomenon of habit uniquely holds together the ambiguities of freedom and determinism, transcendence and immanence, and stability and plasticity. Seeing habit formation as a matter of self-growth and social justice gives fresh opportunity for thinking of “assuming ambiguity” as a lifelong endeavor made up of many small projects and practices of situated resistance to stagnation. Transcendence, understood as ameliorative transformation, is found in cultivating habits of learning from our bodily living. I articulate this argument via a reading of Simone de Beauvoir's The Coming of Age, John Dewey's Human Nature and Conduct, and Ladelle McWhorter's Bodies and Pleasures. I discuss two domains wherein the ethical significance of habit formation appears: cognitive psychological research on neural plasticity, and certain projects of self-cultivation that risk turning into overdetermining “cult of the self ” practices that close off possibilities for personal and collective transformation | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesClare Carlisle (2005). Creatures of Habit: The Problem and the Practice of Liberation. Continental Philosophy Review 38 (1-2):19-39.
Ileana F. Szymanski (2009). Choices in Food and Happiness Seen From the Perspective of Aristotle's Notion of Habit. Philosophy in the Contemporary World 16 (2):12-21.
Clara Fischer (2010). Consciousness and Conscience: Feminism, Pragmatism and the Potential for Radical Change. Studies in Social Justice 4 (1):67 - 85.
Thomas A. Lewis (2007). Speaking of Habits. The Owl of Minerva 39 (1-2):25-53.
Bill Pollard (2006). Explaining Actions with Habits. American Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1):57 - 69.
Reijo Miettinen, Sami Paavola & Pasi Pohjola (2012). From Habituality to Change: Contribution of Activity Theory and Pragmatism to Practice Theories. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 42 (3):345-360.
Todd Lekan (2003). Making Morality: Pragmatist Reconstruction in Ethical Theory. Vanderbilt University Press.
Stephen Jarosek (2005). The Semiotics of Sexuality. Sign Systems Studies 33 (1):73-135.
Alexander Bird (2007). Incommensurability Naturalized. In L'ena Soler, Howard Sankey & Paul Hoyningen-Huene (eds.), Rethinking Scientific Change and Theory Comparison. Spinger.
Michał Głowala (2012). What Kind of Power is Virtue? John of St. Thomas OP on Causality of Virtues and Vices. Studia Neoaristotelica 9 (1):25-57.
Audrey L. Anton (2006). Breaking the Habit. Philosophy in the Contemporary World 13 (2):58-66.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-03-13Total downloads17 ( #71,101 of 549,090 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,317 of 549,090 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
