Evolution, psychology, and John Dewey's critique of the reflex arc concept

John Dewey's article on the reflex are concept in psychology was a powerful critique of mechanistic approaches to psychology and a suggestion for a more lively approach based on evolutionary assumptions. In shifting to an evolutionary view and rejecting a mechanical one, Dewey gave priority to activities rather than to entities. A psychology based on activity depicted organisms as acting to alter their own stimuli rather than being prodded from behind to respond. Adopting evolutionary assumptions also helped in understanding the units of the act (stimulus and response) as defined within an activity, like Darwinian species, rather than as predefined from without. The resulting psychology gave an integrated way of understanding the relation between organism and environment and cognition and behavior that had been separated in approaches based on entities. The approach to the act adopted in the reflex are paper anticipated Dewey's later work, including his (and George Herbert Mead's) social psychology and his aesthetic philosophy. It also anticipated current work on activity theory. Like the latter, it may be particularly useful given the theoretical and practical divisions evident today.