Formaterial Experience

Dewey's notion, 'the plasticity of impulse', implicitly recognizes the combination of Material Causality and Formal Causality in Experience. His 'impulse' is Motility, and, hence, a mode of Material Causality, while its 'plasticity' implies the possibility of some Formal Causality that organizes it. His primary concern in the context is Habit, i. e. acquired behavioral structure, so he is less interested in singular experiential episodes, such as the process of habit-acquisition, which often involves the guidance of a particular physiological motion by an intention, e. g. by a set of instructions. His study thus does not distinguish the variety of ways that the two causes can interact in a specific situation--from ways in which Material Causality predominates, e. g. relaxed or effusive behavior, to those in which Formal Causality does, e. g. concentrated or constrained behavior. Nevertheless, as is, his model does signify a departure from traditional models of behavior based on Efficient or Teleological Causality, in favor of one based on an interaction of Material and Formal Causality. The latter model has previously here been termed 'Formaterialism', and, because of the pervasiveness and fundamentality of its two main components, they have been more properly classified as principles, i. e. as the Material Principle and the Formal Principle.