La educación es una función inherente a todas las formas de la vida en tanto que proceso incesante de desarrollo debido a la dialéctica entre las leyes internas del organismo y las presiones adaptativas del entorno.
Fuentes bibliográficas originarias
“La estructura de un ser vivo resulta de un proceso totalmente diferente en cuanto no debe casi nada a la acción de las fuerzas exteriores, y en cambio lo debe todo, desde la forma general al menor detalle, a interacciones «morfogenéticas» internas al objeto mismo. […] Por el carácter autónomo y espontáneo de los procesos morfogenéticos que construyen la estructura microscópica de los seres vivos, éstos se distinguen absolutamente de los artefactos, así como también de la mayoría de los objetos naturales, cuya morfología macroscópica resulta en gran parte de la acción de agentes externos.” (MONOD, p. 24)
“The most notable distinction between living and inanimate beings is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing.” (Dewey, J. 2015. Education as a necessity of life, en DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION.)
“As some species die out, forms better adapted to utilize the obstacles against which they struggled in vain come into being. Continuity of life means continual readaptation of the environment to the needs of living organisms.” (ibíd.)
“We have been speaking of life in its lowest terms—as a physical thing. But we use the word 'life' to denote the whole range of experience, individual and racial.” (ibíd.)