James J Chriss. Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Editor: George Ritzer, Volume 1, Sage Reference, 2005.
George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) was a philosopher who had been influenced initially by positivistic psychology but eventually developed a unique perspective that combined the pragmatism of John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Josiah Royce into a social psychology with elements of the biological and evolutionary sciences. Some pertinent details of Mead’s life are worth reviewing as a backdrop to understanding what led him to develop this novel position.
Mead, born in 1863 in South Hadley, Massachusetts, had been exposed to both religion and higher education throughout his formative years. His father, Hiram, was chair in Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology at Oberlin College beginning in 1869. Mead’s mother also taught at Oberlin, and she was devoted to ensuring that young George was guided through a daily routine of prayer, study, and good works. Although Oberlin College was well known for its religious orthodoxy, it also emphasized the social obligations of living as a Christian, and this included a rather “radical” commitment to the emancipation of blacks and women (Joas 1985:15).
Given this set of circumstances, it was already decided that George would himself attend Oberlin College, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1883. Because Darwinism was in full ascendancy as an intellectual world-view at the time Mead began his university studies, he was confronted with the seeming contradiction between a life devoted to Christian charity informed by the word of God, on one hand, and the secular “truths” represented in Darwinism and Spencerian evolutionism, on the other. Early on, then, Mead showed a concern for the sources of moral values in a rapidly secularizing world, and, as we shall see, much of his mature, later work was dedicated to working out this issue.
After college, Mead tried several things, including teaching grade school, working in railroad construction, and working as a surveyor and a private tutor (Miller 1973). None of these were rewarding, however, and in 1887 he returned to secular education by enrolling in graduate school at Harvard University. The spirit of social reform of the era lent a certain respectability to professors who felt inclined to engage in social advocacy, and Mead was drawn to Harvard faculty who shared this sentiment, including Josiah Royce, George Palmer, William James, and close friend and fellow graduate student Henry Castle (Wallace 1967). (Mead never actually studied with James, but did tutor his children [Joas 1985:17]). At Harvard, Mead initially was interested primarily in philosophy, psychology, and languages, including Greek, Latin, German, and French.
A year later, after winning a prestigious Harvard scholarship that allowed him to study abroad, Mead had decided that the study of physiological psychology would be useful insofar as this field promised to deliver empirical insights into all manner of human behavior, including the genesis and development of human morals and values. At the time, Wilhelm Wundt, at the University of Leipzig in Germany, had established an experimental laboratory for testing the propositions of physiological psychology, and Mead studied there during the winter semester of 1888/1889. A year later, Mead transferred to the University of Berlin, where he studied with Wilhelm Dilthey, among others. This was important insofar as Mead’s enthusiasm for the positivistic orientation of physiological psychological was tempered somewhat by the more “descriptive” psychology espoused by Dilthey, one that utilized the interpretive methods of the humanistic sciences (Joas 1985:18).
Although still without an advanced degree, Mead returned to the United States in 1891 and accepted an instructor position at the University of Michigan to teach philosophy and physiological psychology. It was there also that Mead met his lifelong friend and colleague, John Dewey. Dewey, who shared with Mead an abiding concern with social democracy and morality, was teaching courses in ethics and psychology at Michigan, and it was in these courses and more informal contacts that Mead began putting together the theoretical approach that was to become social behaviorism.
Sociology and Pragmatism
In 1894, Dewey agreed to become head of the philosophy department at the University of Chicago, and he brought with him Mead, who was given the rank of assistant professor of philosophy. What Mead had needed all along to bring together the many disparate strands of his training was a philosophical focus, and this came in the form of pragmatism, a perspective that was sponsored by many of the Chicago faculty with whom Mead worked and studied, including Dewey, James Tufts, and James Angell (Miller 1973:xxii). Pragmatism is an American movement in philosophy, founded by C. S. Peirce and William James, marked by the doctrine that “truth” is preeminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief. From this perspective, history and the human condition are neither the result of mechanical necessity (as in positivism or as implied in the spatiotemporal framework of physics) nor the movement toward a known or fixed goal (as in Platonism or Hegelianism), but instead is a process conditioned by human thinking and action (Miller 1973:xxiv). In other words, rather than positing the intervention of external forces, pragmatism focuses on flesh-and-blood human beings doing things together in the here and now to create and modify a shared reality, an ongoing social world. Mead (1929-1930) favored pragmatism because he felt both neo-Hegelianism and Darwinism, positing master trends seemingly decoupled from the willful actions and interventions of human beings, were incompatible with democracy.
Mead would remain at Chicago until his death in 1931. During the decade before his death, sociologists at the university started noticing his work because it seemed to represent a new and important type of social psychology, one that emphasized the importance of the social environment in helping to shape and form the individual (Cook 1993). Hence, many within sociology embraced Mead as one of their own. Sociologists, as well as many economists, psychologists, education researchers, and even theologians at Chicago, felt that the pragmatic social psychology Mead and his associates in the philosophy program were developing promised to resolve all philosophical questions through analyses of practical action.
For sociologists, most importantly, Mead’s work seemed to resolve—or at least cast in a new light—the question of how the impulsive, biological organism acquired the capacity for self-awareness, purposive behavior, and moral discrimination (McKinney 1955). In developing such concepts as the social act, the self, and mind and thinking (all of these to be discussed more fully below), Mead forcefully argued that meaning is neither biologically given nor simply a psychical addition to an act. Rather, meaning arises in and through social acts and social relations, where human beings actively participate in the meaningful construction of their world through the exchanging of significant symbols, whether verbally through language or nonverbally through gestures. Through the medium of society—the organization of perspectives of real individuals—the impulsive organism becomes a rational actor (McKinney 1955:149). This perspective became immensely influential within sociology, leading directly to the development of symbolic interactionism as fashioned by Herbert Blumer and other of Mead’s students.
The Social Act: The Precondition of Consciousness
As we have seen, although Mead was a social psychologist whose writings sociologists at the University of Chicago and elsewhere deemed relevant to their own work, he was also a social behaviorist because of the seriousness with which he viewed the writings of Charles Darwin, even though he ultimately rejected Darwin’s functionalist psychology, which asserted that consciousness is a precondition of the social act. Mead (1934:18) argued instead that the social act is the precondition of consciousness. Elements of both Mead’s social psychology and social behaviorism led him to an interest in physiological psychology, and it should be reiterated that that interest arose because he was convinced that philosophical problems could be clarified and given empirical referent with help from the biological and evolutionary sciences (Joas 1985). The biological sciences were important to Mead to the extent that philosophers (with the exception of the pragmatists) and social scientists had tended to neglect corporality, or the body, in developing explanations of social behavior.
This concern is forcefully illustrated in The Philosophy of the Act (1938), where Mead argued that it was important to deal conceptually with two aspects of human perception of the social world and objects (including self and fellow human beings) contained therein. On one hand, there is perception arising out of immediate experience, namely, situations in which an organism makes no differentiation between itself (its body) and objects as seen or manipulated by it within immediate perceptual range. In effect, immediate experience is equated with bodily activity, where the organism deals directly with things rather than with signs of things (Tibbetts 1975:224-5). On the other hand, there is perception that arises through reflective analysis (or intelligence), whereby human beings make clear distinctions between that which lies within the experiencing subject (subjectivity) and that which lies outside the subject (objectivity, represented by other physical or social objects and one’s own body).
Mind and Behaviorism
Mead raises this classic subject-object dualism, however, not merely to reaffirm its long-standing position in descriptions of the human condition in philosophy, the humanities, and the sciences but to suggest that there is never really any way of going beyond, or leaving behind, the brute reality of the physical realm within which human beings conduct their social activities. Although it is true that the evolutionary adaptation and upgrading of the human brain provides for complex symbolic communication that elevates humans above the animal level, and because of this it becomes important to take account of internal perceptual experience, it should never be forgotten or overlooked that humans are social animals as well, and hence attention to behavioral activity taking place via organism-environment transactions is equally important to the social analyst (Feffer 1990; Tibbetts 1975.)
This reflects, in essence, a debate between a purely physiological or behavioristic approach to explaining human behavior (as represented in Darwin or John B. Watson) and the social psychological behaviorism that Mead was attempting to develop. As a type of positivistic theory, behaviorism suggests that one may develop general explanations about human behavior if one assumes that human beings—like other animals—respond to external stimuli in the same way. That is, human beings will repeat behavior that is pleasurable or rewarding and desist from or try to avoid behaviors that are painful. This is known as the stimulus-response (S-R) theory, namely, that as sentient life-forms, human beings are predictable insofar as pleasurable stimuli will produce certain forms of concrete, observable behavior and painful stimuli will produce other types.
The more interpretive, social psychological theory that Mead was developing, in contrast, influenced by Dilthey and Dewey among others, suggests that the behaviorist or S-R approach leaves one crucial element out of its explanation: human cognition. From the social psychological perspective, the S-R approach is overly deterministic in that it sees human beings as empty vessels being buffeted about by various external stimuli. This, Mead would contend, is simply not an accurate portrayal of human behavior. Between the external stimulus (S) and the response (R) of the organism to that stimulus is the cognitive process at work within the organism (O), whereby the organism interprets what the stimulus means. As Cook (1993:75) has noted, in emphasizing “mind,” and the internal conversation between the “I” and the “me” that takes place with any meaningful human social action, Mead argues that the standard behavioristic explanation of human behavior—which was dominant in psychology and the social sciences at the time Mead was writing—renders human beings as merely passive recipients of external stimuli. Rather than human beings receiving external stimuli in such mechanical fashion and responding to these stimuli in predictable ways, human beings are constantly adjusting themselves to objects in the social environment—which includes inanimate objects, living organisms, other human beings, and one’s self—through a mindful process of taking into account these objects and taking the role of, or attitude of, these others. As such, mind is a temporal extension of the environment of the organism. As Miller (1973:203) goes on to explain, because human beings are conscious of their intentions prior to acting and as they reflexively monitor their behavior, they can either continue on with the intended course of action or modify it as the situation warrants. In essence, this control over behavior reflects the social component of the mind.
Thinking, as mindful activity, involves a conversation between the objects immediately available in the social environment (representing the “generalized other” or the “me”) and the person (the “I”).
Reflexivity and the Self
To reiterate this element of his social psychology, Mead argues that the essential condition for the appearance of mind is that the individual, in acting toward and adjusting to objects in the social environment, also takes into account himself as an object in relation to the other objects present. Hence, a self arises, one in which knowledge of the thinking self accompanies the “brute” realities of the physical organism moving about in space and time (Mead 1938:367-8).
This most essential characteristic of mind and mindful activity, which serves to separate humans from lower animals, is accomplished via the human capacity for reflexivity or “reflexiveness.” Reflexivity was especially important both to Charles H. Cooley’s “looking glass self” and of course to Mead in developing the concepts of mind and self. In Cooley, persons develop a sense of self by seeing themselves in the reflection of others’ attitudes and behaviors toward them. Likewise, Mead argued that it is by means of reflexiveness—the turning back of the experience of the individual upon himself or herself—that persons are able to take the attitude of the other toward them. “Reflexiveness,” according to Mead (1934:134), “is the essential condition, within the social process, for the development of mind.” The human being is an object to himself or herself, or, similarly, the human being may become the object of his or her own action (Blumer 1969:62). However, this self-interaction is not merely an internal, psychological phenomenon but a social process out of which arises the self. As Blumer (1969:63) explains, the “ego” as such is not a self; “it would be a self only by becoming reflexive, that is to say, acting toward or on itself.” Mind and self are not simply givens in the biological makeup of human beings; they arise out of participation in group life (Blumer 1981:140). In suggesting a convergence of Cooley and Mead on the concept of reflexivity, however, it should be noted that Mead (1956:293-307) distanced himself from what he considered to be Cooley’s overemphasis on consciousness and “psychophysical parallelism” represented in ordinary psychology.
As we have seen, Mead emphasizes that the self—to be distinguished from the physiological organism—is not given at birth but arises through developmental stages through social experiences and activities. Most important, the self is an object to itself, which thereby distinguishes it from other objects as well as from the physical body. But how does a self become an object to itself? The self is experienced as an object not directly but indirectly from the particular standpoints of other members of the same social group. Before becoming a subject to himself or herself, the person first becomes an object to himself or herself, and this is accomplished by taking the attitudes of other individuals involved in the same groups or shared social activities (Mead 1934:138). In essence, the self is a social structure that arises in and through communication and social experience.
Play, Game, and the Generalized Other
An important set of background factors in the genesis of the self includes the activities of play and game. The play stage occurs early in the lives of children when they typically begin to play with imaginary friends or take on various roles such as mother, father, police officer, teacher, or even cartoon characters. The importance of communication and the significant symbol are obviously important here, to the extent that “when a child assumes a role he has in himself the stimuli which call out that particular response or group of responses” (Mead 1934:150). In other words, the child is aware of and can use on some level a set of stimuli that call out in the child the sort of responses they call out in others. When simultaneously playing the roles of teacher and student, for example, the child may call roll as the teacher and respond with a “Here” or “Present” as the names of each child in the class are read. Saying something as one character is the stimulus that calls out a response for the next character, and that response in turn is a stimulus for the next response or set of responses. As this conversation of gestures progresses, a certain organized structure arises in the child and his or her “others.” This organized structure is in essence the first glimpse of a developing self. Rather than straight S-R in the behavioristic sense, a self develops as conversations between a number of role personae are engaged by the individual, thereby emphasizing cognition and mind, reflecting in essence the improved S-O-R pattern of stimulus-organism-response.
The fuller development of the self, however, does not occur until the child has reached the game stage. In order to participate in organized games, the child must be able to take the attitude of everyone else involved in the game. For example, in a simple game such as hide-and-seek, the child must be able to take the attitude of those in one of two distinct roles, namely, hider or seeker. In more complex games typical of organized sports, the child must be able to take the role of multiple positions simultaneously. For example, in order to play the game of baseball competently, a person must be able to anticipate what each position on the field will do at the crack of the bat. By doing this, by putting himself or herself in the shoes of everyone else on the team, the person develops a highly organized set of responses (rules) by which he or she is now able to look back upon himself or herself from the vantage point of all the other positions.
Through the process of socialization, as we continue to move out beyond the limited experiences of family and peer groups to a wide assortment of persons and social situations that mark life in a modern, culturally diverse society, we continue to take on the attitudes of diverse individuals and groups and to reflect back upon our selves from their vantage points. This organized community or social group that delivers to the individual his or her unity of self Mead termed the “generalized other.” In essence, the attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole community (Mead 1934:154).
The Social Nature of Ethical Conduct
Ethics and human values were issues that Mead kept at the forefront throughout the development of his theoretical system. As Morris (1934:xxxi) has suggested, “Mead, in common with all pragmatists since James, held an interest theory of values: that is good which satisfies an interest or impulse.” Kant’s categorical imperative is paradigmatic of a philosophical—rather than an empirical or “scientific”—approach to the question of ethical behavior and values, and as we have seen, Mead was attracted to science and the promise of empirical evidence as a way of overcoming the “speculative” insights of idealistic systems of thought, whether in the guise of social philosophy or theology. Even so, for the most part, contemporary symbolic interactionists (such as Blumer) who consider Mead (along with James, Dewey, and Cooley) to be the intellectual founders of the perspective take to heart Kant’s universalizing notion of the categorical imperative. Indeed, Mead’s generalized other finds close affinity to Kant’s categorical imperative. For example, Mead (1934:386) once stated, “One should act with reference to all of the interests that are involved: that is what we could call a ‘categorical imperative.'”
Hegel was opposed to Kant’s “reflective philosophy,” and especially the famous distinction Kant made between noumena and phenomena. Noumena are “things-in-themselves,” and these are distinguished from “phenomena,” which are those objects that like-minded persons—whether scientists or laypersons—come to some agreement over and treat as if they were objectively “real” and hence knowable. As Mead (1934:379) emphasized, Kant assumed human beings are rational to the extent that in determining the conditions of our existence, we take into account (ideally) the attitude of the entire community. Where Mead attempted to go beyond Kant is by suggesting that morality or sociability is not something that arises out of individual activity or thinking that presumably takes into account the actions of others (society)—this was the same mistake Cooley made in equating the self to attitudes (pure reflection) rather than actions or social process—because this gives universality only to the form of the judgment of “ought.” But as Mead (1934:379-80) states, “However, we recognize that not only the form of the judgment is universal but the content also—that the end itself can be universalized” (emphasis added). In this “kingdom of ends,” Kant assumes that human beings apply rationality to the form of their acts in pursuing the “ought,” which cumulatively produces moral behavior and the good life. Mead went further than Kant insofar as Kant is unable to state the end in terms of the object of desire of the individual.
The question then becomes, How are we to determine the sort of ends toward which our actions should be directed if we are to preserve an ethical way of life? For this Mead turns away from Kant and toward Dewey. Well before Mead began writing about the self, Dewey had been exploring the philosophical implications of human sociability and cooperation. From Mead’s perspective, Dewey and the pragmatists offered a way of establishing the natural origins of social cooperation without invoking Darwin, Kant, or the utilitarians. Mead’s theory of the social self is in essence an effort to explain the social nature of ethical conduct not in strictly behavioristic or individualistic terms. For Mead, communication—which is the major tool through which cooperation and shared social worlds are forged—does not arise out of competition (“survival of the fittest”) nor in imitation (Tarde), but in constructive cooperation. Rather than a prudent strategy for individual survival or dominance, sociability was actually present with the appearance of language. Rather than the lower-level conversation of gestures in which animals engage, human desires are laden with emotions, and the significant symbols that arise in human communication externalize these otherwise private or internal plans of action. According to Mead’s theory of self, it is through the response of others that we become aware of our own attitudes and selves. Importantly, we cannot know ourselves without first being involved in symbolic communication with others. But since sociability is already implicated in human communication—from the pragmatic perspective, communication is a “tool” that persons “use” in everyday life—it precedes conscious rationality (Feffer 1990:242).
Conclusion
Mead’s years at Chicago were marked by wider efforts at social amelioration and the progressive agenda of social restoration. His interest in pragmatism was not only theoretical; for example, he served as treasurer of Jane Addams’s social settlement at Hull House, one of the most visible example of the kind of moral consciousness that could be assured through good works. Rather than bringing an external set of standards to bear, workers at Hull House and the burgeoning social services more generally achieved the philosophical “ought” through work in the community and neighborhoods wherever needs were most acute. For Mead, the settlement house effort reflected how the community ought to form a new moral judgment (Cook 1993:102). Indeed, nearly all members of the philosophy department at the University of Chicago—with Dewey and Mead leading the way—participated in the social reform movements sweeping across Chicago and the rest of the country beginning in the late 1800s.
The basis of human cooperation is at the heart of Mead’s theory of self: Knowledge of the other’s role, although a necessary but not sufficient condition, is the starting point of ethical reciprocity (Feffer 1990:252). Role taking is not only something that occurs naturally in the human condition; it also provides a means by which human beings are able to cooperate and ideally realize the democratic ideals of the just and good life. For example, the notion of “rights” makes sense only to the extent that self-consciousness arises as we take on the attitude of others, that is, as we assume the attitude of assent of all members of the community (the “generalized other”). Mead held out hope that this generalized other would expand outward from communities to nation-states and eventually to the global level. As he (1959:195) stated, “The World Court and the League of Nations are other such social objects that sketch out common plans of action if there are national selves that can realize themselves in the collaborating attitudes of others.”