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George Herbert Mead

The American philosopher and social psychologist George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) offered a naturalistic account of the origin of the self and explained language, conception, perception, and thinking in terms of social behavior.

George Herbert Mead was born on Feb. 27, 1863, in South Hadley, Mass. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1883 and attended Harvard University in 1887 and 1888. While studying in Leipzig and Berlin (1888-1891), he was influenced by the physiological psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. Mead taught at the University of Michigan (1891-1893) and the University of Chicago (1894-1931). He died in Chicago on April 26, 1931.

The notion of "gesture," which Mead took from Wundt, is basic to Mead's behavioristic psychology and to all of his philosophic thinking. If the behavior of one animal evokes a response in another that is useful in completing a more inclusive act, it is called a gesture, and the behavior of the participants of the act is social.

In Mind, Self and Society, Mead shows that human beings are distinguished from all other animals in that an individual can by his gestures (words, that is, language gestures) evoke in himself the same response that he evokes in another and can respond to his own behavior (words) as do other members of the community. This means that the human individual can look at his own behavior from the point of view of the other; or he can take the role of the other and, thus, be an object to himself. When the child can view its own behavior from the perspective of another, it is a self, or it has a self. Selves emerge in children out of social behavior with other members of the group who, with the child, are participants in social action. The meaning of a gesture is the response it evokes; a language gesture has the same meaning to the speaker as it does to the one to whom it is addressed. When a gesture (or significant symbol) has common meaning, it is universal in that the response it evokes is the same for each member of the community. One perceives an object, such as a tree, only in relation to behavior or to responses evoked by what is seen, heard, or smelled. The lumberman "sees" the tree in terms of lumber, and his responses are organized accordingly.

It is only because of symbols having common meaning that men can think or reason. Thinking is a conversation of the self, the individual, with the other, or with what Mead calls the generalized other. Individuals have minds, therefore, because they can take the attitude of others (take the role of, or enter into the perspective of, others) and can thus anticipate the response that others will make to their gestures. The individual member of society, through thinking, can propose new ways of acting which are shareable and testable by other members of the community.

The physiological basis for thinking and for basic distinctions between man and lower animals is the hand. Not only can men move physical objects from place to place, but they can also dissect objects and reassemble them in various ways. Thinking has to do with the manipulatory phase of social action.

In Mead's last work, The Philosophy of the Present, he shows that the same basic principle used in creative, or reflective, thinking, resulting in acts of adjustment between the individual and its environment, applies also to every kind of adjustment in the process of evolution. The adjustments that new planets make to the system from which they emerged (and vice versa), as well as adjustments made by lower animals to their respective environments (and the environments to them), take place in accordance with the same principle applied in reflective thinking. This is the principle of sociality, and it requires that the newly arisen entity, the emergent, be in two or more different systems at once, even as reflective thinking requires that the individual be in both his own perspective and in the perspective of the other.

Through the principle of sociality Mead not only accounts for the process of adjustment, and thus strengthens his position as a process philosopher, but he also develops a system of philosophy based on the act of adjustment as a unit of existence. His system explains how emergence, novelty, creativity, thinking, communication, and continuous adjustment are interrelated and why each is a phase of the natural process of adjustment.

Further Reading

A selection of Mead's writings is in George Herbert Mead: Essays on His Social Philosophy, edited with an introduction by John W. Petras (1969). An exposition of Mead's philosophy is Maurice Natanson, The Social Dynamics of George H. Mead (1956), and Horace S. Thayer, Meaning and Action (1968). Mead is also discussed in Charles Morris, The Pragmatic Movement in American Philosophy (1970).

Additional Sources

Cook, Gary A., George Herbert Mead: the making of a social pragmatist, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.

 
 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: George Herbert Mead

(born Feb. 27, 1863, South Hadley, Mass., U.S. — died April 26, 1931, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. philosopher, sociologist, and social psychologist prominent in the development of pragmatism. He studied at Oberlin College, graduated from Harvard University (B.A., 1888), and went on to study philosophy and psychology at the Universities of Leipzig and Berlin (1888 – 91). Mead then taught philosophy and psychology at the University of Michigan (1891 – 94) with John Dewey and Charles Horton Cooley. In 1894 he joined Dewey in moving to the University of Chicago and taught there the rest of his life. Mead's focus was the relationship between the self and society, particularly the emergence of the human self in the process of social interaction. His works include The Philosophy of the Present (1932) and Mind, Self, and Society (1934). See also interactionism.

For more information on George Herbert Mead, visit Britannica.com.

 
Philosophy Dictionary: George Herbert Mead

Mead, George Herbert (1863-1931) Influential American pragmatist. Mead was educated at Oberlin College, graduating in 1883. He subsequently studied at Harvard, Leipzig and Berlin. From 1891 he worked at Michigan, where he became the friend and collaborator of John Dewey, under whose aegis he moved to Chicago in 1894. His influence was probably most pronounced in social psychology, where he attempted to show the origins of human personality and self-consciousness in processes of ‘symbolic interaction’, of both gestures and language. Mead never published a book, but his papers were collected in four volumes, The Philosophy of the Present (1932), edited by Arthur E. Murphy; Mind, Self, and Society (1934), edited by Charles W. Morris; Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1936), edited by Merritt H. Moore; and The Philosophy of the Act (1938), Mead's Carus Lectures of 1930, edited by Charles W. Morris.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Mead, George Herbert
(mēd) , 1863–1931, American philosopher and psychologist, b. South Hadley, Mass., grad. Oberlin, 1883, and Harvard, 1888, and studied in Leipzig and Berlin. He taught at the Univ. of Chicago from 1894 until his death. The work of John Dewey and of Mead may be regarded as complementary. Mead, studying the development of the mind and the self, regarded mind as the natural emergent from the interaction of the human organism and its social environment. Within this biosocial structure the gap between impulse and reason is bridged by the use of language. Mastering language, humans set up assumptions as to their roles in life, and self and consciousness-of-self emerge, giving intelligence a historical development that is both natural and moral. Mead called his position social behaviorism, using conduct—both social and biological—as an approach to all experience. Mead's work, collected posthumously, includes The Philosophy of the Present (1932), Mind, Self, and Society (1934), and The Philosophy of the Act (1938).

Bibliography

See P. Pfuetze, The Social Self (1954, repr. 1973 under the title Self, Society, Existence); see W. R. Corti, ed., The Philosophy of George Herbert Mead (1977); D. L. Miller, George Herbert Mead: Self, Language, and the World (1980).

 
Occultism & Parapsychology Encyclopedia: George Robert Stow Mead
(1863-1933)

Theosophist, scholar, and writer on Gnosticism and early Christianity. Born March 22, 1863, he was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge (M.A., 1885). In 1884 Mead joined the Theosophical Society, and in 1889 he gave up his work as a teacher to be closely concerned with the Theosophical Society and its cofounder Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Mead became her private secretary for the last three years of her life and sub-edited her monthly magazine Lucifer, which he renamed the Theosophical Review on becoming editor. Mead was one of the few of Blavatsky's associates to have a realistic view of her complex character. He believed her to be a racy personality as well as a powerful medium, and not simply a charlatan, as alleged by her critics.

In 1890 Mead was appointed general secretary of the Theosophical Society, a position he held for eight years. Among his first tasks, he helped to edit the second edition of Blavatsky's massive text, The Secret Doctrine (1890).

In 1908 he resigned from the society (with some 700 other members) in protest against the sexual scandals concerning C. W. Leadbeater. In March of the next year, Mead founded the Quest Society, which he saw as a group of sincere seekers after spiritual wisdom without taint of charlatanism. He edited the Quest, a quarterly review, for over 20 years (1909-30). After the death of his wife, Mead became actively interested in psychic science and sat with several mediums. He died September 28, 1933, and is remembered for the many books he wrote and edited.

Sources:

Mead, George R. S. Apollonius of Tyana. 1901. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1966.

——. Did Jesus Live 100 B.C. ? 1903. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1968.

——. The Doctrine of the Subtle Body. 1919. Reprint, London: Stuart & Watkins, 1967.

——. Echoes from the Gnosis. 1907. Reprint, Hastings, E. Sussex, England: Chthonius Books, 1987.

——. Fragments of a Faith Forgotten. 1900. Reprint, New Hyde Park, N.Y.: University Books, 1960.

——. Pistis Sophia. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1921.

——. Simon Magus. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1892.

——. Thrice Greatest Hermes. London: Theosophical Society, 1906.

 
Quotes By: George H. Mead

Quotes:

"A multiple personality is in a certain sense normal."

 
Wikipedia: George Herbert Mead
G.H. Mead
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G.H. Mead

George Herbert Mead (February 27,1863 – April 26,1931) was an American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. He is regarded as one of the founders of social psychology.


Biography

Mead was born February 27, 1863 in South Hadley, Massachusetts. He studied at Oberlin College from 1879–1883 and spent several years as a railroad surveyor prior to his enrollment in Harvard University in 1887. At Harvard, Mead studied with Josiah Royce, a major influence upon his thought, and William James, whose children he tutored. In 1888, Mead moved to Germany to study with psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, from whom he learned the concept of "the gesture", a concept central to his later work. Despite never finishing his dissertation, Mead was able to obtain a post at the University of Michigan in 1891. In 1894 Mead moved, along with John Dewey, to the University of Chicago, where he taught until his death. No detached philosopher, he was active in Chicago's social and political affairs; among his many activities include his work for the City Club of Chicago. Mead died of heart failure, April 26, 1931.

Work

Mead is a major American philosopher by virtue of being, along with Charles Peirce and William James, one of the founders of pragmatism. Mead is also an important figure in 20th century social philosophy. His theory of how the mind and self emerge from the social process of communication by signs founded the symbolic interactionist school of sociology and social psychology. He also made significant contributions to the philosophies of nature, science, and history, to philosophical anthropology, and to process philosophy. Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead considered Mead a thinker of the first rank. He is a classic example of a social theorist whose work does not fit easily within conventional disciplinary boundaries.

Mead the social psychologist argued the antipositivistic view that the individual is a product of society, the self arising out of social experience as an object of socially symbolic gestures and interactions. Rooted intellectually in Hegelian dialectics, theories of action, and an amended "anti-Watsonian" social behaviourism, Mead’s self was a self of practical and pragmatic intentions.

Mead grounded human perception in an "action-nexus" (Joas 1985: 148), ingraining the individual in a "manipulatory phase of the act" as the fundamental “means of living” (Mead 1982: 120). In this manipulatory sphere “the individual abides with the physical objects” of everyday life (Mead 1938: 267). In humans the "manipulatory phase of the act" is socially mediated, that is to say, in acting towards objects humans simultaneously take the perspectives of others towards that object. This is what Mead means by "the social act" as opposed to simply "the act" (the latter being a Deweyan concept). Non-human animals also manipulate objects, but this is a non-social manipulation, they do not take the perspective of other organisms toward the object. Humans are unique in taking the perspective of other actors towards objects, but this is what enables complex human society and subtle social coordination. In the social act of economic exchange, for example, both buyer and seller must take each other's perspectives towards the object being exchanged. The seller must recognize the value for the buyer, while the buyer must recognize the desirability of money for the seller. Only with this mutual perspective taking can the economic exchange occur.

Mead also rooted the self’s “perception and meaning” deeply and sociologically in "a common praxis of subjects" (Joas 1985: 166) found specifically in social encounters. Understood as a combination of the 'I' and the 'me', Mead’s self proves to be noticeably entwined within a sociological existence: For Mead, existence in community comes before individual consciousness. First one must participate in the different social positions within society and only subsequently can one use that experience to take the perspective of others and thus become self-conscious.

Mead writes in Mind, Self and Society that human beings begin their understanding of the social world through "play" and "game". "Play" comes first in the child's development. The child takes different roles he/she observes in "adult" society, and plays them out to gain an understanding of the different social roles. For instance, he first plays the role of policeman and then the role of thief. When more mature, the child can participate in the game, for instance the game of baseball. In the game he has to relate to others and understand the rules of the game. Through participating in the "game", he gains the understanding that he has to relate to norms of behaviour in order to be accepted as a player. Mead calls this the child's first encounter with "the generalized other", which is one of the main concepts Mead proposes for understanding the emergence of the (social) self in human beings. "The generalized other" can be understood as the general norm within a social group or setting. Through understanding "the generalized other" the individual understands what kind of behaviour is expected, appropriate and so on, in different social settings. The family, the baseball team, school, and society are examples of social settings through which the child develops gradual understanding of norms for behaviour. Mead distinguishes between the "I" and the "me." The "me" is the accumulated understanding of "the generalized other" i.e. norms, unconscious opinions, patterns of social response etc. The "I" is the more personal opinions, the reflecter or observer, the social struggler -- it is what creates the individual's individuality. It is important when reading Mead to remember that he sees the human mind as something that can arise solely through social experience. The thinking process, for instance, is for Mead nothing but internalized communication.

Philosophers whose inspiration is more metaphysical and ontological, e.g. Heidegger, emphasize the development of Being from the perspective of the experiencing human being, and how the world is revealed to this experiencing entity within a realm of things. Pragmatic philosophers like Mead focus on the development of the self and the objectivity of the world within the social realm: that "the individual mind can exist only in relation to other minds with shared meanings" (Mead 1982: 5).

In his lifetime, Mead published about 100 scholarly articles, reviews, and incidental pieces. At the moment of death, he was correcting the galleys to what would have been his first book Essays in Social Psychology, published only in 2001. His students and colleagues, especially Charles W. Morris, subsequently put together five books from his unpublished manuscripts and from stenographic records of his lectures. The Mead Project at Brock University in Ontario intends to publish eventually all of Mead's 80-odd remaining unpublished mss.

See also

References

  • Mead, G.H. 1964. Selected Writings. Ed. by A. J. Reck. University Chicago Press. (This out-of-print volume is significant as it is the only volume to feature articles Mead himself prepared for publication).
  • Mead, G.H. 1934. Mind, Self, and Society. Ed. by C. W. Morris. University of Chicago Press.
  • Mead, G.H. 1932. The Philosophy of the Present. Prometheus Books.
  • Mead, G.H. 1936. Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century. Ed. by C. W. Morris. University of Chicago Press.
  • Mead, G.H. 1938. The Philosophy of the Act. Ed. by C.W. Morris et al. University of Chicago Press.
  • Mead, G.H. 1982. The Individual and the Social Self: Unpublished Essays by G. H. Mead. Ed. by David L. Miller. University of Chicago Press.
  • Mead, G.H. 2001. Essays in Social Psychology. Ed. by M. J. Deegan. Transaction Books.
  • Blumer, H. & Morrione, T.J. (2004). George Herbert Mead and human conduct. New York: Altamira Press
  • Cook, Gary A. 1993. G.H. Mead: The Making of a Social Pragmatist. University of Illinois Press.
  • Gillespie, A. 2005. G.H. Mead: Theorist of the social act. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 35, 19-39.
  • Joas, Hans 1985. G.H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-examination of His Thought. MIT Press.
  • Lewis, J.D. (1979). A social behaviorist interpretation of the Meadian 'I'. American Journal of Sociology, 84, 261-287.
  • Lundgren, D.C. (2004). Social feedback and self-appreaisals: Current status of the Mead-Cooley hypothesis. Symbolic Interaction, 27, 267-286.
  • Miller, David L. 1973. G.H. Mead: Self, Language and the World. University of Chicago Press.

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Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "George Herbert Mead".  Read more

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