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Naturalism and Despair: George Herbert Mead and Evolution in the 1880s

Trevor Pearce

in The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

Trevor Pearce examines Mead’s early intellectual development and shows in detail how difficult it was for a young Christian at the time to integrate Darwin into his worldview. Pearce explores the ... More

Trevor Pearce examines Mead’s early intellectual development and shows in detail how difficult it was for a young Christian at the time to integrate Darwin into his worldview. Pearce explores the deep existential crisis that resulted from these difficulties. Based on new and newly reevaluated biographical material, Pearce traces the development of Mead’s views through his years in college, in a longer phase of existential reorientation, and as a student of philosophy and psychology. Pearce also shows how Mead’s education with Josiah Royce at Harvard and Wilhelm Dilthey in Berlin—both authors who saw the doctrine of evolution as a means to come to a better understanding of the human being’s “spiritual” nature—was key to resolving his early intellectual and personal problems and continued to form the center of his later work.Less

Intellectual Projects

Daniel R. Huebner

in Becoming Mead: The Social Process of Academic Knowledge

Chapter 6 analyzes case studies of George Herbert Mead’s students who were influential in promoting interpretations of his work, Charles Morris and Herbert Blumer. The chapter traces their graduate ... More

Chapter 6 analyzes case studies of George Herbert Mead’s students who were influential in promoting interpretations of his work, Charles Morris and Herbert Blumer. The chapter traces their graduate work and early careers in which they received enthusiastic support from Mead, the subsequent place Mead had in their intellectual careers, and the rhetorical justifications they made of their interpretations of Mead against prominent critics. Morris treated Mead’s supposed “social behaviorism” as central to his attempts at philosophical synthesis. His claims relied heavily on the authority of his work with unpublished primary documents in addition to his personal relationship with Mead. Blumer, in contrast, appealed to Mead’s supposed “symbolic interactionism” in his criticisms of dominant American social science, and he mobilized claims on the basis of his personal relationship and the oral tradition passed down from Mead. The chapter argues that these phenomena can be explained only if we acknowledge that Morris and Blumer understood themselves to be participating emphatically in “intellectual projects” that encompassed themselves and their mentor. These intellectual projects are, thus, the nexus where interpretations made about Mead, the unique scholarship of each individual, and their influence on Mead’s reputation all come together in concrete social relationships.Less

In Reference to Mead, or How to Win Students and Influence Sociology

Daniel R. Huebner

in Becoming Mead: The Social Process of Academic Knowledge

Chapter 7 examines the patterns of published references by which George Herbert Mead’s dominant intellectual legacy and reputation came to be institutionalized. In order to explicate these ... More

Chapter 7 examines the patterns of published references by which George Herbert Mead’s dominant intellectual legacy and reputation came to be institutionalized. In order to explicate these micro-level patterns in detail, the chapter utilizes specially constructed datasets of all references to Mead in journal publications from the 1890s to the 1950s, including informal citations that do not refer to a specific work by Mead. The most important turning point was the reorganization of courses at the University of Chicago in the 1920s, whereby Mead was introduced to sociology students by Ellsworth Faris. Faris and his students referred to Mead in a unique way in publications, characterizing him as an important resource for sociological social psychology. Personal relationships played an absolutely central role in generating the dynamics of references to Mead, first primarily through those who knew him in life and then through enthusiastic interpreters who sought to spread a knowledge of his work. The shape of these personal networks and the ability of individuals to transmit this knowledge successfully were conditioned by the structures of academic institutions, especially at transformational junctures. The patterns that developed by the mid-twentieth century have set the tracks for subsequent interpretations of Mead.Less

Lectures, Classrooms, and Students

Daniel R. Huebner

in Becoming Mead: The Social Process of Academic Knowledge

Chapter 4 analyzes the classroom instruction of George Herbert Mead, beginning with the composition and diversity of Mead’s students. The chapter makes the case that Mead repeatedly attempted to ... More

Chapter 4 analyzes the classroom instruction of George Herbert Mead, beginning with the composition and diversity of Mead’s students. The chapter makes the case that Mead repeatedly attempted to produce intimate environments where he could work face-to-face with interested students who impacted his teaching. Mead’s students made a variety of notes in his courses, but even the most complete records cannot obviate the interpretive problems of using such written materials to reconstruct his speech. Instead, the chapter relies on case studies to identify the disparate purposes served by Mead’s courses in the social lives of his students. In particular the concepts and perspectives outlined in the classes became points of orientation in students’ various personal projects. Special focus is given to two detailed studies of Mead’s students W. I. Thomas and John B. Watson, who had long-term influences on Mead. These studies together direct attention to “intellectual projects,” the collective undertakings of scholarship that bring individuals together around common plans or goals. The chapter demonstrates that the dynamics of the formation and articulation of ideas are especially visible in these relationships between scholars and their students and colleagues.Less

The Construction of Mind, Self, and Society

Daniel R. Huebner

in Becoming Mead: The Social Process of Academic Knowledge

Chapter 5 examines the influential but contentious posthumous volumes attributed to George Herbert Mead, especially Mind, Self, and Society, and by detailing the interpretive process through which ... More

Chapter 5 examines the influential but contentious posthumous volumes attributed to George Herbert Mead, especially Mind, Self, and Society, and by detailing the interpretive process through which these books were constructed it approaches these volumes from a radically different direction than has been previously attempted. From the early enthusiasm to preserve a legacy to Mead after his death, a variety of proposals and sets of documents emerged. The problems of these documents led Mead’s family and former students to solicit additional student notes, which were summarily evaluated and often rewritten. The subsequent discovery of stenographic notes fundamentally shifted the content of the volumes, but not their overall topical structure. Finally, concerns about book sales during the Great Depression led to consequential decisions on the length, content, and order of the volumes. The analysis demonstrates how an adequate understanding of Mind, Self, and Society, and the other volumes, requires tracing the social process of their construction over a course of time, including the changing desires and interpretations of social actors, the discovery and manipulation of available documents, and perceptions of practical constraints in time and money. No individual, document, or event explains the final appearance of the volume apart from this consequential social process.Less

The Roots of Identity Theory

Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets

in Identity Theory

This chapter presents the historical roots of identity theory in symbolic interactionist thought. It reviews both perceptual control theory and symbolic interactionism, specifically the works of ... More

This chapter presents the historical roots of identity theory in symbolic interactionist thought. It reviews both perceptual control theory and symbolic interactionism, specifically the works of George Herbert Mead. The chapter also studies other important ideas from earlier writers that have been included in identity theory.Less

Changing “Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century”: Historical Text and Historical Context

Charles Camic

in The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

Charles Camic examines Mead’s neglected posthumously published Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, a book that is based on notes from a course of the same title, and shows how it relates ... More

Charles Camic examines Mead’s neglected posthumously published Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, a book that is based on notes from a course of the same title, and shows how it relates to the intellectual context of the University of Chicago in its early years. Camic considers several offerings of the course first by John Dewey and then by Mead not so much to contrast the two thinkers as to trace the increasing emphasis on research science and evolution and the diminishing emphasis on nineteenth-century social sciences in Mead’s accounts. Camic’s study applies Mead’s views on the historicity of mind to Mead’s own work and shows how Mead’s own contexts, in this case specifically local contexts, shaped his historical narratives. The importance of the results of this study go beyond Mead’s contribution to the history of ideas because they exemplify the gradual replacement of a Hegelian-teleological narrative by a pragmatist account in terms of historical contingency.Less

On Mead’s Long Lost History of Science

Daniel R. Huebner

in The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

Daniel Huebner’s chapter deals with Mead’s relevance for the history of science. He utilizes newly discovered student notes from Mead’s courses and other historical data to make the case that Mead ... More

Daniel Huebner’s chapter deals with Mead’s relevance for the history of science. He utilizes newly discovered student notes from Mead’s courses and other historical data to make the case that Mead was an expert in the history of science, that he contributed self-consciously to the formation of the history of science as a field of inquiry, and that he had a thoroughly social account of the development of scientific knowledge. Mead’s strong interest in ancient Greek philosophy and science and the complex relationship between this area of his work and his social psychology thus become evident. Huebner documents the wide variety of Mead’s courses and papers in this area, his attempts to institute a society and book series for the history of science, and the criticisms leveled at him at the time.Less

Laboratory Science

Daniel R. Huebner

in Becoming Mead: The Social Process of Academic Knowledge

Chapter 2 traces George Herbert Mead's education in laboratory sciences, especially at the University of Berlin, and his exposure to controversies in psychology. He had a detailed, hands-on training ... More

Chapter 2 traces George Herbert Mead's education in laboratory sciences, especially at the University of Berlin, and his exposure to controversies in psychology. He had a detailed, hands-on training in a variety of forms of scientific research in both his undergraduate and graduate work. In the latter, he was even one of a few advanced students who worked as assistants in the experimental psychology laboratory at Berlin. When he took up his first professional position at the University of Michigan, he designed unique scientific examinations that could inform his emerging theoretical perspective, including experiments on higher mental functions, preparation of neurological specimens, study of animal behavior, and examination of hypnotic suggestion. The chapter identifies how Mead's well-known social psychology bears the imprint of his earlier rigorous scientific investigation in physiological and comparative psychology. These findings demonstrate the incongruity between an understanding of knowledge production as progressing rationally and one based on meandering experiments and problems.Less

George Herbert Mead as a Socio-Environmental Thinker

Bradley H. Brewster and Antony J. Puddephatt

in The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

Bradley Brewster and Antony Puddephatt propose that Mead was one of the most thoroughgoing bio-social thinkers in the classical sociological canon, and they criticize those who lump him together with ... More

Bradley Brewster and Antony Puddephatt propose that Mead was one of the most thoroughgoing bio-social thinkers in the classical sociological canon, and they criticize those who lump him together with some of his later followers who showed little interest in the natural world and the relationships between the human organism and its environment. This relationship, according to Mead, can be understood neither as a determinism where all the causality lies on the side of the environment nor as an unfettered construction of environment by organism. Brewster and Puddephatt see Mead in a revolt against dualism and idealism. The authors propose that Mead’s theory of fundamental sociality and the objective location of perspectives in nature provides an avenue for linking the social sciences with environmental studies. There are affinities of Mead’s theory to the thinking of early conservationists. They clearly find anticipated in Mead what is presently debated as a new view of the social—that is, a view that includes nonhumans. Mead’s theory could, therefore, provide the foundation for contemporary claims about the obligation of human communities to multiple forms of ecology.Less

Hawaiian Sojourns

Daniel R. Huebner

in Becoming Mead: The Social Process of Academic Knowledge

Chapter 3 investigates the wide-ranging significance of colonial Hawaii for George Herbert Mead. He became emotionally invested in Hawaii from his college days, as his closest personal relationships ... More

Chapter 3 investigates the wide-ranging significance of colonial Hawaii for George Herbert Mead. He became emotionally invested in Hawaii from his college days, as his closest personal relationships and most affecting personal losses were directly tied to those islands. By the time he first visited in 1897, Mead had been exposed to ardent talk and vivid images of the people and places, especially in relation to revolution and annexation. Over his thirteen long sojourns there, Mead was introduced firsthand to its pressing social issues by leading citizens, and became a participant in its public debates. He served on an official behalf for the Territory of Hawaii and explored its landscapes, all the while reflecting on the broader significance of its problems and placing them in dialogue with analogous issues elsewhere. In Hawaii, Mead occupied a peculiar role, as someone fundamentally dependent on personal guides, especially his wife Helen Castle Mead, for his participation in and understanding of the social landscape. This focus on Hawaii helps specify Mead's reform work and theorizing about democratic societies, and it provides an opportunity to reformulate the nature of “context” as an analytical conceptLess

Introduction

Hans Joas and Daniel R. Huebner

in The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

The Introduction lays out the justification for Mead’s contemporary relevance, provides an overview of the volume’s contents, and contextualizes the various contributions in relation to one another.

George Herbert Mead and the Promise of Pragmatist Democracy

Robert Westbrook

in The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

Robert Westbrook observes that Mead has remained neglected in the renaissance of interest in John Dewey. However, Westbrook argues, Mead was not merely a friend and colleague who shared Dewey’s ... More

Robert Westbrook observes that Mead has remained neglected in the renaissance of interest in John Dewey. However, Westbrook argues, Mead was not merely a friend and colleague who shared Dewey’s views, but one who substantially and productively enlarged them. By focusing on Mead’s 1923 “Scientific Method and the Moral Sciences,” Westbrook argues that Mead pioneered a theory in which inclusive democratic participation incorporated the values of all interested inquirers and in which such inquiry provided more adequate assessments of the consequences of social actions. Hence, Mead developed a defense of democratic inclusiveness against the challenge of so-called realist critics on the basis that inclusion made for “smarter” polities, a defense that is superior even to Dewey’s attempts.Less

Public Participation

Daniel R. Huebner

in Becoming Mead: The Social Process of Academic Knowledge

Chapter 1 utilizes the critical literature on the intellectual history and social context of George Herbert Mead in order to locate peculiar aspects of Mead's own knowledge making practices. Mead ... More

Chapter 1 utilizes the critical literature on the intellectual history and social context of George Herbert Mead in order to locate peculiar aspects of Mead's own knowledge making practices. Mead was a public intellectual who spoke to large audiences much more frequently than he published, and spoke as an authority on a much broader slate of issues than general social theory. More of his written work stems from his public speaking than is immediately apparent, and this work was in dialogue with practical social problems more directly than is typically assumed. His existing publication record is evidence of intimate and meaningful social relationships among colleagues, and does not serve as a clear indication of a set of definite propositions or concepts Mead felt were his own. By examining public speeches and documents as moments in complex social dialogues, this chapter demonstrates how public participation may be related to the formation of concepts. Further, this analysis provides an entry point for the subsequent chapters by identifying a set of situations and contexts relevant to the production of knowledge.Less

The Theory of Intersubjectivity as a Theory of the Human Being: George Herbert Mead and the German Tradition of Philosophical Anthropology

Karl-Siegbert Rehberg

in The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

Karl-Siegbert Rehberg examines Mead’s philosophy in light of the tradition of German philosophical anthropology, including Arnold Gehlen, Helmuth Plessner, and Max Scheler. Gehlen, in particular, who ... More

Karl-Siegbert Rehberg examines Mead’s philosophy in light of the tradition of German philosophical anthropology, including Arnold Gehlen, Helmuth Plessner, and Max Scheler. Gehlen, in particular, who many Germans consider to be of equal intellectual significance to Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt, has not received much attention in the English-speaking world. Gehlen was, however, the first major German author to recognize Mead’s importance and to refer to him in his own creative work. In his chapter Rehberg is driven by an interest in understanding how thinkers of such different attitudes toward democracy can nevertheless show profound affinities in their understanding of human action. In his essay Rehberg provides a novel reevaluation of the relationship between Mead and the broader intellectual tradition of German human sciences scholarship, and he introduces previously unpublished documentation on Gehlen’s study of Mead.Less

Mead Meets Tomasello: Pragmatism, the Cognitive Sciences, and the Origins of Human Communication and Sociality

Frithjof Nungesser

in The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

Frithjof Nungesser takes up a systematic comparison of Tomasello, a key figure working to reorient comparative and developmental research in cognitive science around social and cultural issues, and ... More

Frithjof Nungesser takes up a systematic comparison of Tomasello, a key figure working to reorient comparative and developmental research in cognitive science around social and cultural issues, and Mead, focusing especially on the evolutionary development of human-specific features of communication. Both authors agree that the key transition between animal and human communication is in gestural interaction and that humans have developed unique role-taking abilities that transform cognition into internal dialogue. Their differences of emphasis, however, are instructive. They choose different reference species with differing types of social skills to compare with humans, and they place different emphases on verbal and manual communication in evolutionary development. Although Tomasello provides a more up-to-date analysis of the evolutionary development of human communication, Nungesser argues that he ultimately fails to fully incorporate Mead’s pragmatist principles, which both recognize the evolutionary continuity of human and animal sociality and at the same time stress the change of existence as a whole—the emergence of a qualitatively new intersubjective space affecting all human motivations and behaviors—that results from biologically evolved human specific capacities.Less

Presentation and Re-Presentation: Language, Content, and the Reconstruction of Experience

Roman Madzia

in The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

Roman Madzia focuses on Mead’s embodied and situated concept of the mind in order to examine a central problem for modern thought—specifically, the relationship between experience and language. ... More

Roman Madzia focuses on Mead’s embodied and situated concept of the mind in order to examine a central problem for modern thought—specifically, the relationship between experience and language. Madzia argues that modern philosophies—including so-called neo-pragmatists—view language as a necessary mediation through which humans experience the world, but this common view has resulted in fundamental problems. Mead, in contrast, developed a theory in which our primary relation with the world is absorbed skillful coping with an engrossing and unproblematized realm of objects, not an objective world mediated for an actor by propositional content. On this basis, Mead develops a theory of the emergence of linguistic communication in which symbols enable humans to systematically reconstruct their habits in response to practical problems. Thus, Madzia argues, the linguistic mediation of the world is a second-order attitude situated within a larger theory of direct, unmediated action. The apparently problematic features of linguistic representation of the world are resolved into transitory but necessary phases in the action of the body as it attempts to restore the direct unity of experience—to re-present a unified field of action.Less