George Herbert Mead - Pragmatism and Symbolic Interaction

Pragmatism and Symbolic Interaction

Philosophers whose inspiration is more ontological, e.g. Heidegger, emphasize the uncovering 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).

The two most important roots of Mead's work, and of symbolic interactionism in general are the philosophy of pragmatism and social (as opposed to psychological) behaviorism (i.e.: Mead was concerned with the stimuli of gestures and social objects with rich meanings rather than bare physical objects which psychological behaviourists considered stimuli). Pragmatism is a wide ranging philosophical position from which several aspects of Mead's influences can be identified.

There are four main tenets of pragmatism: see Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy First, to pragmatists true reality does not exist "out there" in the real world, it "is actively created as we act in and toward the world. Second, people remember and base their knowledge of the world on what has been useful to them and are likely to alter what no longer "works." Third, people define the social and physical "objects" they encounter in the world according to their use for them. Lastly, if we want to understand actors, we must base that understanding on what people actually do. Three of these ideas are critical to symbolic interactionism:

1. the focus on the interaction between the actor and the world
2. a view of both the actor and the world as dynamic processes and not static structures and
3. the actor's ability to interpret the social world.

Thus, to Mead and symbolic interactionists, consciousness is not separated from action and interaction, but is an integral part of both.

Mead's theories in part, based on pragmatism and behaviorism, were transmitted to many graduate students at the University of Chicago who then went on to establish symbolic interactionism.