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Selected Writings
The only collection of Mead's writings published during his lifetime, these essays have heretofore been virtually inaccessible. Reck has collected twenty-five essays representing the full range and depth of Mead's thought. This penetrating volume will be of interest to those in philosophy, sociology, and social psychology.
"The editor's well-organized introduction supplies an excellent outline of this system in its development. In view of the scattered sources from which these writings are gathered, it is a great service that this volume renders not only to students of Mead, but to historians."—H. W. Schneider, Journal of the History of Philosophy
"The editor's well-organized introduction supplies an excellent outline of this system in its development. In view of the scattered sources from which these writings are gathered, it is a great service that this volume renders not only to students of Mead, but to historians."—H. W. Schneider, Journal of the History of Philosophy
- GenresPhilosophy
488 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
29 people want to read
About the author
George Herbert Mead
66 books61 followersGeorge Herbert Mead was an American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago. He was one of the key figures in the development of pragmatism. He is regarded as one of the founders of symbolic interactionism, and was an important influence on what has come to be referred to as the Chicago School of Sociology.
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October 19, 2024
AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF WRITINGS BY AN AMERICAN PRAGMATIST PHILOSOPHER
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) 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.
The editor wrote in the Preface to this 1964 collection, “In the summer of 1962, while preparing a study of Mead’s philosophy for publication… in commemoration of the centennial of his birth, discovered that, although five posthumously published based on his lectures and notes presented his thought and were in print, his own publications… had never been collected and were scattered in journals and out-of-print books… The present volume makes available for the first time a selective collection of Mead’s published essays, touching on every major feature of his thought.”
Mead states, “In the social world we must recognize the working hypothesis as the form into which all theories must be cast as completely as in the natural sciences. The highest criterion that we can present is that the hypothesis shall WORK in the complex of forces into which we introduce it. We can never set up a detailed statement of the conditions that are to be ultimately attained. What we have is a method and a control in application, not an ideal to work toward.” (Pg. 3)
He says, “The religious consciousness is preeminently one that recognizes in life a fundamental problem, while it clings to the reality of the great representative objects of conduct which the conflict has abstracted and set before us. In fact, it is allowable to define the religious object as one which, while transcending through its universality the particular situations of life, still is felt to be representative of its meaning and value.” (Pg. 23)
He points out, “The result of the development of our sciences has been that their problems are no longer within the immediate experience of the student, nor are they always statable in terms of that experience. He has to be introduced to the science before he can reach the source of interest, i.e., problems which are his own and which he wants to solve by the process of his own thinking.” (Pg. 63)
He argues, “The loss to the community from the elimination of the intellectual phase of moral conduct it would be difficult to overestimate and this loss is unavoidable as long as the interpretation of conduct lies outside the immediate experience, as long as we must refer to a moral order without, to intellectually present the morality of conduct… But not only does an external moral ideal rob immediate moral conduct of its most important values, but it robs human nature of the more profound solace which can come to those who suffer----the knowledge that the loss and the suffering, with its subjective poignancy, has served to evaluate conduct, to determine what is and what is not worthwhile.” (Pg. 92-93)
He suggests, “I have thought to indicate that the process of schooling in its barest form cannot be sufficiently studied by a scientific psychology unless that psychology is social, i.e., unless it recognizes that the processes of acquiring knowledge, of giving attention, of evaluating in emotional terms must be studied in their relation to selves in a social consciousness. So far as education is concerned, the child does not become social by learning. He must be social in order to learn.” (Pg. 122)
He observes, “Any gesture by which the individual can himself be affected as others are affected, and which therefore tends to call out in him a response as it would call it out in another, will serve as a mechanism for the construction of a self. That, however, a consciousness of a self as an object would ever have arisen in man if he had not had the mechanism of talking to himself, I think there is every reason to doubt. If this statement is correct the objective self of human consciousness is the merging of one’s responses with the social stimulation by which he affects himself. The ‘me’ is a man’s reply to his own talk. Such a ‘me’ is not then an early formation, which is then projected and ejected into the bodies of other people to give them the breadth of human life. It is rather an importation from the field of social objects into an amorphous, unorganized field of what we call inner experience. Through the organization of this object, the self, this material is itself organized and brought under the control of the individual in the form of so-called self-consciousness.” (Pg. 140)
He contends, “There is an ambiguity in the word ‘consciousness.’ … There is another field, that of self-consciousness, to which I am not as yet referring. There is a common character which in varying degree belongs to all of these contents, that is, that these contents could not appear at all, or exactly as they do appear, in the experiences of any other organism. They are in this sense private, though this privacy does not imply necessarily anything more than difference of access or of perspective on the part of the different organisms. If we take the pragmatic attitude…consciousness in the first sense, that of awareness, would disappear from immediate experience, while the world that is there would be a world that would exist for the organism, when the organism marked or plotted or… canalized its environment in terms of its future conduct.” (Pg. 271-272)
He asserts, “It is hardly necessary to point out that John Dewey’s philosophy, with its insistence upon the statement of the end in the terms of the means, is the developmental method of the implicit intelligence in the mind of the American community. And for such an implicit intelligence there is no other test of moral and intellectual hypotheses except that they work. In the profoundest sense John Dewey is the philosopher of America.” (Pg. 391)
Mead is far less well-known than, say, John Dewey, William James, or Charles Peirce; but this collection of writings is an excellent “introduction” to his thought.
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) 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.
The editor wrote in the Preface to this 1964 collection, “In the summer of 1962, while preparing a study of Mead’s philosophy for publication… in commemoration of the centennial of his birth, discovered that, although five posthumously published based on his lectures and notes presented his thought and were in print, his own publications… had never been collected and were scattered in journals and out-of-print books… The present volume makes available for the first time a selective collection of Mead’s published essays, touching on every major feature of his thought.”
Mead states, “In the social world we must recognize the working hypothesis as the form into which all theories must be cast as completely as in the natural sciences. The highest criterion that we can present is that the hypothesis shall WORK in the complex of forces into which we introduce it. We can never set up a detailed statement of the conditions that are to be ultimately attained. What we have is a method and a control in application, not an ideal to work toward.” (Pg. 3)
He says, “The religious consciousness is preeminently one that recognizes in life a fundamental problem, while it clings to the reality of the great representative objects of conduct which the conflict has abstracted and set before us. In fact, it is allowable to define the religious object as one which, while transcending through its universality the particular situations of life, still is felt to be representative of its meaning and value.” (Pg. 23)
He points out, “The result of the development of our sciences has been that their problems are no longer within the immediate experience of the student, nor are they always statable in terms of that experience. He has to be introduced to the science before he can reach the source of interest, i.e., problems which are his own and which he wants to solve by the process of his own thinking.” (Pg. 63)
He argues, “The loss to the community from the elimination of the intellectual phase of moral conduct it would be difficult to overestimate and this loss is unavoidable as long as the interpretation of conduct lies outside the immediate experience, as long as we must refer to a moral order without, to intellectually present the morality of conduct… But not only does an external moral ideal rob immediate moral conduct of its most important values, but it robs human nature of the more profound solace which can come to those who suffer----the knowledge that the loss and the suffering, with its subjective poignancy, has served to evaluate conduct, to determine what is and what is not worthwhile.” (Pg. 92-93)
He suggests, “I have thought to indicate that the process of schooling in its barest form cannot be sufficiently studied by a scientific psychology unless that psychology is social, i.e., unless it recognizes that the processes of acquiring knowledge, of giving attention, of evaluating in emotional terms must be studied in their relation to selves in a social consciousness. So far as education is concerned, the child does not become social by learning. He must be social in order to learn.” (Pg. 122)
He observes, “Any gesture by which the individual can himself be affected as others are affected, and which therefore tends to call out in him a response as it would call it out in another, will serve as a mechanism for the construction of a self. That, however, a consciousness of a self as an object would ever have arisen in man if he had not had the mechanism of talking to himself, I think there is every reason to doubt. If this statement is correct the objective self of human consciousness is the merging of one’s responses with the social stimulation by which he affects himself. The ‘me’ is a man’s reply to his own talk. Such a ‘me’ is not then an early formation, which is then projected and ejected into the bodies of other people to give them the breadth of human life. It is rather an importation from the field of social objects into an amorphous, unorganized field of what we call inner experience. Through the organization of this object, the self, this material is itself organized and brought under the control of the individual in the form of so-called self-consciousness.” (Pg. 140)
He contends, “There is an ambiguity in the word ‘consciousness.’ … There is another field, that of self-consciousness, to which I am not as yet referring. There is a common character which in varying degree belongs to all of these contents, that is, that these contents could not appear at all, or exactly as they do appear, in the experiences of any other organism. They are in this sense private, though this privacy does not imply necessarily anything more than difference of access or of perspective on the part of the different organisms. If we take the pragmatic attitude…consciousness in the first sense, that of awareness, would disappear from immediate experience, while the world that is there would be a world that would exist for the organism, when the organism marked or plotted or… canalized its environment in terms of its future conduct.” (Pg. 271-272)
He asserts, “It is hardly necessary to point out that John Dewey’s philosophy, with its insistence upon the statement of the end in the terms of the means, is the developmental method of the implicit intelligence in the mind of the American community. And for such an implicit intelligence there is no other test of moral and intellectual hypotheses except that they work. In the profoundest sense John Dewey is the philosopher of America.” (Pg. 391)
Mead is far less well-known than, say, John Dewey, William James, or Charles Peirce; but this collection of writings is an excellent “introduction” to his thought.
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