The Social Philosophy of George Herbert Mead

Bibliographic Data

ID2198116
AuthorsT V Smith (0009-0008-9151-642X), Tony Smith (0000-0001-6420-8183, corresponding author)
Year1931
Volume37
Issue3
Pages368-385
Publication date1931-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/215730
OpenAlexW2088757356
LanguageEN
Citations received15

The major problem of social philosophy is the harmony of individual interest and social welfare. Mead thought to facilitate the solution of this problem by showing that as psychological the individual is social. The technique of his psychology is that of role-assumption: by acting as others, one finally becomes others to himself. From oscillating others, "a generalized other" arises to constitute from the flowing selves a more or less abiding self. But this self isa "socius": reflecting, like a true microcosm, the dissonance as well as the harmony of the societal macrocosm. Mead thought to show as his social philosophy that amelioration flows differentially from his account of the self. In this he was not wholly successful. The self resulting from Mead's analysis is descriptively social but no more ethically so than is the community that begets it; and of the moral quality of actually existing communities Mead had no high opinion. His interest in amelioration flowed from the man he was rather than from his doctrine of the self. His social philosophy is generous; his social psychology probably true; but the two were connected by his personality rather than by his logic

Cognitive dissonance · Doctrine · Epistemology · Harmony (color) · Personality · Social philosophy · Social relation · Sociology · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Diverse Educational Innovations Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology