Re-examining Mead

G.H. Mead on the `Material Reproduction of Society

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2404580
AutoresF C Da Silva (0000-0003-2459-0802, University of Lisbon, autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Volumen7
Número3
Páginas291-313
Fecha de publicación2007-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Classical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1468-795X • E-ISSN: 1741-2897
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1468795x07082083
OpenAlexW2166994686
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas24

Despite decades of scholarship on G.H. Mead (1863-1931), we are still far from an adequate estimate of the full scope of his contributions. In this article, I examine the standard caricature that portraits Mead as an essentially idealist thinker, without much to say on the 'material conditions of reproduction' of modern industrialized societies. Focusing on Habermas's version of this interpretation, I try to show that if 'science and democracy' is a common theme amongst classical pragmatists, Mead is the only of these to whom we owe a communicative social theory that systematically connects science's problem-solving nature to democracy's deliberative character by means of social psychology that establishes the social nature of the human self. To suggest otherwise is to ignore that Mead's intellectual edifice is perhaps best described as a system in a state of flux, a structure that comprises three ever-evolving pillars: experimental science, social psychology, and democratic politics

Democracy · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Political science · Politics · Portrait · Pragmatism · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Philosophy