Re-Examining Mead: G. H. Mead on the Material Reproduction of Society

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

G. H. Mead. A System in a State of Flux

This article offers an original, intellectual portrait of G. H. Mead. My reassessment of Mead’s thinking is founded, in methodological terms, upon a historically minded yet theoretically oriented strategy. Mead’s system of thought is submitted to a historical reconstruction in order to grasp the evolution of his ideas over time, and to a thematic reconstruction organized around three major research areas or pillars: science, social psychology and politics. If one re-examines the entirety of Mead’s published and unpublished writings from the point of view of contemporary social and political theory, one can see that his contributions transcend the field of social psychology. Mead’s innovative insights on the communicative aspects of social life and individual conscience are yet to be fully explored by current social and political theorists. This is partly due to the fact that his was a system in a state of flux, ever escaping the final written form

G. H. Mead in the History of Sociological Ideas

My aim is to discuss the history of the reception of George Herbert Mead’s ideas in sociology. After discussing the methodological debate between presentism and historicism, I address the interpretations of those responsible for Mead’s inclusion in the sociological canon: Herbert Blumer, Jürgen Habermas, and Hans Joas. In the concluding section, I as- sess these reconstructions of Mead’s thought and suggest an alternative more consistent with my initial methodological remarks. In particular, I advocate a reconstruction of Mead’s ideas that apprehends simultaneously its evolution over time and its thematic breadth. Such a historically minded reconstruction can be not only a useful corrective to possible anachronisms incurred by contemporary social theorists, but also a fruitful re- source for their theory-building endeavors. Only then can meaningful and enriching dialogue with Mead begin

G.H. Mead

G.H. Mead (1863-1931) oriented much of his intellectual efforts around three unavoidable questions for anyone living in a modern society: how are selfhood, knowledge, and politics understood and organized in such a society? Modern individuals continually seek answers to questions although nobody has ever come up with a definitive answer to them. Modernity, in other words, confronts us with inevitable problematics that fundamentally shape the way in which we think about certain topics. For the purposes of my discussion of Mead, I focus upon three of these modern problematics: science, selfhood, and democratic politics. But before I discuss Mead’s treatment of these problem areas, allow me to briefly situate Mead as a pragmatist in relation to Dewey and James within pragmatism

George Herbert Mead, The Philosophy of Education, Gert Biesta and Daniel Tröhler (eds.)

G. H. Mead (1863-1931) is often portrayed as a thinker of exceptional import and originality whose unwillingness to write down his ideas has prevented him from achieving an even greater recognition in fields as varied as sociology, social psychology or philosophy. According to this view, the task of current practioners is to engage with the scant materials available, including lecture notes, and make the best of it to re-examine contemporary problems. Gert Biesta and Daniel Tröhler, the edito..

Time is of the Essence: Remarks on Michael Mann’s The Sources of Social Power

I would like to begin this commentary on Michael Mann’s (b. 1942) work by focusing upon his critical engagement with Theda Skocpol in the second volume of The Sources of Social Power, his magnum opus and one of the most ambitiously conceived sociological treatises of the last few decades. The object of this engagement is post-revolutionary France. In Mann’s view, while it is indisputable that French revolutionaries modernized and bureaucratized state administration, this does not mean that the size or scope of total administration increased at all. Also, the performance of the revolutionary state was far from the image of efficiency it projected of itself. For instance, its fiscal record was pathetic; it was unable to collect more than 10% of the taxes it demanded. For most of the nineteenth century, France had not one administration but several ministries, in which personal discretion prevailed over the abstractness and universality one associates with modern bureaucracy. Mann writes: ‘So the French Revolution, like the American, promised more bureaucracy than it delivered. (…) Skocpol and Tilly emphasize bureaucratization and state power; I emphasize their limits’’ (Mann, 1993, p. 463)

Towards a European youth agenda

Since 2002, youth has become more important on the European agenda and in recent years has become one of the central issues that need addressing in order to shape Europe's future. In the 2021 State of the Union address, the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, endorsed this priority with the formal adoption of the "European Year of Youth" and again in her 2022 speech, the President stated that the aspirations of Europe's youth should be at the heart of everything Europe does. This strategic priority represents recognition of the sacrifices and challenges that young Europeans have faced during the Covid-19 crisis, which have been exacerbated as a consequence of the war in Ukraine. This second global crisis has occurred in a very short period of time after the 2008 economic crisis, leaving an even more significant impression on a generation that is now entering its youth. This context of a lack of opportunities is determining the present and conditioning the future.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Citizenship

Citizenship is the specifically modern form of political association. It is a juridically codified reality whose exercise reconstitutes individuals into citizens. It typically involves a connection between individuals and the nation-state in purely secular terms. Second, citizens are social selves whose conduct is motivated by norms and interests. They are the bearers of rights, whose origins, scope and consequences are the object of political contestation. Depending on concrete historical and geographical conditions, individuals qua citizens have specific sets of rights and duties. This involves a process of self-rule in which, as Quentin Skinner observes, “the sole power of making laws remains with the people or their accredited representatives, and in which all individual members of the body politic – rulers and citizens alike – remain equally subject to whatever laws they choose to impose on themselves” (Skinner, 1998: 74). Third, besides this juridical-political dimension, citizenship involves a sense of belonging to a political community: political identities are formed as citizens, through diverse forms of political socialization, come to see themselves as members of a common political body, with a shared past and future (Gutmann, 2003). These individual senses of belonging coalesce into collective understandings of what citizenship ideally entails, which are designated as “norms of citizenship” (Dalton 2008). Fourth, there are several such norms of citizenship, the origins of which can be partially traced back to the founding, constituent moments of each polity. At least, two normative axes can be distinguished. The first has a socioeconomic basis: consider the rise of post-materialist values, with a strong individualist emphasis, during the ascent of the “neo-liberal model” of state. The other normative axis refers to the distinction between ethnic-based (“thick”) versus bureaucratic-legal (“thin”) norms of citizenship. Fifth, there are several different models of citizenship as norms and interests are historically articulated in different ways in distinct contexts. These aspects of modern citizenship shape current debates over citizenship. Citizenship, however, has been a topic of concern for social scientists ever since the inception of professional social sciences

Bringing Republican Ideas Back Home: The Dewey-Laski Connection

This article explores J.G.A. Pocock’s insight that “traces” of civic republican discourse survived within the dominant liberal paradigm of modern political thought. It does so by tracking classical republican themes in the works of American pragmatist John Dewey and English pluralist Harold Laski. The main contribution of the article is to show that the 1920s pluralist theory of the state can be interpreted as a reformulation of the classical republican critique of modern liberal conceptions of state sovereignty. In particular, I suggest that Laski can be viewed as a kind of republican pluralist inspired by Aristotle and Harrington as well as by American pragmatism, itself a late outgrowth of the republican tradition in US history

G.H. Mead

George Herbert Mead was born on 27 February 1863, in South Hadley, Massachusetts, the son of a clergyman, Hiram Mead. In 1869, the family moved to Oberlin, Ohio, where his father took a chair at the Theological Seminary of Oberlin College. Between 1880 and 1883, Mead studied in Oberlin College where he met two students from Hawaii, Henry and Helen Castle. In 1887, after brief work experience as a railway surveyor and a private tutor, Mead followed Henry Castle into Harvard University to study philosophy. His stay at Harvard, however, did not last. In the autumn of 1888, Mead travelled to Germany, where he first studied at the University of Leipzig and subsequently at prestigious Humboldt University, Berlin, where he studied under Wilhelm Dilthey, his prospective PhD supervisor. Mead, however, never completed his PhD project. In the summer of 1891, John Dewey offered him a post as instructor in psychology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In 1891, Mead married Henry’s sister Helen. A year later, their only child, Henry Castle Albert Mead, was born. In 1894, Mead followed Dewey to the Department of Philosophy of the University of Chicago, where he would remain until his death in 1931. One of the most influential American thinkers of the 20th century, Mead is studied for his contributions to social psychology, philosophical pragmatism, and social theory, in particular to symbolic interactionism and pragmatic sociology