George Herbert Mead is one of the founders of sociology in the United States of America. Though he has made numerous journals and books, he did not publish even a single one.
5. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
"The beauty of a face is not a
separate quality but a relation or
proportion of qualities to each other."
6. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
an American philosopher, sociologist and
psychologist
one of the founders of social psychology
pioneered the development of symbolic
interaction perspective
one of the several pragmatists
7. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
George Herbert Mead is well-known
for his theory of the social self, which
is based on the central argument
that the self is a social emergent.
8. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
The social conception of the self entails
that individual selves are the products of
social interaction and not the logical or
biological preconditions of that
interaction.
It is not initially there at birth, but arises in
the process of social experience and
activity.
9. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
For Mead, mind arises out of the social act
of communication.
Mead’s concept of the social act is
relevant, not only to his theory of mind, but
to all facets of his social philosophy.
10. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
According to Mead, there are three activities
through which the self is developed:
LANGUAGE
PLAY
GAME
11. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
Language allows individuals to take on the
“role of the other” and allows people to
respond to his or her own gestures in terms
of the symbolized attitudes of others.
12. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
During play, individuals take on the roles of
other people and pretend to be those other
people in order to express the expectations
of significant others.
This process of role-playing is key to the
generation of self-consciousness and to
the general development of the self.
13. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
In the game, the individual is required to
internalize the roles of all others who are
involved with him or her in the game and
must comprehend the rules of the game.
14. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
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".
15. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
What is Pragmatism?
rejects the idea that the function of thought
is to describe, represent, or mirror reality
instead, it considers that the thought is an
instrument or tool for prediction, problem
solving and action
16. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
What is the philosophy
of Pragmatism?
"emphasizes the practical application of
ideas by acting on them to actually test
them in human experiences"
17. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
What is the focus of Pragmatism?
"changing universe rather than an
unchanging one as the Idealists, Realists
and Thomists had claimed"
18. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
The two most important roots of Mead's
work, and of symbolic interactionism in
general, are the philosophy of pragmatism
and social behaviorism.
19. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
There are four main tenets of pragmatism:
First, to pragmatists, the 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 forget
"what no longer works".
20. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
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.
21. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
George Herbert Mead is also well-
known for his concept of the “I” and
the “me”.
According to Mead, the self has two sides.
22. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
The “me” represents the expectations and
attitudes of others (the generalized other).
It is the organized set of attitudes of others
that the individual assumes.
The “I” is the response to the “me,” or the
person’s individuality.
23. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
According to Mead, the generalized other
(internalized in the “me”) is the major
instrument of social control for it is the
mechanism by which the community
exercises control over the conduct of its
individual members.
24. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
For Mead, existence in community comes
before individual consciousness.
First one must participate in the different
social positions within society and only
subsequently can one use that experience
to take the perspective of others and thus
become self-conscious.
