There have been many readings of Mead's work, and this paper proposes yet another: Mead, theorist of the social act. It is argued that Mead's core theory of the social act has been neglected, and that without this theory, the concept of taking the attitude of the other is inexplicable and the contemporary relevance of the concept of the significant symbol is obfuscated. The paper traces the development of the social act out of Dewey's theory of the act. According to (...) Mead, Dewey's theory does not sufficiently account for consciousness. Grappling with this problematic leads Mead to several key ideas, which culminate in his theory of the social act. The social act and taking the attitude of the other are then illustrated by the analysis of a game of football. The interpretation presented has two novel aspects: first, symbolisation arises not simply through self taking the attitude of the other, but through the pairing of this attitude with the complementary attitude in self; second, self is able to take the attitude of the other to the extent that self has in actuality or in imagination previously been in the social position of the other. From this standpoint the key issue is how the attitude of self and other become integrated. New directions for empirical research, aimed at advancing this question are outlined. Finally, the paper shows how the social act can contribute to our contemporary concerns about the nature of the symbolic. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, ethical challenges related to robotics technologies have gained increasing interest among different research and non-academic communities, in particular through the field of roboethics. While the reasons to address roboethics are clear, why not to engage with ethics needs to be better understood. This paper focuses on a limited or lacking engagement with ethics that takes place within some parts of the robotics community and its implications for the conceptualisation of the human being. The underlying assumption (...) is that the term ‘ethical’ essentially means ‘human’. Thus, this paper discusses a working hypothesis according to which by avoiding to engage with roboethics, roboticists contribute to the tacit dehumanisation process emerging in and outside of robotics. An alternative approach includes ‘lived ethics’ which involves not only incorporating formal ethical approaches into the roboticists’ work but also ‘being’ ethical and actually engaging with ethical reflection and practice. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Recent interest in phenomena of simulation, pretense, and play has given rise to new philosophical debates on the basic structure of human action and action planning. Some philosophers sought to transform Hume's desire-belief-action model by sophisticating its basic structure. For example, they introduced “hypothetical world boxes” or imaginary “i-desires” and “i-beliefs” into the standard model, in order to account for the representational and motivational structures of imaginary scripts. Others used phenomena of behavior driven by imagination to attempt a more fundamental (...) critique of the Humean tradition. This article aims to show how the pragmatist tradition could be used as a resource in reframing current debates on imagination, pretense, and simulation in the cognitive sciences. This will help determine the role of imagination in intelligent human deliberation. (shrink)

G. H. Mead developed an alternative "metaphysics" of selfhood and agency that underlies, but is seldom made explicit in discussions of, his social developmental psychology. This is an alternative metaphysics that rejects any pregiven, fixed foundations for being and knowing. It assumes the emergence of social psychological phenomena such as mind, self, and deliberative agency through the activity of human actors and interactors within their biophysical and sociocultural world. Of central importance to the emergence of self-consciousness and deliberative forms of (...) human agency is the ability of developing individuals to take the perspectives of others within their own conduct. However, precisely what is involved in this process, and whether or not it assumes the preexistence of exactly those forms of selfhood and agency, the emergence of which it seeks to explain, have been much disputed. In this essay, recent reinterpretations of Mead's "metaphysics" are used to argue that his overall theoretical program contains resources necessary to overcome charges of ontological and epistemological circularity. In particular, once his interactionism, perspectivism, emergentism, and compatibilism are explicated, it is possible to see that Mead's "taking the perspective of the other" is not primarily a process of internalization that requires a preexisting "internalizer," but a process of participation with others within conventionalized sequences of interactivity. This participatory process enables the development of prereflective forms of perspective taking and self-other differentiation that serve as necessary conditions for the further emergence of more reflective forms of perspective taking, self-consciousness, and deliberative agency. Compatibilist interpretations of deliberative agency, thus understood, also are discussed. (shrink)

Issues of communication and the possibilities for the transformation of perspectives through an experimental dialogue resulting in a mutual, open, receptive, and non-judgmental consideration of the other are addressed in this paper from transdisciplinary theoretical and conceptual standpoints. The warrant for cultivating this type of communicative ability is based on arguments resulting from the assumption of widespread confusion and conflict in intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, and ecological relations across the globe. I argue that there are two distinct classes of “reasons” for (...) this proposed practice of dialogue. First is recognition of the need for human individuals to engage in a regular and systematic “social maintenance” of embodied consciousness to forestall the continuous colonization of the past/future on the living present that embodied consciousness entails. Second is the teaching of a skill to creatively and respectfully engage with others in a mutual transformation of perspectives. This paper addresses the general problem of perspectives and reflexivity at the root of the communication phenomenon and by extension – to its scale and to its pathologies in individuals and collectives. It is argued that suspension of judgment, assumption, and habit helps interlocutors to recognize the possibility of holding one's history in a tensional abeyance and to focus on the living present independent of habitualized and reified identities and the embodied manner in which we unconsciously carry ourselves as social or “universalized selves” in social situations. (shrink)

Excavates the experiential structure of Habermas’s communicative action.

_Excavates the experiential structure of Habermas’s communicative action._.

Issues of communication and the possibilities for the transformation of perspectives through an experimental dialogue resulting in a mutual, open, receptive, and non-judgmental consideration of the other are addressed in this paper from transdisciplinary theoretical and conceptual standpoints. The warrant for cultivating this type of communicative ability is based on arguments resulting from the assumption of widespread confusion and conflict in intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, and ecological relations across the globe. I argue that there are two distinct classes of “reasons” for (...) this proposed practice of dialogue. First is recognition of the need for human individuals to engage in a regular and systematic “social maintenance” of embodied consciousness to forestall the continuous colonization of the past/future on the living present that embodied consciousness entails. Second is the teaching of a skill to creatively and respectfully engage with others in a mutual transformation of perspectives. This paper addresses the general problem of perspectives and reflexivity at the root of the communication phenomenon and by extension – to its scale and to its pathologies in individuals and collectives. It is argued that suspension of judgment, assumption, and habit helps interlocutors to recognize the possibility of holding one's history in a tensional abeyance and to focus on the living present independent of habitualized and reified identities and the embodied manner in which we unconsciously carry ourselves as social or “universalized selves” in social situations. (shrink)

The social psychologist George Herbert Mead and the cognitive linguist Noam Chomsky both investigated the nature of language and mind during the 20th century. They approached the issues broadly, pursuing both philosophical and scientific lines of reasoning and evidence. This comparative analysis of Mead and Chomsky identifies fourteen questions that summarize their collective effort, and which animated much of the debate concerning language and mind in the 20th century. These questions continue to be relevant to 21st century inquiries. This paper (...) identifies which questions have been resolved and which have not, and discusses each in the context of relevant literature. The net result is a set of questions that inform interdisciplinary-minded inquiries today into the nature of language and mind. (shrink)

In the field of human-animal studies, also known as anthrozoology, the question of nonhuman animal minds is central. During the first three decades of the 20th century, the social psychological G.H. Mead was among the first to take an explicitly contemporary approach to the question of mind in nature. Mead’s approach to the question of the nature of mind is consistent with contemporary science. His approach was characterized by empiricism, interdisciplinarity, comparative behavior and anatomy, and evolutionary theory. For Mead, symbolic (...) language was required for mind as he defined it. This stipulation has been called into question by scholars today. The evidence for the nature of animal minds today suggests that a symbolic language is not required for conscious awareness, deliberation, and decision making. Nonetheless, Mead has an historical relevance to the field ofhasfor both the breadth of his work on the nature of consciousness, his contemporary approach, and the fact that some of his insights could be useful to contemporary scholars who are exploring the nature of mind, both human and nonhuman. (shrink)