Pragmatism and Design (IV): George Herbert Mead
With this article, we close the series dedicated to the American pragmatists. If you haven’t had a chance to do so, I recommend that you read beforehand those dedicated to Charles Sanders Pierce, William James and John Dewey.
George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) had a strong religious background influenced by his father, pastor of a congregation in South Hadley, Massachusetts. His first job was as a theology professor at an Oberlin (Ohio) seminary. After a brief stint as a school teacher, Mead worked for a few years as a surveyor for the Wisconsin Central Railroad Company. He later enrolled at Harvard University, where he studied psychology and philosophy. There he coincided with William James, although they did not study together, they became friends and Mead moved to live at his house, where he was tutor of his children. While studying at Harvard, he had a long identity crisis, questioning his origins and Christian training. He left for Europe in 1888 without a graduate degree.
He obtained his doctorate from the University of Berlin, where he developed a more realistic approach influenced by the Social Democratic Labor movement. He returned to the United States in 1894 to work at the University of Michigan, where he befriended Dewey and followed him to Chicago. There Mead eventually strayed from her religious roots, but maintained an activist spirit, participating in marches in support of suffrage for women and other progressive causes.
Like the rest of the pragmatists, Darwin had a great influence on his thinking, in fact, Mead’s work is a kind of synthesis of Darwin’s ideas of evolutionism, Dewey’s functionalist psychology and James’ original ideas. Mead taught with Dewey at the University of Michigan from 1891 to 1894, and when Dewey was appointed president of the University of Chicago in 1894, he requested that Mead be given a position as a professor.
The other generalized
Mead’s legacy is more linked to sociology, in particular, his work revolves around how the self exercises in social interaction. An individual becomes an object to himself through “assuming the role of the other,” that is, assuming the attitudes of others within a social context, what Mead calls “the generalized other.”
We are aware of ourselves, about what the situation is, but the exact way in which we will act never gains experience until the action takes place. Mead describes the “generalized other” as a form of censor, a mechanism of social control, defining what behaviours are possible or suitable. However, when we behave impulsively, we are escaping from that “social self.” As individuals, we constantly react to the social attitudes of the group and, therefore, we adjust our behaviour. Without that “social self” there would be nothing new in experience.
Mead also emphasized the contextual character of the self. We are not always the same, we are different things for different people, and in each environment we have different “elementals” that we bring out in different social groups. The self begins to develop when as individuals we interact with each other and play different roles. Role-play also involves becoming aware of the attitudes or perspectives of others.
“No one is always stupid, but we are all stupid sometimes.”
However, when we act habitually, we are generally not self-conscious. We are too engrossed in action on a non-reflective level. Perhaps for this reason, it makes more sense to narrow contexts more than people when we design tools for them.
Emotions and physical objects
In the same way that we relate to people, Mead argued that we socially relate to physical objects, which play a central role in the construction of our identity. Our interactions with physical objects are social, but sometimes they are also embodied.
Therefore, designed objects are an essential part of the construction of our identity. There is nothing more to observe the almost intimate relationship we have with some objects, as for some people there are devices that define their social relationships and personality.
An individual without fetishes, does not arouse interest.
Summary and conclusions about pragmatism
In this short series of articles, we have tried to give a brushstroke on the main ideas of the movement and the implications that they may have for the practice of design.
For Peirce, pragmatism was a matter of logic. He developed a strictly logical method of understanding the meaning of scientific concepts. For James, the pragmatic method served to resolve metaphysical disputes based on psychological principles of experience. Dewey and Mead put these principles into practice, with a social and pedagogical component.
His contributions are best understood as complementary efforts in the quest to develop a philosophy of meaning and inquiry.
They all focused on the dynamism of the experience and our impossibility to specify any absolute certainty, since all we really know is that we are part of a world in constant growth and transformation. This vision also implies that we are active agents, as we shape the environment, it defines us. This process of mutual adaptation, where we all have the capacity to effect change, also leads to an emphasis on creative action for which pragmatism is perhaps best known. It cannot be said that these ideas taken out of context could have a very frivolous and naive reading, being material of self-help books. There is a popularized and simplified version of what pragmatism means.
During the first decades of the 20th century, pragmatism was the main philosophical trend in the United States, but after Dewey’s death in 1952, pragmatism lost much of its momentum. While there were some local communities in Europe where they became strongly engaged with American pragmatists during their time, it was in Scandinavia that the movement had the most impact, mainly in Sweden, where Dewey’s philosophy of education took root. IKEA did not appear there by chance.
It is easy to see analogies between the principles of pragmatic research and design practice: the focus on experimentation continues throughout the research process, interacting with sketches and prototypes to “express” and clarify ideas. Experience as a starting point for inquiry, where we use our emotions and body reactions, empathizing and immersing ourselves in the attitudes (or experiences) of others, to decide how to progress. All this enhanced by a primordial belief in human creativity.
So a little more pragmatism approach, well interpreted, wouldn’t hurt the world.
Keep reading
This post is the last in a series of four on Pragmatism and Design:
- Charles Sanders Pierce (I)
Practical consequences, abduction and semiotics. - William James (II)
Mediation, body and emotions. - John Dewey (III)
Learning, experience and closure. - George Herbert Mead (IV)
Identity, social relations and objects.
Bibliography
Aboulafia, M., “George Herbert Mead”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
Brag M. Pragmatism. In Our Time. BBC Radio 4.
Crossman, A. “Biography of Sociologist George Herbert Mead.” ThoughtCo, Jan. 29, 2020
Dalsgaard, P. (2014). Pragmatism and design thinking. International Journal of Design, 8 (1), 143–155.
Rylander, A. “Pragmatism and Design Research”. Ingår i Designfakultetens series kunskapssammanställningar, utgiven i april 2012.
This piece was originally written in Spanish at Guindo’s blog:
“Pragmatismo y diseño (IV): George Herbert Mead”