Mead, George Herbert

George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) was a philosopher who had been influenced initially by positivistic psychology but eventually developed a unique perspective that combined the pragmatism of John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Josiah Royce into a social psychology with elements of the biological and evolutionary sciences. Some pertinent details of Mead's life are worth reviewing as a backdrop to understanding what led him to develop this novel position.

Mead, born in 1863 in South Hadley, Massachusetts, had been exposed to both religion and higher education [Page 487]throughout his formative years. His father, Hiram, was chair in Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology at Oberlin College beginning in 1869. Mead's mother also taught at Oberlin, and she was devoted to ensuring that young George was guided through a daily routine of prayer, study, and good works. Although Oberlin College was well known for its religious orthodoxy, it also emphasized the social obligations of living as a Christian, and this included a rather “radical” commitment to the emancipation of blacks and women (Joas 1985:15).

Given this set of circumstances, it was already decided that George would himself attend Oberlin College, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1883. Because Darwinism was in full ascendancy as an intellectual worldview at the time Mead began his university studies, he was confronted with the seeming contradiction between a life devoted to Christian charity informed by the word of God, on one hand, and the secular “truths” represented in Darwinism and Spencerian evolutionism, on the other. Early on, then, Mead showed a concern for the sources of moral values in a rapidly secularizing world, and, as we shall see, much of his mature, later work was dedicated to working out this issue.

After college, Mead tried several things, including teaching grade school, working in railroad construction, and working as a surveyor and a private tutor (Miller 1973). None of these were rewarding, however, and in 1887 he returned to secular education by enrolling in graduate school at Harvard University. The spirit of social reform of the era lent a certain respectability to professors who felt inclined to engage in social advocacy, and Mead was drawn to Harvard faculty who shared this sentiment, including Josiah Royce, George Palmer, William James, and close friend and fellow graduate student Henry Castle (Wallace 1967). (Mead never actually studied with James, but did tutor his children [Joas 1985:17]). At Harvard, Mead initially was interested primarily in philosophy, psychology, and languages, including Greek, Latin, German, and French.

A year later, after winning a prestigious Harvard scholarship that allowed him to study abroad, Mead had decided that the study of physiological psychology would be useful insofar as this field promised to deliver empirical insights into all manner of human behavior, including the genesis and development of human morals and values. At the time, Wilhelm Wundt, at the University of Leipzig in Germany, had established an experimental laboratory for testing the propositions of physiological psychology, and Mead studied there during the winter semester of 1888/1889. A year later, Mead transferred to the University of Berlin, where he studied with Wilhelm Dilthey, among others. This was important insofar as Mead's enthusiasm for the positivistic orientation of physiological psychological was tempered somewhat by the more “descriptive” psychology espoused by Dilthey, one that utilized the interpretive methods of the humanistic sciences (Joas 1985:18).

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