The Person Behind The Word: Mead's Theory Of Universals And A Shift Of Focus In Symbolic Interactionism

Abstract

Careful consideration of Mead's theory of universals proves to be a corrective to a number of tendencies evident in the work of at least some influential contemporary symbolic interactionists. Mead avoids any realistic hypostatization of separate universals (“meanings,” “forms,” or “essences” while at the same time eschewing nominalistic and conventionalistic views of language. His principle of the objective reality of perspectives (1932:161‐175) allows him to grant objective reality to universal characteristics of concrete objects, but entails neither hypostatization nor idealization of the universal.In addition to contravening nominalism and conventionalism, Mead's theory of universals provides a perspective from which the reality of the self, and the importance of intentional action for the development of a firmly felt sense of self and autonomy, can both be affirmed. Far from being an illusion or mer.e symbolic construct, the self is seen to be an objectively real universal within the perspective of social action.