The Foundation of Pragmatic Sociology

Abstract

Charles Horton Cooley was, according to George Herbert Mead, an idealist or mentalist for whom ‘imaginations’ and not ‘symbolic interactions’ are the ‘solid facts of society’. Contrary to Mead's critique, Cooley breaks through the Cartesian body–mind dualism in disagreement with idealism and behaviorism. His objective was to develop a theory of ‘communication’ and ‘understanding’ as the foundation of pragmatistic sociology. Communication is the decisive starting point of Cooley's and Mead's sociological theory of ‘social order’ and ‘social change’ as stages in the process of action. In conflict with each other actors must define the meaning of the objective, subjective, social and symbolic world. To overcome problems of action actors create generalized perspectives such as ‘human nature values’ (Cooley) or a ‘logical universe of discourse’ (Mead) which guarantee ‘socialization’ or ‘social order’ and ‘individualization’ at the same time.

Touching encounters : the sex and work of male-for-male internet escorts

“…Some notable proponents of interactionism, especially Cooley, did not place bodies in encounters as much as is necessary for study of sexuality. Some of interactionism's foremost thinkers are accused of being mentalist, stressing the mind too much (Schubert, 2006;Atkinson and Housley, 2003). Interactionist sociology suffers from spontaneism when it fails to account for how meaning-making takes place in material and discursive contexts.…”

French sociological pragmatism: Inheritor and innovator in the American pragmatic and sociological phenomenological traditions

“…While Bogusz, Terzi, and Quéré focus on William James and John Dewey to engage with Boltanski's approach, we focus on George Herbert Mead. Mead's theories on social psychology and the development of the social self have had a remarkable impact on the sociological discourse, particularly through his influence on symbolic interactionism and pragmatic theories of action (Blumer, 1969;Côté, 2016;Joas, 1996;Schubert, 2006). As such, we must include his perspective if we are to decide whether French sociological pragmatism is part of the broader pragmatic corpus derived from the American tradition.…”

“…Within his broader model, larger institutions are constructed based on roles and the expectations that come alongside those roles. However, as Charles Horton Cooley noted, many values that we hold are inherited with the institutions we receive (Schubert, 2006). However, if many people have fundamentally different understandings of the purpose of institutions, then how can we effectively reconstruct the GO?…”

Tradition and innovation in classical sociology: Tenth Anniversary Report ofJCS

“…In 2012, we will publish a Special Issue on John Holloway's most recent book, entitled Crack Capitalism (2010), illustrating the continuing relevance of Marxist thought to contemporary critiques of capitalism. In addition to our thorough engagement with the various legacies of Marxist, Durkheimian, and Weberian thought, we have published articles on the writings of Vilfredo Pareto (Albert, 2004), Ludwig Wittgenstein (Greiffenhagen and Sharrock, 2009;King, 2009;Ogien, 2009), Antonio Gramsci (Fontana, 2002), Werner Sombart (Grundmann and Stehr, 2001), Charles Cooley and George Herbert Mead (Schubert, 2006), Franklin Giddings (Chriss, 2006c), and Lester Ward (Chriss, 2006b). …”

“…This effort is reflected, for instance, in the publication of Chris Rojek's interview with Eric Dunning, which provides useful insights into the legacy of the Leicester School in Great Britain (Rojek, 2004), or the Special Issue on recent developments in Polish sociology, edited by Janusz Mucha and Steven Vaitkus (2006). Furthermore, we have aimed to explore and consolidate the legacies of key sociologists such as George Herbert Mead (Athens, 2002;Schubert, 2006), Norbert Elias (Dunning et al, 2001;Elias, 2001), Peter Laslett (2005), and William E.B. Du Bois (Kemple, 2009;Stanfield, 2010).…”