Bio: (1863-1931) American philosopher, psychologist, and sociologist. George Herbert Mead studied at Harvard, and continued his studies in Germany, at the universities of Leipzig and Berlin. Although he never received his doctorate, he worked as an assistant at the University of Michigan and later taught philosophy and psychology at the University of Chicago, where he remained until his death. His ideas were influenced by W. James' philosophy of pragmatism, Wilhelm Wundt's psychology, Dilthey's philosophy and sociology, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and long-term intellectual collaboration with John Dewey. During his life, Mead published a large number of academic articles, but he never finished or published any book. Later published books Mind, Self and Society (1934), The Philosophy of the Act (1937), and The Philosophy of the Present (1958), although cited as his works, are books compiled by his students and followers based on his lectures and manuscripts.

                                     Concept of the „Self“

In Mead's theory, the most important theoretical concept is the "self". The self is partly based on human biology, but it really develops only through participation in "social acts". Social acts are those in which at least two people participate, and all social acts consist of five basic components: 1) roles, 2) attitudes, 3) significant speech, 4) attitudinal assumption, and 5) social objects. In order to perform social acts, actors must take on certain social roles, and that is why those roles form the basis of individual acts. Attitudes represent readiness, that is, the competence to perform roles. This means that each specific role is inextricably linked to the specific attitudes that enable the performance of that role. Mead uses the term "significant speech" as a synonym for language. Attitudinal assumptions are assumptions about the roles and attitudes of other people, which a person makes to be able to adjust his or her behavior within a social act in which all actors participate. Social objects represent the usual attitudes that participants take to perform a social act. All these components of the social act must be realized to achieve a "congruent plan of action " to successfully complete the social act.

The self and the mind exist only in relation to the social group to which they belong, both are created through conscious participation in everyday social life, so both are, thus, social creations of everyday life. The self is partly based on an innate biological basis, but it is really formed only in social life, through participation in social acts, and then the self begins to identify itself as a subject. Two elements of the self in a dialectical relationship - "I" and "me". The "I" is created by preparation for the performation of social acts, or by adapting attitudes and expressing them within social roles. "Me" represents the views and attitudes of other participants in a social act that we take on while playing a social role. „I“ is the body's response to the views of others; „me“ is organized through the attitudes of others that someone takes over. "Me" influences the manifestation of "I" in social acts.

However, each participant can accept, reject or adjust the views of other people in the process of expressing their "I" within the social act. In addition, how we express ourselves, through social acts, also depends on the assumptions we make about other people's attitudes, and those assumptions affect our own attitudes. Precisely because the self must take into account all these attitudes, Mead believed that the main feature of the self is its „reflexivness“. Reflexivness represents the adoption of the experience of the individual upon himself or herself, in order to be able to take the attitude of the other toward him or her. “(Reflexiveness) is the essential condition, within the social process, for the development of mind.” (1934). Reflexivness or selfinteraction is partly an internal, psychological phenomenon, but mostly is a social process through which self arises.

                                         Social Institutions

The wider society is structured through social institutions that represent a special form of social action. Social institutions serve to satisfy constant socio-psychological impulses by regulating their manifestation. Social institutions and „institutional social acts“ are formed through constant repetition because that is how they gain their stability. However, through individual creativity, these institutions can take on a new look and form. In such cases, the "I" bypasses the imperatives set by the "me" and that is how new social objects are formed. Social institutions are necessary for the formation of society because, without them, society would be just a collection of disorganized masses of people. Institutions differ in the size of "social participation" in them. Some social institutions have large participation, that is, a large number of members of society, or all members, participate in them. On the other hand, in some institutions, only a small number of members of society participate. Institutions with the highest social participation emerged in the earliest periods of social evolution, while institutions with the lowest participation emerged at the latest. There are six basic social institutions, that emerged in the following evolutionary order: 1) language, 2) family, 3) economy, 4) religion, 5) polity, and 6) science.

                                               Language

Mead considered language to be the most important social institution. Language enabled the development of „human sociality“ and was the basis for the emergence of all other institutions. Verbal communication enabled the acceleration of social evolution in a period in which cooperation was becoming increasingly important for the survival and progress of society. Language enables people to develop „reflexive selves“, to talk to themselves, to put themselves in the position of other people and thus interpret their actions, as well as to take over the views of other people. Symbolic communication, which takes place through language or non-verbal communication, enables the construction of a social world (attitudes, roles, and institutions), but it also plays a key role in shaping the individual mind. In this sense, the two key elements of the self are its reflexive nature and its ability to develop symbolic forms of communication. Language and other forms of symbolic communication enable communication that is mediated by "significant actions", self-conscious acts by which we distinguish human from inhuman behavior.

                                           Socialization

There are two phases in the process of socialization of a child, through which his self is formed. In the earliest period of development, the child is in the "play" phase. During the "play", the child internalizes and imitates certain roles that are related to various social acts. In this phase, it takes on various social roles by taking on, during the play, the role of doctor, warrior, mother, father, or any other role. In the second phase, which Mead called a "game", the child internalizes the roles of all other people who participate in the game. In this way, the child develops a highly organized set of rules that shape different roles. When this process is completed, the child becomes able to see himself from the perspective of other actors. By assimilating the roles of others, the child takes on collective roles. The group that represents the source of socialization, i.e. the source for learning these collective roles, Mead calls "generalized others". An organized and united self is created by successfully taking over the views of the group to which it belongs, that is, generalized others. Both social acts and the self have elements of stability, but they also show great reflexivity and creativity.

Mead remained a relatively unknown author during his lifetime but gained enormous popularity after World War II, and his teachings influenced the emergence of several sociological approaches - symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, dramaturgical approach, and others.

Main works

Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist (1934);

The Philosophy of the Act (1938);

George Herbert Mead: On Social Psychology (1956);

The Philosophy of the Present (1959).