G. H.

Mead on the nature of the self

A final piece of Mead's social theory is the mind as the individual importation of the social process.
As previously discussed, Mead presented the self and the mind in terms of a social process. As
gestures are taken in by the individual organism, the individual organism also takes in the collective
attitudes of others, in the form of gestures, and reacts accordingly with other organized attitudes.
This process is characterized by Mead as the "I" and the "Me". The "Me" is the social self and the "I"
is the response to the "Me." In other words, the "I" is the response of an individual to the attitudes
of others, while the "me" is the organized set of attitudes of others which an individual assumes.[21]
Mead develops William James' distinction between the "I" and the "me." The "me" is the
accumulated understanding of "the generalized other" i.e. how one thinks one's group perceives
oneself etc. The "I" is the individual's impulses. The "I" is self as subject; the "me" is self as object.
The "I" is the knower, the "me" is the known. The mind, or stream of thought, is the self-reflective
movements of the interaction between the "I" and the "me." These dynamics go beyond selfhood in
a narrow sense, and form the basis of a theory of human cognition. For Mead the thinking process is
the internalized dialogue between the "I" and the "me." Mead rooted the selfs perception and
meaning deeply and sociologically in "a common praxis of subjects" (Joas 1985: 166) found
specifically in social encounters. Understood as a combination of the 'I' and the 'me', Meads self
proves to be noticeably entwined within a sociological existence. For Mead, existence in community
comes before individual consciousness. First one must participate in the different social positions
within society and only subsequently can one use that experience to take the perspective of others
and thus become self-conscious.