Description:
This article draws attention to unnoticed aspects of Mead’s social pragmatism. I argue that in his social pragmatism, put in modern social scientific terms, there is a tendency to transcend the dualism between agency and structure. Modern social scientists as Bourdieu, Giddens and Habermas all approach this dualism. Mead’s social pragmatism can be interpreted as an attempt to transcend the dualism by stressing the reciprocity between agency and structure. The article shows that his view is best described in the following way: social structures are both enabling and constraining in relation to the individual. In Mead’s description of taking the role of the other, especially the generalized other, and the relationship between ”I” and ”me” it clearly appears how the internalization of social structures is a necessary condition for agency. It also becomes evident how agency or creativity have a vital importance in relation to social structures, particularly for structural change.