Towards a social externalism

pragmatism and ethnomethodology

Louis Quéré

in: Pragmatism and the social sciences, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 3 (2), 2011.

Abstract

Ethnomethodologists have very often distorted G. H. Mead’s works, partly because they have read them through H. Blumer’s interpretations. Therefore they have undervalued many similarities existing between Mead’s and Garfinkel’s thoughts. Of course there are lots of ambiguities and problems in Mead’s writings, and ethomethodologists are right when they criticize them. But they are wrong when they misread Mead. This paper examines two points. The first one is one about which Mead has often been misread: his use of the internal-exernal distinction with regard to mind and action. This use doesn’t aim at maintaining a pychological interiority, but at grasping motricity as a kind of intentionality. The second point is about Garfinkel’s respecification of one of Mead’s main leitmotiv: “taking the attitude of the generalized other.” Garfinkel’s respecification is done in A. Schütz’s terms : the attitude of the generalized other is internal to the “attitude of everyday life,” and the generalized other takes the form of that which is normal, i.e. of that which is “in accordance with the mores.”

Cited authors

Mead George Herbert