from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviori st George Herbert Mead Table of Contents: Part I: The Point of View of Social Behaviorism 1.Social… [613277]

MIND, SELF AND SOCI ETY
from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviori st
George Herbert Mead
Table of Contents:
Part I: The Point of View of Social Behaviorism
1.Social Psychology and Behaviorism
2.The Behavioristic Significance of Attitude s
3.The Behavioristic Significance of Gestures
4.Rise of Parallelism in Psycho logy
5.Para llelism and the Ambiguity of "Consciousness"
6.The Program of Behaviorism
Part II: Mind
7.Wundt and the Concept of the Gesture
8.Imitati on and the Origin of Language
9.The Vocal Gesture and the Significant Symb ol
10.Thought, Communication and the Significant Symb ol
11.Meaning
12.Universality
13.The Nature of Reflective Intelligence
14.Behaviorism, Watsonism, and Reflection
15.Behaviorism and Psychological Para llelism
16.Mind and the Symbol
17.The Relation of Mind to Response and Environment
Part III: The Self
18.The Self and the Organism
19.The Background of the Genesis of the Self
20.Play, the Gam e, and the Gene ralized Other

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21.The Self and the Subjective
22.The "I" and the "Me"
23.Social Attitudes and the Physi cal World
24.Mind as the Individual Importation of the Social Process
25.The "I" and the "Me" as Phases of the Self
26.The Realizatio n of the Self in the Social Situation
27.The Contribution of the "Me" and the "I"
28.The Social Creativity of the Emergent Self
29.A Contrast of Individualistic and Social Theories of the Self
Part IV: Society
30.The Basis of Human Society: Man and the Insects
31.The Basis of Human Society: Man and the Verteb rates
32.Orga nism, Community, and Environment
33.The Social Foundations and Functions of Thought and Communication
34.The Community and the Institutio n
35.The Fusion of the "I" and the "Me" in Social Activities
36.Democracy and Universality in Society
37.Furth er Consideration of Religious and Economic Attitudes
38.The Nature of Sympathy
39.Conflict and Integr ation
40.The Functions of Personality and Reason in Social Organ ization
41.Obstacl es and Promises in Social Organization
42.Summary and Conclusion
Supplementary Essays
1.The Function of Imag ery in Conduct
2.The Biologic Individual
3.The Self and the Process of Reflection
4.Fragments on Ethics

I. SOCIAL PSYC HOLOGY AND BEHAVIORISM
SOCI AL psycho logy has, as a rule, dealt with various phases of social experience from the
psychol ogical standpoint of individual experience. The point of approach which I wish to suggest is
that of dealing with experience from the standpoint of society, at least from the standpoint of
communication as essential to the socia l order. Social psychol ogy, on this view, presupposes an
approach to experience from the standpoint of the individual, but undertakes to deter mine in
partic ular that which belongs to this experience because the individual himself belongs to a socia l
structure, a social order.
No very sharp line can be drawn between social psychology and individual psycho logy. Social
psychol ogy is especially interested in the effect which the social group has in the determination of
the experience and conduct of the individual member. If we abandon the conc eption of a
substant ive soul endowed with the self of the individual at birth, then we may regard the
deve lopment of the individual's self, and of his self-consc iousness within the field of his experience,
as the social psycho logist's special interest. There are, then, certain phases of psycho logy which
are intere sted in studying the relation of the individual organism to the social group to which it
belongs, and these phas es constitute socia l psychology as a branch of general psychol ogy. Thus, in
the study of the experience and behavior of the individual organism or self in its dependence upon
the social group to which it belongs, we find a definition of the field of social psycho logy.
While minds and selves are essentially socia l products, products or phenomena of the social side of
human experience, the physiol ogical mechanism unde rlying experience is far from irrelevant –
indeed is indispensable– to their genesis and existence; for individual experience and behavior is,
of course, physi ologically basic to socia l experience and behavior: the processes and mechanisms
of the latter (including those which are essential to the origin and existence of minds and selves) are
dependent physio logically upon the processe s and mechanisms of the former, and upon the social
functioning of these. Individ ual psychol ogy, neve rtheless, definitely abstracts certain factors from the
situati on with which social psycho logy deals more nearly in its concrete totality. We shall approach
this latter field from a behavioristic point of view.
The common psychological standpoint which is represented by behaviorism is found in John B.
Watson. The behaviorism which we shall make use of is more adequate than that of which Watson
makes use. Behaviorism in this wider sens e is simply an approach to the study of the experience of
the individual from the point of view of his cond uct, partic ularly, but not exclusively, the conduct as it
is observab le by others . Historically, behaviorism enter ed psycho logy throu gh the door of animal
psychol ogy. There it was found to be impossible to use what is termed introspection. One cann ot
appeal to the animal's introspection, but must study the animal in terms of external cond uct. Earlier
animal psychology added an inferential reference to consci ousness, and even undertook to find the
point in conduct at which consci ousness appears. This inference had perhaps, varying degrees of
probability, but it was one which could not be tested experimentally. It could be then simply dropped
as far as science was concerned. It was not necessary for the study of the cond uct of the individual
animal. Having taken that behavioristic standpoint for the lower animals, it was poss ible to carry it
over to the human animal.
There remained, however, the field of intros pection, of experiences which are private and belong to
the individual himself – experiences commonly called subjective. What was to be done with these?
John B. Watson's attitude was that of the Queen in Alice in Wonderland – "Off with their heads!"-
there were no such things. There was no imagery, and no consciousness. The field of so-called
intros pection Watson explained by the use of language symb ols.[1] Thes e symbols were not
nece ssarily uttered loudly enough to be heard by others, and often only involve d the muscles of the
throat witho ut leading to audible speech. That was all there was to thought. One thinks, but one
thinks in terms of language. In this way Watson explained the whole field of inner experience in
terms of externa l behavior. Instead of calling such beha vior subjective it was regarded as the field of
behavior that was accessible only to the individual himself. One could observe his own movements,
his own organs of articu lation, where other persons could not normally obse rve them. Certa in fields
were accessib le to the individual alone, but the observation was not different in kind; the difference
lay only in the degree of accessi bility of others to certain observations. One could be set up in a

room by himself and obse rve someth ing that no one else could observe. What a man observe d in
the room would be his own experience. Now, in this way someth ing goes on in the throat or the
body of the individual which no one else can observe. There are, of course, scientific instruments
that can be attached to the throat or the body to reveal the tendency toward move ment. There are
some movements that are easily observable and others which can be detected only by the individual
himself, but there is no qualitative difference in the two cases. It is simply recognized that the
apparatus of observation is one that has various degrees of success. That, in brief, is the point of
view of Watson's behavioristic psychology. It aims to observe cond uct as it takes place, and to
utilize that conduct to explain the experience of the individual without bringing in the observati on of
an inner experience, a consc iousness as such.
There was another attack on consciousness, that of William James in his 1904 article entitled,
"Does 'Consciousness' Exist?"[2] James pointed out that if a perso n is in a room the objects of the
interi or can be looked at from two standpoints. The furniture, for instan ce, may be cons idered from
the standpoint of the person who bought it and used it, from the point of view of its color values
which attach to it in the minds of the persons who observe them , its aesthetic value, its economic
value, its traditi onal value. All of these we can speak of in terms of psycho logy; they will be put into
relationship with the experience of the individual. One man puts one value upon it and another gives
it anoth er value. But the same objects can be regarded as physica l parts of a physical room. What
James insisted upon was that the two cases differ only in an arran gement of certain contents in
different series. The furniture, the walls, the house itself, belong to one historical series. We speak
of the house as having been built, of the furniture as having been made. We put the house and
furniture into another series when one comes in and assess es these objects from the point of view
of his own experience. He is talking about the same chair, but the chair is for him now a matter of
certai n contours, certain colors, taken from his own experience. It involves the experience of the
individual. Now one can take a cross-section of both of these two orders so that at a certa in point
there is a meeting of the two series. The statem ent in terms of consc iousness simply means the
recognition that the room lies not only in the historical serie s but also in the experience of the
individual. There has been of late in philosophy a grow ing recognition of the importance of Jame s's
insistence that a great deal has been placed in consc iousness that must be returne d to the so-called
objective world.[3]
Psychol ogy itself cannot very well be made a study of the field of consciousness alone; it is
nece ssarily a study of a more extensive field. It is, howeve r, that science which does make use of
intros pection, in the sense that it looks within the experience of the individual for phenomena not
dealt with in any other sciences —phenomena to which only the individual himself has experiential
access. That which belongs (experientially) to the individual qua individual, and is accessi ble to him
alone, is certainly included within the field of psychology, whatever else is or is not thus included.
This is our best clue in attempting to isolate the field of psychology. The psycho logical datum is best
defined, therefore, in terms of accessibility. That which is accessible, in the experience of the
individual, only to the individual himself, is peculiarly psycho logical.
I want to point out, however, that even when we come to the discus sion of such "inner" experience,
we can approach it from the point of view of the beha viorist, provid ed that we do not too narrow ly
conc eive this point of view. What one must insist upon is that objectively observable behavior finds
expression withi n the individual, not in the sense of being in another world, a subjective world, but in
the sense of being within his organism. Something of this behavior appears in what we may term
"attitudes," the beginnings of acts. Now, if we come back to such attitudes we find them giving rise
to all sorts of responses. The telesco pe in the hands of a novice is not a telesc ope in the sense that
it is to those on top of Mount Wilson. If we want to trace the responses of the astron omer, we have
to go back into his central nervous system, back to a whole series of neurons; and we find
someth ing there that answers to the exact way in which the astrono mer approaches the instru ment
under certain conditions. That is the beginning of the act; it is a part of the act. The external act
which we do observe is a part of the process which has started within; the values[4] which we say
the instrument has are values through the relati onship of the object to the person who has that sort
of attitude. If a person did not have that particular nervo us system, the instrument would be of no
value. It would not be a telesco pe.
In both versio ns of behaviorism certain characteristics which things have and certain experiences
which individuals have can be stated as occurr ences inside of an act.[5] But part of the act lies
within the organism and only comes to expression later; it is that side of behavior which I think

Watson has pass ed over. There is a field within the act itself which is not external, but which
belongs to the act, and there are characteristics of that inner organic conduct which do reveal
them selves in our own attitudes, especially those connected with speech. Now, if our beha vioristic
point of view takes these attitudes into acco unt we find that it can very well cover the field of
psychol ogy. In any case, this approach is one of particular importance because it is able to deal with
the field of communication in a way which neither Watson nor the introspectionist can do. We want
to approach language not from the standpoint of inner meanings to be expresse d, but in its larger
conte xt of cooperation in the group taking place by means of signals and gesture s.[6] Meaning
appears within that proce ss. Our behaviorism is a social behaviorism.
Social psychology studies the activity or behavior of the individual as it lies withi n the socia l process;
the behavior of an individual can be understood only in terms of the behavior of the whole socia l
group of which he is a member, since his individual acts are involved in larger, social acts which go
beyo nd himself and which implicate the other members of that group.
We are not, in social psychol ogy, building up the behavior of the social group in terms of the
behavior of the sepa rate individuals composing it; rather, we are starting out with a Oven social
whole of comp lex group activity, into which we analyze (as elements) the behavior of each of the
sepa rate individuals composing it. We attempt, that is, to explain the conduct of the individual in
terms of the orga nized conduct of the social group, rather than to acco unt for the organized cond uct
of the social group in terms of the conduct of the separate individuals belonging to it. For socia l
psychol ogy, the whole (soci ety) is prior to the part (the individual), not the part to the whole; and the
part is explained in terms of the whole, not the whole in terms of the part or parts. The socia l act7 is
not explained by building it up out of stimulus plus respo nse; it must be taken as a dynamic whole-
as someth ing going on-no part of which can be consi dered or understood by itself-a complex
organic proce ss implied by each individual stimulus and response involved in it.
In social psychology we get at the social process from the inside as well as from the outsid e. Social
psychol ogy is behavioristic in the sense of startin g off with an observable activit y-the dynamic, on-
going socia l process, and the social acts which are its component elements-to be studie d and
analyzed scientifically. But it is not behavioristic in the sense of ignoring the inner experience of the
individual-the inner phase of that process or activity. On the contrary, it is particularly concerned with
the rise of such experience within the process as a whole. It simply works from the outside to the
inside instead of from the inside to the outside, so to spea k, in its endeavor to determine how such
experience does arise within the proce ss. The act, then, and not the tract, is the fundamental datu m
in both social and individual psych ology when behavioristically conc eived, and it has both an inner
and an outer phase, an internal and an exter nal aspect.
These general remarks have had to do with our point of approach. It is behavioristic, but unlike
Watsonian behaviorism it reco gnizes the parts of the act which do not come to external observation,
and it emphasizes the act of the human individual in its natural socia l situati on.
Endnotes
1.[Espec ially in Behavior, an Introduct ion to Comp arative Psychology, chap. X; Psychology
from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, chap. ix; Behaviorism, chap s. x, xi.]
2.[Publ ished in the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method. Reprinted in
Essays in Radical Empiricism.]
3.Modern philosophical realism has helped to free psycholo gy from a concern with a
philosophy of mental states (1924).
4.Value: the future character of the object in so far as it determines your action to it (1924).
5.An act is an impulse that m aintains the life-process by the selection of certa in sorts of stimuli
it needs. Thus, the organism creates its environment. The stimulus is the occasion for the
expression of the impulse.
Stimuli are means, tendency is the real thing. Intelligence is the selectio n of stimuli that will
set free and maintain life and aid in rebuilding it (1927).

The purpose need not be "in view," but the statem ent of the act includes the goal to which
the act moves. This is a natural teleology, in harmony with a mechanical statem ent (1925).
6.The study of the process of language or speec h-its origins and development-is a branch of
socia l psycho logy, beca use it can be understood only in terms of the social processes of
behavior within a group of interacting organisms; because it is one of the activities of such a
group. The philologist, however, has often taken the view of the prisoner in a cell. The
priso ner knows that others are in a like position and he wants to get in communication with
them. So he sets about some method of communication, some arbitrary affair, perhaps,
such as tapping on the wall. Now, each of us, on this view, is shut up in his own cell of
consc iousness, and knowing that there are other people so shut up, develops ways to set up
communication with them.
7."A social act may be defined as one in which the occasion or stimulus which sets free an
impulse is found in the chara cter or conduct of a living form that belongs to the proper
envir onment of the living form whose impulse it is. I wish, however, to restrict the social act
to the claw of acts which involve the cooperation of more than one individual, and whos e
object as defined by the act, in the sense of Bergson, is a socia l object. I mean by a socia l
object one that answ ers to all the parts of the complex act, though these parts are found in
the conduct of different individuals. The objective of the acts is then found in the life-process
of the group, not in those of the separ ate individuals alone." [From "The Genes is of the Self
and Social Control," International Journal of Ethics, XXXV (1925), 263-64.
2. THE BEHAV IORISTIC SIGNIFIC ANCE OF ATTITUD ES
The problem that prese nts itself as cruci al for human psychology concerns the field that is opened
up by intros pection; this field apparently could not be dealt with by a purely objective psycho logy
which only studied conduct as it takes place for the observ er. In order that this field could be brought
within the range of objective psychol ogy, the behaviorist, such as Watson, did what he could to cut
down the field itself, to deny certain phenomena supposed to lie only in that field, such as
"consci ousness as distinct from conduct witho ut consciousness. The animal psycho logist studied
cond uct without taking up the question as to whether it was conscious cond uct or not.[1] But when
we reach the field of human conduct we are in fact able to distinguish reflexes which take place
witho ut consci ousness. There seem s, then, to be a field which the behavioristic psychology cannot
reach. The Watsonian behaviorist simply did what he could to minimize this difference.
The field of invest igation of the behaviorist has been quite largely that of the young infant, where the
meth ods employed are just the methods of animal psycho logy. He has endeavored to find out what
the processes of behavior are, and to see how the activities of the infant may be used to explain the
activities of the adult. It is here that the psycho logist brings in the conditioned reflexes. He shows
that by a mere associ ation of certain stimuli he can get results which would not follow from these
seco ndary stimuli alone. This conditioning of reflexes can be carried over into other fields, such as
those of terror on the part of an infant. He can be made to fear something by associating the object
with others producing terror. The same process can be used for explaining more elaborate cond uct
in which we associate elements with certai n events which are not directly connected with them, and
by elaborating this conditioning we can, it is believed, explain the more extended proce sses of
reasoning and inference. In this way a method which belongs to ob jective psycho logy is carried over
into the field which is dealt with ordinarily in terms of introsp ection. That is, instea d of saying we
have certain ideas when we have certain experiences, and that these ideas imply something else,
we say that a certain experience has taken place at the same time that the first expe rience has
taken place, so that now this seco ndary experience arouses the response which belongs to the
primary experience.
There remain contents, such as those of imagery, which are more resistant to such analysis. What
shall we say of responses that do not answer to any given experience? We can say, of course , that
they are the results of past e xperiences. But take the contents themselves, the actual visual imagery
that one has: it has outline; it has color; it has values; and other characters which are isolated with

more difficulty. Such experience is one which plays a part, and a very large part, in our perception,
our conduct; and yet it is an experience which can be revealed only by intros pection. The
behaviorist has to make a detour about this type of experience if he is going to stick to the
Watsonian type of behavioristic psycho logy.
Such a behaviorist desires to analyze the act, whether individual or social, without any specific
reference to consciousness whatever and without any attempt to locate it either within the field of
organic behavior or within the larger field of reality in general. He wishes, in short, to deny its
existence as such altogether. Watson insists that objectively observa ble behavior completely and
exclusively constitutes the field of scientific psychol ogy, individual and social. He pushes aside as
erroneous the idea of "mind" or "consciousness," and attempts to reduce all "mental" phenomena to
cond itioned reflexes and similar physiological mechanisms-in short, to purely behavioristic terms.
This attempt, of cours e, is misguided and unsuccessful, for the existence as such of mind or
consc iousness, in some sens e or other, must be admitted-the denial of it leads inevita bly to obvious
absu rdities. But thoug h it is impossible to reduce mind or consci ousness to purely behavioristic
terms- in the sense of thus explaining it away and denying its existe nce as such entirely-yet it is not
impossible to explain it in these terms , and to do so without explaining it away, or denying its
existence as such, in the least. Watson apparently assumes that to deny the existence of mind or
consc iousness as a psychical stuff, substance, or entity is to deny its existence altog ether, and that
a natur alistic or behav ioristic accou nt of it as such is out of the question. But, on the contr ary, we
may deny its existence as a psychic al entity without denying its ex istence in som e other sense at all;
and if we then conc eive it functionally, and as a natur al rather than a transce ndental phenomenon, it
beco mes possible to deal with it in beha vioristic terms. In short, it is not possible to deny the
existence of mind or consc iousness or mental phenomena, nor is it desirable to do so; but it is
possi ble to accou nt for them or deal with them in behavioristic terms which are preci sely similar to
those which Watson employs in dealing with non-mental psychol ogical phenomena (phenomena
which, according to his definition of the field of psycho logy, are all the psychological phenomena
there are). Menta l behavior is not reducible to non-mental behavior. But mental behavior or
phenomena can be explained in terms of non-mental behavior or phenomena, as arising out of, and
as result ing from complications in, the latter.
If we are going to use behavioristic psych ology to explain conscious behavior we have to be much
more thoro ughgoing in our statem ent of the act than Watson was. We have to take into acco unt not
merely the comp lete or social act, but what goes on in the central nervo us system as the beginning
of the individual's act and as the organizatio n of the act. Of course, that takes us beyond the field of
our direct observation. It takes us beyon d that field beca use we cannot get at the process itself. It is
a field that is more or less shut off, seemingly because of the difficulty of the country itself that has
to be investigated. The central nervo us system is only partly explored. Present results, however,
sugg est the organizat ion of the act in terms of attitudes. There is an organization of the variou s parts
of the nervous system that are going to be respo nsible for acts, an organization which represents
not only that which is immediately taking place, but also the later stages that are to take place. If one
approaches a distant object he approaches it with reference to what he is going to do when he
arrives there. If one is approaching a hammer he is muscularly all ready to seize the handle of the
hammer. The later stages of the act are present in the early stages-not simply in the sens e that they
are all ready to go off, but in the sens e that they serve to control the process itself. They determine
how we are going to approach the object, and the steps in our early manipulation of it. We can
recognize, then, , that the innervation of certain groups of cells in the central nervous system can
already initiate in advance the later stages of the act. The act as a whole can be there determining
the proce ss.
We can also recognize in such a general attitude toward an object an attitude that represents
alternative responses, such as are involved when we talk about our ideas of an object. A person
who is familiar with a horse approaches it as one who is going to ride it. He move s toward the
proper side and is ready to swing himself into the saddle. His approach determines the success of
the whole proce ss. But the horse is not simply some thing that must be ridden. It is an animal that
must eat, that belongs to somebody. It has certain economic values. The individual is ready to do a
whole serie s of things with reference to the horse, and that readiness is involve d in any one of the
many phas es of the various acts. It is a horse that he is going to mount; it is a biological animal; it is
an economic animal. Those characters are involved in the ideas of a horse. If we seek this ideal
character of a horse in the central nervous system we would have to find it in all those different parts
of the initiated acts. One would have to think of each as associated with the other process es in

which he uses the horse, so that no matter what the spec ific act is, there is a readiness to act in
these different ways with reference to the horse. We can find in that sens e in the beginning of the
act just those chara cters which we assig n to "horse" as an idea, or if you like, as a concept.
If we are going to look for this idea in a central nervou s system we have to look for it in the neurons,
partic ularly in the connecti on between the neurons. There are whole sets of connections there which
are of such a character that we are able to act in a number of ways, and these possi ble actions have
their effect on the way in which we do act. For example, if the horse belongs to the rider, the rider
acts in a different way than if it belongs to someone else. These other processes involve d determine
the immediate actio n itself and particularly the later stages of the act, so that the temporal
organization of the act may be present in the immediate process. We do not know how that
temp oral organization takes place in the central nervous system. In some sense these later
processes which are going to take place, and are in some sense started, are worked into the
immediate process. A behavioristic treatment, if it is made broad enough, if it makes use of the
almost indefinite complexities existing in the nervous system, can adjust itself to many fields which
were supp osed to be confined to an introspective attack. Of cours e, a great deal of this must be
hypoth etica l. We learn more day by day of what the connections are, but they are largely
hypoth etica l. However, they can at least be stated in a beha vioristic form. We can, theref ore, in
principle, state behavioristically what we mean by an idea.
Endnotes
1.Comparative psycho logy freed psycho logy in general from being confined solely to the field
of the central nervou s system, which, throug h the physiological psychologists, had taken the
place of consci ousness as such, as the field of psycho logical investigati on. It thus enabled
psychol ogy in general to cons ider the act as a whole, and as including or taking place within
the entire social process of behavior. In other words, comparative psychology – and
behaviorism as its outgr owth – has extended the field of general psycho logy beyond the
centra l nervo us system of the individual organism alone, and has cause d psychologists to
consi der the individual act as a part of the larger socia l whole to which it in fact belongs, and
from which, in a definite sens e, it gets its meaning-, though they do not, of cours e, lose
interest thereby in the central nervou s system and the physiological processes going on in it.
3. THE BEHAV IORISTIC SIGNIFIC ANCE OF GES TURES
The behaviorist of the Watsonian type has been prone to carry his principle of conditioning over into
the field of language. By a conditioning of reflexes the horse has beco me assoc iated with the word
"horse." and this in turn releases the set of respo nses. We use the word, and the response may be
that of mounting, buying, selling or trading. We are ready to do all these different things. This
statem ent, however, lacks the recognition that these different processes which the behaviorist says
are identified with the word "horse" must be work ed into the act itself, or the group of acts, which
gather about the horse. They go to make up that object in our experience, and the function of the
word is a functi on which has its place in that organizatio n; but it is not, however, the whole proce ss.
We find that same sort of organization seemingly extended in the conduct of animals lower than
man; those processes which go to make up our objects must be prese nt in the animals themselves
who have not the use of language. It is, of course, the great value, or one of the great values, of
language that it does give us control over this organization of the act. That is a point we will have to
consi der in detail later, but it is important to recognize that that to which the word refers is something
that can lie in the experience of the individual without the use of language itself. Language does pick
out and organize the content in experience. It is implemented for that purpose.
Language is part of socia l behavior. [1] There is an indefinite number of signs or symbols which
may serve the purpose of what we term "language." We are reading the meaning of the conduct of
other people whe n, perhaps, they are not aware of it. There is som ething that reveals to us what the
purpose is-just the glance of an eye, the attitude of the body which leads to the response. The
communication set up in this way betwe en individuals may be very perfect. Conversation in gestures

may be carried on which cannot be transl ated into articu late speech. This is also true of the lower
animals. Dogs approaching each other in hosti le attitude carry on such a language of gestures.
They walk around each other, growling and snapping, and waiting for the opportunity to attack. Here
is a process out of which language might arise, that is, a certain attitude of one individual that calls
out a response in the other, which in turn calls out a different approach and a different response,
and so on indefinitely. In fact, as we shall see, language does arise in just such a process as that.
We are too prone, however, to approach language as the philologist does, from the standpoint of
the symbol that is used.[2] We analyze that symbol and find out what is the intent in the mind of the
individual in using that symbol, and then attempt to discov er wheth er this symbol calls out this intent
in the mind of the other. We assume that there are sets of ideas in persons' minds and that these
individuals make use of certa in arbitrary symbols which answer to the intent which the individuals
had. But if we are going to broaden the conc ept of language in the sens e I have spok en of, so that it
takes in the underlying attitudes, we can see that the so-called intent, the idea we are talking about,
is one that is involved in the gesture or attitudes which we are using. The offering of a chair to a
person who comes into the room is in itself a courteous act. We do not have to assum e that a
person says to himself that this person wants a chair. The offering of a chair by a person of good
manners is someth ing which is almost instinctive. This is the very attitude of the individual. From the
point of view of the observer it is a gesture. Such early stages of social acts precede the symbol
proper, and deliberate communication.
One of the important documents in the history of modern psycho logy, particularly for the psychology
of language, is Darwin's Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Here Darwin carried over
his theory of evoluti on into the field of what we call "consci ous experience." What Darwin did was to
show that there was a whole series of acts or beginnings of acts which called out certai n responses
that do express emotions. If one animal attacks another, or is on the point of attacking, or of taking
the bone of another dog, that action calls out violent respo nses which express the anger of the
seco nd dog. There we have a set of attitudes which express the emotional attitude of dogs; and we
can carry this analysis into the human expression of emotion.
The part of our organism that most vividly and readily expresses the emotions is the face, and
Darwin studied the face from this point of view. He took, naturally, the actor, the man whose
business it is to express the emotions by the movements of the count enance, and studied the
muscles themselves; and in studying them he undertook to show what the value of these changes of
the face might be in the actual act. We speak of such expressions as those of anger, and note the
way in which the blood may suffuse the face at one stage and then leave it at another. Darwin
studied the blood flow in fear and in terror. In these emotions one can find chan ges taking place in
the blood flow itself. These changes have their value. They represent, of cours e, changes in the
circul ation of blood in the acts. These actions are generally action s which are rapid and can only
take place if the blood is flowing rapidly. There must be a change in the rhythm of circulation and
this generally registers itself in the countenance.
Many of our acts of hosti lity exhibit themselves in attitudes of the face similar to animals which
attack with their teeth. The attitude, or in a more generalized term, the gesture, has been preserved
after the value of the act has disappeared. The title of Darw in's work indicates his point of approach.
He was dealing with these gestures, these attitudes, as expressive of emotions and assu ming at the
time that the gestur e has this function of expressing the emotions. That attitude has been preserved,
on this view, after the value of the act has disappeared. This gesture seems to remain for the
purpose of expressing emotions. One naturally assumed there an attitude in the experience of
animals which answ ers in some sens e to those of the human animal. One could apply the doctrin e
of the survi val of the fittest here also. The implication in this particu lar case was that these gestur es
or attitude s had lost the value which they had in the original acts, and yet had survived. The
indication was that they had survived because they served certain valuable functions, and the
sugg estion was that this was the expression of the emotions. That attitude on Darwin's part is
reflected in the work of other psychol ogists, men who were interested , as Darwin was, in the study
of the act, in the information that is conveyed by one individual to another by his attitude. They
assu me that these acts had a reaso n for existence beca use they expressed something in the mind
of the individual. It is an approach like that of the philologist. They assu me that language existed for
the purpose of conveyi ng certa in ideas, certain feelings.
If one considers, he realizes that this is a false approach. It is quite impossible to assume that
animals do undertake to express their emotions. They certainly do not undertake to express them

for the benefit of other animals. The most that can be said is that the "expressions" did set free a
certai n emotion in the individual, an escap e valve, so to speak, an emotional attitude which the
animal needed, in some sense, to get rid of. They certainly could not exist in these lower animals as
means of expressing emotions; we cannot approach them from the point of view of expressing a
conte nt in the mind of the individual. We can, of course, see how, for the actor, they may beco me
definitely a language. An actor, for example, may undertake to express his rage, and he may do it
by an expression of the countenance, and so convey to the audience the emotion he intended.
However, he is not expressing his own emotion but simply conveying to the audience the evidence
of anger, and if he is success ful he may do it more effectively, as far as the audience is conc erned,
than a person who is in reality angered. There we have these gestures serving the purpose of
expression of the emotions, but we cannot conceive that they arose as such a language in order to
express emotion. Language, then, has to be studied from the point of view of the gestu ral type of
cond uct within which it existed without being as such a definite language. And we have to see how
the communicative function could have arise n out of that prior sort of conduct.
The psycho logy of Darwin assumed that emotion was a psychol ogical state, a state of
consc iousness, and that this state could not itself be formulated in terms of the attitud e or the
behavior of the form. It was assumed that the emotion is there and that certai n move ments might
give evidence of it. The evidence would be receiv ed and acted upon by other forms that were
fashioned like itself. That is, it presupposed the consc ious state over against the biological
organism. The conscious state was that which was to be expresse d in the gesture or the attitude. It
was to be expressed in behavior and to be recognized in some fashion as existent in the
consc iousness of the other form through this medium of expression. Such was the general
psychol ogical attitude which Darwin accepted.
Contrary to Darw in, however, we find no evidence for the prior existence of consci ousness as
someth ing which brings about behavior on the part of one organism that is of such a sort as to call
forth an adjustive response on the part of another organism, witho ut itself being dependent on such
behavior. We are rather forced to concl ude that consc iousness is an emergent from such behavior;
that so far from being a precondition of the social act, the social act is the precondition of it. The
mechanism of the socia l act can be traced out without introducing into it the conception of
consc iousness as a separable element within that act; hence the social act, in its more elementary
stages or forms, is possible without, or apart from, some form of consciousness.
Endnotes
1.What is the basic mechanism wher eby the socia l process goes on? It is the mechanism of
gesture, which makes possi ble the appropriate respo nses to one another's behavior of the
different individual organisms involved in the socia l process. Within any given socia l act, an
adjustment is effected, by means of gestures, of the actions of one organism involved to the
actio ns of another; the gestures are movements of the first organism which act as specific
stimuli calling forth the (socially) appropriate responses of the secon d organism. The field of
the operation of gestur es is the field within which the rise and development of human
intelligence has taken place through the process of the symbolization of experience which
gesture –especially vocal gestures-have made possible. The specializatio n of the human
animal within this field of the gesture has been responsible, ultimately, for the origin and
growth of present human society and knowledge, with all the control over nature and over
the human envir onment which science makes possi ble.
2.["The Relations Of Psychol ogy and Philology," Psychological Bulletin, I (1904), 375 ff.]
4. RISE OF PARALLELISM IN PSYCHOLOGY
The psycho logy which stresses parallelism has to be distinguished from the psycho logy which
regards certain states of consci ousness as existing in the mind of the individual, and succee ding
each other in accordance with their own laws of association. The whole doctrin e of the psycho logy

which follows Hume was predominantly associationistic. Given certain states of consc iousness they
were supposed to be held together by other similar elements. Among these elements were those of
pleasure and pain. Connected with this atomism of assoc iated conscious states was a psycho logy
of action grounded on the association of pleasure and pain with certain other sensations and
experiences. The doctrine of association was the dominant psychological doctri ne; it dealt with static
rather than dynam ic experience.
The push ing of the psychological side further and furthe r into the central nervous system revealed
that there were whole series of experiences which might be called sens ations and yet were very
different from those which could be regarded as static, such as sound, odor, taste, and color.
Assoc iation belonged to this static world. It was increasingly recog nized that there was a large part
of our expe rience which was dyna mic.[1] The form of actual doing was present in some of the
sens ations which answer ed to the innervation of sens ory nerves. There was also the study of those
tracts which went down to the viscera, and these certainly were aligned with the emotional
experiences. The whole process of the circul ation of the blood had been opened up, and the action
which involved the sudden chan ge of the circulation of the blood. Fear, hostility, anger, which called
for sudden movement, or terror, which deprived the individual of the ability to move, reflected
them selves in the visceral conditions; and also had their sens ory aspe cts connected with the central
nervou s system. There was, then, a type of experience which did not fall into place in a static world.
Wilhelm Wundt approached his problem from the standpoint of this sort of physio logy which offered
a clew by means of which one could follow out these vario us dynamic experiences into the
mechanism of the organism itself.
The treatment which had been given to the central nervous system and its motor and sensory
nerves had been that of bringing a nerve curre nt to a central nervou s system which was then in turn
responsible for a sensat ion that happened in "consciousness." To get a complete statem ent of what
we call the act one had to follow up the sens ory side and then follow out the motor results that took
place because of what happened in Consciousness. The physiology to which I have referred in a
certai n sens e sepa rated itself from the field of consci ousness. It was difficult to carry over such a
mechanism as this into the lower animals. That, at least, took the psychol ogist out of the field of
animal experience. Darw in regarded the animal as that out of whic h human conduct evolves, as well
as the human form, and if this is true then it must be that in some sens e consciousness evolves.
The resulting approach is from the point of view of conduct itself, and here the principle of
parallelism is brought in. What takes place in consci ousness runs parallel with what takes place in
the centra l nervous system. It is necessa ry to study the conte nt of the form as physi ological and also
as psycho logical. The center of consciousness, within which is registered that which affects the
sens ory nerves and out of which springs the conduct due to sens ation and memory images, is to be
taken out of the physiological mechanism; and yet one must find a parallel in what takes place in the
nervou s system for what the physiologist had placed in consciousness as such. What I have
referred to in the matter of the emotions seemed to present a physiological counterpart for what
takes place in consc iousness, a field that seemed to belong peculiarly to the mental side of life.
Hate, love, anger-these are seemingly states of mind. How could they be stated in physi ological
terms ? The study of the acts them selves from an evolutionary standpoint, and also the study of the
chan ges that take place in the organism itself when it is under the influence of what we call an
emotion, present analogues to these emotional states. One could find someth ing there that
definitely answe red to the emotions.
The further development of this lead occurr ed in James's theory of the emotions. Because we run
away when we are afraid, and strike when we are angry, we can find something in the physio logical
organism that answers to fear and to anger. It is an attitude in the organism which answe rs to these
emotional states, especially these viscera l conditions to which I have referred, and the sudden
chan ges in the circu lation which are found associ ated with emotions. It becomes possible to relate
the psychi cal cond itions with physiological ones. The result was that one could make a much more
complete statement of the conduct of the individual in physi ological terms, could find a parallel for
that which is stated in terms of consciousness in the mechanism of the body and in the operation of
that mechanism. Such a psychol ogy was called, naturally enough, a physiological psycho logy. It
was a stateme nt in terms of what went on in the organism of the content with which the psychol ogist
had been dealing. What is there in the act of the animal which answ ers to these different so-called
psychol ogical categories? What is there that answe rs to the sensations, to the motor responses?
When these questions were answered physio logically, they, of course, involved mechanisms

located inside of the act, for all that takes place in the body is action. It may be delayed action, but
there is nothing there that is itself simply a state, a physio logical state that coul d be compared with a
static state. We come then to the sensations and undertake to state them in terms of complete
reflex action. We deal with the sens ation from the stand point of the stimulus, and when we come to
deal with the various emotional states we deal with them in terms of the preparation for action and
the act itself as it is going on.[2] That is, it beco mes now essential to relate a set of psychi cal states
with the different phases of the act. Para llelism, then, is an attempt to find analogues between
actio n and experienced contents.
The inevitab le result of this analysis was to carry psycho logy from a static to a dynamic form. It was
not simply a question of relating what was found in introspection with what is found in the organism;
it became a question of relating together those things which were found in introsp ection in the
dyna mic way in which the physiological elements were related to the life of the organism.
Psychol ogy became in turn assoc iational, motor, functional, and finally behavioristic.
The historical transformation of psychol ogy was a process which took place gradually.
Consciousness was somet hing which could not be simply dispensed with. In early psychology there
was a crude attempt to account for consciousness as a certain secretion in the brain, but this was
only a ridiculous phase of the transf ormation. Consciousness was something that was there, but it
was someth ing that could be brought into closer and closer relationship with what went on in the
body. What went on there had a certain definite order. Everything that took place in the body was
part of an act. The earlier conc eption of the central nervou s system assu med that one could locate
certai n faculties of the mind in certain parts of the brain, but a study of the centr al nervous system
did not revea l any such correl ation. It became evident that there were nothing but paths in the
centra l nervous system.[3] The cells of the brain were seen to be parts of the nervou s paths
provi ded with material for carrying on the system, but nothing was found there to carry on the
preservatio n of an idea as such. There was nothing in the centra l nervo us system which would
enable one to locate a tract given over to abstractions. There was a time when the frontal lobe was
regarded as the locus of thought-process es -but the frontal lobe also represents nothi ng but paths.
The paths make very com plicated conduct poss ible, they complicate the act enormously through the
mechanism of the brain; but they do not set up any structure whic h functionally answe rs to ideas. So
the study of consc iousness from the standpoint of the organism inevitably led men to look at
consc iousness itself from the point of view of actio n.
What, for example, is our experience that answers to clenching of the fist? Physiological psychology
followed the action out through the nerves that came from the muscles of the arm and hand. The
experience of the act would then be the sensation of what was going on; in consci ousness as such
there is an awareness of what the organ was doing; there is a parallelism betwe en what goes on in
the organ and what takes place in consciousness. This parallelism is, of course, not a complete
parallelism. There seems to be consci ousness corresp onding only to the sensory nerves.[4] We are
consc ious of some thing s and not consci ous of others, and attention seems to play a very great part
in determining which is the case. The parallelism which we carry over does not seem to be
complete, but one which occurs only at various points. The thing that is intere sting here is that it is
the organism that now provi des the clew for the analysis. Only portions of the respo nse appear in
consc iousness as such. The organism has assu med the primary place. Experimental psychology
started off from what it could get hold of in the physio logical system, and then undertook to find out
what in consciousness seemed to answer to it. The scien tist felt that he had the same assurance
that the physio logist had in identifying these facts in the nervous system, and given those facts he
could look into consc iousness. It was simpler to start off with the neurosis and then register what
was found in the psycho sis. Thus, the acce ptance of some sort of a parallelism between the
conte nts of consciousness and the physiological processes of the central nervous system led to a
conc eption of those contents dynamically, in terms of acts , instead of statical ly, in terms of state s. In
this way the conte nts of consciousness were approached from below (that is, naturalistically) rather
than from above (that is, transcendentally), by a study of the physiological processe s of the central
nervou s system to determ ine what in the mind answers to the activities of the physiological
organism.
There was a question as to the directive centers for unified action. We are apt to think of the central
nervou s system from the point of view of the telephone board, with calls coming in and respo nses
going out. Certa in centers come to be conce ived as principal centers. If you go back to the base of
the brain, to that portion which is the essen ce of the central nervo us system of lower forms, you do

find an organizatio n there which contr ols in its activity other activities; but when you come to conduct
in the human form, you fail to find any such system in which there is a single directive center or
group of centers. One can see that the vario us processes which are involved in running away from
danger can be processes which are so interre lated with other activities that the contr ol comes in the
organization. One sees the tree as a possible place of escape if a bull is after him; and in general,
one sees things which will enable the ongoing activity to be carried out. A varying group of centers
may be the determining factor in the whole activity of the individual. That is the concept which has
also been carrie d over into the field of growth. Certain parts of the embryo start g rowing, and control
the action of growth until some other process comes into control. In the corte x, that organ which in
some sense answers to human intelligence, we fail to find any exclusive and unvaryi ng control, that
is, any evidence of it in the structure of the form itself. In some way we can assum e that the cortex
acts as a whole, but we cann ot come back to certain centers and say that this is where the mind is
lodged in thinking and in action. There are an indefinite number of cells connected with each other,
and their innervation in some sense leads to a unitary action, but what that unity is in terms of the
centra l nervous system it is almost impossible to state. All the different parts of the cortex seem to
be involved in everything that happens. All the stimuli that reach the brain are reflected into all parts
of the brain, and yet we do get a unitary action. There remains, then, a problem which is by no
means definitely solved: the unity of the actio n of the central nervous system. Wundt undertook to
find certain centers which would be responsible for this sort of unity, but there is nothing in the
structure of the brain itself which isolated any parts of the brain as those which direct conduct as a
whole. The unity is a unity of integration, though just how this integration takes place in detai l we
cann ot say.
What I wanted to bring out is that the approach to psychological theory from the standpoint of the
organism must inevitably be throu gh an emphasis upon conduct, upon the dynamic rather than the
static. It is, of course, possible to work in the other direction, that is, to look at expe rience from the
point of view of the psycho logist and to draw conclusions as to what must go on in the central
nervou s system. It is possible to recognize, for example, that we are not simply at the mercy of the
different stimuli that play in the central nervo us system-the natura l view of the physiologist. We can
see these organs adjust themselves to different types of stimuli. When air waves come in they affect
the particular organs of the ear; when tastes and odors come in the stimuli get to tracts in the prop er
organs that respond. There may seem to be merely a respo nse of the organism to the stimuli. This
position is taken over into the psychology of Spencer, who accepted the Darw inian principle of
evolution. The influence of enviro nment is exercised over the form, and the adaptation of the form
results from the influences of the environment on it. Spencer conc eived of the central nervous
system as being conti nually played upon by stimuli which set up certain paths, so that it was the
envir onment which was fashioning the form.
The phenomena of attention, however, give a different picture of conduct. The human animal is an
attentive animal, and his attention may be given to stimuli that are relatively faint. One can pick out
soun ds at a distance. Our whole intelligent proce ss seems to lie in the attentio n which is sele ctive of
certai n types of stimuli.[5] Other stimuli which are bombarding the system are in some fashion
shunt ed off. We give our attentio n to one particular thing. Not only do we open the door to certai n
stimuli and close it to others, but our attention is an organizing proce ss as well as a selective
process. When giving attentio n to what we are going to do we are picking out the whole group of
stimuli which repres ent success ive activity. Our attention enables us to organize the field in which
we are going to act. Here we have the organism as acting and determining its envir onment. It is not
simply a set of pass ive senses played upon by the stimuli that come from without. The organism
goes out and determines what it is going to respo nd to, and organizes that world. One organism
picks out one thing and another picks out a different one, since it is going to act in a different way.
Such is an approach to what goes on in the centra l nervo us system which comes to the physiologist
from the psychologist.
The physiology of attention is a field which is still. a dark continent. The organism itself fits itself to
certai n types of conduct, and this is of cons iderable importance in determ ining what the animal will
do. There also lie back in the organism responses, such as those of escape from danger, that
represent a peculiar sensitivity. A soun d in some other direction would not have the same effect.
The eye is very sensit ive to motions that lie outside of the field of centra l vision, even though this
area of the retina of the eye is not so sens itive to form and distinctions of color. You look for a book
in a library and you carry a sort of mental image of the back of the book; you render yourself
sensit ive to a certain image of a friend you are going to meet. We can sens itize ourselves to certai n

types of stimuli and we can build up the sort of action we are going to take. In a chain set of
responses the form carries out one instinctive respo nse and then finds itself in the presence of
another stimulus, and so forth; but as intelligent beings we build up such organized reactions
ourselves. The field of attention is one in which there must be a mechanism in which we can
organize the different stimuli with reference to others so that certai n responses can take place. The
descr iption of this is someth ing we can reach through a study of our own conduct, and at present
that is the most that we can say.
Para llelism in psychol ogy was very largely under the control of the study of the centra l nervous
system, and that led on inevitably to functional, motor, voluntaristic, and finally behav ioristic
psychol ogy. The more one could state of the processes of the individual in terms of the central
nervou s system, the more one would use the pattern which one found in the centra l nervous system
to interpret conduct. What I am insisting upon is that the patterns which one finds in the centr al
nervou s system are patterns of action -not of contemplation, not of appreciation as such, but patterns
of action. On the other hand I want to point out that one is able to approach the central nervous
system from the psychol ogist's point of view and set certain problems to the physiologist. How is the
physi ologist to explain attention? When the physiologist attempts that he is bound to do so in terms
of the various paths. If he is going to explain why one path is selected rather than anoth er he must
go back to these terms of paths and actions. You cannot set up in the centra l nervo us system a
selective principle which can be generally applied throughout; you cannot say there is a speci fic
someth ing in the central nervous system that is related to attention; you cannot say that there is a
general powe r of attentio n. You have to state it speci fically, so that even when you are directing your
study of the central nervo us system from the point of view of psycho logy, the type of explanation
that you are going to get will have to be in terms of paths which represent actio n.
Such, in brief, is the history of the appearance of physio logical psychol ogy in its parallelistic form, a
psychol ogy which had moved to the next stage beyo nd that of associationalism. Attention is
ordinarily stressed in tracing this transition, but the emphasis on attention is one which is derived
largely from the study of the organism as such, and it accordingly should be seen in the larger
conte xt we have presented.
Endnotes
1.The lines of associ ation follow the lines of the act (1924).
2.Thus John Dewey added to James's doctrine the necessity of conflict in action in order for
emotions to arise.
3.[Amo ng philosophers, Henri Bergson especially stress ed this point. See his Matiere et
Memo ire.]
4.We are conscious always of what we have done, never of doing it. We are always consci ous
directly only of sensory processes, never of motor processes; hence we are consci ous of
moto r processes only through sens ory proc esses, which are their resultants. Th e contents of
consc iousness have, therefore, to be correl ated with or fitted into a physiological system in
dyna mic terms , as processes going on.
5.[See Secti ons 13 and 14.]
5. PARALLELIS M AND THE AMB IGUITY OF "CONSCIOUSNESS"
"Consciousness" is a very ambiguous term. One often identifies consciousness with a certain
someth ing that is there under certain cond itions and is not there under other conditions. One
approaches this most naturally by assuming that it is something that happens under certain
cond itions of the organism, something, then, that can be conceived of as running parallel with
certai n phenomena in the nervous system, but not parallel with others. There seem s to be no

consc iousness that answ ers to the motor processes as such; the consciousness we have of our
actio n is that which is sensory in type and which answer s to the current which comes from the
sens ory nerves which are affected by the contr action of the muscles. We are not conscious of the
actua l motor proce sses, but we have a sensory process that runs parallel to it. This is the situat ion
out of which parallelistic psycho logy arises. It implies on the one side an organism which is a going
conc ern, that seemingly can run without consci ousness. A person continues to live when he is under
a general anesthetic. Consciousness leaves and consciousness returns, but the organism itself runs
on. And the more completely one is able to state the psycho logical proce sses in terms of the central
nervou s system the less important does this consciousness become.
The extreme statement of that sort was given by Hugo Munst erberg.[1] He assu med the organism
itself simply ran on, but that answ ering to certa in nervou s changes there were consc ious states. If
one said that he did something, what that amounted to was a consci ousness of the movement of the
muscles of his body in doing it; the consciousness of the beginning of the act is that which he
interpreted as his own volition to act. There is only a consciousness of certa in processes that are
going on. Parallelism in this extreme form, how ever, left out of accoun t just such process es as those
of attention and the selective character of consciousness. If the physi ologist had been able to point
out the mechanism of the central nervo us system by which we organize our actio n, there might be
still dominant such a statement in terms of this extreme parallelism which would regard the
individual as simply conscious of the selection which the organism made. But the proce ss of
selectio n itself is so complex that it becomes almost impossible to state it, especially in such terms.
Consciousness as such is pecu liarly selective, and the processe s of selectio n, of sensit izing the
organ to stimuli, are something very difficult to isolate in the central nervou s system. William James
points out that the amount of difference which you have to give to a certain stimulus to make it
dominant is very slight, and he could conceive of an act of volition which holds on to a certa in
stimulus, and just gives it a little more emphasis than it otherwise would have. Wundt tried to make
parallelism possible by assu ming the possi bility of certain centers whic h could perform this selective
function. But there was no satisfactory statem ent of the way in which one could get this interaction
betwee n an organism and a consci ousness'. of the way in which consciousness could act upon a
centra l nervo us system. So that we get at this stage of the development of psycho logy parallelism
rather than interactionism.
The parallelistic phase of psychology reveal s itself not simply as one of the passing forms which has
appeared in psycho logical invest igation, but as one which has served a very evident purpose and
met a very evident need.
We do distin guish, in some sense, the experiences that we call consc ious from those going on in
the world around us. We see a color and give it a certa in name. We find that we are mistaken, due
to a defect in our vision, and we go back to the spect ral colors and analyze it. We say there is
someth ing that is independent of our immediate sens ory process. We are trying to get hold of that
part of experience that can be taken as independent of one's own immediate response. We want to
get hold of that so that we can deal with the problem of error. Where no error is involved we do not
draw the line. If we discover that a tree seen at a distance is not there when we reach the spot, we
have mistaken something else for a tree. Thus, we have to have a field to which we can refer our
own experience; and also we require objects which are recognized to be independent of our own
vision. We want the mechanism which will make that distinction at any time, and we generalize it in
this way. We work out the theory of sense perception in terms of the external stimulus, so that we
can get hold of that which can be depended upon in order to distinguish it from that which cannot be
depended upon in the same way. Even an object that is actual ly there can still be so resolv ed. In the
laboratory we can distinguish between the stimulus and the sense experience. The experimenter
turns on a certain light and he knows just what that fight is. He can tell what takes place in the retin a
and in the centra l nervou s system, and then he asks what the experiences aft. He puts all sorts of
elements in the process so that the subject will mistake what it is. He gets on the one side
consc ious data, and on the other side the physica l processes that are going on. He carries this
analysis only into a field which is of importance for his investigation; and he himself has objects out
there which could be analyzed in the same fashion.
We want to be able to distinguish what belongs to our own experience from that which can be
stated, as we say, in scientific terms. We are sure of some processes, but we are not sure as to the
reacti on of people to these processes. We recognize that there are all sorts of differences among
individuals. We have to make this distinctio n, so we have to set up a certai n parallelism betwee n

thing s which are there and have a uniform value for everybody, and things which vary with certa in
individuals. We seem to get a field of consciousness and a field of physic al thing s which are not
consc ious.
I want to distinguish the differences in the use of the term consciousness to stan d for accessibility to
certai n conte nts, and as synonymous with certain contents themselves. When you shut your eyes
you shut yourself off from certain stimuli. If one takes an anesthetic the world is inacc essible to him.
Similarly, sleep renders one inacce ssible to the world. Now I want to distinguish this use of
consc iousness, that of rendering one accessible and inaccessible to certain fields, from these
conte nts themselves which are determined by the experience of the individual. We want to be able
to deal with an experience which varies with the different individuals, to deal with the different
conte nts which in some sense represent the same object. We want to be able to separ ate those
conte nts which vary from content s which are in some sense common to all of us. Our psycho logists
undertake definitely to deal with experience as it varies with individuals. Some of these experiences
are dependent upon the perspective of the individual and some are peculiar to a particular organ. If
one is color-blind he has a different experience from a person with a normal eye.
When we use "consciousness," then, with reference to those conditions which are varia ble with the
experience of the individual, this usage is a quite different one from that of rendering ourselves
inaccessible to the world.[2] In one case we are dealing with the situatio n of a perso n going to
sleep, distractin g his attention or centeri ng his attentio n-a partia l or complete exclusion of certain
parts of a field. The other use is in application to the experience of the individual that is different
from the experience of anybody else, and not only different in that way but different from his own
experience at different times. Our experience varies not simply with our own organism but from
moment to moment, and yet it is an experience which is of someth ing which has not varied as our
experiences vary, and we want to be able to study that experience in this variable form, so that
some sort of parallelism has to be set up. One might attempt to set up the parallelism outsi de of the
body, but the study of the stimuli inevitably takes us over into the study of the body itself.
Different positions will lead to different experiences in regard to such an object as a penny placed
on a certain spot. There are other phenomena that are dependent upon the chara cter of the eye, or
the effect of past experiences. What the penny would be experienced as depends upon the past
experiences that may have occurred to the different individuals. It is a different penny to one person
from what it is to another; yet the penny is there as an entity by itself. We want to be able to deal
with these spatially perspectival differences in individuals. Still more important from a psychological
standpoint is the perspective of memory, by means of which one person sees one penny and
another sees another penny. These are characters which we want to separate, and it is here that the
legitimacy of our parallelism lies, namely, in that distinction between the object as it can be
deter mined, physically and physiologically, as common to all, and the experience which is peculiar
to a particular organism, a particular person.
Settin g this distinction up as a psychological doctri ne gives the sort of psychology that Wundt has
most effective ly and exhaustively presented. He has tried to present the organism and its
envir onment as identical physica l objects for any experience, although the reflectio n of them in the
different experiences are all different. Two perso ns studying the same central nervous system at the
disse cting table will see it a little differently; yet they see the same central nervous system. Each of
them has a different experience in that process. Now, put on one side the organism and its
envir onment as a common object and then take what is left, so to spea k, and put that into the
experience of the separate individuals, and the result is a parallelism: on the one side the physica l
world, and on the other side consciousness.
The basis for this distinction is, as we have seen, a familiar and a justifiable one, but when put into
the form of a psychol ogy, as Wundt did, it reaches its limits; and if carried beyond leads into
difficulty. The legitimate distin ction is that which enables a person to identify that phase of an
experience which is peculiar to himself, which has to be studied in terms of a moment in his
biography. There are facts which are important only in so far as they lie in the biography of the
individual. The techn ique of that sort of a separation comes back to the physiological environment
on one side and to the experience on the other. In this way an experience of the object itself is
contraste d with the individual's experience, consciousness on one side with the unco nscious world
on the other.

If we follow this distinct ion down to its limits we reach a physio logical organism that is the same for
all people, played upon by a set of stimuli which is the same to all. We want to follow the effects of
such stimuli in the central nervo us system up to the point wher e a particu lar individual has a specific
experience. When we have done that for a particular case, we use this analysis as a basis for
generalizing that distincti on. We can say that there are physica l things on one side and mental
events on the other. We assume that the experienced world of each person is looked upon as a
result of a causal series that lies inside of his brain. We follow stimuli into the brain, and there we
say consci ousness flashes out. In this way we have ultimately to locate all experience in the brain,
and then old epistemological ghosts arise. Whose brain is it? How is the brain known? Where does
that brain lie? The whole world comes to lie inside of the observer' s brain; and his brain lies in
everybo dy else 's brain, and so on without end. All sorts of difficulties arise if one undertakes to erect
this parallelistic division into a metaphysical one. The esse ntially practica l nature of this division
must now be pointed out.
Endnotes
1.[See Die Willenshandlung.]
2.[And, incidentally, from a third use in which "consci ousness" is restricted to the level of the
operation of symbols. On consci ousness see "The Definition of the Psychic al, " University of
Chicago Decennial Publications, III (1903), 77 ff.; "What Social Objects Must Psychology
Presuppose?" Journal of Philosophy, VII (1910), 174 ff.]
6. THE PRO GRAM OF BEHAVIORISM
We have seen that a certa in sort of parallelism is involved in the attempt to state the experience of
the individual in so far as it is peculiar to him as an individual. What is accessi ble only to that
individual, what takes place only in the field of his own inner life, must be stated in its relationship to
the situati on within which it takes place. One individual has one experience and another has another
experience, and both are stated in terms of their biographies; but there is in addition that which is
common to the experience of all. And our scientific statement corre lates that which the individual
himself experiences, and which can ultimately be stated only in terms of his experience, with the
experience which belongs to everyone. This is essenti al in order that we may interpret what is
pecu liar to the individual. We are always separating that which is peculiar to our own reacti on, that
which we can see that other pers ons cannot see, from that which is common to all. We are referring
what belongs to the experience just of the individual to a common language, to a common world.
And when we carry out this relationship, this corre lation, into what takes place physically and
physi ologically, we get a parallelistic psychol ogy.
The particular color or odor that any one of us experiences is a private affair. It differs from the
experience of other individuals, and yet there is the common object to which it refers. It is the same
light, the same rose, that is involved in these experiences. What we try to do is to follow these
common stimuli in throu gh the nervous system of each of these individuals. We aim to get the
statem ent in universal terms which will answe r to those partic ular conditions. We want to control
them as far as we can, and it is that determination of the cond itions under which the partic ular
experience takes place that enables us to carry out that control.[1]
If one says that his experience of an object is made up of different sensations and then undertakes
to state the cond itions under which those sensations take place, he may say that he is stating those
cond itions in terms of his own experience. But they are cond itions which are common to all. He
measures, he determines just what is taking place, but this apparatus with which he measures Is,
after all, made up of his sens uous experience. Things that are hot or cold, rough or smooth, the
objects themselves, are stated in terms of sensations; but they are stated in terms of sens ations
which we can make universal, and we take these common characters of experience and find in
terms of them those experiences which are pecu liar to the different individuals.

Psychol ogy is interested in this corre lation, in finding out what the relationship is betwe en what goes
on in the physica l world and what goes on in the organism when a person has a sens ory
experience. That program was carried out by Hermann Helmholtz.[2] The world was there in terms
which could be stated in the laws of science, i.e., the stimuli were stated in physic al terms . What
goes on in the nervous system could be stated more and more exactly, and this could be correl ated
with certai n definite experiences which the individual found in his own life. And the psychol ogist is
interested in gettin g the correlation between the conditions under which the experience takes place
and that which is peculiar to the individual. He wishes to make these Statem ents as unive rsal as
possi ble, and is scientific in that respect. He wants to state the experience of an individual just as
close ly as he can in terms of the field which he can contro l, those cond itions under whic h it appears.
He naturally tries to state the conduct of the individual in terms of his reflexes, and he carrie s back
as far as he can the more complex reflexes of the individual to the simpler forms of action. He uses,
as far as he is able to use, a behavioristic statement, because that can be formulated in terms of this
same field over which he has contro l.
The motive back of modern psycho logy gets an expression in the field of mental testing, wher e one
is getting correlations between certain situatio ns and certai n responses. It is chara cteristic of this
psychol ogy that not only is it as behavioristic as it can be (in that it states the experience of the
individual as completely as it can in objective terms), but it also is interested in getting such
statem ents and correlations so that it can control conduct as far as possible. We find modern
psychol ogy interested in practical problems, especially those of educ ation. We have to lead the
intelligences of infants and children into certain definite uses of media, and certain definite types of
responses. How can we take the individual with his peculiarities and bring him over into a more
nearly uniform type of response? He has to have the same language as others, and the same units
of measurement; and he has to take over a certain definite cultur e as a background for his own
experience. He has to fit himself into certain socia l structures and make them a part of himself. How
is that to be accomplished? We are dealing with sepa rate individuals and yet these individuals have
to beco me a part of a common whole. We want to get the corre lation between this world which is
common and that which is peculiar to the individual. So we have psycho logy attack ing the questions
of learning, and the problems of the school, and trying to analyze different intelligences so that we
can state them in terms which are as far as possible common; we want something which can
corre late with the task which the child has to carry out. There are certain definite processes involved
in speech. What is there that is uniform by means of which we are able to identify what the
individual can do and what particular training he may have to take? Psychol ogy also goes over into
the field of business questions, of salesmanship, perso nnel questions; it goes over into the field of
that which is abnormal and tries to get hold of that which is peculiar in the abnormal individual and
to bring it into relation with the norm al, and with the structures which get their expression in these
abnormalities. It is intere sting to see that psycho logy starts off with this problem of getting
corre lations betwe en the experience of individuals and conditions under which it takes place, and
undertakes to state this experience in terms of behavior; and that it at once endeavors to make a
practica l use of this correlation it finds for the purposes of training and control. It is beco ming
esse ntially a practical science, and has pushe d to one side the psychological and philosophical
problems which have been tied up with earlier dogma under assoc iational psychol ogy. Such are the
influences which work in the behavioristic psycho logy.
This psychology is not, and should not be regarded as, a theory which is to be put over against an
assoc iational doctrine. What it is trying to do is to find out what the conditions are under which the
experience of the individual arises. That experience is of the sort that takes us back to conduct in
order that we may follow it. It is that which gives a distinctive mark to a psychol ogical investi gation.
History and all the socia l sciences deal with human beings, but they are not primarily psychological.
Psychol ogy may be of great importance in dealing with, say, economics, the problem of value, of
desire, the problems of political science, the relation of the individual to the state, perso nal relations
which have to be consi dered in terms of individuals. All of the social scien ces can be found to have
a psychological phase. History is nothing but biography, a whole series of biographies; and yet all of
these social sciences deal with individuals in their common characters; and wher e the individual
stands out as different he is looked at from the point of view of that which he accomplishes in the
whole society , or in terms of the destructive effect which he may have. But we are not primarily
occu pied as social scient ists in studying his experience as such. Psychology does undertake to
work out the techn ique which will enable it to deal with these experiences which any individual may
have at any moment in his life, and which are pecu liar to that individual. And the meth od of dealing
with such an experience is in gettin g the cond itions under which that experience of the individual

takes place. We shou ld undertake to state the experience of the individual just as far as we can in
terms of the conditions unde r which it arise s. It is essentially a control problem to which the
psychol ogist is turning. It has, of cours e, its aspect of researc h for knowledge. We want to incre ase
our knowledge, but there is back of that an attempt to get control throu gh the knowledge which we
obtai n; and it is very interesting to see that our modern psychol ogy is going farther and farther into
those fields within which control can be so realized. It is successf ul in so far as it can work out
corre lations which can be tested. We want to get hold of those factors in the natur e of the individual
which can be recognized in the nature of all members of society but which can be identified in the
partic ular individual. Those are problems which are forcing them selves more and more to the front.

There is another phase of recent psycho logy which I shou ld refer to, namely, configuration or gesta lt
psychol ogy, which has been of interest in recent years. There we have the recognition of elements
or phases of experience which are common to the experience of the individual and to those
cond itions under which this experience arises.[3] There are certain general forms in the field of
perception in the experience of the individual as well as in the objects themselves. They can be
identified. One cann ot take such a thing as a color and build it up out of certain sets of sensat ions.
Experience, even that of the individual, must start with some whole. It must involve some whole in
order that we may get the elements we are after. What is of pecu liar importance to us is this
recognition of an element which is common in the perce ption of the individual and that which is
regarded as a condition under which that perception arises-a Position iii opposition to an analysis of
experience which proceeds on the assu mption that the whole we have in our perception is simply an
organization of these separate elements. Gestalt psycho logy gives us another element which is
common to the experience of the individual and the world which deter mines the conditions under
which that experience arise s. Where before one had to do with the stimuli and what could be traced
out in the centra l nervous system, and then corre lated with the experience of the individual, now we
have a certain structure that has to be recog nized both in the experience of the individual and tile
cond itioning world.
A behavioristic psychology represents a definite tendency rather than a system, a tende ncy to state
as far as possible the conditions under which the experience of the individual arises. Correlation
gets its expression in parallelism. The term is unfortunate in that it carries with it the distinction
betwee n mind and body, between the psychic al and the physica l. It is true that all the operations of
stimuli can be traced throu gh to the central nervous system, so we seem to be able to take the
problem inside of our skins and get back to something in the organism, the central nervo us system,
which is representative of everything that happens outside. If we speak of alight as influencing us, it
does not influence us until it strikes the retina of the eye. Sound does not exert influence until it
reaches the ear, and so on, so that we can say the whole worl d can be stated in terms of what goes
on inside of the organism itself. And we can say that what we are trying to corre late are the
happenings in the centr al nervo us system on the one side and the experience of the individual on
the other.
But we have to recognize that we have made an arbitrary cut there. We cannot take the central
nervou s system by itself, nor the physical objects by themselves. The whole process is one which
starts from a stimulus and involves every thing that takes place. Thus, psychol ogy correlates the
difference of perce ptions with the physica l intensity of the stimulus. We could state the intensity of a
weight we were lifting in terms of the central nervo us system but that would be a difficult way of
stating it. That is not what psychol ogy is trying to do. It is not trying to relate a set of psychose s to a
set of neuroses. What it is trying to do is to state the experiences of the individual in terms of the
cond itions under which they arise, and such conditions can very seldom be stated in terms of the
neuroses. Occasionally we can follow the process right up into the central nervou s system, but it is
quite impossible to state most of the conditions in those terms. We contro l experiences in the
inten sity of the light which we have, in the noises that we produce, control them in terms of the
effects which are produced on us by heat and cold. That is where we get our control. We may be
able to change these by dealing with actua l organisms, but in general we are trying to correlate the
experience of the individual with the situatio n under which it arises. In order that we may get that
sort of control we have to have a generalized statem ent. We want to know the conditions under
which experience may appear. We are interested in finding the most general laws of corre lation we
can find. But the psychologist is interested in finding that sort of condition which can be correlated
with the experience of the individual. We are trying to state the experience of the individual and
situati ons in just as common terms as we can, and it is this which gives the importance to what we
call behavioristic psycho logy. It is not a new psycho logy that comes in and takes the place of an old
system.
An objective psychol ogy is not trying to get rid of consci ousness, but trying to state the intelligence
of the individual in terms which will enable us to see how that intelligence is exercised, and how it
may be improved. It is natura l, then, that such a psychology as this shou ld seek for a statement
which would bring these two phases of the expe rience as close to each other as possi ble, or
transl ate them into language which is common to both fields. We do not want two languages, one of
certai n physi cal facts and one of certai n conscious facts. if you push that analysis to the limit you get
such results as where you say that everything that takes place in consc iousness in som e way has to
be located in the head, because you are following up a certain sort of causal relation which affects

consc iousness. The head you talk about is not stated in terms of the head you are observing.
Bertran d Russ ell says the real head he is but the physi ologist's own head. Whether that is the case
or not, it is a matter of infinite indifference to psycho logists. That is not a problem in the present
psychol ogy, and behaviorism is not to be regarded as legitimate up to a certa in point and as then
breaking down. Behavioristic psycho logy only undertakes to get a common statem ent that is
significant and makes our correl ation successful. The history of psychol ogy has been a history
which move d in this direction, and anyo ne who looks at what takes place in the psych ological
Assoc iations at the present time, and the ways in which psychology is being carried over into other
fields, sees that the interest, the impulse that lies behind it, is in getting just such a corre lation which
will enable scien ce to get a control over the cond itions of experience.
The term "parallelism" has an unfortunate implication: it is historically and philosophically bound up
with the contrast of the physic al over against the psychic al, with consciousness over against the
unco nscious world. Actually, we simply state what an experience is over against those conditions
under which it arises. That fact lies behind "parallelism," and to carry out the correlation one has to
state both fields in as common a language as possi ble, and behaviorism is simply a movement in
that direction. Psycho logy is not something that deals with consciousness; psycho logy deals with
the experience of the individual in its relation to the conditions under which the experience goes on.
It is social psychology wher e the cond itions are social ones. It is behavioristic where the approach to
experience is made throu gh conduct.[4]
Endnotes
1.[The following methodological interpretation of parallelism is further discuss ed in Section
15.]
2.[Die Lehre von dem Tonempfindungen; Handbuch der physiologishen Optik.]
3.[W. Kohler, Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationaren Zustand; Gestalt
Psych ology.]
4.By way of further avoid ing certain meta phys ical implications I wish to say that it does not
follow that beca use we have on the one side experience which is individual, which may be
perhaps private in the sense to which I have referr ed to privacy , and have on the other a
common world, that we have two separate levels of existe nce or reality which are to be
distin guished metaphysically from each other. A great deal that appears simply as the
experience of an individual, as his own sens ation or perception, beco mes public later. Every
discove ry as such begins with experiences which have to be stated in terms of the biography
of the discoverer. The man can note exceptions and implications which other people do not
see and can only record them in terms of his own other persons may get a like experience.
He puts them in that form in order that experience, and then he undertakes to find out what
the explanation of these strange acts is. He works out hypotheses and tests them and they
beco me common property thereafter. That is, there is a close relati onship between these
two fields of the psychical and the physical, the private and the public. We make distinctio ns
betwee n these, recognizing that the same factor may now be only private and yet later may
beco me public. It is the work of the discoverer throu gh his obse rvations and throu gh his
hypoth eses and experiments to be contin ually transf orming what is his own private
experience into a universal form. The same may be said of other fields, as in the work of the
great artist who takes his own emotions and gives them a universal form so that others may
enter into them.
7. WUNDT AND THE CONCEPT OF THE GESTURE
The partic ular field of social science with which we are conce rned is one which was opened up
throu gh the work of Darwin and the more elaborate presentation of Wundt.

If we take Wundt's parallelistic statem ent we get a point of view from which we can approach the
problem of socia l experience. Wundt undertook to show the parallelism betwe en what goes on in
the body as represented by proce sses of the central nervous system, and what goes on in those
experiences which the individual recog nizes as his own. He had to find that which was common to
these two fields-what in the psychic al experience could be referred to in physical terms.[1]
Wundt isolated a very valu able conception of the gesture as that whic h beco mes later a symbol, but
which is to be found in its earlier stages as a part of a socia l act.[2] It is that part of the socia l act
which serves as a stimulus to other forms involve d in the same socia l act. I have given the
illustration of the dog-fight as a method of presenting the gesture. The act of each dog becomes the
stimulus to the other dog for his respo nse. There is then a relationship betwe en these two; and as
the act is respo nded to by the other dog, it, in turn, undergoes chan ge. The very fact that the dog is
ready to attack another becomes a stimulus to the other dog to chan ge his own posit ion or his own
attitude. He has no sooner done this than the change of attitude in the seco nd dog in turn causes
the first dog to chan ge his attitude. We have here a conversation of gestures. They are not,
however, gestures in the sense that they are significant. We do not assu me that the dog says to
himself, "If the animal comes from this direction he is going to sprin g at my throat and I will turn in
such a way." What does take place is an actual chan ge in his own position due to the directio n of
the approach of the other dog.
We find a similar situation in boxing and in fencing, as in the feint and the parry that is initiated on
the part of the other. And then the first one of the two in turn chan ges his attack; there may be
consi derable play back and forth before actually a stroke results. This is the same situatio n as in the
dog-fight. If the individual is successful a great deal of his attack and defense must be not
consi dered, it must take place immediately. He must adjust himself "instinctively" to the attitude of
the other individual. He may, of cours e, think it out. He may deliberately feint in order to open up a
place of attack. But a great deal has to be witho ut deliberation.
In this case we have a situati on in which certa in parts of the act become a stimulus to the other form
to adjust itself to those respo nses; and that adjustment in turn becomes a stimulus to the first form
to chan ge his own act and start on a different one. There are a series of attitudes, movements, on
the part of these forms which belong to the beginnings of acts that are the stimuli for the respo nses
that take place. The beginning of a response becomes the stimulus to the first form to change his
attitude, to adopt a different act. The term "gesture" may be identified with these beginnings of social
acts which are stimuli for the response of other forms. Darwin was interested in such gestures
beca use they expressed emotions, and he dealt with them very largely as if this were their sole
function. He looked at them as serving the function with reference to the other forms which they
served with reference to his own observation. The gestures expressed emotions of the animal to
Darwin; he saw in the attitude of the dog the joy with which he acco mpanied his mast er in taking a
walk. And he left his treatment of the gestur es largely in these terms.
It was easy for Wundt to show that this was not a legitimate point of attack on the problem of these
gesture s. They did not at bottom serve the function of expression of the emotions: that was not the
reason why they were stimuli, but rather because they were parts of complex acts in which different
forms were involved. They became the tools throug h which the other forms responded. When they
did give rise to a certain respo nse, they were themselves changed in response to the change which
took place in the other form. They are part of the organizatio n of the social act, and highly important
elements in that organization. To the human observer they are expressions of emotion, and that
function of expressing emotion can legitimately become the field of the work of the artist and of the
actor. The actor is in the same position as the poet: he is expressing emotions through his own
attitude, his tones of voice, through his gestures, just as the poet throu gh his poetry is expressing
his emotions and arous ing that emotion in others. We get in this way a function which is not found in
the social act of these animals, or in a great deal of our own conduct, such as that of the boxer and
the fencer. We have this interplay going on with the gestures serving their functions, calling out the
responses of the others, these responses beco ming themselves stimuli for readjustment, until the
final socia l act itself can be carried out. Another illustrati on of this is in the relation of parent-form to
the infant-the stimulating cry, the answering tone on the part of the parent-form, and the consequent
chan ge in the cry of the infant-form. Here we have a set of adjustments of the two forms carrying out
a common social act involved in the care of the child. Thus we have, in all these insta nces, a social
process in which one can isolate the gesture which has its function in the socia l process, and which
can become an expression of emotions, or later can become the expression of a meaning, an idea.

The primitive situati on is that of the social act which involves the interactio n of different forms, which
involve s, therefore, the adjustment of the cond uct of these different forms to each other, in carryin g
out the socia l process. Within that process one can find what we term the gestures, those phases of
the act which bring about the adjustment of the respo nse of the other form. These phases of the act
carry with them the attitude as the observer recognizes it, and also what we call the inner attitude.
The animal may be angry or afraid. There are such emotional attitudes which lie back of these acts,
but these are only part of the whole process that is going on. Anger expresses itself in attack; fear
expresse s itself in flight. We can see, then that the gestur es mean these attitudes on the part of the
form, that is, they have that meaning for us. We see that an animal is angry and that he is going to
attack. We know that that is in the action of the animal, and is revealed by the attitude of the animal.
We cann ot say the animal means it in the sense that he has a reflective determination to attack. A
man may strike another before he means it; a man may jump and run away from a loud sound
behind his back before he know what he is doing. If he has the idea in his mind, then the gestur e not
only means this to the observer but it also means the idea which the individual has. In one case the
obse rver sees that the attitude of the dog means attack, but he does not say that it means a
consc ious determination to attack on the part of the dog. However, if somebody shakes his fist in
your face you assume that he has not only a hostile attitude but that he has some idea behind it.
You assu me that it means not only a possible attack, but that the individual has an idea in his
experience.
When, no, that gesture means this idea behind it and it arous es that idea in the other individual,
then we have a significant symbol. In the case of the dog-fight we have a gesture which calls out
appropriate respo nse; in the prese nt case we have a symbol which answers to a meaning in the
experience of the first individual and which also calls out that meaning in the second individual.
Where the gesture reaches that situation it has become what we call "language." It is now a
significant symbol and it signifies a certai n meaning.[3]
The gesture is that phase of the individual act to which adjustment takes place on the part of other
individuals in the social process of behav ior. The vocal gesture beco mes a significant symbol
(unimportant, as such, on the merely affective side of experience) when it has the same effect on
the individual making it that it has on the individual to whom it is addressed or who explicitly
responds to it, and thus involves a reference to the self of the individual making it. The gestur e in
general, and the vocal gestur e in partic ular, indicates some object or other within the field of socia l
behavior, an object of comm on interest to all the individuals involved in the given socia l act thus
directed toward or upon that object. The function of the gestu re is to make adjustment possible
among the individuals implicated in any given social act with reference to the object or objects with
which that act is concerned; and the significant gesture or significant symbol affords far greater
facilities for such adjustment and readjustment than does the non-significant gesture, because it
calls out in the individual making it the same attitude toward it (or toward its meaning) that it calls out
in the other individuals participating with him in the given socia l act, and thus makes him conscious
of their attitude toward it (as a com ponent of his behavior) and enables him to adjust his subs equent
behavior to theirs in the light of that attitude. In short, the consc ious or significant conversation of
gesture s is a much more adequate and effective mechanism of mutual adjustment within the socia l
act-invo lving, as it does, the taking, by etch of the individuals carryin g it on, of the attitudes of the
others toward himself-than is the unconscious or non-significant convers ation of gesture s.
When, in any given social act or situation, one individual indicates by a gesture to anoth er individual
what this other individual is to do, the first individual is conscio us of the meaning of his own gestu re-
or the meaning of his gesture appears in his own experience-in so far as he takes the attitude of the
seco nd individual toward that gestu re, and tends to respond to it implicitly in the same way that the
seco nd individual responds to it explicitly. Gestures become significant symbols when they implicitly
arouse in an individual making them the same responses which they explicitly arouse, or are
supp osed to arouse, in other individuals, the individuals to whom they are addressed; and in all
conversat ions of gestur es within the social process, whether extern al (betwe en different individuals)
or internal (betwe en a given individual and himself), the individual's consciousness of the content
and flow of meaning involved depends on his thus taking the attitude of the other toward his own
gesture s. In this way every gesture comes within a given social group or community to stand for a
partic ular act or response, namely, the act or respo nse which it calls forth explicitly in the individual
to whom it is addressed, and implicitly in the individual who makes it; and this particular act or
response for which it stands is its meaning as a significant symb ol. Only in terms of gestures as
significant symbols is the existe nce of mind or intelligence poss ible; for only in terms of gesture s

which are significant symbols can thinking-which is simply an internalized or implicit conversa tion of
the individual with himself by means of such gestures-take place. The internalization in our
experience of the extern al conversations of gestures which we carry on with other individuals in the
socia l proce ss is the essence of thinking; and the gestures thus internalized are significant symbols
beca use they have the same meanings for all individual members of the given society or social
group, i.e., they respectively arouse the same attitude s in the individuals making them that they
arouse in the individuals respo nding to them: Otherwise the individual could not internalize them or
be conscious of them and their meanings. As we shall see, the same procedure which is
responsible for the genesis and existence of mind or consc iousness–namely, the taking of the
attitude of the other toward one's self, or toward one's own behavior–also nece ssarily involves the
genesis and existence at the same time of significant symb ols, or significant gestures.
In Wundt's doctri ne, the parallelism betwe en the gesture and the emotion or the intellectual attitude
of the individual, makes it possible to set up a like parallelism in the other individual. The gesture
calls out a gesture in the other form which will arouse or call out the same emotional attitude and the
same idea. Where this has taken place the individuals have begun to talk to each other. What I
referred to before was a conversation of gestures which did not involve significant symbols or
gesture s. The dogs are not talking to each other; there are no ideas in the minds of the dogs; nor do
we assu me that the dog is trying to conv ey an idea to the other dog. But if the gestur e, in the case of
the human individual, has parallel with it a certain psychical state which is the idea of what the
person is going to do, and if this gesture calls out a like gesture in the other individual and calls out
a similar idea, then it becomes a significant gesture. It stands for the ideas in the minds of both of
them.
There is some difficulty in carrying out this analysis if we acce pt Wundt's parallelism. When a
person shakes his fist in your face, that is a gestur e in the sens e in which we use the term, the
beginning of an act that calls out a respo nse on your part. Your respo nse may vary: it may depend
on the size of the man, it may mean shaking your fist, or it may mean flight. A whole series of
different respo nses are poss ible. In order that Wundt's theory of the origin of language may be
carried out, the gesture which the first individual makes use of must in some sense be reproduced in
the experience of the individual in order that it may arouse the same idea in his mind. We must not
confuse the beginning of language with its later stages. It is quite true that as soon as we see the
attitude of the dog we say that it means an attack, or that when we see a person looking around for
a chair that it means he would like to sit down. The gesture is one which means these processes,
and that meaning is arous ed by what we see. But we are supposed to be at the beginning of these
deve lopments of language. If we assu me that there is a certain psychical state answ ering to a
physica l state how are we going to get to the point where the gesture will arouse the same gestu re
in the attitude of the other individual? In the very beginning the other person's gesture means what
you are going to do about it. It does not mean what he is thinking about or even his emot ion.
Supposing his angry attack aroused fear in you, then you are not going to have anger in your mind,
but fear. His gesture means fear as far as you are concern ed. That is the primitive situation. Where
the big dog attacks the little dog, the little dog puts his tail betwe en his legs and runs away, but the
gesture does not call out in the second individual what it did in the first. The response is generally of
a different kind from the stimulus in the socia l act, a different action is aroused. If you assum e that
there is a certain idea answering to that act, then you want at a later stage to get the idea of the first
form, but originally your idea will be your own idea which answers to a certain end. If we say that
gesture "A" has idea "a" as answ ering to it, gesture "A" in the first form calls out gesture "B" and its
related idea "b" in the second form. Here the idea that answe rs to gesture "A" is not idea "a" but idea
"b." Such a process can never arouse in one mind just the idea which the other person has in his.
How, in terms of Wundt's psycho logical analysis of communication, does a responding organism get
or experience the same idea or psychical corre late of any given gesture that the organism making
this gesture has? The difficulty is that Wundt presupposes selves as antecedent to the social
process in order to explain communication within that process, whereas, on the contrary, selves
must be accou nted for in terms of the social proce ss, and in terms of communication; and
individuals must be brought into essential relation within that process before communication, or the
contact betwe en the minds of different individuals, beco mes possi ble. The body is not a self, as
such; it beco mes a self only when it has deve loped a mind within the context of social experience. It
does not occur to Wundt to accou nt for the existence and development of selves and minds within ,
or in terms of, the socia l process of experience; and his presu pposition of them as making possib le
that process, and communication within it, invalidates his analysis of that process. For if, as Wundt

does, you presuppose the existence of mind at the start, as explaining or making possible the social
process of experience, then the origin of minds and the interaction among minds beco me mysteri es.
But if, on the other hand, you regard the social process of experience as prior (in a rudimentary
form) to the existence of mind and explain the origin of minds in terms of the interaction among
individuals within that process, then not only the origin of minds, but also the interaction among
minds (whic h is thus seen to be internal to their very nature and presupposed by their existence or
deve lopment at all) cease to seem mysterious or miraculous. Mind arises throu gh communication by
a convers ation of gesture s in a social process or context of experience-not communication through
mind.
Wundt thus overlo oks the important fact that communication is fundamental to the nature of what we
term "mind"; and it is precisely in the recognition of this fact that the value and advantage of a
behavioristic accou nt of mind is chiefly to be found. Thus, Wundt's analysis of communication
presupposes the existence of minds which are able to communicate, and this existence remains an
inexplicable mystery on his psychological basis; whereas the beha vioristic analysis of
communication makes no such presupposition, but instead explains or accou nts for the existence of
minds in terms of communication and socia l expe rience; and by regar ding minds as phenomena
which have arisen and deve loped out of the proce ss of communication and of social experience
generally–phenomena which theref ore presuppose that process, rather than being presupposed by
it–this analysis is able to throw real light on their natur e. Wundt preserves a dualism or sepa ration
betwee n gestu re (or symbol) and idea, between sensory process and psychic content, beca use his
psycho phys ical parallelism commits him to this dualism; and altho ugh he recognizes the need for
estab lishing a functional relati onship betwee n them in terms of the process of communication within
the social act, yet the only relationship of this sort which can be established on his psychological
basis is one which entirely fails to illuminate the bearing that the context of social experience has
upon the existence and development of mind. Such illumination is provided only by the behavioristic
analysis of communication, and by the statement of the nature of mind in terms of communication to
which that analysis leads.
Endnotes
1.[Cf. Grundzüge der phys iologischen Psych ologie.]
The fundamental defect of Wundt's psychop hysical parallelism is the fundamental defect of
all psychophysic al parallelism: the required parallelism is not in fact complete on the
psychic al side, since only the sensory and not the motor phase of the physiological process
of experience has a psychic correlate; hence the psychic al aspect of the requ ired parallelism
can be completed only physiologically, thus brea king it down. And this fundamental defect of
his psychophysic al parallelism vitiates the analysis of social experiences- -and espe cially of
communication–whic h he bases upon the assu mption of that parallelism.
2.[Volkerpychologie, Vol. 1. For Mead 's treatment of Wundt compare "The Relations of
Psychol ogy and Philology," Psychological Bulletin, I (1904), 375 ff., with the more critical
"The Imagination in Wundt's Treatment of Myth and Religion," ibid., III (1906), 393 ff.)
3.[See "A Behavioristic Account of the Significant Symbol," Journal of Philosophy, XIX (I922),
157 ff]
8. IMITATION AND THE ORIGIN OF LANGU AGE
Wundt's difficulty has been resolv ed in the past throug h the conc ept of imitation. Of course, if it were
true that when a person shakes his fist in your face you just imitate him, you would be doing what he
is doing and have the same idea as he has. There are, in fact, certai n cases where the responses
are like the stimuli in the social act, but as a rule they are different. And yet it has been generally
assu med that certain forms imitate each other. There has been a good deal of study on this p roblem
of imitation and the part it is supposed to play in conduct, especially in lower forms; but the result of

this study has been to minimize imitation, even in the cond uct of the higher animals. The monkey
has been traditionally the most imitative animal, but under scientific study this was found to be a
myth. The monkey learns very quickly but he does not imitate. Dogs and cats have been studied
from this standpoint, and the conduct of one form has not been found to serve the purpose of
arousing the same act in the other form.
In the human form there seems to be imitatio n in the case of a vocal gestur e, the important gesture
as far as language is concerned. So the philologist in partic ular, before the psychologist reached a
more accur ate analysis, went on the assumption that – we imitate the sounds that we hear. There
seemed to be a good deal of evidence for this also in certain animal forms, particularly those forms
that utilize a richer phonetic articulation, such as birds. The sparrow can be taught to imitate the
cana ry by close association with the canary. The parrot learns to "speak." It is not, we shall see,
genuine spee ch, for he is not conveyi ng ideas, but we commonly say the parrot imitates the sounds
that appear about it.
Imitati on as a general instinct is now discre dited in human psychol ogy. There was a time when
people assumed that there was a definite impulse on the part of the human animal just to do what it
saw other people do. There is a great deal of seem ing imitation on the part of children. Also there is
among undeveloped forms a spee ch that appears to be nothing but imitation. There are perso ns
whom we consider unintelligent who say thing s over witho ut having any idea of what is meant, a
bare repetition of soun ds they hear. But the question still remains why the form should so imitate. Is
there any reaso n for imitation? We assu me that all cond uct has back of it some function. What is
the functio n of imitation? Seemingly we get an answer in the development of young forms. The
youn g fox goes about with the parents, hunts with them, learns to seize and avoid the right animals;
it has no original objection to the odor of a man, but after it has been with the old fox the scent of
man will cause it to run away. There is, in this case, a series of responses which become definitely
assoc iated with a particular stimulus; if the youn g form goes about with the parent, those responses
which are all there in its nature beco me assoc iated with certain definite stimuli. We can, in a very
generalized sense, spea k of the fox as imitating its parents and avoiding man. But that usage would
not imply running away as an auto matic act of imitation. The young fox has been put in a situation in
which it does run away, and when the odor of man is present it becomes definitely associated with
this flight respo nse. No young forms in the lower animals ever merely imitate the acts of the adult
form, but they do acqu ire during their period of infancy the associ ation of a set of more or less
instin ctive responses to a certai n set of stimuli.
The above observations and reservati ons do not, as we shall see, justify the questionable sense in
which the notion of imitation has often been used. The term "imitation" became of great importance,
for a time, in social psycho logy and in sociology. It was used as a basis for a whole theory of
socio logy by the Frenc h sociologist, Gabri el Tarde.[1] The psycho logist at first, without adequate
analysis, assu med on the part of the person a tendency to do what other persons do. One can see
how difficult it would be to work out any mechanism of that sort. Why should a person wink because
another person winks? What stimulus would cause another person to act in that way? The sight of
another person actin g in another way? This is an impossible assumption.
In the parallelism of Wundt we have the basis for his account of language. Wundt assumed a
physica l situatio n which has a certain import for the conduct of the form, and on the other hand he
assu med a psychic al complex of ideas which are in a certain sens e the expression of physio logical
or biological value s. His problem is to get out of this situation language as significant
communication.
There are such situati ons as that represented by the conversa tion of gestu res to which I have
referred, situat ions in which certain phases of the act become stimuli to the forms involved in it to
carry out their part in the act. Now these parts of the act whic h are stimuli for the other forms in their
socia l activit y are gestures. Gestures are then that part of the act which is responsible for its
influence upon other forms. The gesture in some sense stands for the act as far as it affects the
other form. The threat of violence, such as a clenched fist, is the stimulus to the other form for
defense or flight. It carries with it the import of the act itself. I am not referring to import in terms of
reflective consc iousness, but in terms of behavior. For the observer the gestu re means the danger
and the respo nse of the individual to that danger. It calls out a certain sort of an act. If we assume a
consc iousness in which there is not only present the stimulus in the form of sensation but also an
idea, then there is in the mind the sensation in which this stimulus appears, a vision of the clenched

fist, and besides that the idea of the attack. The clenched fist in so far as it calls out that idea may
be said to mean the danger.
Now the problem is to get this relationship between the idea and the symbol itself into the
conversat ion of gesture s. As I pointed out before, this relationship is not given in the immediate
response of fighting or running. It may be present there, but as far as the conve rsation of gestures is
conc erned an act of one sort calls out an act of a different sort in the other form. That is, the threat
which is involved leads, we will say, to flight. The idea of flight is not the idea of attack. In the
conversat ion of gesture s there is the preparation for the full social process involving the actions in
different forms, and the gestur es, which are the parts of the act, serve to stimulate the other forms.
They call out acts different from themselves. While they may call out acts which are alike, as a rule
the response is different from the stimulus itself. The cry of a child calls out the resp onse of the care
of the mother; the one is fear and the other protecti on, solicitude. The response is not in any sense
identical with the other act. If there is an idea, in the Wundtian sense, the psychic al content that
answ ers to a certai n particular stimulus, that will not get its reflection in the response.
What language seems to carry is a set of sym bols answering to certai n content which is measurably
identical in the experience of the different individuals. If there is to be communication as such the
symbol has to mean the same thing to all individuals involved. If a number of individuals respond in
different ways to the stimulus, the stimulus means different thing s to them. If a number of perso ns
are lifting a weight, one person takes one position and another a different positi on. If it is a
coop erative process requiring different sorts of responses, then the call on the part of one individual
to act calls out different respo nses in the others. The conv ersation of gestures does not carry with it
a symbol which has a universal significance to all the different individuals. It may be quite effective
witho ut that, since the stimulus which one individual gives may be the proper stimulus to ca I out
different responses in the individuals in the group. It is not essential that the individuals should give
an identical meaning to the particular stimulus in order that each may properly respond. People get
into a crowd and move this way, and that way; they adjust themselves to the people coming toward
them, as we say, unconsciously. They move in an intelligent fashion with reference to each other,
and perhaps all of them think of something entirely different, but they do find in the gestures of
others, their attitudes and movements, adequate stimuli for different responses. This illustrates a
conversat ion of gesture s in which there is coop erative activit y without any symbol that means the
same thing to all. Of cours e, it is poss ible for intelligent individuals under such conditions to translate
these gestures into significant symbols, but one need not stop to transl ate into terms of that sort.
Such a universal discourse is not at all essential to the conversation of gestur es in cooperative
cond uct.
Such cooperative conduct is presumably the only type of conduct which one finds among the ants
and bees. In these very complex societies there is an interrelationship of different forms that
seemingly is as complex as human conduct in many respects. There are societies of a million
individuals in some of the large ant nests, and divided up into different groups with different
functions. What is a stimulus to actio n for one leads to a different response in anoth er. There is
coop erative activit y, but no evidence of any significant language in the cond uct of these insects. It is,
of course, a field in which a great deal of work has to be done, but still there has been no evidence
found of any significant symbols.
I want to make clear the difference betwee n those two situations. There can be a high degree of
intelligence, as we use that term, in the cond uct of animals without any significant symbols, witho ut
any presentation of meanings as such. What is esse ntial is cooperative activit y, so that the gesture
of one form calls out the proper response to others. But the gesture of one may call out very
different respo nses on the part of other forms, and yet there may be no common meaning which all
the different forms give to any particular gesture. There is no common symbol that for the ants
means food. Food means a great many things, things that have to be gathered, that have to be
stored, that have to be carried by the workers and placed in the mouths of the fighters. There is no
evidence that there is any symbol that means food as such. The sight, the odor of food, and its
position lead to a certain respo nse. An ant picks a food object up and staggers back to the nest with
it. Later it means something to be eaten, it means a whole serie s of activi ties. The odor along the
path is a stimulus to other insects following along the path, but there is no symbol that means "path"
to such a group. The odor of a strange form in the nest means attack from other forms, but if a
strange ant is dipped in liquid formed by crushing ants from the nest and then placed in the nest
there is no attack, even though his form is very much larger. The odor does not mean an enemy as

such. Contrast these two situatio ns: in one there is a highly complex social activity in which the
gesture s are simply stimuli to the appropriate respo nse of the whole group; in the human situation
there is a different response which is mediated by means of partic ular symbols or particu lar
gesture s which have the same meaning for all members of a group. Here the cry of an enemy is not
simply a stimulus to attack. It means that a person of a different race, of a different community, is
present, and that there is warfare going on. It has the same meaning to all individuals and that
meaning may mediate a whole serie s of different respo nses.
As I have said, the problem from Wundt's standpoint is to get this second character over into the
more primitive conversati on of gestures, or conduct which is mediated by a conversation of
gesture s. A mere intelligent response on the part of the different members of a group to a single
stimulus (to what to the observer is a single stimulus) does not carry with it any communication. Now
how is one to reach genuine language? Wundt starts off with the assumption that there are
psychic al conditions that answer to certain stimuli, and an association between them. Certain sights,
odors, and espe cially soun ds are associ ated with certain ideas. If, when a person uses a certai n
soun d, he has that idea in his own mind, and the gesture that he uses, say a vocal gesture, calls out
the same gesture in the other, then that gestur e in the other person will call out the same idea in
him. Say the word "enemy" calls out a hostile response. Now, when I say "enemy" it calls out the
same response in your mind that it calls out in mine. There we would have a particular symbol that
has a common meaning. If all members of the group were so constituted that it has this meaning,
then there would be a basis for communication by means of significant symbols.
The difficulty in this analysis to which I have been referring is to acco unt for a partic ular gesture
calling out the same gesture in another individual, even if we assume that this same idea is
assoc iated with the same vocal gesture in another individual. Assu ming that the word "enemy"
means hostil ity, how can the situatio n arise in which one person says "enemy," and the other person
says "enemy" too? Where one person says is enemy" one individual will fight and another will run
away. There we have two different significations answering to the sound. What we want to get is the
one stimulus which has a certain psychic al conte nt calling out the same stimulus in another form,
and so the same content. We seem to have the beginnings of that proce ss among the talking birds.
One stimulus seems to call out the same stimulus in the conduct of the other form. What the
psychic al accompaniment is in the b irds, of course, we cannot tell, but we can record that they seem
to have no such signification as they have in our experience. The parrot does not mean what the
sente nces mean to us. We have noted, however, that the canary's melody can be taken over by the
sparr ow, and this seemingly imitative process we must soon discu ss in detail.
We argued that there is no evidence of any general tendency on the part of forms to imitate each
other. If one attemp ts to state such a tendency it breaks down mechanically. It would mean that we
have a tendency to do the same thing that other people are doing, and also that these tendencies
are not only in our nature, but also that they are attache d to certain spec ific stimuli whic h mean what
the other people are doing. The sigh t of one perso n doing something would be a stimulus to an other
person to do the same thing. We should have to assu me that what the person is doing is already a
reacti on that is in the nature of the imitating individual. It would mean that we have in our nature
already all of these various activities, and that they are called out by the sight of other people doing
the same thing . It is a perfectly impossible assu mption.
When the psycho logist came to analyze imitation he restricted it to the field in which people
happened to be doing the same thing. If one perso n is running he may be said to arouse the
stimulus for other people to run at the same time. We do assume that the sight of one animal
actua lly running is the stimulus to other animals to run. That is very important for the preservation of
animals that go in droves. Cattle grazi ng in a pasture all drift along togethe r. One animal left by
himself will be nervo us and will not graze, but if put with other animals it is again normal. It does
more readily what it is doing provi ded it is in a group. The tendency to drift together is not an
impossible sort of an instinct, since we can conceive that the move ment of animals in a certai n
directio n shou ld be a stimulus to other animals. That is about all that there is in the "herding"
instin ct, if reduced down to something concre te in the actio n of the form itself The animal acts more
nominally when with others in the same group. He will feed better than otherwise. But when you
come to some specific act about all you can find is that the animals do tend to move in the same
directio n. This may lead to a stampede in the herd. Something of that sort is involved in the so-
called "sentin el." One animal, a little more sensitive than the others, lifts his head and starts to run
away, and the other animals do tend to move with the sentinel form. It is not, of course, imitation in

the sense of copying; for one animal is not copying the other animal. The one animal simply tends to
run when the other does. If a cat is put in a puzzle box and the cat does get to the point where it
opens the door by a lever action and does that often enough, it will strike that lever the first thing.
Now, if another cat is put in, and wher e it can see the first cat, it will not imitate it. There is no
evidence that what one animal does becomes a stimulus to the other animal to do the same thing.
There is no direct imitative activity.
There does however, seem to be a tendency to imitate among men, and in particular to reproduce
vocal gestures. We find the latter tendency among birds as well as among men. If you go into a
locality where there is a peculiar dialect and remain there for a length of time you find yourse lf
spea king the same dialect, and it may be something which you did not want to do. The simplest way
of stating it is to say that you unconsciously imitate. The same thing is also true of variou s other
mannerisms. If you think of a certain perso n you are very apt to find yourself speaking as the other
person spoke. Any mannerism which the individual has is one which you find yourself tending to
carry out when the person come s to your mind. That is what we call "imitation," and what is curious
is that there is pract ically no indication of such behavior on the part of lower forms. You can teach
the sparrow to sing as a canary but you have to keep that sparrow const antly listen ing to a canary. It
does not take place readily. The mocking bird does seem to take up the calls of other birds. It
seems to be peculiarly endowed in this particular way. But in general the taking over of the
processes of others is not natural to lower forms. Imitati on seems to belong to the human form,
wher e it has reached some sort of independent conscious existence.
But "Imit ation" gives no solu tion for the origin of language. We have to come back to some situation
out of which we can reach some symbol that will have an identical meaning, and we cann ot get it
out of a mere instin ct of imitation, as such. There is no evidence that the gesture generally tends to
call out the same gestur e in the other organism.
Imitati on as the mere tendency on the part of an organism to reproduce what it sees or hears other
organisms doing is mechanically impossible; one cannot conceive an organism as so constructe d
that all the sights and sounds which reach it would arous e in the organism tendencies to reproduce
what it sees and hears in those fields of experience. Such an assu mption is poss ible only in terms of
an older psychology. If one assu med that the mind is made up out of ideas, that the character of our
consc ious experience is nothi ng but a set of impressions of objects, and if one adjusts to these
impressions, so to speak, a motor tendency, one might conceive of that as being one which would
seek to reproduce what was seen and heard. But as soon as you recog nize in the organism a set of
acts which carry out the processe s which are essential to the life of the form, and undertake to put
the sensitive or sensory experience into that schem e, the sensit ive experience, as stimulus we will
say to the response, cann ot be a stimulus simply to reproduce what is seen and heard; it is rather a
stimulus for the carrying out of the organic process. The animal sees or smells the food and hears
the enemy, the parent form sees and hears the infant form-these are all stimuli to the forms to carry
throu gh the processe s which are essent ial to the spec ies to which they belong. They are acts which
go beyond the organism taken by itself, but they belong to coop erative proc esse s in which grou ps of
animals act together, and they are the fulfillment of the proce sses which are essenti al to the life of
the forms. One cann ot fit into any such scheme as that a-partic ular impulse of imitat ion, and if one
undertakes to present the mechanism which would make intelligible that process, even the
intric acies of the centra l nervous system would be inadequate. An individual would be in such a
situati on as one of Gulliver's figures who undertook to save his breath by not talking, and so carried
a bagful of all the objects about which he would want to talk. One would have to carry about an
enormous bagful, so to spea k, of such poss ible actions if they were to be represented in the central
nervou s system. Imitatio n, however, cannot be taken as a primitive response.
Endnotes
1.[Les lois de I'imitation.]
9. THE VOCAL GES TURE AND THE SIGNIFI CANT SYM BOL

The concept of imitation has been used very widely in the field of the vocal gesture. There we do
seem to have a tendency on the part of certa in organisms to reproduce sounds which are heard.
Human beings and the talking birds provide illustrati ons. But even here "imitation" is hardly an
immediate tendency, since it takes quite a while to get one bird to reproduce the song, or for the
child to take over the phonetic gesture of the human form. The vocal gestur e is a stimulus to some
sort of respo nse; it is not si mply a stimulus to the calling out of the sound which the animal hears. Of
cours e, the bird can be put into a situation where it may reach the mere repeti tion of that which it
hears. If we assu me that one sound that the bird makes calls out another sound, when the bird
hears this first sound it responds by the seco nd. If one asked why one note answe rs to another, one
would have to go to some process where the vocal gesture would have a different physiological
significance. An illustration is the cooing process of pigeons. There one note calls out another note
in the other form. It is a conversation of gestures, wher e a certain attitude expressing itself in a
certai n note calls out another attitude with its corres ponding note. If the form is to call out in itself the
same note that it calls out in the other, it must act as the other acts, and use the note that the other
makes use of in order to repro duce the particular note in question. So you find, if you put the
sparr ow and the canary togethe r in neighboring cages, where the call of one calls out a series of
notes in the other, that if the sparrow finds itself uttering a note such as a canary does, the vocal
gesture here must be more or less of the same type. Where that situation exists, the sparro w in its
own process of vocalization makes use of such notes as those which the canary makes use of. The
sparr ow is influencing not only the canary, but also in hearing itself it is influencing itself. The note
that it is making use of, if it is identical with the note of the canary, calls out a respo nse in itself that
the canary's note would call out in itself. Those are the situations that have become emphasized
and maintained where one has what we term "imitation." Were the sparrow is actually making use of
a phonetic vocal gestur e of the canary throug h a common note in the repertoire of both of them,
then the sparrow woul d be tending to bri ng out in itself the same resp onse that would be brought out
by the note of the canary. Tha t, then would give an added weight in the experience of the sparrow to
that particular response.
If the vocal gesture which the sparrow makes is identic al with that which it hears when the canary
makes use of the same note, then it is seen that its own response will be in that case identical with
the response to the canary's note. It is this which gives such peculiar importance to the vocal
gesture: it is one of those social stimuli which affect the form that makes it in the same fashion that it
affects the form which made by anoth er. That is, we can hear ourse lves talking, and the import of
what we say is the same to ourse lves that it is to others. If the sparrow makes use of a canary's note
it is calling out in itself the respo nse that the canary's note calls out. In so far, then , ad the sparrow
does make use of the same note that the canary makes use of, it will emphasize the vocal
responses to this note because they will be prese nt not only when the canary makes use of it but
also when the sparrow makes use of it. In such a case it is presupposed that the particu lar stimulus
is prese nt in the form itself, that is, tha t the vocal stimulus which calls out the particular note which is
learned is present in the repertoire of the sparr ow as well as in that of the canary. If one recognizes
that, then one can see that those particular notes answering to this stimulus will be, so to speak,
written in, underlined. They will become habitual. We are supporting that one note calls out another,
a stimulus calls out a respo nse. If this note which calls out this respo nse is used not only by the
cana ry but also by the sparr ow, then whenever the sparrow hears the canary it makes use of that
partic ular note, and if it has the same note in its own repertoire then there is a double tendency to
bring about this partic ular response, so that it becomes more frequently made use of and becomes
more definitely a part of the singing of the sparrow than otherw ise. Such are the situatio ns in which
the sparrow does take the role of the cana ry in so far as there are certain notes to which it tends to
react just as the cana ry does. There is a double weight, so to speak, upon this particular note or
serie s of notes. It is in such a fashion that we can understand the learning by the sparrow of the
cana ry's song. One has to assu me a like tende ncy in the two forms if one is going to get any
mechanism for imitation at all.
To illustrate this further let us go back to the conversation of gestures in the dog-fight. There the
stimulus which one dog gets from the other is to a response which is different from the response of
the stimulating form. One dog is attacking the other, and is ready to sprin g at the other dog's throat;
the reply on the part of the second dog is to chan ge its position, perhaps to spring at the throat of
the first dog. There is a conversat ion of gesture s, a reciprocal shifting of the dogs' positions and
attitude s. In such a process there would be no mechanism for imitation. One dog does not imitate
the other. The seco nd dog assumes a different attitude to avoid the spring of the first dog. The
stimulus in the attitude of one dog is not to call out the respo nse in itself that it calls out in the other.

The first dog is influenced by its own attitude, but it is simply carrying out the process of a prepared
sprin g, so that the influence on the dog is simply in reinforcing the process which is going on. It is
not a stimulus to the dog to take the attitude of the other dog.
When, however, one is making use of the vocal gesture, if we assu me that one vocal clement is a
stimulus to a certai n reply, then when the animal that makes use of that vocal gesture hears the
result ing soun d he will have arous ed in himself at least a tendency to respond in the same way as
the other animal responds. It may be a very slight tende ncy-the lion does not appreciably frighten
itself by its roar. The roar has an effect of frightening the animal he is attacking, and it has also the
character of a challenge under certain cond itions. But when we come to such elaborate processe s
of vocalization as those of the song of birds, there one vocal gestu re calls out another vocal gesture.
These, of course, have their function in the intercourse of the birds, but the gestu res themselves
beco me of peculiar importance. The vocalization plays a very large part in such a proce ss as
wooing, and one call tends to call out another note. In the case of the lion's roar the response is not
so much a vocal soun d as it is a flight, or, if you like, a fight. The response is not primarily a vocal
response. It is rather the action of the form itself. But in the song of birds, where vocalization is
carried out in an elaborate fashion, the stimulus does definitely call out a certa in respo nse so that
the bird when singing is influenced by its own stimulus to a response which will be like that which is
produced in another form. That response which is produced in itself, since it is also produced by the
influence of others, gets twice the emphasis that it would have if it were just called out by the note of
others. It is called out more frequently than the response to other sounds. It is this that gives the
seeming evidence of imitation in the case of sounds or vocal gestur es.[1] The stimulus that calls out
a particular soun d may be found not only in the other forms of the group but also in the repertoire of
the partic ular bird which uses the vocal gestur e. This stimulus A calls out the respo nse B. Now if this
stimulus A is not like B, and if we assu me that A calls out B, then if A is used by other forms these
forms will respond in the fashion B. If this form also uses the vocal gesture A, it will be calling out in
itself the respo nse B, so that the response B will be emphasized over against other respo nses
beca use it is called out not only by the vocal gestures of other forms but also by the form itself. This
would never take place unless there were an identity represented by A, in this case an identity of
stimuli.
In the case of the vocal gesture the form hears its own stimulus just as when this is used by other
forms, so it tends to respond also to its own stimulus as it respo nds to the stimulus of other forms.
That is, birds tend to sing to themselves, babies to talk to them selves. The sounds they make are
stimuli to make other soun ds. Where there is a specific sound that calls out a specific respo nse,
then if this sound is made by other forms it calls out this response in the form in question. If the
sparr ow makes use of this particular sound then the respo nse to tha t sound will be one which will be
heard more frequently than anoth er resp onse. In that way there will be selected out of the sparrow 's
repertoire those elements which are found in the song of the canary, and gradually such selectio n
would build up in the song of the sparr ow those elements which are common to both, without
assu ming a particular tende ncy of imitation. There is here a selective process by which is picked out
what is common. "Imitation" depends upon the individual influencing himself as others influence
him, so that he is under the influence not only of the other but also of himself in so far as he uses
the same vocal gesture.
The vocal gesture, then, has an importance which no other gesture has. We cannot see ourselves
when our face assu mes a certa in expression. If we hear ourse lves speak we are more apt to pay
attention. One hears himself when he is irritated using a tone that is of an irritab le quality, and so
catches himself. But in the facial expression of irritation the stimulus is not one that calls out an
expression in the individual which it calls out in the other. One is more apt to catch himself up and
contro l himself in the vocal gestur e than in the expression of the countenance.
It is only the actor who uses bodily expressions as a means of looking as he wants others to feel. He
gets a respo nse which revea ls to him how he looks by contin ually using a mirror. He regis ters anger,
he registers love, he regis ters this, that, or the
other attitude, and he examines himself in a glass to see how he does so. When he later makes use
of the gesture it is prese nt as a mental image. He realizes that that particular expression does call
out fright. If we exclude vocal gesture s, it is only by the use of the mirror that one could reach the
position where he responds to his own gestur es as other people respond. But the vocal gestur e is

one which does give one this capacity for answering to one's own stimulus as another would
answ er.
If there is any truth in the old axiom that the bully is always the coward, it will be found to rest on the
fact that one arouses in himself that at titude of fear which his bullying attitude arou ses in anoth er, so
that when put into a particular situatio n which calls his bluff, his own attitude is found to be that of
the others. If one's own attitude of giving way to the bullying attitude of others is one that arouses
the bullying attitude, he has in that degree arous ed the attitude of bullying in himself. There is a
certai n amount of truth in this when we come back to the effect upon one's self of the gestur e of
which he makes use. In so far as one calls out the attitude in himself that one calls out in others, the
response is picked out and strengthened. That is the only basis for what we call imitation. It is not
imitation in the sens e of simply doing what one sees another person doing. The mechanism is that
of an individual calling out in himself the response which he calls out in another, consequently giving
great er weight to those responses than to the other responses, and gradually building up those sets
of responses into a dominant whole. That may be done, as we say, unconsciously. The sparrow
does not know it is imitating the canary. It is just a gradual picking up of the notes which are
common to both of them . And that is true wherever there is imitation.
So far as exclamatory soun ds are conc erned (and they would answer in our own vocal gestures to
what is found in those of animals), the response to these does not enter into immediate
conversat ion, and the influence of these respo nses on the individual are comp aratively slight. It
seems to be difficult to bring them into relationship with significant spee ch. We are not consciously
frightened when we speak angrily to someone else, but the meaning of what we say is always
present to us when we speak. The response in the individual to an exclamatory cry which is of the
same sort as that in the other does not play any important part in the conduct of the form. The
response of the lion to its roar is of very little importance in the respo nse of the form itself, but our
response to the meaning of what we say is constantly attached to our conversation. We must be
constant ly respo nding to the gesture we make if we are to carry on successful vocal convers ation.
The meaning of what we are sayin g is the tendency to respond to it. You ask somebody to bring a
visitor a chair. You arouse the tendency to get the chair in the other, but if he is slow to act you get
the chair yourself. The response to the vocal gestur e is the doing of a certain thing, and you arouse
that same tendency in yoursel f. You are always replying to yourself, just as other people reply. You
assu me that in some degree there must be identity in the reply. It is action on a common basis.
I have contrasted two situations to show what a tong road spee ch or communication has to travel
from the situation where there is nothing but vocal cries over to the situat ion in which significant
symbols are utilized. What is peculiar to the latter is that the individual responds to his own stimulus
in the same way as other people respo nd. Then the stimulus becomes significant; then one is
sayin g something. As far as a parrot is concerned, its "speech" means nothing, but wher e one
significantly says something with his own vocal process he is saying it to himself as well as to
everybo dy else within reach of his voice. It is only the vocal gesture that is fitted for this sort of
communication, beca use it is only the vocal gesture to which one responds or tends to respond as
another perso n tends to respo nd to it. It is true that the language of the hands is of the same
character. One sees one's self using the gestures which those who are deaf make use of. They
influence one the same way as they influence others. Of course, the same is true of any form of
script. But such symbols have all been developed out of the specific vocal gestur e, for that is the
basic gesture which does influence the individual as it influences others. Where it does not beco me
significant is in the vocalizatio n of the two birds.2 Neverth eless, the same type of proce ss is present,
the stim ulus of the one bird tendi ng to call out the response in another bird whic h it tends to call out,
however slightly, in the bird itself.
Endnotes
1.An attempt was made by Ba ldwin to carry back imitation to a fundamental biological proc ess
– a tendency on the part of the organism to reinstate a pleasurable sensation….. In the
process of mastication the very process of chew ing reinstates the stimulus, brings back the
flavor. Baldwin would call this self imitation. This proce ss, if it takes place at all, does not by
any means meet the situatio n with which we are dealing (1912).
2.[See Supplementary Essay III for discussion.]

10. THOUGHT, COMMUNICATIO N, AND THE SIGNIFICANT SYMBOL
We have conten ded that there is no particular faculty of imitation in the sense that the sound or the
sight of another's respo nse is itself a stimulus to carry out the same reaction, but rather that if there
is already present in the individual an action like the action of another, then there is a situation which
makes imitation possi ble. What is nece ssary now to carry through that imitation is that the conduct
and the gesture of the individual which calls out a respo nse in the other should also tend to call out
the same response in himself. In the dog-fight this is not present: the attitude in the one dog does
not tend to call out the same attitude in the other. In some respe cts that actua lly may occur in the
case of two boxers. The man who makes a feint is calling out a certain blow from his opponent, and
that act of his own does have that meaning to him, that is, he has in some sense initiated the same
act in himself. It does not go clear through, but he has stirred up the centers in his central nervou s
system which would lead to his making the same blow that his opponent is led to make, so that he
calls out in himself, or tends to call out, the same response which he calls out in the other. There
you have the basis for so-called imitat ion. Such is the process which is so widely recog nized at
present in manners of speech, of dress, and of attitudes.
We are more or less unconsciously seeing ourse lves as others see us. We are unconsciously
addressing ourselves as others address us; in the same way as the sparrow takes up the note of the
cana ry we pick up the dialects about us. Of course, there must be these partic ular responses in our
own mechanism. We are calling out in the other person something we are calling out in ourselves,
so that unconsciously we take over these attitudes. We are unco nsciously putting ourselves in the
place of others and acting as others act. I want simply to isolate the general mechanism here,
beca use it is of very fundamental importance in the development of what we call self-consciousness
and the appearance of the self. We are, especially throu gh the u se of the vocal gest ures, contin ually
arousing in ourselves those responses which we call out in other persons, so that we are taking the
attitude s of the other persons into our own conduct. The critica l importance of language in the
deve lopment of human experience lies in this fact that the stimulus is one that can react upon the
spea king individual as it reacts upon the other.
A behaviorist, such as Watson, holds that all of our thinking is vocal ization. In thinking we are simply
starting to use certain words. That is in a sense true. However, Watson does not take into account
all that is involved here, namely, that these stimuli are the esse ntial elements in elaborate social
processes and carry with them the value of those social processes. The vocal proce ss as such has
this great importance, and it is fair to assu me that the vocal process, together with the intelligence
and thought that go with it, is not simply a playing of particu lar vocal elements against each other.
Such a view neglects the socia l context of language.[1]
The importance, then, of the vocal stimulus lies in this fact that the individual can hear what he says
and in hearing what he says is tendi ng to respond as the other perso n respon ds. When we speak
now of this response on the part of the individual to the others we come back to the situati on of
asking some perso n to do something. We ordinarily express that by sayin g that one knows what he
is asking you to do. Take the illustrat ion of asking some one to do something, and then doing it one 's
self. Perhaps the person addressed does not hear you or acts slowly, and then you carry the action
out yourse lf. You find in yourse lf, in this way, the same tendency which you are asking you that
same respo nse which you stirred up in the other individual. How difficult it is to show someone else
how to do something which you know how to do yourself! The slowness of the response makes it
hard to restrain yourself from doing what you are teaching. You have aroused the same response in
yoursel f as you arouse in the other individual.
In seeking for an explanation of this, we ordinarily assu me a certain group of centers in the nervous
system which are conn ected with each other, and which express themselves in the actio n. If we try
to find in a central nervous system something that answers to our word "chai r," what we should find
would be presumably simply an organization of a whole group of poss ible reactions so connected
that if one starts in one direction one will carry out one process, if in another directio n one will carry
out anoth er process. The chair is primarily what one sits down in. It is a physica l object at a
dista nce. One may move toward an object at a distance and then enter upon the process of sitting

down when one reaches it. There is a stimulus which excites certain paths which caus e the
individual to go toward that object and to sit down. Those centers are in some degree physical.
There is, it is to be noted, an influence of the later act on the earlier act. The later process which is
to go on has already been initiated and that later process has its influence on the earlier process
(the one that takes place before this proce ss, already initiated, can be completed). Now, such an
organization of a great group of nervo us elements as will lead to conduct with reference to the
objects about us is what one would find in the central nervo us system answering to what we call an
object. The complications are very great, but the central nervous system has an almost infinite
number of elements in it, and they can be organized not only in spatial conn ection with each other,
but also from a temporal standpoint. In virtue of this last fact, our conduct is made up of a series of
steps which follow each other, and the later steps may be already started and influence the earlier
ones.[2] The thing we are going to do is playing back on what we are doing now. That organization
in the neural elements in reference to what we call a physica l object would be what we call a
conc eptual object stated in terms of the centra l nervous system.
In rough fashion it is the initiation of such a set of organized sets of responses that answ ers to what
we call the idea or concept of a thing. If one asked what the idea of a dog is, and tried to find that
idea in the central nervou s system, one would find a whole group of responses which are more or
less connected together by definite paths so that when one uses the term "dog" he does tend to call
out this group of responses. A dog is a poss ible playmate, a possible enemy, one's own property or
somebody else 's. There is a whole series of possible responses. There are certa in types of these
responses which are in all of us, and there are others which vary with the individuals, but there is
always an organization of the responses which can be called out by the term "dog." So if one is
spea king of a dog to another person he is arousing in himself this set of responses which he is
arousing in the other individual.
It is, of course, the relationship of this symb ol, this vocal gestur e, to such a set of respo nses in the
individual himself as well as in the other that makes of that vocal gesture what I call a significant
symbol. A symbol does tend to call out in the individual a group of reactions such as it calls out in
the other, but there is something further that is involved in its being a significant symbol: this
response within one's self to such a word as " chair," or "dog," is one which is a stimulus to the
individual as well as a respo nse. This is what, of course, is involve d in what we term the meaning of
a thing, or its significance.[3] We often act with reference to objects in what we call an intelligent
fashion, although we can act without the meaning of the object being present in our experience.
One can start to dress for dinner, as they tell of the absent-minded college professor, and find
himself in his pajamas in bed. A certain process of undressing was started and carried out
mechanically; he did not recog nize the meaning of what he was doing. He intended to go to dinner
and found he had gone to bed. The meaning involv ed in his action was not present. The steps in
this case were all intelligent steps which controlled his conduct with reference to later action, but he
did not think about what he was doing. The later action was not a stimulus to his response, but just
carried itself out when it was once started.
When we speak of the meaning of what we are doing we are making the response itself that we are
on the point of carryi ng out a stimulus to our action. It becomes a stimulus to a later stage of action
which is to take place from the point of view of this particular response. In the case of the boxer the
blow that he is starting to direct toward his opponent is to call out a certain respo nse which will open
up the guard of his opponent so that he can strike. The meaning is a stimulus for the preparation of
the real blow he expects to deliver. The response which he calls out in himself (the guarding
reacti on) is the stimulus to him to strike where an opening is given. This action which he has
initiated already in himself thus becomes a stimulus for his later response. He knows what his
opponent is going to do, since the guarding movement is one which is already aroused, and
beco mes a stimulus to strike wher e the opening is given. The meaning would not have been prese nt
in his conduct unless it becam e a stimulus to strike where the favorable opening appears.
Such is the difference between intelligent conduct on the part of animals and what we call a
reflective individual.[4] We say the animal does not think. He does not put himself in a position for
which he is responsible; he does not put himself in the place of the other person and say, in effect,
"He will act in such a way and I will act in this way." If the individual can act in this way, and the
attitude which he calls out in himself can become a stimulus to him for another act, we have
meaningful conduct. Where the response of the other perso n is called out and becomes a stimulus
to control his action, then he has the meaning of the other person's act in his own experience. That

is the general mechanism of what we term "thought," for in order that thought may exist there must
be symbols, vocal gestures generally, which arouse in the individual himself the response which he
is calling out in the other, and such that from the point of view of that response he is able to direct
his later cond uct. It involve s not only communication in the sens e in which birds and animals
communicate with each other, but also an arousal in the individual himself of the response which he
is calling out in the other individual, a taking of the role of the other, a tende ncy to act as the other
person acts. One participates in the same process the other perso n is carryin g out and contro ls his
actio n with reference to that partici pation. It is that which constitutes the meaning of an object,
namely, the common response in one's self as well as in the other perso n, which beco mes, in turn,
a stimulus to one's self.
If you conce ive of the mind as just a sort of conscious substance in which there are certai n
impressions and states, and hold that one of those states is a universal, then a word becomes
purely arbitrary-it is just a symbol.[5] You can then take words and pronounce them backwards, as
children do; there seems to be absolute freedom of arrangement and language seems to be an
entirely mechanical thing that lies outside of the process of intelligence. If you recognize that
language is, however, just a part of a cooperative process, that part which does lead to an
adjustment to the response of the other so that the whole activity can go on, then language has only
a limited range of arbitrariness. If you are talking to another person you are, perhaps, able to scent
the change in his attitude by something that would not strike a third pers on at all. You may know his
mannerism, and that becomes a gesture to you, a part of the response of the individual. There is a
certai n range possible within the gesture as to what is to serve as the symbol. We may say that a
whole set of separate symbols with one meaning are acce ptable; but they always are gestures, that
is, they are always parts of the act of the individual which revea l what he is going to do to the other
person so that when the person utilizes the clue he calls out in himself the attitude of the other.
Language is not ever arbitrary in the sense of simply denoting a bare state of consciousness by a
word. What particu lar part of one's act will serve to direct cooperative activity is more or less
arbitrary. Different phases of the act may do it. What seems unimportant in itself may be highly
important in revealing what the attitude is. In that sense one can speak of the gesture itself as
unimportant, but it is of great importance as to what the gesture is going to reveal. This is seen in
the difference betwe en the purely intellectual character of the symbol and its emotional character. A
poet depends upon the latter; for him language is rich and full of values which we, perhaps, utterly
ignore. In trying to express a message in something less than ten words, we merely want to convey
a certain meaning, while the poet is dealing with what is really living tissue, the emotional throb in
the expression itself. There is, then, a great range in our use of language; but whatever phase of
this range is used is a part of a socia l process, and it is always that part by means of which we affect
ourselves as we affect others and mediate the social situati on throu gh this understanding of what
we are saying. That is fundamental for any language; if it is going to be language one has to
understand what he is sayin g, has to affect himself as he affects others.
Endnotes
1.Gestures, if carried back to the matrix from which they spring, are always found to inhere in
or involv e a larger social act of which they are phases. In dealing with communication we
have first to recognize its earliest origins in the unconscious conversati on of gestures.
Conscious communication-conscious conv ersation of gestures-arises when gestures
beco me signs, that is, when they come to carry for the individuals making them and the
individuals responding to them, definite rneanings or significations in terms of the
subs equent behavior of the individuals making them; so that, by serving as prior indications,
to the individuals responding to them, of the subs equent behavior of the individuals making
them, they make possible the mutual adjustment of the various individual comp onents of the
socia l act to one another, and also, by calling forth in the individuals making them the same
responses implicitly that they call forth explicitly in the individuals to whom they are made,
they render possible the rise of selfconsciousness in connection with this mutual adjustment.
2.[See Secti ons 13, 16.]
3.The inclusion of the matri x or complex of attitudes and respo nses const ituting any given
socia l situation or act, within the experience of any one of the individuals implicated in that
situati on or act (the inclusion within his experience of his attitudes toward other individuals,

of their responses to his attitudes toward them, of their attitudes toward him, and of his
responses to these attitudes) is all that an idea amounts to; or at any rate is the only basis
for its occurr ence or existence "in the mind" of the given individual.
In the case of the unconscious conversation of gestures, or in the case of the process of
communication carrie d on by means of it, none of the individuals participating in it is
consc ious or the meaning of the conversation-that meaning does not appear in the
experience of any one of the sepa rate individuals involv ed in the conversat ion or carryin g it
on; whereas, in the case of the conscious conversati on of gestures, or in the case of the
process of com munication carried on by m eans of it, each of the individuals partici pating in it
is consci ous of the meaning of the conve rsation, precisely because that meaning does
appear in his experience, and because such appearance is what consciousness of that
meaning implies.
4.[For the nature of animal cond uct see "Concerning Animal Perce ption," Psych ological
Review, XIV (I 907), 383 ff.]
5.Muller attempts to put the values of thought into language; but this attempt is fallacious,
beca use language has those values only as the most effective mechanism of thought merely
beca use it carries the consci ous or significant conversation of gestures to its highest and
most perfect development. There must be some sort of an implicit attitude (that is, a
response which is initiated without being fully carried out) in the organism making the
gesture -an attitude which answers to the overt response to the gestur e on the part of
another individual, and which corres ponds to the attitude called forth or aroused in this other
organism by the gestur e-if thoug ht is to deve lop in the organism making the gesture. And it
is the central nervous system which provides the mechanism for such implicit attitudes or
responses.
The identification of language with reason is in one sense an absur dity, but in another sense
it is valid. It is valid, namely, in the sens e that the process of language brings the total social
act into the experience of the given individual as himself involved in the act, and thus makes
the proce ss of reason possi ble. But though the process of reason is and must be carrie d on
in terms of the process of language-in terms, that is, of words -it is not simply constituted by
the latter.
11. MEANI NG [1]
We are particularly concerned with intelligence on the human level, that is, with the adjustment to
one another of the acts of different human individuals within the human socia l process; an
adjustment which takes place through communication: by gestures on the lower planes of human
evolution, and by significant symbols (gestur es which possess meanings and are hence more than
mere substitute stimuli) on the higher planes of human evolution.
The central factor in such adjustment is "meaning." Meaning arises and lies within the field of the
relation betwee n the gestur e of a given human organism and the subsequent behavior of this
organism as indicated to another human organism by that gesture. If that gesture does so indicate
to another organism the subse quent (or resultant) behavior of the given organism, then it has
meaning. In other words, the relationship between a given stimulus-as a gesture-and the later
phases of the social act of which it is an early (if not the initial) phase constitutes the field within
which meaning originates and exists. Meaning is thus a development of something objectively there
as a relation betwe en certa in phases of the social act; it is not a psychical addition to that act and it
is not an "idea" as traditionally conceived. A gesture by one organism, the resultant of the social act
in which the gestur e is an early phase, and the respo nse of another orga nism to the g esture, are the
relata in a triple or threefo ld relationship of gesture to first organism, of gesture to seco nd organism,
and of gesture to subse quent phases of the given social act; and this threefold relationship
constitutes the matrix within which meaning arise s, or which deve lops into the field of meaning. The
gesture stands for a certa in resultant of the social act, a resultant to which there is a definite
response on the part of the individuals involve d therein; so that meaning is given or stated in terms
of response. Mean ing is implicit-if not always explicit-in the relationship among the vario us phases

of the social act to which it refers, and out of which it develops. And its devel opment takes place in
terms of symbolization at the human evoluti onary level.
We have been conc erning ourselves, in general, with the socia l process of experience and behavior
as it appears in the calling out by the act of one organism of an adjustment to that act in the
responsive act of another organism. We have seen that the nature of meaning is intimately
assoc iated with the social process as it thus appears, that meaning involves this three-fold relation
among phases of the social act as the conte xt in which it arise s and develops: this relation of the
gesture of one organism to the adjustive response of another organism (also implicated in the given
act), and to the completion of the given act– a relati on such that the second organism responds to
the gestur e of the first as indicating or referring to the comp letion of the given act. For exam ple, the
chick's response to the cluck of the mother hen is a respo nse to the meaning of the cluck; the cluck
refers to danger or to food, as the case may be, and has this meaning or connotation for the chick.
The social process, as involvi ng communication, is in a sense responsible for the appearance of
new objects in the field of experience of the individual organisms implicated in that process. Orga nic
processes or respo nses in a sens e constitute the objects to which they are resp onses; that is to say,
any given biological organism is in a way responsible for the existence (in the sense of the
meanings they have for it) of the objects to which it physiologically and chemically respo nds. There
would, for example, be no food-no edible objects- if there were no organisms which could digest it.
And similarly, the socia l process in a sense constit utes the objects to which it responds, or to which
it is an adjustment. That is to say, objects are constituted in terms of meanings within the social
process of experience and behavior through the mutual adjustment to one another of the respo nses
or actio ns of the various individual organisms involved in that process, an adjustment made possible
by means of a communication which takes the form of a conversation of gestur es in the earlier
evolutionary stages of that proce ss, and of language in its later stages.
Awar eness or consci ousness is not necessary to the prese nce of meaning in the proce ss of social
experience. A gestur e on the part of one organism in any given socia l act calls out a respo nse on
the part of another organism which is directly related to the action of the first organism and its
outco me; and a gesture is a symbol of the result of the given socia l act of one organism (the
organism making it) in so far as it is responded to by another organism (thereby also involve d in that
act) as indicating that resul t. The mechanism of meaning is thus present in the social act before the
emergence of consciousness or awareness of meaning occurs. The act or adjustive response of the
seco nd organism gives to the gestu re of the first organism the meaning which it has.
Symbolization constitutes objects not constituted before, objects which would not exist exce pt for
the context of social relationships wherein symbolization occurs. Language does not simply
symbolize a situation or object whic h is already there in advan ce; it makes poss ible the existence or
the appearance of that situation or object, for it is a part of the mechanism wher eby that situation or
object is created. The social process relates the respo nses of one individual to the gestures of
another, as the meanings of the latter, and is thus responsible for the rise and existe nce of new
objects in the social situation, objects dependent upon or constitute d by these meanings. Meaning is
thus not to be conceived, fundamentally, as a state of consciousness, or as a set of organized
relations existing or subsisti ng mentally outside the field of experience into which they enter; on the
contrary, it should be conceived objectively, as having its existence entirely within this field itself.[2]
The respo nse of one organism to the gestur e of another in any given socia l act is the meaning of
that gesture, and also is in a sens e responsible for the appearance or coming into being of the new
object-or new conte nt of an old object-to which that gesture refers throug h the outcome of the given
socia l act in which it is an early phase. For, to repeat, objects are in a genuine sense constituted
within the social process of experience, by the communication and mutu al adjustment of behavior
among the individual organisms which are involved in that process and which carry it on. just as in
fencing the parry is an interpretation of the thrust, so, in the social act, the adjustive respo nse of one
organism to the gesture of another is the interpretatio n of that gesture by that organism-it is the
meaning of that gesture.
At the level of self-consci ousness such a gesture becomes a symbol, a significant symbol. But the
interpretation of gestur es is not, basically, a proce ss going on in a mind as such, or one necessa rily
involv ing a mind; it is an external, overt , physica l, or physiological process going on in the actual
field of social experience. Meaning can be descri bed, acco unted for, or stated in terms of symbols
or language at its highest and most complex stage of deve lopment (the stage it reaches in human

experience), but language simply lifts out of the socia l process a situation which is logically or
implicitly there already. The language symbol is simply a significant or consci ous gesture.
Two main points are being made here: (1) that the social proc ess, throu gh the communication whic h
it makes possible among the individuals implicated in it, is respo nsible for the appearance of a
whole set of new objects in nature, which exist in relation to it (objects, namely, of "common sense");
and (2) that the gesture of one organism and the adjustive response of another organism to that
gesture within any given social act bring out the relationship that exists between the gesture as the
beginning of the given act and the completion or resultant of the given act, to which the gesture
refers. These are the two basic and complementary logical aspects of the social process.
The result of any given social act is definitely separated from the gesture indicating it by the
response of another organism to that gesture, a response which points to the result of that act as
indicated by that gesture. This situation is all there – is completely given-on the non-mental, non-
consc ious level . 1, before the analysis of it on the mental or consci ous level. Dewey says that
meaning arises throug h communication.[3] It is to the content to which the social proce ss gives rise
that this statement refers; not to bare ideas or printed words as such, but to the social process which
has been so largely resp onsible for the objects constituting the daily enviro nment in which we live: a
process in which communication plays the main part. That process can give rise to these new
objects in nature only in so far as it makes possible communication among the individual organisms
involve d in it. And the sense in which it is responsible for their existence-indeed for the existence of
the whole world of common-sense objects-is the sens e in which it deter mines, conditions, and
makes possi ble their abstractio n from the total structure of events, as identities which are relevant
for everyday socia l behavior; and in that sense, or as having that meaning, they are existent only
relative to that behavior. In the same way, at a later, more advan ced stage of its development,
communication is respo nsible for the existence of the whole realm of scientific objects as well as
identities abstracte d from the total structure of events by virtue of their relevance for scientific
purposes.
The logical structure of meaning, we have seen, is to be found in the threef old relationship of
gesture to adjustive respo nse and to the resultant of the given social act. Response on the part of
the secon d organism to the gesture of the first is the interpretation-and brings out the meaning-of
that gesture, as indicating the resultant of the social act which it initiates, and in which both
organisms are thus involved. This three fold or triadic relation betwe en gesture, adjustive response,
and resultant of the social act which the gestu re initiates is the basis of meaning; for the existen ce of
meaning depends upon the fact that the adjustive response of the seco nd organism is directed
toward the resultant of the given social act as initiated and indicated by the gesture of the first
organism. The basis of meaning is thus objectively there in social conduct, or in nature in its relation
to such conduct. Meaning is a conte nt of an object which is dependent upon the relati on of an
organism or group of organisms to it. It is not essentially or primarily a psychical content (a content
of mind or consciousness), for it need not be conscio us at all, and is not in fact until significant
symbols are evolved in the process of human socia l experience. Only when it beco mes identified
with such symbols does meaning become conscious. The meaning of a gesture on the part of one
organism is the adjustive response of anoth er organism to it, as indicating the resulta nt of the social
act it initiates, the adjustive response of the secon d organism being itself directed toward or relate d
to the completion of that act. In other words, meaning involves a reference of the gestu re of one
organism to the result ant of the social act it indicates or initiates, as adjustively responded to in this
reference by another organism; and the adjustive response of the other organism is the meaning of
the gestur e.
Gestures may be either conscious (significant) or unconscious (non -significant). The conversati on of
gesture s is not significant below the human level, because it is not consc ious, that is, not self-
consc ious (though it is conscious in the sense of involving feelings or sensat ions). An animal as
opposed to a human form, in indicating something to, or bringing out a meaning for, anoth er form, is
not at the same time indicating or bringing out the same thing or meaning to or for himself; for he
has no mind, no thought, and hence there is no meaning here in the significant or self-conscious
sens e. A gesture is not significant when the response of another organism to it does not indicate to
the organism making it what the other organism is respo nding to.[4]
Much subtlety has been wasted on the problem of the meaning of meaning. It is not necessary, in
attempting to solve this problem, to have recou rse to psychic al states, for the nature of meaning, as

we have seen, is found to be implicit in the structure of the social act, implicit in the relations among
its three basic individual components: namely, in the triadic relation of a gesture of one individual, a
response to that gesture by a second individual, and completion of the given social act initiated by
the gestur e of the first individual. And the fact that the natur e of meaning is thus found to be implicit
in the structure of the social act provid es additional emphasis upon the necessity, in social
psychol ogy, of starting off with the initial assu mption of an ongoing social proc ess of experience and
behavior in which any given group of human individuals is involved, and upon which the existence
and development of their minds, selves, and self-consciousness depend.
Endnotes
1.[See also "Social Consc iousness and the Consciousness of Mean ing," Psych ological
Bulletin, VII (1910), 397 ff.; "The Mechanism of Social Consciousness," Journal of
Philosophy, IX (1912), 401 ff.]
2.Natu re has meaning and implication but not indication by symbols. The symbol is
distin guishable from the meaning it refers to. Meanings are in nature, but symbols are the
heritage of man (1924).
3.[See Expe rience and Natu re, chap. v.]
4.There are two characters which belong to that which we term "meanings," one is
partic ipation and the other is communicability. Meaning can arise only in so far as some
phase of the act which the individual is arousing in the other can be aroused in himself.
There is always to this extent participation. And the result of this participation is
communicability, i.e., the individual can indicate to himself what he indicates to others 'there
is communication witho ut significance where the gesture of the individual calls out the
response in the other without calling out or tending to call out the same respo nse in the
individual himself. Significance from the standpoint of the observer may be said to be
present in the gestur e which calls out the appropriate response in the other or others within
a cooperative act, but it does not become significant to the individuals who are involved in
the act unless the tendency to the act is arous ed within the individual who makes it, and
unless the individual who is directly affected by the gesture puts himself in the attitude of the
individual who makes the gesture (MS).
12. UNIVERSALITY
Our experience does recog nize or find that which is typical, and this is as essent ial for an adequate
theory of meaning as is the element of partic ularity. There are not only facts of red, for example, but
there is in the experience a red which is identic al so far as experience has been conc erned with
some other red. One can isolate the red just as a sens ation, and as such it is passi ng; but in
addition to that passi ng character there is some thing that we call univers al, something that gives a
meaning to it. The event is a color, it is red, it is a certai n kind of red-and that is something which
does not have a passing character in the statement of color itself. If we go over from particu lar
conte nts of this sort to other objects, such as a chair, a tree, a dog, we find there something that is
distin guishable from the particular object, plant, or animal that we have about us. What we
recognize in a dog is not the group of sens uous elements, but rather the character of being a dog,
and unless we have some reason for interest in this partic ular dog, some problem as to its
ownership or its likelihood to bite us, our relati onship to the animal is to a universa l-it is just a dog. If
a person asks you what you saw you reply that it was a dog. You would not know the color of the
dog; it was just a dog in general that you saw.
There is a meaning here that is given in the experience itself, and it is this meaning or universa l
character with which a behavioristic psychology is supp osed to have difficulty in dealing. When
there is a response to such an animal as a dog there is a respo nse of recognition as well as a
response towar d an object in the landscape; and this response of recog nition is someth ing that is

universal and not particular. Can this factor be stated in behavioristic terms ? We are not, of course,
interested in philosophical implications; we are not interested in the metaphysics of the dog; but we
are interested in the recognition which would belong to any other animal of the same sort. Now, is
there a response of such a universal character in our nature that it can be said to answe r to this
recognition of what we term the univers al? It is the possibility of such a behavioristic statement that I
endeavor to sketch.
What the central nervo us system presents is not simply a set of automatisms, that is, certai n
inevit able reactions to certain specific stimuli, such as taking our hand away from a radiator that is
touch ed, or jumping when a loud soun d occurs behind us. The nervou s system provides not only the
mechanism for that sort of conduct but also for recog nizing an object to which we are going to
respond; and that recognition can be stated in terms of a respo nse that may answer to any one of a
certai n group of stimuli. That is, one has a nail to drive, he reaches for the hammer and finds it
gone, and he doe's not stop to look for it, but reaches for something else he can use, a brick or a
stone, anything having the necessary weight to give momentum to the blow. Anything that he can
get hold of that will serve the purpose will be a hammer. That sort of respo nse which involve s the
grasping of a heavy object is a unive rsal.[1] If the object does call out that response, no matter what
its partic ular character may be, one can say that it has a universal character. It is something that can
be recognized because of this character, notwithsta nding the variations that are involved in the
individual instances.
Now, can there be in the centra l nervo us system a mechanism which can be aroused so that it will
give rise to this respo nse, however varie d the conditions are otherwi se? Can there be a mechanism
of a sufficiently complicated charact er to represent the objects with which we deal-objects that have
not only spatia l dimensions, but also temporal dimensions? An object such as a melody, a tune, is a
unita ry affair. We hear the first notes and we respo nd to it as a whole. There is such a unity in the
lives presented by biographies which follow a man from his birth to his death, showi ng all that
belongs to the growth of the individual and the changes that take place in his career. Now, is there
someth ing in the central nervous system that can answer to such characters of the object, so that
we can give a behavioristic account of an object so complicated as a melody or a life? The mere
complication does not present serious difficulty, because the central nervo us system has an almost
infinite number of elements and possible combinations, but can one find a structure there in the
centra l nervous system that would answer to a certain type of respon se which represents for us the
character of the object which we recognize, as distinct from the mere sensations?
Recognition always implies a someth ing that can be discovered in an indefinite number of objects.
One can only sens e a color once , in so far as "color" means an immediate relationship of the light
waves to the retina of a normal nervous system. That experience happens and is gone, and cann ot
be repeated. But something is recognized, there is a unive rsal character given in the experience
itself which is at least capable of an indefinite number of repetitions. It is this which has been
supp osed to be beyo nd the behavioristic explanation or statement. What a behavioristic psycho logy
does is to state that character of the experience in terms of the respo nse. It may be said that there
cann ot be a univ ersal respo nse, but only a respo nse to a particu lar object. On the contrary, in so far
as the respo nse is one that can take place with reference to the brick, a stone, a hammer, there is a
universal in the form of the respo nse that answers to a whole set of particu lars, and the partic ulars
may be indefinite in number, provi ded only they have certain characters in relation to the response.
The relationship of this response to an indefinite number of stimuli is just the relationship that is
represented in what we call "recognition." When we use the term "recognition" we may mean no
more than that we pick up an object that serves this particu lar purpose; what we generally mean is
that the character of the object that is a stimulus to its recognition is present in our experience. We
can have, in this way, somet hing that is universa l as over against various particulars. I think we can
recognize in any habit that which answers to different stimuli; the response is univers al and the
stimulus is particular. As long as this element serves as a stimulus, calls out this response, one can
say the particular comes under this universa l. That is the statement of the behavioristic psychol ogy
of the universal form as over against the partic ular insta nce.
The next point is rather a matter of degree, illustrated by the more complex objects such as a
symphony, or a life, with all their variations and harmonious contr asts. When a music critic
discu sses such a complex object as a symphony can we say that there is something in the central
nervou s system that answers to the object which the critic has before him? Or take the biography of
a great man, a Lincoln or a Gladstone, where the histori an, say Morley, has before him that entire

life with all its indefinite number of elements. Can he be said to have in his centra l nervo us system
an object that answers to that attitude of recognizing Gladstone in all his changes as the same
Glad stone? Could one, if he had the mechanism to do so, pick out in the historian's brain what
answ ers to Glad stone? What would it be, supposing that it could be done? It would certainly not be
just a single response to the name Gladstone. In some way it must represent all of the connections
which took place in his experience, all those connections which were involved in his conduct in so
far as their analogues took place in Gladston e's life. it must be some sort of a unity, such a unity that
if this whole is touched at any point it may bring out any other element in the histor ian's experience
of Glad stone. It may throw light on any phase of his character; it may bring out any of the situati ons
in which Gladsto ne figures. All of this must be potentially present in such a mapping of Gladstone in
Morley's central nervous system. It is indefinitely complex, but the centra l nervous system is also
indefinitely complex. It does not represent merely spatial dimensions but temporal dimensions also.
It can represent an action which is delayed, which is dependent upon an earlier reaction; and this
later reactio n can, in its inception, but before it takes place overtly , influence the earlier reactio n.
We can conceive, then, in the structure of the central nervou s system such a temporal dimension as
that of the melody, or recognition of the notes and their distance from each other in the scale, and
our appreciation of these as actually affected by the beginning of our response to the later notes, as
when we are expecting a certain sort of an ending. If we ask how that expectati on shows itself in our
experience we shou ld have difficulty in detailing it in terms of behavior, but we realize that this
experience is determined by our readiness to resp ond to later notes and that such readiness can be
there without the notes being themselves present. The way in which we are going to respond to a
major or minor ending does determine the way in which we appreciate the notes that are occurring.
It is that attitude that gives the character of our appreciation of all exten ded musical compositions.
What is given at the outset is deter mined by the attitude to what is to come later. That is a phase of
our experience which Jame s has illustrated by his discu ssion of the sensory character of such
conjunctions as "and," "but," "though." If you assert a proposition and add, "but," you determine the
attitude of the hearer toward it. He does not know what you are going to introd uce, but he does
know there is some sort of an excepti on to it. His knowledge is not stated in reflective form, but is
rather an attitude. There is a "but" attitude, an "if" attitude, a "though" attitude. It is such attitudes
which we assume toward the beginning of a melody, towar d the rhythm invo lved in poetry; it is these
attitude s that give the import to the structure of what we are dealing with.
There are certain attitude s which we assu me toward a rising column or toward its supp orts, and we
only have to have suggestions of the object to call out those attitudes. The artist and the sculptor
play upon these attitudes just as the musician does. Through the indication of the stimuli each is
able to bring in the reflection of the complexities of a respo nse. Now, if one can bring in a number of
these and get a multiform reflection of all of these attitudes into harmony, he calls out an aesthetic
response which we consider beautiful. It is the harmonizing of these complexities of response that
constitutes the beauty of the object. There are different stimuli calling out an indefinite number of
responses and the natures of these are reflected back into our immediate experience, and brought
into harmonious relationship with each other. The later stages of the experience itself can be
present in the immediate experience whic h influences them. Give n a sufficiently comp licated centra l
nervou s system, we can then find an indefinite number of responses, and these responses can be
not only immediate but delayed, and as delayed can be already influencing present cond uct.
We can thus find, in some sens e, in the central nervous system what would answer to complex
objects, with their somewhat vague and indefinite meaning, as they lie in our actual experience –
objects complex not only spati ally but also temporally. When we respond to any phase of these
objects all the other values are there ready to play into it, and give it its intellectual and emotional
conte nt. I see no reason why one shou ld not find, then, in the organization of the attitude as
presented in the central nervous system , what it is we refer to as the meaning of the object, that
which is universal. The answe ring of the respo nse to an indefinite number of stim uli which vary from
each other is something that gives us the relation of the universal to the partic ular, and the
complexity of the object may be as indefinitely great as are the elements in the central nervous
system that represent possible temporal and spatial combinations of our own conduct. We can
spea k, then, legitimately of a certain sort of response which a Morley has to a Gladst one, a
response that can find its expression in the central nervou s system, taking into accou nt all of its
complexities.

[So far we have stresse d the universality or generality of the respo nse as standing over against the
partic ularity of the stimulus which evokes it. I now wish to call attentio n to the social dimension of
universality.]
Thinking takes place in terms of universals, and a universa l is an entity that is distinguishable from
the object by means of which we think it. When we think of a spad e we are not confined in our
thought to any particular spade. Now if we think of the universal spade there must be someth ing that
we think about, and that is confessedly not given in the particu lar occurrence which is the occasion
of the thought. The thought transce nds all the occurrences. Must we assume a realm of such
entiti es, esse nces or subsist ents, to accou nt for our thinking? That is generally assu med by modern
realists. Dewey's answer seems to be that we have isolated by our abstracting attention certa in
featu res of spades which are irrelevant to the particular different spad es, thoug h they have their
existence or being in these particular spades. These characters which will occur in any spad e that is
a spade are there fore irrelevant to any one of them. We may go farther and say that these
characters are irrelevant to the occurre nce of the spades that arise and are worn out. In other words,
they are irrelevant to time, and may be called eternal objects or entities. But, says Dewey, this
irrelevancy of these characters to time in our thoug ht does not abstract their being from the
partic ular spades. . . . . Dewey quite agrees with the realists aforesaid that the meaning is not
lodged in the word itself, that is, he is not a nominalist. He insists, however, that the meaning
resid es in the spade as a character which has arisen throu gh the social natur e of thinking. I suppose
we can say in current terminology that meanings have emerged in social experience, just as colors
emerged in the experience of organisms with the apparatus of vision .[2]
Meaning as such, i.e., the object of thought, arises in experience through the individual stimulating
himself to take the attitude of the other in his reaction toward the object. Meaning is that which can
be indicated to others while it is by the same process indicated to the indicating individual. In so far
as the individual indicates it to himself in the role of the other, he is occupying his persp ective, and
as he is indicating it to the other from his own perspective, and as that which is so indicated is
identical, it must be that which can be in different persp ectives. It must therefore be a universal, at
least in the identity which belongs to the different perspectives which are organized in the single
perspective, and in so far as the principle of organization is one which admits of other perspectives
than those actually present, the universality may be logically indefinitely exten ded. Its universality in
cond uct, howev er, amounts only to the irrelevance of the differences of the different persp ectives to
the chara cters which are indicated by the significant symb ols in use, i.e., the gestur es which
indicate to the individual who uses them what they indicate to the others, for whom they serve as
appropriate stimuli in the coop erative proce ss.[3]
The significant gestur e or symbol always presupposes for its significance the social proce ss of
experience and behavior in which it arise s; or, as the logicians say, a universe of discourse is
always implied as the context in terms of which, or as the field within which, significant gestures or
symbols do in fact have significance. This unive rse of disco urse is constitute d by a group of
individuals carryin g on and participating in a common social process of experience[4] and behavior,
within which these gestur es or symbols have the same or common meanings for all members of that
group, whether they make them or address them to other individuals, or whethe r they overtly
respond to them as made or addressed to them by other individuals. A univers e of discourse is
simply a system of common or socia l meanings.[5]
The very universality and impersonality of thought and reaso n is from the behavioristic standpoint
the result of the given individual taking the attitudes of others toward himself, and of his finally
crystallizing all these partic ular attitudes into a single attitude or standpoint which may be called that
of the "generalized other."
Alternative ways of acting under an indefinite number of different particular conditions or in an
indefinite number of different possi ble situations – ways which are more or less identical for an
indefinite number of norm al individuals- are all that univers als (however treated in logic or
meta physics) really amount to; they are meaningless apart from the social acts in which they are
implicated and from which they derive their significance.[6]
Endnotes

1.Abstractio n and univers als are due to conflict and inhibition: a wall is something to be
avoided and something to be jumped, and while both it is mental, a concept. Language
makes it possi ble to hold on to these mental objects. Abstracti ons exist for lower animals but
they cann ot hold them (1924).
2.[This paragraph is selected from a manuscript, "The Philosophy of John Dewey,." To be
published in the 1936 Internat ional Journ al of Ethics.]
3.[Para graph selected from MS.]
4.A common world exists …. only in so far as there is a common (group) experience (MS.)
5.Our socal led laws of thought are the abstractio ns of social interc ourse. Our who le process of
abstract thoug ht, techn ique and method is esse ntially socia l (1912).
The organizatio n of the social act answe rs to what we call the universal. Functionally it is the
universal (1930).
6.All the enduring relations have been subject to revision. There remain the logical constants,
and the deductions from logical implications. To the same categ ory belong the so-called
universals or concepts. They are the elements and structure of a universe of discourse. In so
far as in socia l conduct with others and with ourselves we indicate the characters that
endure in the pers pective of the grou p to whic h we belong and out of which we arise, we are
indicating that which relative to our conduct is unchanged, to which, in other words, passage
is irrelevant. A metaphysics which lifts these logical elements out of their experiential habitat
and endows them with a subsistential being overl ooks the fact that the irrelevance to
pass age is strictly relative to the situation in cond uct within which the reflection arises, that
while we can find in different situa tions a method of conversati on and so of thought which
proves irrelevant to the differences in the situat ions, and so provides a method of translation
from one perspective to another, this irrelevance belongs only to the wider character which
the problem in reflection assumes, and never transce nds the socia l cond uct within which the
meth od arises (MS.) .
13. THE NATUR E OF REFLECTIVE INTE LLIGENCE
In the type of temporary inhibition of actio n which signifies thinking, or in which reflection arises, we
have prese nted in the experience of the individual, tentatively and in adva nce and for his selection
among them, the different possibilities or alternative s of future action open to him within the given
socia l situation – the different or alternative ways of completing the given socia l act where in he is
implicated, or which he has already initiated. Reflection or reflective behavior arise s only under the
cond itions of self-consciousness, and makes poss ible the purposive control and organizatio n by the
individual organism of its conduct with reference to its social and physical environment, i.e., with
reference to the various social and physic al situatio ns in which it becom es involved and to which it
reacts. The organization of the self is simply the organization, by the individual organism, of the set
of attitude s toward its social envir onment-and toward itself from the standpoint of that environment,
or as a functioning element in the proce ss of socia l experience and behavior constitutin g that
envir onment-which it is able to take. It is esse ntial that such reflective intelligence be dealt with from
the point of view of social behaviorism.
I said a moment ago that there is something involve d in our statement of the meaning of an object
which is more than the mere respo nse, however complex that may be. We may respond to a
musical phrase and there may be nothing in the experience beyond the response; we may not be
able to say why we respond or what it is we respond to. Our attitude may simply be that we like
some music and do not like other music. Most of our recognitions are of this sort. We pick out the
book we want but could not say what the character of the book is. We probably could give a more
detai led accou nt of the countenance of a man we meet for the first time than of our most intimate
friends. With our friends we are ready to start our conversati on the moment they are there; we do
not have to make sure who they are. But if we try to pick out a man who has been descri bed to us

we narro wly examine the perso n to make sure he answ ers to the account that is given to us. With a
person with whom we are familiar we carry on our convers ation without thinking of these thing s.
Most of our proc esses of recognition do not involve this identification of the char acters which enable
us to identify the objects. We may have to describe a person and we find we cannot do it-we know
him too well. We may have to pick those details out, and then if we are taking a critical attitude we
have to find out what it is in the object that calls out this complex response. When we are doing that
we are getting a statement of what the nature of the object is, or if you like, its meaning. We have to
indicate to ourselves what it is that calls out this particular response. We recog nize a person, say,
beca use of the character of his physiq ue. If one shou ld come into the room greatly changed by a
long attack of sickness, or by exposure to the tropical sun, one's friends would not be able to
recognize him immediately. There are certain elements which enable us to recog nize a friend. We
may have to pick out the characters which make reco gnition successful, to indicate those characters
to somebody or to ourselves. We may have to determine what the stimuli are that call out a
response of this comp lex character. That is often a very difficult thing to do, as is evidenced by
musical criticis m. A whol e audience may be swept away by a composition and perhaps not a person
there will be able to state what it is in the production that calls out this particu lar response, or to tell
what the various reactio ns are in these individuals. It is an unusual gift which can analyze that sort
of an object and pick out what the stimulus is for so complex an action.
What I want to call attention to is the process by which there is an indication of those characters
which do call out the respo nse. Animals of a type lower than man respond to certai n chara cters with
a nicety that is beyond human capacity, such as odor in the case of a dog. But it would be beyond
the capacity of a dog to indicate to another dog what the odor was. Another dog could not be sent
out by the first dog to pick out this odor. A man may tell how to identify another man. He can indicate
what the characters are that will bring about a certa in response. That ability absolutely distinguishes
the intelligence of such a reflective being as man from that of the lower animals, however intelligent
they may be. We generally say that man is a rational animal and lower animals are not. What I
wanted to show, at least in terms of behavioristic psychology, is that what we have in mind in this
distin ction is the indication of those characters which lead to the sort of response which we give to
an object. Pointing out the characters which lead to the respon se is precisely that which
distin guishes a detective office that sends out a man, from a bloodhound which runs down a man.
Here are two types of intelligence, each one speci alized; the detective could not do what the
bloodhound does and the bloodhound could not do what the detective does. Now, the intelligence of
the detective over against the intelligence of the bloodhound lies in this capa city to indicate what the
partic ular characters are which will call out his response of taking the man.[1]
Such would be a behaviorist's accou nt of what is involved in reaso n. When you are reasoning you
are indicating to yourself the characters that call out certain responses-and that is all you are doing.
If you have the angle and a side you can determine the area of a triangle; given certain chara cters
there are certain responses indicated. There are other processes, not exactly rational, out of which
you can build up new responses from old ones. You may pick out responses which are there in
other reaction s and put them togethe r. A book of directio ns may provi de a set of stimuli which lead
to a certain set of responses, and you pick them out of your other complex responses, perhaps as
they have not been picked out before. When you write on a typewriter you may be instructed as to
the way in which to use it. You can build up a fairly good technique to start with, but even that is a
process which still involves the indication of the stimuli to call out the vario us responses. You unite
stimuli which have not been united in the past, and then these stimuli take with them the compound
responses. It may be a crude respo nse at first, and must be freed from the responses had in the
past. The way in which you react toward the doubling of letters when you write is different from the
way you react in writin g the letters on a typewriter. You make mistakes beca use the responses you
utilize have been different, have been connected with a whole set of other respo nses. A draw ing
teach er will sometimes have pupils draw with the left hand rather than the right, becaus e the habits
of the right hand are very difficult to get rid of. This is what you are doing when you act in a ration al
fashion: you are indicating to yoursel f what the stimuli are that will call out a complex respo nse, and
by the order of the stimuli you are deter mining what the whole of the response will be. Now, to be
able to indicate those stimuli to other perso ns or to yoursel f is what we call rational cond uct as
distin ct from the unreasoning intelligence of the lower animals, and from a good deal of our own
cond uct.
Man is distin guished by that power of analysis of the field of stimulation which enables him to pick
out one stimulus rather than another and so to hold on to the response that belongs to that stimulus,

picking it out from others, and recombining it with others. You cannot get a lock to work. You notice
certai n elements, each of which brings out a certa in sort of response; and what you are doing is
holding on to these process es of response by giving attentio n to the stimuli. Man can combine not
only the responses already there, which is the thing an animal lower than man can do, but the
human individual can get into his activities and break them up, giving attentio n to specific elements,
holding the responses that answer to these particular stimuli, and then combining them to build up
another act. That is what we mean by learning or by teaching a person to do a thing. You indicate to
him certain specific phas es or characters of the object which call out certain sorts of responses. We
state that generally by saying consc iousness acco mpanies only the sens ory process and not the
moto r process. We can directly contro l the sensory but not the motor processes; we can give our
attention to a partic ular element in the field and by giving such attention and so holding on to the
stimulus we can get control of the response. That is the way we get control of our action; we do not
directly control our response throu gh the motor paths themselves.
There is no capacity in the lower forms to give attention to some analyzed element in the field of
stimulation which would enable them to contr ol the response. But one can say to a person "Look at
this, j ust see this thing" and he can fasten his attention on the specific object. He can direct attention
and so isolate the particular response that answers to it. That is the way in which we break up our
complex activities and there by make learning possi ble. What takes place is an analysis of the
process by giving attentio n to the spec ific stimuli that call out a particular act, and this analysis
makes possible a recon structio n of the act. An animal makes combinations, as we say, only by trial
and error, and the combination that is successf ul simply maintains itself.
The gesture as work ed out in the conduct of the human group serves definitely to indicate just these
elements and thus to bring them within the field of voluntary attentio n. There is, of course, a
fundamental likeness betwe en voluntary attentio n and involuntary attention. A bright light, a peculiar
odor, may be someth ing which takes complete control of the organism and in so far inhibits other
activity . A voluntary action, however, is dependent upon the indication of a certai n character,
pointing it out, holding on to it, and so holding on to the respo nse that belongs to it. That sort of an
analysis is essential to what we call human intelligence, and it is made possi ble by language.
The psycho logy of attention ousted the psycho logy of associ ation. An indefinite number of
assoc iations were found which lie in our experience with reference to anything that comes before
us, but associational psychology never explained why one assoc iation rather than another was the
dominant one. It laid down rules that if a certain associ ation had been intense, recent, and frequent
it would be dominant, but often there are in fact situations in which what seem s to be the weakest
element in the situation occupies the mind. It was not until the psycho logist took up the analysis of
attention that he was able to deal with such situatio ns, and to realize that voluntary attentio n is
dependent upon indication of some character in the field of stimulation. Such indication makes
possi ble the isolation and recombination of responses.
In the case of the vocal gesture there is a tende ncy to call out the response in one form that is called
out in the other, so that the child plays the part of parent, of teache r, or preac her. The gesture under
those conditions calls out certain responses in the individual which it calls out in the other person,
and carrying it out in the individual isolates that partic ular character of the stimulus. The response of
the other is there in the individual isolating the stimulus. If one calls out quickly to a person in
danger, he himself is in the attitude of jumping away, though the act is not performed. He is not in
danger, but he has those particular elements of the response in himself, and we spea k of them as
meanings. Stated in terms of the centra l nervous system, this means that he has stirred up its upper
tracts which would lead to the actua l jumping away. A person picks out the different responses
involve d in esca pe when he enters the theater and notices the signs on the program cauti oning him
to choo se the nearest exit in case of fire. He has all the different responses, so to spea k, listed
before him, and he prepares what he is going to do by picking out the different elements and puttin g
them togeth er in the way required. The efficiency engineer comes in to pick out this, that, or the
other thing, and choo ses the order in which they should be carried out. One is doing the same
himself in so far as he is self-conscious. Where we have to determ ine what will be the order of a set
of responses, we are putting them together in a certain fashion, and we can do this because we can
indicate the order of the stimuli which are going to act upon us. That is what is involved in the
human intelligence as distinguished from the intelligence type of the lower forms. We cannot tell an
elephant that he is to take hold of the other elephant's tail; the stimulus will not indicate the same
thing to the elephant as to ourselves. We can create a situation which is a stimulus to the elephant

but we cannot get the elephant to indicate to itself what this stimulus is so that he has the response
to it in his own system.
The gestu re provi des a process by means of which one does arouse in himself the reaction that
might be aroused in another, and this is not a part of his immediate reactio n in so far as his
immediate physica l enviro nment is concerned. When we tell a person to do something the respo nse
we have is not the doing of the actual thing, but the beginning of it. Communication gives to us those
elements of response which can be held in the mental field. We do not carry them out, but they are
there constituting the meanings of these objects which we indicate. Language is a proce ss of
indicating certain stimuli and changing the response to them in the system of behavior. Language as
a social process has made it possible for us to pick out resp onses and hold them in the organism of
the individual, so that they are there in relation to that which we indicate. The actual gesture is,
within limits, arbitra ry. Whether one points with his finger, or points with the glance of the eye, or
motion of the head, or the attitude of the body, or by means of a vocal gestur e in one language or
another, is indifferent, provi ded it does call out the response that belongs to that thing which is
indicated. That is the essential part of language. The gesture must be one that calls out the
response in the individual, or tends to call out the response in the individual, which its utilization will
bring out in another's respo nse. Such is the material with which the mind works. However slight,
there must be some sort of gesture. To have the response isolated witho ut an indication of a
stimulus is almost a contra diction in terms. I have been trying to point out what this process of
communication does in the way of providing us with the material that exists in our mind. It does this
by furnishing those gestures which in affecting us as they affect others call out the attitude whic h the
other takes, and that we take in so far as we assume his rôle. We get the attitude, the meaning,
within the field of our own control, and that control consists in combining all these vario us possible
responses to furnish the newly constructed act demanded by the problem. In such a way we can
state rational conduct in terms of a behavi oristic psychology.
I wish to add one further factor to our account: the relation of the temporal character of the nervou s
system to foresight and choice .[2]
The centra l nervo us system makes possible the implicit initiation of a number of poss ible alternative
responses with reference to any given object or objects for the comp letion of any already initiated
act, in adva nce of the actual completion of that act; and thus makes possible the exercise of
intelligent or reflective choice in the acceptance of that one among these poss ible alternative
responses which is to be carrie d into overt effect.[3]
Human intelligence, by means of the physio logical mechanism of the human central nervous
system, deliberately selects one from among the severa l alternative respo nses which are possible in
the given problematic environmental situation; and if the given response which it selects is complex-
i.e., is a set or chain or group or successi on of simple respo nses-it can organize this set or chain of
simple responses in such a way as to make possible the most adequate and harmonious solut ion by
the individual of the given envir onmental problem.
It is the entrance of the altern ative possi bilities of future response into the deter mination of prese nt
cond uct in any given environmental situatio n, and their operation, throug h the mechanism of the
centra l nervo us system, as part of the factors or conditions determining prese nt behavior, which
decisively contrasts intelligent conduct or behavior with reflex, instinctive, and habitual cond uct or
behavior–delayed reaction with immediate reaction. That which takes place in present organic
behavior is always in some sense an emergent from the past, and never could have been precis ely
predicted in advance-never could have been predicted on the basis of a knowledge, however
complete, of the past, and of the conditions in the past which are relevan t to its emergence; and in
the case of organic behavior which is intelligently controlled, this element of spontaneity is
espe cially prominent by virtue of the present influence exercised over such behavior by the possi ble
future results or consequences which it may have. Our ideas of or about future conduct are our
tendencies to act in several alternative ways in the presence of a given environmental situation-
tendencies or attitudes which can appear, or be implicitly aroused, in the structure of the central
nervou s system in adva nce of the overt response or reaction to that situati on, and which thus can
enter as deter mining factors into the control or selection of this overt response. Ideas, as distinct
from acts, or as failing to issu e in overt behavior, are simply what we do not do; they are possibilities
of overt respo nses which we test out implicitly in the centr al nervous system and then reject in favor
of those which we do in fact act upon or carry into effect. The process of intelligent conduct is

esse ntially a proce ss of selection from among various alternatives; Intelligence is largely a matter of
selectivity .
Delayed reactio n is necessary to intelligent cond uct. The organization, implicit testing, and final
selectio n by the individual of his overt respo nses or reacti ons to the social situations which confront
him and which prese nt him with problems of adjustment, would be impossible if his overt respo nses
or reactio ns could not in such situations be delayed until this process of organizing, implicitly testing,
and finally selecting is carried out; that is, would be impossible if some overt respo nse or other to
the given environmental stimuli had to be immediate. Without delayed reaction, or except in terms of
it, no consci ous or intelligent control over behavior could be exercised; for it is throug h this process
of selective reaction-which can be selective only beca use it is delayed-that intelligence operates in
the determination of behavior. Indeed, it is this process which constitutes intelligence. The central
nervou s system provi des not only the necessa ry physi ological mechanism for this process, but also
the necessary physi ological condition of delayed reacti on which this proce ss presupposes.
Intelligence is esse ntially the ability to solve the problems of present behavior in terms of its possible
future consequences as implicated on the basis of past experience-the ability, that is, to solve the
problems of present behavior in the light of, or by reference to, both the past and the future; it
involve s both memory and foresight. And the process of exercising intelligence is the process of
delaying, organizing, and selecting a response or reaction to the stimuli of the given environmental
situati on. The process is made possi ble by the mechanism of the central nervou s system, which
permits the individual's taking of the attitude of the other towar d himself, and thus becoming an
object to himself. This is the most effective means of adjustment to the socia l enviro nment, and
indeed to the envir onment in general, that the individual has at his disposal.
An attitude of any sort represents the beginning, or potential initiation, of some composite act or
other, a social act in which, along with other individuals, the individual taking the given attitude is
involve d or implicated. The traditional supposition has been that the purposive element in behavior
must ultimately be an idea, a consci ous motive, and hence must imply or depend upon the presence
of a mind. But the study of the nature of the central nervous system shows that in the form of
physi ological attitudes (expressed in speci fic physiological sets) different poss ible completions to
the given act are there in advance of its actual com pletion, and that throug h them the earlier parts of
the given act are affected or influenced (in present conduct) by its later phases; so that the
purposive element in behavior has a physi ological seat, a behavioristic basis, and is not
fundamentally nor necessarily consci ous or psychical.
Endnotes
1.Intelligence and knowledge are inside the process of conduct. Thinking is an elaborate
process of …. presenting the world so -that it will be favor able for cond uct, so that the ends
of the life of the form may be reached (MS).
Thinking is pointing out – to think about a thing is to point it out before acting (1924).
2.[See also Section 16.)
3.It is an advantage to have these responses ready before we get to the object. If our world
were right on top of us, in contact with us, we would have no time for deliberation. There
would be only one way of responding to that world.
Through his distance organs and his capa city for delayed responses the individual lives in
the future with the possibility of planning his life with reference to that future (1931).
14. BEHAVIORIS M, WATSONISM, AND REFLECTION
I have been discussing the possibility of bringing the concept or idea into the range of behavioristic
treatment, endeavoring in this way to relieve behaviorism as pres ented by Watson of what seems to
be an inadequacy. In carry ing back the thinking process to the talking process, Watson seems to
identify thought simply with the word, with the symbol, with the vocal gesture . He does this by

means of the transference of a reflex from one stimulus to another-conditioned reflex is the
techn ical term for the process. The psychol ogist isolates a set of reflexes which answer to certain
speci fic stimuli, and then allows these reflexes expression under different cond itions so that the
stimulus itself is accompanied by other stimuli. He finds that these reflexes can then be brought
about by the new stimulus even in the absence of that which has been previously the necessary
stimulus. The typica l illustrati on is that of a child becoming afraid of a white rat because it was
presented to him several times at the moment at which a loud sound was made behind him. The
loud noise occasi ons fright. The presence of the white rat conditions this reaction of fright so that the
child becomes afraid of the white rat. The fear reacti ons are then called out by the white rat even
when no sound is made.(1)
The conditioned reflex of the objective psychologists is also used by Watson to explain the proce ss
of thinking. On this view we utilize vocal gestur es in connection with thing s, and thereby cond ition
our reflexes to the thing s in terms of the vocal process. If we have a tendency to sit down when the
chair is there, we cond ition this reflex by the word "chair." Origi nally the chair is a stimulus that sets
free this act of sitting, and by being cond itioned the child may come to the point of setting free the
act by the use of the word. No particu lar limit can be set up to such a process. The language
process is peculiarly adapted to such a conditioning of reflexes. We have an indefinite number of
responses to objects about us. If we can condition these responses by the vocal gesture so that
whenever a certain reaction is carried out we at the same time utilize certai n phonetic elements,
then we can reach the point at which the response will be called out when ever this vocal gesture
arise s. Thinking woul d then be nothing but the use of these vario us vocal elements togeth er with the
responses which they call out. Psycho logists would not need to look for anythin g more elaborate in
the thinking process than the mere conditioning of reflexes by vocal gestures.
From the point of view of the analysis of the experience involved this acco unt seems very
inadequate. For certa in types of experience it may perhaps be sufficient. A trained body of troops
exhibits a set of conditioned reflexes. A certain formation is brought about by means of certain
orders. Its success lies in an automatic response when these orders are given. There, of course,
one has action without thought. If the soldier thinks under the circu mstances he very likely will not
act; his actio n is dependent in a certain sense on the abse nce of thoug ht. There must be elaborate
thinking done somewhere, but after that has been done by the officers higher up, then the process
must beco me automatic. What we recognize is that this state ment does not do justice to the thinking
that has to be done higher up. It is true that the people below carry out the process witho ut thinking.
Now if the thinking is done higher up under the same conditions the behaviorist evidently falls to
bring into acco unt what is peculiar to planning. Something very definite goes on there which cannot
be stated in terms of conditioned reflexes.
The unthinking conduct of the soldier in carrying out the order, so that the mere giving of the order
involve s its execution, is characteristic of the type of conduct in lower animals. We use this
mechanism to explain the elaborate instincts of certain organisms. One set of responses follows
another; the completion of one step brings the form into contact with certain stimuli which set
another free, and so on. Grea t elaborations of this process are found, especially in the ants. That
thought which belongs to the human community is presumably absent in these communities. The
wasp that stores the paralyzed spider as food for larvae that it neve r will see and with which it never
has come into contact, is not acting in terms of consci ous foresight. The human community that
stores away food in cold stora ge, and human community that stores away later makes use of it, is
doing in a certain sense the same thing that the wasp is doing, but the important distinctio n is that
the action is now consc iously purposive. The individual arranging for the cold storage is actually
presenting to himself a situation that is going to arise, and deter mining his meth ods of preservation
with reference to future uses.
The statement which Watson gives of the conditioning of reflexes does not bring in these parts of
experience. Such a treatm ent has been experimentally applied only in such experiences as those of
the infant. Watson is trying to work out a simple mechanism which can be widely applied without
taking into cons ideration all the complications involved in that application. idea to find its widest
application and then meet the specific difficulties later. Now, is it possible to recast our statement of
behavioristic psychol ogy that it can do more justice to what we ordinarily term a consciousness of
what we are doing? I have been suggesti ng that we could at least give a picture in the central
nervou s system of what answ ers to an idea. That seems to be what is left out of Watson's
statem ent. He simply attaches a set of responses to certain stimuli and shows that the mechanism

of the organism is able to change those stimuli, substitute one stimulus for another stim ulus; but the
ideas that acco mplish such a process are not accounted for simply by this substituti on.
In the illustrat ion I gave of offering a chair and asking a person to sit down, the asking may take the
place of the partic ular perception of the chair. One may be occup ied entirely with something else,
and then the stimulus is not the stimulus operative in the original reflex; one might come in and sit
down without paying attention to the chair. But such substituti on does not give to us the picture of
the mechanism which in some sense answ ers to the chair, or the idea of what the person is asking
him to do. What I suggested was that we have such a mechanism in the central nervo us system that
answ ers to these elaborate reactio ns, and that the stimuli which call these out may set up a process
there which is not fully carrie d out. We do not actually sit down when a perso n asks us to, yet the
process is in some sense initiated; we are ready to sit down but we do not. We prepare for a certain
process by thinking about it, mapping out a campaign of conduct, and then we are ready to carry out
the different steps. The motor impulses which are already there have stirred up those different
paths, and the reactions may take place more readily and more securely. This is partic ularly true of
the relation of different acts to another. We can attach one Process of respo nse to another and we
can build up from the lower instin ctive form what is called a general reflex in our own conduct. Now
that can be, in some sense, indicated by the structu re of the nervo us system. We can conce ive of
reacti ons arising with their different responses to these objects, to what, in other words, we call the
meanings of these objects. The meaning of a chair is sitting down in it, the meaning of the hammer
is to drive a nail-and these responses can be innervated even thoug h not carried out. The
innervation of these processes in the centra l nervo us system is perhaps necessary for what we call
meaning.
It may be asked at this point whether the actual nervous excitement in a certa in area or over certain
paths, is a legitimate substitute for what we call the idea. We come up against the parallelistic
explanation of the seeming difference between ideas and bodily states, between that which we call
psychic al and the physica l statement in terms of neuroses. It may be complained of the behavioristic
psychol ogy that it sets up a number of mechanisms, but still leaves what we term consci ousness out
of play. It may be said that such a connection of different processes as I have been describing, such
an organization of different responses in the centra l nervous system, is after all not different from
what Watson referred to. He, too, has a whole set of reacti ons that answer to the chair , and he
cond itions the response by the vocal gesture, "chai r." It may be felt that that is all we have done.
And yet, as I have said, we recog nize there is somet hing more to consciousness than such a
cond itioned response. The automatic response which the soldier gives is different from the conduct
which involves thoug ht In regard to it, and a consci ousness of what we are doing.
The behavioristic psycho logy has tried to get rid of the more or less meta physic al complications
involve d in the setting-up of the psychic al over against the world, mind over against body,
consc iousness over against matter. That was felt to lead into a blind alley. Such a parallelism had
proved valua ble, but after it had been utilized in the analysis of what goes on in the centra l nervo us
system it simply led into a blind alley. The opposition of the behaviorist to introspection is justified. It
is not a fruitful undertaking from the point of view of psychological study. It may be illegitimate for
Watson simply to wipe it out, and to say that all we are doing is listening to the words we are
subjectively pronouncing; that certainly is an entirely inadequate way of dealing with what we term
intros pection. Yet it is true that intros pection as a means of dealing with phenomena with which
psychol ogy must conce rn itself is pretty hopeless. What the behaviorist is occupied with, what we
have to come back to, is the actual reaction itself, and it is only in so far as we can translate the
conte nt of introspection over into response that we can get any s atisfactory psychological doctri ne. It
is not necessary for psychology to get into metaphysical questions, but it is of importance that it
shou ld try to get hold of the response that is used in the psychol ogical analysis itself.
What I want to insist upon is that the process, by means of which these responses that are the ideas
or meanings become associated with a certain vocal gesture, lies in the activit y of the organism,
while in the case of the dog, the child, the soldier, this process takes place, as it were, outside of the
organism. The soldier is trained throug h a whole set of evolutions. He does not know why this
partic ular set is given to him or the uses to which it will be put; he is just put throu gh his drill, as an
animal is trained in a circus. The child is similarly exposed to experiments witho ut any think ing on
his part. What think ing proper means is that this process of associating chair as object with the word
"chai r" is a process that human beings in society carry out, and then internalize. Such behavior
certai nly has to be cons idered just as much as conditioned behavior which takes place externally,

and should be consi dered still more, beca use it is vastly more important that we should understand
the proce ss of think ing than the product of it.
Now, where does this thought process itself take place? If you like, I am here sidestepping the
questio n as to just what consciousness is, or the question whether what is going on in the area of
the brain is to be identified with consci ousness. That is a questio n which is not psycho logical. What I
am asking is, where does this proce ss, by means of which, in Watson's sense, all of our reflexes or
reacti ons are cond itioned, take place; For this process is one which takes place in conduct and
cann ot be explained by the conditioned reflexes which result from it. You can explain the child's fear
of the white rat by conditioning its reflexes, but you cann ot explain the conduct of Mr. Watson in
cond itioning that stated reflex by means of a set of conditioned reflexes, unless you set up a super-
Watson to condition his reflexes. That process of cond itioning reflexes has to be taken into conduct
itself, not in the metaphysical sense of setting up a mind in a spiritual fashion which acts on the
body, but as an actua l process with which the behavioristic psycho logy can deal. The metaphysic al
problems still remain, but the psychologist has to be able to state this very proce ss of conditioning
reflexes as it takes place in conduct itself.
We can find part of the nece ssary mechanism of such cond uct in the central nervous system. We
can identify some of the reflexes, such as that of the knee jerk, and follow the stimulus from the
reflex up to the central nervous system and back again. Most of the reflexes we cann ot follow out in
detai l. With such suitable elements we can carry out the analogy, and present to ourselves the
elaborate organization to which I have referred, and which answe rs to the objects about us and the
more complex objects such as a symphony or a biography. The question now is wheth er the mere
excitement of the set of these groups of responses is what we mean by an idea. When we try to
undertake to carr y over, transl ate, such an idea in terms of behavior, inste ad of stopping with a bit of
consc iousness, can we take that idea over into cond uct, and at least express in conduct just what
we mean by saying that we have an idea? It may be simpler to assume that each one of us has a
little bit of consciousness stored away and that impressions are made on consciousness, and as a
result of the idea, consci ousness in some unexplained way sets up the respo nse in the system
itself. But what must be asked of behaviorism is wheth er it can state in behavioristic terms what is
meant by having an idea, or getting a conce pt.
I have just said that Watson's statement of the mere cond itioning of the reflex, the setting off of a
certai n set of responses when the word is used, does not seem to answe r to this process of getting
an idea. It does answe r to the result of having an idea, for having reach ed the idea, then one starts
off to acco mplish it, and we assume that the process follows. The getting of an idea is very different
from the result of having an idea, for the former involves the setting-up or cond itioning of reflexes,
which cannot, themselves, be used to explain the proce ss. Now, under what conditions does this
take place? Can we indicate these cond itions in terms of behavior? We can state in behavioristic
terms what the result will be, but can we state in terms of behaviorism the process of getting and
having ideas?
The process of gettin g an idea is, in the case of the infant, a process of interco urse with those about
him, a socia l process. He can battle on by himself withou t getting any idea of what he is doing.
There is no mechanism in his talking to himself for conditioning any reflex by means of vocal
gesture s, but in his intercourse with other individuals he can so condition them, and that takes place
also in the conduct of lower animals. We can teach a dog to do certa in things in answer to particular
words. We cond ition his reflexes by means of certain vocal gestures. In the same way a child gets
to refer to a chair by the word "chair." But the animal does not have an idea of what he is going to
do, and if we stopped with the child here we could not attribute to him any idea. What is involve d in
the giving of an idea is what cannot be stated in terms of this conditioning of a reflex. I have
sugg ested that involved in such giving is the fact that the stimulus not only calls out the respo nse,
but that the individual who receives the response also himself uses that stimulus, that vocal gesture,
and calls out that response in himself. Such is, at least, the beginning of that which follows. It is the
further complication that we do not find in the conduct of the dog. The dog only stands on its hind
legs and walks when we use a particular word, but the dog cann ot give to himself that stimulus
which somebody else gives to him. He can respo nd to it but he cannot himself take a hand, so to
spea k, in conditioning his own reflexes; his reflexes can be conditioned by another but he cannot do
it himself. Now, it is characteri stic of significant speech that just this process of self-conditioning is
going on all the time.

There are, of course, certa in phases of our speec h which do not come within the range of what we
term self-consciousness. There are changes which have taken place in the speech of people
throu gh long centuries-changes which none of the individuals were aware of at all. But when we
spea k of significant speech we always imply that the individual that hears a word does in some
sens e use that word with reference to himself. That is what we call a personal understanding of
what is said. He is not only ready to respo nd, but he also uses the same stimulus that he hear s, and
is tending to respond to it in turn. That is true of a person who makes use of significant speech to
another. He knows and understands what he is asking the other person to do, and in some sense is
inviting in himself the response to carry out the process. The process of addressing another person
is a process of addressing himself as well, and of calling out the response he calls out in another;
and the person who is addressed, in so far as he is conscious of what he is doing, does himself tend
to make use of the same vocal gestur e and so to call out in himself the response which the other
calls out – at least to carry on the socia l process which involves that conduct. This is distinct from
the action of the soldier; for in significant spee ch the person himself understands what he is asked
to do, and conse nts to carry out something he makes himself a part of. If one gives to another
directio ns as to how to proce ed to a certain street he himself receives all of these detailed
directio ns. He is identifying himself with the other individual. The hearer is not simply movi ng at an
order, but is giving to himself the same directions that the other person gives to him. That, in
behavioristic terms, is what we mean by the person being consc ious of something. It is certainly
always implied that the individual does tend to carry out the same process as the person addressed;
he gives to himself the same stimulus, and so takes part in the same process. In so far as he is
cond itioning his own reflexes, that process enters into his own experience.
I think it is important to recognize that our behavioristic psychol ogy in dealing with human
intelligence must present the situa tion which I have just described, where a person knows the
meaning of what is said to him. If the individual does himself make use of someth ing answer ing to
the same gesture he obse rves, saying it over again to himself, putting himself in the role of the
person who is speaking to him, then he has the meaning of what he hears, he has the idea: the
meaning has become his. It is that sort of a situatio n which seems to be involved in what we term
mind, as such: this social process, in which one individual affects other individuals, is carried over
into the experience of the individuals that are so affected.[2] The individual takes this attitude not
simply as a matter of repetition, but as part of the elaborate social reacti on which is going on. It is
the necessity of stating that process in terms of behavior that is involved in an adequate
behavioristic statement, as over against a mere account of the cond itioned reflex.
Endnotes
1.The child's fear of the dark may have arisen out of his being awakened by loud thunder, so
that he is frightened in the darkness. This has not been proven but it is a possible
interpretation in terms of conditioning.
2.[See Secti ons 16, 24.]
15. BEHAVIORIS M AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PARALLELISM
Behaviorism might seem to reach what could be called a parallelism in relation to the neuroses and
psychose s, that is, in the relationship of what is taking place in the centra l nervo us system to the
experience that parallels this, or answe rs to it. It might be argued, for instan ce, that there is an
excitement in the retina due to the disturbance taking place outside, and that only when such
excitement reaches a certain point in the central nervou s system does a sensation of color, or an
experience of a colored object, appear. We believe that we see the object at the point at which this
distur bance takes place outsi de. That is, we see, say, an electric light. But we are told that light
represents physica l changes that are going on at enormous rates, and that are in some fashion
transf erred by the light waves to the retina and then to the central nervous system, so that we see
the light at the point at which we assume these vibrati ons take place. Of course, this transmission
involve s some time, and during the course of this action a physical change in the object may take

place. There is not only that possi bility of error in perception, but we may be mistaken even in the
object which we see before us, since the light is temporally later than the distur bance which it seems
to reveal. The light has a finite veloci ty, and the process that goes on betwee n the retina and the
point in the central nervo us system is a much longer proce ss than that of the light. The situation is
stretche d out for us conveniently by the illustration of the light of the stars. We see light that left the
sun some eight minutes ago; the sun that we see is eight minutes old -and there are stars that are
so far away from us that they consu me many light-years in reaching us. Thus, our perce ptions have
cond itions which we locate in the central nervo us system at a certain moment; if anything interferes
with the nervous process, then this particular experience does not arise. In some such way we get
the statement of what lies back of the parallelistic account-, if we relate what takes place at that
point as a neurosis to what takes place in our experience we have seemingly two entirely different
thing s. The disturb ance in the central nervo us system is an electri cal or chemical or mechanical
process going on in the nervous elements, whereas that which we see is a colored light, and the
most we can say is that the one is seemingly parallel to the other, since we cannot say that the two
are identical.
Now behavioristic psycho logy, instead of setting up these events in the central nervous system as a
caus al serie s which is at least conditional to the sens ory experience, takes the entire response to
the environment as that which answers to the color ed object we see, in this case the light. It does
not locate the experience at any point in the nervo us system; it does not put it, in the terms of Mr.
Russell, inside of a head. Russell makes the experience the effect of what happens at that point
wher e a causal process takes place in the head. He points out that, from his own point of view, the
head inside of which you can place this experience exists empirically only in the heads of other
people. The physiol ogist explains to you wher e this excitement is taking place. He sees the head he
is demonstrating to you and he sees what is inside of the head in imagination, but, on this account,
that which he sees must be inside of his own head. The way in which Russell gets out of this mess
is by saying that the head which he is referring to is not the head we see, but the head which is
implied in physiological analysis. Well, instea d of assu ming that the experienced world as such is
inside of a head, located at that point at which certain nervous distur bances are going on, what the
behaviorist does is to relate the world of experience to the whole act of the organism. It is true, as
we have just said, that this experienced world does not appear except whe n the various excit ements
reach certa in points in the centra l nervo us system; it is also true that if you cut off any of those
chan nels you wipe out so much of that world. What the behaviorist does, or ought to do, is to take
the complete act, the whole process of conduct, as the unit in his acco unt. In doing that he has to
take into accou nt not simply the nervous system but also the rest of the organism, for the nervous
system is only a spec ialized part of the entire organism.
Consciousness as stuff, as experience, from the standpoint of behavioristic or dyna mic psychol ogy,
is simply the envir onment of the human individual or social group in so far as constituted by or
dependent upon or existent ially relative to that individual or social group. (Another signification of
the term " consciousness" arises in connection with reflective intelligence, and still another in
conn ection with the private or subjective aspe cts of experience as contraste d with the common or
socia l aspects.)
Our whole experiential world-natur e as we experience it-is basic ally related to the social process of
behavior, a process in which acts are initiated by gestur es that function as such beca use they in turn
call forth adjustive responses from other organisms, as indicating or having reference to the
completion or resultant of the acts they initiate. That is to say, the conte nt of the objective world, as
we experience it, is in large measure constituted throug h the relations of the socia l process to it, and
partic ularly through the triadic relation of meaning, which is created within that process. The whole
conte nt of mind and of natur e, in so far as it takes on the character of meaning, is dependent upon
this triadic relation within the social process and among the component phases of the social act,
which the existence of meaning presupposes.
Consciousness or experience as thus explained or accounted for in terms of the socia l proce ss
cann ot, however, be located in the brain-not only because such location of it implies a spati al
conc eption of mind (a conce ption which is at least unwarranted as an uncritically accepted
assu mption), but also because such location leads to Russell's physiological solipsism, and to the
insuperable difficulties of intera ctionism. Consciousness is functional, not substant ive; and in either
of the main sens es of the term it must be located in the objective world rather than in the brain-it
belongs to, or is a characteristic of, the enviro nment in which we find ourselves. What is located,

what does take place, in the brain, however, is the physiological process wher eby we lose and
regain conscio usness: a process which is somew hat analogous to that of pulling down and raising a
window shade.
Now, as we notic ed earlier, if we want to control the process of experience or consciousness we
may go back to the various processes in the body, espe cially the central nervous system. When we
are setting up a parallelism what we are trying to do is to state those elements in the world which
enable us to control the processes of experience. Parallelism lies betwe en the point at which
cond uct takes place and the experiential reaction, and we must deter mine those elements whic h will
enable us to control the react ion itself. As a rule, we control this reaction by means of objects
outsi de of the organism rather than by directing attention to the organism itself. If we want better
light we put in a higher powered bulb. Our control, as a rule, consists in a reaction on the objects
them selves, and from that point of view the parallelism is betwee n the object and the percept,
betwee n the electric light and visibility. That is the sort of parallelism that the ordinary individual
estab lishes; by setting up a parallelism betwee n the things about him and his experience, he picks
out those characters of the thing which will enable him to control the experience. His experience is
that of keeping himself seeing thing s which help him, and conse quently he picks out in the objects
those characters which will expr ess themselves in that sort of experience; but if the trouble he has is
due to some disturbance in his central nervo us system, then he will have to go back to it. In this
case the parallelism will be betwee n his experience and the excitements in the central nervo us
system. If he finds that he is not seeing well he may discove r some troub le with the optic nerve, and
the parallelism is then betwe en his vision and the functi oning of the optic nerve. If he is interested in
certai n mental images he has, he goes back to experiences which have affected the central nervou s
system in the past. Certain of the effects on the central nervous system of such experiences are still
present, so that if he is setting up a parallelism he will find that it lies between that past event and
the prese nt condition of his centra l nervou s system. Such a relati onship becomes a matter of great
importance in our whole perception. The traces of past experience are conti nually playing in upon
our perceived world. Now, to get hold of that in the organism which answers to this stage of our
cond uct, to our remembering, to our intelligently responding to the present in terms of the past, we
set up a parallelism betwee n what is going on in the central nervou s system and immediate
experience. Our memory is dependent upon the condition of certai n tracts in our head, and these
cond itions have to be picked out to get contro l of processes of that sort.
This type of corre lation is incre asingly noticeable when we go from the images as such over to the
thinking process. The intelligence that is involv ed in perception is elaborated enormously in what we
call "thought." One perce ives an object in terms of his response to it. If you notice your cond uct you
find frequently that you are turning your head to one side to see something beca use of light rays
which have reached the periphery of the retina. You turn your head to see what it was. You come to
use the term "aware of something there." We may have the impression that someone is looking at
us out of a crow d and find ourselves turning our head to see who is looking at us, and our tendency
to turn reveals to us the fact that there are rays from other people's eyes. It is true of all of our
experience that it is the response that interprets to us what comes to us in the stimulus, and it is
such attention which makes the percept out of what we call "sensation." The interpretation of the
response is what gives the content to it. Our think ing is simply an elaboration of that interpretation in
terms of our own response. The soun d is something that leads to a jumping-away; the light is
someth ing we are to look at. When the danger is something that is perhaps a long way off, the
danger of loss of funds throu gh a bad invest ment, the danger to some of our organs on acco unt of
injury, the interpr etation is one which involves a very ela borate proc ess of thinking. Instead of simply
jumping aside, we can chan ge our diet, take more exercise, or change our investments. This
process of thinking, which is the elaboration of our respo nses to the stimulus, is a proce ss which
also necessarily goes on in the organism. Yet it is a mistake to assume that all that we call thought
can be located in the organism or can be put inside of the head. The goodness or badness of the
investm ent is in the investment, and the valuable or dangerous character of food is in the food, not
in our heads. The relationship betwe en these and the organism depends upon the sort of response
we are going to make, and that is a relationship which is mapped out in the central nervous system.
The way in which we are going to respond is found there, and in the possible connections there
must be conn ections of past experiences with prese nt responses in order that there may be thought.
We connect up a whole set of thing s outsid e, especially those which are past, with our present
cond ition in order that we may intelligently meet some distant danger. In the case of an investm ent
or organic trouble the dang er is a long way off, but still we have to react to it in the way of avoiding
the danger. And the proc ess is one which involves an elaborate connection whic h has to be found in

the central nervous system, especially in so far as it represents the past. So, then, we set up what is
taking place in the central nervous system as that which is parallel to what lies in experience. If
called upon to make any chan ge in the centra l nervous system, so far as that could be effected
under present knowledge, we might assist what goes on in the processes of the central nervous
system. We should have to apply our supposed remedies to the central nervous system itself, while
in the previous cases we should have been changing our objects which affect the central nervous
system. There is very little we can do directly at the present time, but we can conceive of such a
response as would enable us to affect our memory and to affect our thoug ht. We do, of course, try
to select the time of the day and conditions when our heads are clear if we have a difficult piece of
work to do. That is an indirect way of attempting to get favorable cooperation of the nervo us
elements in the brain to do a certai n amount of thinking. It is the same sort of parallelism which lies
betwee n the lighting systems in our houses and the experience we have of visibility. In one case we
have to attend to conditions outsi de and in the other to conditions inside the central nervo us system
in order to control our respo nses. There is no parallelism in general betwe en the world and the
brain. What a behavioristic psychol ogy is trying to do is to find that in the responses, in our whole
group of responses, which answers to those conditions in the world which we want to chan ge, to
improve, in order that our conduct may be successf ul.
The past that is in our present experience is there beca use of the centr al nervous system in relation
to the rest of the organism. If one has acqu ired a certain facility in playing the violin, that past
experience is registered in the nerves and muscles themselves, but mainly in connections found in
the central nervous system, in the whole set of paths there which are kept open so that when the
stimulus comes in there is released a comp lex set of elaborate responses. Our past stays with us in
terms of those changes which have resulted from our experience and which are in some sense
registered there. The peculiar intelligence of the human form lies in this elaborate control gained
throu gh the past. The human animal's past is constan tly present in the facility with which he acts,
but to say that that past is simply located in the central nervou s system is not a correct statement. It
is true such a mechanism must be present in order that the past may appear in our experience, but
this is part of the cond itions, not the only cond ition. If you recognize somebody it must be through
the fact that you have seen that individual in the past, and when you see him again there are those
tendencies to react as you have in the past, but the individual must be there, or somebody like him,
in order that this may take place. The past must be found in the present world.[1] From the
standpoint of behavioristic psycho logy we pick out the central nervous system only beca use it is that
which is the immediate mechanism throug h which our organism operates in bringing the past to
bear on the present. If we want to understan d the way in which an organism respo nds to a certa in
situati on which has a pa st, we have to get into the effects of the past actions on that org anism which
have been left in the centr al nervous system. There is no question about that fact. These effects
accor dingly become peculiarly important, but the "parallelism" is no different for a behavioristic
psychol ogy from the parallelism that lies betwee n the warmth in the house and the heating
apparatus instal led there.
Endnotes
1.[For the implied theory of the past, see The Philosophy of the Prese nt, pp. 1-31.]
16. MIND AND THE SYMBOL
I have attempted to point out that the meanings of things, our ideas of them, answer to the structure
of the organism in its cond uct with reference to things. The structure which makes this possi ble was
found primarily in the central nervous system. One of the peculiarities of this system is that it has, in
a sense, a temporal dimension : the things we are going to do can be arranged in a temporal order
so that the later proce sses can in their inception be present deter mining the earlier processes; what
we are going to do can deter mine our immediate approach to the object.
The mechanism of the central nervous system enables us to have now pres ent, in terms of attitudes
or implicit responses, the altern ative possible overt completions of any given act in which we are

involve d; and this fact must be realized and recognized, in virtue of the obvious control which later
phases of any given act exert over its earlier phases. More specifically, the central nervous system
provi des a mech anism of implicit response which enables the individual to test out implicitly the
vario us possible completions of an already initiated act in advanc e of the actual completion of the
act-and thus to choos e for himself, on the basis of this testing, the one which it is most desirable to
perform explicitly or carry into overt effect. The central nervous system, in short, enables the
individual to exercise consci ous control over his behavior. It is the possi bility of delayed respo nse
which principally differentiates reflective conduct from non-reflective cond uct in which the response
is always immediate. The higher centers of the central nervous system are involved in the former
type of behavior by making possible the interposition, between stimulus and response in the simple
stimulus-respo nse arc, of a process of selecting one or another of a whole set of poss ible responses
and combinations of responses to the given stimulus.
Menta l processes take place in this field of attitudes as expressed by the central nervo us system;
and this field is hence the field of ideas: the field of the control of present behavior in terms of its
future conse quences, or in terms of future behavior; the field of that type of intelligent conduct which
is peculiarly characteri stic of the higher forms of life, and espe cially of human beings. The various
attitude s expressible throug h the central nervous system can be organized into different types of
subs equent acts; and the delayed reactions or responses thus made possi ble by the central nervou s
system are the distincti ve feature of mentally control led or intelligent behavior.[1]
What is the mind as such, if we are to think in behavioristic terms? Mind, of course, is a very
ambiguous term, and I want to avoid ambiguities. What I suggested as characteristic of the mind is
the reflective intelligence of the human animal which can be distinguished from the intelligence of
lower forms. If we should try to regard reaso n as a speci fic faculty which deals with that which is
universal we should find respo nses in lower forms which are unive rsal. We can also point out that
their cond uct is purposive, and that types of conduct which do not lead up to certain ends are
eliminated. This would seem to answer to what we term "mind" when we talk about the animal mind,
but what we refer to as reflective intelligence we generally recognize as belonging only to the human
organism. The nonhuman animal acts with reference to a future in the sense that it has impulses
which are seeking expression that can only be satisfied in later experience, and however this is to
be explained, this later experience does determine what the prese nt experience shall be. If one
acce pts a Darw inian explanation he says that only those forms surviv e whose conduct has a certai n
relationship to a specific future, such as belongs to the enviro nment of the speci fic form. The forms
whos e conduct does insure the future will natur ally survive. In such a statement, indirectly at least,
one is making the future determine the cond uct of the form through the structure of things as they
now exist as a result of past happenings.
When, on the other hand , we spea k of reflective conduct we very definitely refer to the presence of
the future in terms of ideas. The intelligent man as distin guished from the intelligent animal presents
to himself what is going to happen. The animal may act in such a way as to insure its food
tomo rrow. A squirrel hides nuts, but we do not hold that the squirrel has a pictur e of what is going to
happen. The youn g squirrel is born in the summer time, and has no directions from other forms, but
it will start off hiding nuts as well as the older ones. Such action shows that experience could not
direct the activit y of the specific form. The provident man, however, does definitely pursue a certain
cours e, pictures a certain situation, and directs his own conduct with reference to it. The squirrel
follows certain blind impulses, and the carrying-out of its impulses leads to the same result that the
storing of grain does for the provident man. It is this picture, however, of what the future is to be as
deter mining our present conduct that is the characte ristic of human intelligence -the future as
present in terms of ideas.
When we present such a picture it is in terms of our react ions, in terms of what we are going to do.
There is some sort of a problem before us, and our statement of the problem is in terms of a future
situati on which will enable us to meet it by our present reactions. That sort of thinking characterizes
the human form and we have endeavored to isolate its mechanism. What is essential to this
mechanism is a way of indicating characters of thing s which control responses, and which have
vario us values to the form itself, so that such characters will engage the attention of the organism
and bring about a desired result. The odor of the victim engages the attention of the beast of prey,
and by attention to that odor he does satisfy his hunger and insure his future. What is the difference
betwee n such a situation and the conduct of the man who acts, as we say, rationally? The
fundamental difference is that the latter individual in some way indicates this character, whatever it

may be, to another person and to himself; and the symbolization of it by means of this indicative
gesture is what constitutes the mechanism that gives the implements, at least, for intelligent
cond uct. Thus, one points to a certai n footprint, and says that it means bear. Now to identify that sort
of a trace by means of some symbol so that it can be utilized by the different members of the group,
but partic ularly by the individual himself later, is the characteristic thing about human intelligence. To
be able to identify "this as leading to that," and to get some sort of a gestur e, vocal or otherwise,
which can be used to indicate the implication to others and to himself so as to make possible the
contro l of conduct with reference to it, is the distinctive thing in human intelligence which is not
found in animal intelligence.
What such symbols do is to p ick out particular characteristics of the situation so that the respo nse to
them can be prese nt in the experience of the individual. We may say they are present in ideal form,
as in a tend ency to run away, in a sinking of the stomach when we come on the fresh footprints of a
bear. The indication that this is a bear calls out the response of avoiding the bear, or if one is on a
bear hunt, it indicates the further progress of the hunt. One gets the response into experience before
that response is overtly carried out throug h indicating and emphasizing the stimulus that instigates
it. When this symbol is utilized for the thing itself one is, in Watson's terms, conditioning a reflex.
The sight of the bear would lead one to run away, the footprint conditioned that reflex, and the word
"bear" spoken by one's self or a friend can also condition the reflex, so that the sign comes to stand
for the thing so far as action is conce rned.
What I have been trying to bring out is the difference between the foreg oing type of conduct and the
type which I have illustrated by the experiment on the baby with the white rat and the noise behind
its head. In the latter situation there is a cond itioning of the reflex in which there is no holding apart
of the different elements. But when there is a conditioning of the reflex which involves the word
"bear," or the sight of the footprint, there is in the experience of the individual the separ ation of the
stimulus and the response. Here the symbol means bear, and that in turn means getting out of the
way, or furthering the hunt. Under those circu msta nces the person who stumbles on the footprints of
the bear is not afraid of the footprints-he is afraid of the bear. The footprint means a bear. The child
is afraid of the rat, so that the response of fear is to the sight of the wh ite rat; the man is not afra id of
the footprint, but of the bear. The footprint and the symbol which refers to the bear in some sense
may be said to cond ition or set off the response, but the bear and not the sign is the object of the
fear. The isolation of the symbol, as such, enables one to hold on to these given characters and to
isolate them in their relati onship to the object, and conse quently in their relation to the response. It is
that, I think, which characterizes our human intelligence to a peculiar degree. We have a set of
symbols by means of which we indicate certai n chara cters, and in indicating those characte rs hold
them apart from their immediate enviro nment, and keep simply one relationship clear. We isolate
the footprint of the bear and keep only that relationship to the animal that made it. We are reacti ng
to that, nothing else. One holds on to it as an indication of the bear and of the value that object has
in experience as something to be avoided or to be hunted. The ability to isolate these important
characters in their relationship to the object and to the response which belongs to the object is, I
think, what we generally mean when we speak of a human being think ing a thing out, or having a
mind. Such ability makes the world-wide difference betwe en the conditioning of reflexes in the case
of the white rat and the human process of thinking by means of symbols.[2]
What is there in cond uct that makes this level of experience possi ble, this selection of certain
characters with their relati onship to other characters and to the responses which these call out? My
own answer, it is clear, is in terms of such a set of symbols as arise in our social cond uct, in the
conversat ion of gesture s-in a word, in terms of language. When we get into conduct these symbols
which indicate certain chara cters and their relationship to thing s and to respo nses, they en able us to
pick out these characters and hold them in so far as they determine our cond uct.
A man walking across country comes upon a chasm which he cann ot jump. He want s to go ahead
but the chasm preve nts this tendency from being carried out. In that kind of a situati on there arises a
sensit ivity to all sorts of characters which he has not notic ed before. When he stops, mind, we say,
is freed. He does not simply look for the indication of the path going ahead. The dog and the man
would both try to find a point where they could cross. But what the man could do that the dog could
not would be to note that the sides of the chasm seem to be approaching each other in one
directio n. He picks out the best places to try, and that approach which he indicates to himself
deter mines the way in whic h he is going to go. If the dog saw at a distance a narrow place he would

run to it, but probably he would not be affected by the gradual approach which the human individual
symbolically could indicate to himself.
The human individual would see other objects about him, and have other images appear in his
experience. He sees a tree which might serve as a bridge across the space ahead of him. He might
try various sorts of possible actions which would be suggested to him in such a situation, and
present them to himself by means of the symbols he uses. He has not simply cond itioned certain
responses by certain stimuli. If he had, he would be bound to those. What he does do by means of
these symbols is to, indicate certai n characters which are prese nt, so that he can have these
responses there all ready to go off. He looks down the chasm and thinks he sees the edges drawi ng
togethe r, and he may run toward that point. Or he may stop and ask if there is not some other way in
which he can hasten his cross ing. What stops him is a variety of other things he may do. He notes
all the possibilities of gettin g across. He can hold on to them by means of symbols, and relate them
to each other so that he can get a final action. The beginning of the act is there in his experience.
He already has a tendency to go in a certai n direction and what he would do is already there
deter mining him. And not only is that deter mination there in his attitude but he has that which is
picked out by me ans of the term "that is narrow, I can jump it." He is ready to jump, and that reflex is
ready to deter mine what he is doing. These symbols, inste ad of being a mere cond itioning of
reflexes, are ways of picking out the stimuli so that the various respo nses can organize themselves
into a form of action.[3]
The situati on in which one seeks conditioning respo nses is, I think, as far as effective intelligence is
conc erned, always prese nt in the form of a problem. When a man is just going ahead he seeks the
indications of the path but he does it unconsciously. He just sees the path ahead of him; he is not
awar e of looking for it under those cond itions. But when he reaches the chas m, this onward
movement is stopped by the very process of drawi ng back from the chasm. That conflict, so to
spea k, sets him free to see a whole set of other things. Now, the sort of things he will see will be the
characters which repre sent variou s possibilities of action under the circumstances. The man holds
on to these different possibilities of respo nse in terms of the different stimuli which present
them selves, and it is his ability to hold them there that constitutes his mind.
We have no evidence of such a situatio n in the case of the lower animals, as is made fairly clear by
the fact that we do not find in any animal behavior that we can work out in detail any symbol, any
meth od of com munication, anything that will answer to these different responses so that they can all
be held there in the experience of the individual. It is that which differentiates the actio n of the
reflectively intelligent being from the cond uct of the lower forms; and the mechanism that makes that
possi ble is language. We have to recog nize that language is a part of conduct. Mind involves,
however, a relationship to the char acters of thing s. Those char acters are in the things, and while the
stimuli call out the respo nse which is in one sense present in the organism, the respo nses are to
thing s out there. The whole process is not a mental product and you cannot put it inside of the brain.
Menta lity is that relationship of the organism to the situation which is mediated by sets of symbols.
Endnotes
1.In considering the role or functi on of the central nervo us system-important though it is-in
intelligent hum an behavior, we must neverthe less keep in mind the f act that such behavior is
esse ntially and fundamentally social; that it involves and presupposes an evergoing socia l
life-proce ss; and that the unity of this ongoing social process – or of any one of its
component acts-is irreducible, and in particu lar cannot be adequately analyzed simply into a
number of discrete nerve elements. This fact must be recognized by the socia l psycho logist.
These discr ete nerve elements lie within the unity of this ongoing social process, or within
the unity of any one of the social acts in which this process is expressed or embodied, and
the analysis which isolates them-the analysis of which they are the results or end-products –
does not and cannot destroy that unity.
2.The meanings of things or objects are actual inherent properties or qualities of them, the
locus of any given meaning is in the thing which, as we say, "has it." We refer to the
meaning of a thing when we make use of the symbol. Symbols stand for the meanings of
those things or objects which have meanings; they are given portions of experience which
point to, indicate, or represent other portions of experience not directly present or given at

the time when, and in the situatio n in which, any one of them is thus present (or is
immediately experienced). The symbol is thus more than a mere substitute stimulus – more
than a mere stimulus for a conditioned respo nse or reflex. For the conditioned reflex-the
response to a mere substitute stimulus – does not or need not involve consciousness;
wher eas the respo nse to a symbol does and must involve consci ousness. Conditioned
reflexes plus consciousness of the attitudes and meanings they involve are what constitute
language, and hence lay the basis, or comprise the mechanism for, thought and intelligent
cond uct. language is the means wher eby individuals can indicate to one anoth er what their
responses to objects will be, and hence what the meanings of objects are; it is not a mere
system of conditioned reflexes. Rational cond uct always involves a reflexive reference to
self, that is, an indication to the individual of the significances which his actions or gestures
have for other individuals. And the experiential or behavioristic basis for such conduct-the
neuro-physiological mechanism of thinking-is to be found, as we have seen, in the central
nervou s system.
3.The reflective act consists in a recon struct ion of the perceptual field so that it becomes
possi ble for impulses which were in conflict to inhibit action no longer. This may take place
by such a temporal readjustment that one of the conflicting impulses finds a later
expression. In this case there has entered into the perce ptual field other impulses which
postp one the expression of that which had inhibited action. Thus, the width of the ditch
inhibits the impulse to jump. There enters into the perceptual field the image of a narrower
stretch and the impulse to go ahead finds its place in a combination of impulses, including
that of move ment toward the narro wer stretch.
The reconstruction may take place throug h the appearance of other sens ory chara cters in
the field ignored before. A board long enough to bridge the ditch is recognized. Because the
individual has already the complex of impulses which lead to lifting it and placing it across
the ditch it becomes a part of the organized group of impulses that carry the man along
toward his destination. In neith er case would he be ready to respond to the stimulus (in the
one case the image of the narrower stretch of the ditch, in the other the sight of the board) if
he had not reactio ns in his nature answering to these objects, nor would these tendencies to
response sensitize him to their stimuli if they were not freed from firmly organized habits. It is
this freedom, then, that is the prerequisite of reflection, and it is our socia l self reflective
cond uct that gives this freedom to human individuals in their group life (MS).
17. THE RELATION OF MIND TO RESPONSE AND ENVIRONMENT
We have seen that mental proce sses have to do with the meanings of things, and that these
meanings can be stated in terms of highly organized attitude s of the individual. These attitudes
involve not only situati ons in which the elements are simultaneous, but also ones which involve
other temporal relationships, i.e., the adjustment of the present response to later responses which
are in some sens e already initiated. Such an organization of attitudes with reference to what we
term objects is what constitutes for us the meanings of things. These meanings in logical
termi nology are considered as univers als) and this unive rsality, we have seen attaches in a certain
sens e to a habitual response in contrast to the particular stimuli which elicit this response. The
universality is reflected in behavioristic terms in the identity of the response, although the stimuli that
call out this response are all different. We can throw this statement into a logical form and say that
the respo nse is universal while the stimuli are partic ulars which are brought under such a universa l.
These relati ons of attitudes to each other throw light upon the relation of a "substance" to its
attributes. We spea k of a house as, in a certain sens e, a substan ce to which the attribute of color
may be applied. The color is an accid ent which inheres in a certain substance, as such. This
relationship of the inherence of a certai n character in a certain substa nce is a relationship of a
speci fic response, such as that of ornamenting objects about us, to the group of actions involved in
dwelling in a hous e. The house must protect us, it must provi de for us when we are asleep and
when we are awake, it must carry the requisites of a family life-these are essentials that stand for a
set of responses in which one inevitably implies the other. There are other respo nses, however, that
vary. We can satisfy not simply our taste, but also our whims in the ornaments we use. Those are

not essential. There are certain respo nses that vary, whereas there is a certain body of more or less
standardized responses that remain unchanged. The organized sets of responses answer to the
meanings of things, answer to them in their universality, that is, in the habitual respo nse that is
called out by a great variety of stimuli. They answer to things in their logical relationships.
I have referred just now to the relationship of the substanc e as reflected in the body of habits, to the
varie d responses answ ering to the attributes. In the relationship of cause and effect there is the
relation of the responses to each other in the sense of dependence, involving the adjustment of the
steps to be taken with reference to the thing to be carried out. The arran gement which may appear
at one time in terms of means and end appears at another time in terms of cause and effect. We
have here a relationship of dependence of one response on another, a necessary relation that lies
inside of a larger system.[1] It depends upon what we are going to do wheth er we select this means
or another one, one caus al series or another. Our habits are so adjusted that if we decide to take a
journey, for instance, we have a body of related habits that begin to operate-packing our bags,
gettin g our railroad tickets, drawing out money for use, selectin g books to read on the journey, and
so on. There are a whole set of organized respo nses which at once start to go off in their proper
relationship to each other when a person makes up his mind that he will take a journey. There must
be such an organization in our habits in order that man may have the sort of intelligence which he in
fact has.
We have, then, in the behavioristic statement, a place for that which is supp osed to be the peculiar
conte nt of mind, that is, the meanings of thing s. I have referred to these factors as attitudes. There
is, of cours e, that in the world which answe rs to the group of attitude s. We are here avoiding logical
and metaphysical prob lems, just as modern psychology does. What this psycho logy is seeking to do
is to get Control; it is not seeking to settle meta physic al questions. Now, from the point of view of
behavioristic psychology, we can state in terms of attitudes what we call the meanings of thing s; the
organized attitude of the individual is that whic h the psychologist gets hold of in this situation. It is at
least as legitimate for him to state meaning in terms of attitudes as it was for an earlier psycho logist
to state it in terms of a static concept that had its place in the mind.
What I have pointed out is that in the central nervo us system one can find, or at least justifiably
assu me, just such complexities of responses, or the mechanism of just such complexities of
response, as we have been discussing. If we speak of a person going through the steps to which I
have referr ed, in preparing for a journey, we have to assume that not only are the nervous elements
esse ntial to the steps, but that the relation of those responses in the central nervous system is of a
such sort that if the person carries out one resp onse he is inevitably ready to find the stimulus which
will set free another related response. There must be an organization in the central nervous system
in the way of its elements, its neurons, for all the combinations which can possibly enter into a mind
and for just such a relationship of respo nses which are interdependent upon each other. Some of
these have been identified in the physiological study of the nervou s system, while others have to be
assu med on the basis of such study. As I have said before, it is not the specific physi ological
process which is going on inside of the neurons that as such is supposed to answer to meaning.
Earlier physio logical psycho logists had spoken of a spec ific psychic al proce ss, but there is nothi ng
in the mechanical, electr ical, and physi cal activit y that goes on in the nerve which answ ers to what
we term an idea. What is going on in the nerve in a particular situati on is the innervation of a certain
response which means this, that, and the other thing, and here is where the spec ificity of a certain
nervou s organizatio n is found. It is in the central nervous system that organization takes place. In a
certai n sens e you can say that it is in the engineer's office that the organization of the conce rn is
carried out. But what is found there in the blue-prints and body of statistics is not the actual
production that is going on in the factory, even though that office does organize and coord inate
those various branches of the conc ern. In the same way the central nervous system coord inates all
the various processes that the body carrie s out. If there is anything in the organism as a purely
physi ological mechanism which answers to what we call experience, when that is ordinarily termed
consc ious, it is the total organic process for which these nervous elements stand. These processes
are, as we have seen, attitude s of response, adjustments of the organism to a complex
envir onment, attitudes which sensitize the form to the stimuli which will set the response free.
The point I want to emphasize is the way that these attitude s deter mine the environment. There is
an organized set of respo nses which first send off certain telegrams, then select the means of
transportation, then send us to the bank to get money, and then see to it that we get something to
read on the train. As we advance from one set of responses to another we find ourselves picking out

the envir onment which answers to this next set of respo nses. To finish one response is to put
ourselves in a posit ion where we see other thing s. The appearance of the retina l elements has given
the world color; the development of the organs in the ear has given the world sound. We pick out an
organized envir onment in relationship to our response, so that these attitudes, as such, not only
represent our organized responses but they also repres ent what exists for us in the world; the
partic ular phase of reality that is there for us is picked out for us by our response. We can recognize
that it is the sensitizi ng of the organism to the stimuli which will set free its responses that is
responsible for one's living in this sort of an envir onment rather than in another. We see things in
their temp oral relationship which answ er to the temporal organization which is found in the central
nervou s system. We see things as distant from us not only spati ally but temporally; when we do this
we can do that. Our world is definitely mapped out for us by the respo nses which are going to take
place.[2]
It is a difficult matter to state just what we mean by dividing up a certain situation betwe en the
organism and its environment. Certa in objects come to exist for us because of the chara cter of the
organism. Take the case of food. If an animal that can digest grass, such as an ox, comes into the
world, then grass becomes food. That object did not exist before, that is, grass as food. The adve nt
of the ox brings in a new object. In that sense, organisms are responsible for the appearance of
whole sets of objects that did not exist before.[3] The distribution of meaning to the organism and
the envir onment has its expression in the organism as well as in the thing, and that expression is not
a matter of psychical or mental conditions. There is an expression of the reaction of the organized
response of the organism to the envir onment, and that reacti on is not simply a determination of the
organism by the environment, since the organism determines the environment as fully as the
envir onment determines the organs. The organic reacti on is respo nsible for the appearance of a
whole set of objects which did not exist before.
There is a definite and necessary structure or gesta lt of sens itivity within the organism, which
deter mines selectively and relatively the character of the exter nal object it perce ives. What we term
consc iousness needs to be brought inside just this relati on betwe en an organism and its
envir onment. Our constructive selection of an environment-colors, emotional value s, and the like-in
terms of our physi ological sensitivities, is essentially what we mean by consc iousness. This
consc iousness we have tended historically to locate in the mind or in the brain. The eye and related
processes endow objects with color in exactly the same sense that an ox endows grass with the
character of food, that is, not in the sense of projecting sens ations into objects, but rather of puttin g
itself into a relati on with the object which makes the appearance and existence of the color poss ible,
as a quality of the object. Colors inhere in objects only by virtue of their relations to given percipient
organisms. The physiological or sensory structure of the perci pient organism determines the
experienced content of the object.
The organism, then, is in a sense responsible for its enviro nment. And since organism and
envir onment determine each other and are mutually dependent for their existence, it follows that the
life-proce ss, to be adequately understood, must be cons idered in terms of their interre lations.
The socia l environment is endowed with meanings in terms of the proce ss of social activity ; it is an
organization of objective relations which arises in relation to a group of organisms engaged in such
activity , in proc esses of socia l experience and behavior. Certain characters of the exter nal world are
poss essed by it only with reference to or in relation to an interacting social group of individual
organisms; just as other characters of it are posse ssed by it only with reference to or in relati on to
individual organisms themselves. The relation of the socia l process of behavior – or the relation of
the social organism-to the social envir onment is analogous to the relation of the proce sses of
individual biological activity-or the relation of the individual organism-to the physic al-biological
envir onment.[4]
The parallelism I have been referring to is the parallelism of the set of the organism and the objects
answ ering to it. In the ox there is hunger, and also the sight and odor which bring in the food. The
whole process is not found simply in the stomach, but in all the activities of grazing, chewing the
cud, and so on. This proce ss is one whic h is intimately related to the so-called food which exists out
there. The organism sets up a bacteriological laboratory, such as the ox carries around to take care
of the grass which then beco mes food. Within that parallelism what we term the meaning of the
object is found, specifically, in the organized attitude of respo nse on the part of the organism to the

characters and the things. The meanings are there, and the mind is occu pied with these meanings.
The organized stimuli answ er to the organized respo nses.
It is the organization of the different responses to each other in their relationship to the stimuli they
are setting free that is the peculiar subject matter of psycho logy in dealing with what we term "mind."
We generally confine the term "mental," and so "mind," to the human organism, beca use there we
find that body of symbols that enables us to isolate these characters, these meanings. We try to
distin guish the meaning of a house from the stone, the cement, the bricks that make it up as a
physica l object, and in doing so we are referring to the use of it. That is what makes the house a
mental affair.[5] We are isolating, if you like, the building materials from the stand point of the
physic ist and the architect. There are variou s standpoints from which one can look at a house. The
burrow in which some animal lives is in one sense the house of the animal, but when the human
being lives in a house it takes on what we term a mental character for him which it presumably has
not for the mole that lives in the burrow. The human individual has the ability to pick out the
elements in a house which answ er to his responses so that he can control them. He reads the
advertise ment of a new form of a boiler and can then have more warmth, have a more comfortable
dress ing-room than before. Man is able to contro l the process from the standpoint of his own
responses. He gets meanings and so controls his responses. -His ability to pick those out is what
makes the house a mental affair. The mole, too, has to find his food, meet his enemies, and avoid
them, but we do not assum e that the mole is able to indicate to himself the peculiar advan tages of
his burrow over against another one. His house has no mental characteristics. Mentality resides in
the ability of the organism to indicate that in the envir onment which answe rs to his responses, so
that he can contro l those respo nses in various ways . That, from the point of view of behavioristic
psychol ogy, is what mentality consists in. There are in the mole and other animals complex
elements of behavior relate d to the environment, but the human animal is able to indicate to itself
and to others what the characters are in the enviro nment which call out these comp lex, highly
organized respo nses, and by such indication is able to control the respo nses. The human animal
has the ability over and above the adjustment which belongs to the lower animal to pick out and
isolate the stimulus. The biologist recognizes that food has certain values, and while the human
animal responds to these values as other animals do, it can also indicate certain characte rs in the
food which mean certain things in his digestive responses to these foods. Mentality consists in
indicating these values to others and to one's self so that one can contr ol one's responses.
Menta lity on our approach simply comes in when the organism is able to point out meanings to
others and to himself. This is the point at which mind appears, or if you like, emerges. What we
need to recognize is that we are dealing with the relationship of the organism to the environment
selected by its own sens itivity. The psycho logist is interested in the mechanism which the human
speci es has evolved to get control over these relationships. The relationships have been there
before the indications are made, but the organism has not in its own cond uct controlled that
relationship. It originally has no mechanism by means of which it can contro l it. The human animal,
however, has worked out a mechanism of language communication by means of which it can get
this control. Now, it is evident that much of that mechanism does not lie in the central nervous
system, but in the relation of thing s to the organism. The ability to pick these meanings out and to
indicate them to others and to the organism is an ability which gives peculiar power to the human
individual. The control has been made possible by language. It is that mechanism of control over
meaning in this sense which has, I say, constituted what we term "mind." The mental proce sses do
not, howev er, lie in words any more than the intelligence of the organism lies in the elements of the
centra l nervo us system. Both are part of a process that is going on betwee n organism and
envir onment. The symbols serve their part in this process, and it is that which makes
communication so important. Out of language emerges the field of mind.
It is absurd to look at the mind simply from the stand point of the individual human organism; for,
altho ugh it has its focus there, it is essentially a social phenomenon; even its biological functions are
primarily socia l. The subjective experience of the individual must be brought into relation with the
natur al, socio biological activities of the brain in order to render an accept able account of mind
possi ble at all ; and this can be done only if the social nature of mind is recogn ized. The meagerness
of individual experience in isolation from the proce sses of social experience –in isolation from its
socia l environment-should, moreover, be apparent. We must regard mind, then, as arising and
deve loping within the socia l process, withi n the empirical matrix of social inter actio ns. We must, that
is, get an inner individual experience from the standpoint of social acts which include the
experiences of separ ate individuals in a social context wherein those individuals interact. The

processes of experience which the human brain makes poss ible are made possible only for a group
of interacting individuals: only for individual organisms which are members of a society; not for the
individual organism in isolation from other individual organisms.

Mind arises in the social process only when that process as a whole enters into, or is present in, the
experience of any one of the given individuals involved in that process. When this occurs the
individual becomes self-conscious and has a mind; he becomes aware of his relations to that
process as a whole, and to the other individuals partic ipating in it with him; he beco mes aware of
that proce ss as modified by the reactions and interacti ons of the individuals-including himself-who
are carryin g it on. The evolutionary appearance of mind or intelligence takes place when the whole
socia l proce ss of experience and behavior is brought within the experience of any one of the
sepa rate individuals implicated therei n, and when the individual's adjustment to the process is
modified and refined by the awareness or consciousness which he thus has of it. It is by means of
reflexiveness-the turning-back of the experience of the individual upon himself-that the whole social
process is thus brought into the experience of the individuals involved in it; it is by such means,
which enab le the individual to take the attitude of the other toward himself, that the individual is able
consc iously to adjust himself to that proc ess, and to modify the resultant of that proce ss in any give n
socia l act in terms of his adjustment to it. Reflexiveness, then, is the essent ial cond ition, within the
socia l process, for the deve lopment of mind.
Endnotes
1.Representation involves relation of earlier to later acts. This relation of responses gives
implication (1924).
2.The structure of the envir onment is a mapping out of organic respo nses to nature; any
envir onment, wheth er social or individual, is a mapping out of the logical structure of the act
to which it answe rs, an act seeking overt expression.
3.It is objectionable to speak of the food-proce ss in the animal as const ituting the food-object.
They are certa inly relative to each other (MS).
4.A social organism-that is, a social group of individual organisms – constitutes or creates its
own special environment of objects just as, and in the same sens e as, an individual
organism constitutes or creates its own special environment of objects (which, howev er, is
much more rudimentary than the environment constructed by a socia l organism).
5.Natu re-the external world-is objectively there, in opposition to our experience of it, or in
opposition to the individual thinker himself. Although external objects are there independent
of the experiencing individual, nevertheless they possess certain characteristics by virtue of
their relations to his experiencing or to his mind, which they would not possess otherw ise or
apart from those relations. These characte ristics are their meanings for him, or in general,
for us. The distincti on betwe en physical objects or physica l reality and the mental or self-
consc ious experience of those objects or that reality-the distinctio n betwee n extern al and
internal experience-lies in the fact that the latter is conce rned with or constituted by
meanings. Experienced objects have definite meanings for the individuals thinking about
them.
18. THE SELF AND THE ORGANISM
In our statement of the devel opment of intelligence we have already suggested that the language
process is essential for the deve lopment of the self. The self has a character which is different from
that of the physiological organism proper. The self is something which has a deve lopment; it is not
initially there, at birth, but arises in the process of social experience and activity, that is, develops in

the given individual as a result of his relations to that proce ss as a whole and to other individuals
within that process. The intelligence of the lower forms of animal life, like a great deal of human
intelligence, does not involve a self. In our habitual actions, for example, in our movi ng about in a
world that is simply there and to which we are so adjusted that no thinking is involv ed, there is a
certai n amount of sensuous experience such as persons have when they are just waking up, a bare
there ness of the world. Such characters about us may exist in experience withou t taking their place
in relationship to the self. One must, of course, under those conditions, distinguish betwee n the
experience that immediately takes place and our own organization of it into the experience of the
self. One says upon analysis that a certai n item had its place in his experience, in the experience of
his self. We do inevita bly tend at a certain level of sophistication to organize all experience into that
of a self. We do so intimately identify our experiences, espec ially our affective experiences, with the
self that it takes a moment's abstraction to realize that pain and pleasure can be there witho ut being
the experience of the self. Similarly, we normally organize our memories upon the string of our self.
If we date things we always date them from the point of view of our past experiences. We frequently
have memories that we cann ot date, that we cannot place. A picture comes before us suddenly and
we are at a loss to explain when that experience originally took place. We remember perfectly
distin ctly the picture, but we do not have it definitely placed, and until we can place it in terms of our
past experience we are not satisf ied. Nevertheless, I think it is obvious when one comes to consi der
it that the self is not nece ssarily involv ed in the life of the organism, nor involved in what we term our
sens uous experience, that is, experience in a world about us for which we have habitual reactions.
We can distinguish very definitely between the self and the body. The body can be there and can
operate in a very intelligent fashion witho ut there being a self involved in the experience. The self
has the characteristic that it is an object to itself, and that characteristic distinguishes it from other
objects and from the body. It is perfectly true that the eye can see the foot, but it does not see the
body as a whole. We cann ot see our backs; we can feel certa in portio ns of them, if we are agile, but
we cannot get an experience of our whole body. There are, of course, experiences which are
somewhat vague and difficult of location, but the bodily experiences are for us organized about a
self. The foot and hand belong to the self. We can see our feet, espe cially if we look at them from
the wrong end of an opera glass, as strange things which we have difficulty in recognizing as our
own. The parts of the body are quite distinguishable from the self. We can lose parts of the body
witho ut any serious invasi on of the self. The mere ability to experience different parts of the body is
not different from the experience of a table. The table presents a different feel from what the hand
does when one hand feels another, but it is an experience of something with which we come
definitely into contact. The body does not experience itself as a who le, in the sense in which the self
in some way enters into the experience of the self.
It is the character istic of the self as an object to itself that I want to bring out. This chara cteristic is
represented in the word "self," which is a reflexive, and indicates that which can be both subject and
object. This type of object is essentially different from other objects, and in the past it has been
distin guished as consci ous, a term which Indicates an experience with, an experience of, one's self.
It was assum ed that consciousness in some way carried this capac ity of being an object to itself. In
giving a behavi oristic statement of consc iousness we have to look for some sort of experience in
which the physical organism can become an object to itself.[1]
When one is running to get away from someone who is chasing him, he is entirely occupied in this
actio n, and his experience may be swallowed up in the objects about him, so that he has at the time
being, no consci ousness of self at all. We must be, of course , very completely occu pied to have that
take place, but we can, I think, recognize that sort of a poss ible experience in which the self does
not enter. We can, perhaps, get some light on that situation through those experiences in which in
very intense action there appear in the experience of the individual, back of this inten se actio n,
memories and anticipations. Tolstoi as an officer in the war gives an acco unt of having pictures of
his past experience in the midst of his most intense action. There are also the pictures that flash into
a person's mind when he is drown ing. In such insta nces there is a contrast betwe en an experience
that is absolutely wound up in outside activity in which the self as an object does not enter, and an
activity of memory and imagination in which the self is the principal object. The self is then entire ly
distin guishable from an organism that is surrounded by things and acts with reference to things,
including parts of its own body. These latter may be objects like other objects, but they are just
objects out there in the field, and they do not involve a self that is an object to the organism. This is,
I think, frequently overlooked. It is that fact which makes our anthr opomorphic recon structio ns of
animal life so fallacious. How can an individual get outsi de himself (experientially) in such a way as

to become an object to himself? This is the essential psycholo gical problem of selfhood or of self-
consc iousness; and its solution is to be found by referring to the proc ess of social conduct or activity
in which the given person or individual is implicated. The apparatus of reason would not be
complete unless it swept itself into its own analysis of the field of experience; or unless the individual
brought himself into the same experiential field as that of the other individual selves in relation to
whom he acts in any given socia l situation. Reason cannot becom e impersonal unless it takes an
objective, non-affective attitude toward itself; otherwise we have just consciousness, not self-
consc iousness. And it is nece ssary to rational conduct that the individual should thus take an
objective, impersonal attitude toward himself, that he should become an object to himself. For the
individual organism is obvio usly an essenti al and important fact or constituent element of the
empirical situation in which it acts; and without taking objective acco unt of itself as such, it cannot
act intelligently, or rationally.
The individual experiences himself as such, not directly, but only indirectly, from the particular
standpoints of other individual members of the same social group, or from the generalized
standpoint of the social group as a whole to which he belongs. For he enters his own experience as
a self or individual, not direct ly or immediately, not by becoming a subject to himself, but only in so
far as he first beco mes an object to himself just as other individuals are objects to him or in his
experience; and he beco mes an object to himself only by taking the attitudes of other individuals
toward himself within a socia l enviro nment or context of experience and behavior in which both he
and they are involved.
The importance of what we term "communication" lies in the fact that it provid es a form of behavior
in which the organism or the individual may become an object to himself. It is that sort of
communication which we have been discussing -not communication in the sens e of the cluck of the
hen to the chickens, or the bark of a wolf to the pack, or the lowing of a cow, but communication in
the sense of significant symbols, communication which is directed not only to others but also to the
individual himself. So far as that type of communication is a part of behavior it at least introduces a
self. Of course, one may hear witho ut listening; one may see things that he does not realize; do
thing s that he is not really aware of. But it is wher e one does respond to that which he addresse s to
another and where that respo nse of his own beco mes a part o f his cond uct, where he not only hears
himself but respo nds to himself, talks and replies to himself as truly as the other person replies to
him, that we have behavior in which the individuals become objects to themselves.
Such a self is not, I would say, primarily the physiological organism. The physiological organism is
esse ntial to it, [2] but we are at least able to think of a self without it. Persons who believe in
immortality, or believe in ghosts, or in the possi bility of the self leaving the body, assu me a self
which is quite distinguishable from the body. How successf ully they can hold these conceptions is
an open questio n, but we do, as a fact, separate the self and the organism. It is fair to say that the
beginning of the self as an object, so far as we can see, is to be found in the experiences of people
that lead to the conception of a "double." Primitive people assu me that there is a double, located
presumably in the diaphragm, that leaves the body temporarily in sleep and completely in death. It
can be enticed out of the body of one's enemy and perhaps killed. It is repres ented in infancy by the
imaginary playmates which children set up, and through which they come to control their
experiences in their play.
The self, as that which can be an object to itself, is esse ntially a socia l structure, and it arise s in
socia l experience. After a self has arisen, it in a certain sense provides for itself its social
experiences, and so we can conceive of an abso lutely solita ry self. But it is impossible to conceive
of a self arising outside of socia l experience. When it has arisen we can think of a person in solitary
confinement for the rest of his life, but who still has himself as a com panion, and is able to think and
to converse with himself as he had communicated with others. That process to which I have just
referred, of responding to one's self as another responds to it, taking part in one's own conversat ion
with others, being aware of what one is saying and using that awar eness of what one is saying to
deter mine what one is going to say thereafter-that is a process with which we are all familiar. We
are continually following up our own address to other persons by an understanding of what we are
sayin g, and using that understanding in the directio n of our conti nued speech. We are finding out
what we are going to say, what we are going to do, by saying and doing, and in the process we are
conti nually contro lling the process itself. In the conversation of gesture s what we say calls out a
certai n response in another and that in turn changes our own action, so that we shift from what we
started to do because of the reply the other makes. The convers ation of gestures is the beginning of

communication. The individual comes to carry on a conversation of gestures with himself. He says
someth ing, and that calls out a certain reply in himself which makes him change what he was going
to say. One starts to say something, we will presu me an unpleasant something, but when he starts
to say it he realizes it is cruel. The effect on himself of what he is saying checks him; there is here a
conversat ion of gesture s betwee n the individual and himself. We mean by significant speech that
the action is one that affects the individual himself, and that the effect upon the individual himself is
part of the intelligent carryi ng-out of the conversation with others. Now we, so to spea k, amputate
that socia l phase and dispense with it for the time being, so that one is talking to one's self as one
would talk to another person.[3]
This proc ess of abstracti on cannot be carried on indefinitely. One inevita bly seek s an audience, has
to pour himself out to somebody. In reflective intelligence one thinks to act, and to act solely so that
this action remains a part of a social process. Thinking becomes preparatory to social action. The
very process of thinking is, of course, simply an inner conversat ion that goes on, but it is a
conversat ion of gestures which in its completion implies the expression of that which one thinks to
an audience. One separates the significance of what he is saying to others from the actual speech
and gets it ready before saying it. He thinks it out, and perhaps writes it in the form of a book; but it
is still a part of social interc ourse in which one is addressing other persons and at the same time
addressing one's self, and in which one controls the address to other persons by the response
made to one's own gesture. That the person should be responding to himself is necessary to the
self, and it is this sort of socia l conduct which provi des beha vior within which that self appears. I
know of no other form of behavior than the linguistic in which the individual is an object to himself,
and, so far as I can see, the individual is not a self in the reflexive sens e unless he is an object to
himself. It is this fact that gives a critical importance to communication, since this is a type of
behavior in which the individual does so respond to himself.
We realize in everyday conduct and experience that an individual does not mean a great deal of
what he is doing and saying. We frequently say that such an individual is not himself. We come
away from an interview with a realization that we have left out important things, that there are parts
of the self that did not get into what was said. What deter mines the amount of the self that gets into
communication is the social experience itself. Of course, a good deal of the self does not need to
get expression. We carry on a whole series of different relationships to different people. We are one
thing to one man and another thing to another. There are parts of the self which exist only for the
self in relationship to itself. We divide ourselves up in all sorts of different selves with reference to
our acquaintances. We discuss politics with one and religion with another. There are all sorts of
different selves answering to all sorts of different social reactions. It is the socia l process itself that is
responsible for the appearance of the self; it is not there as a self apart from this type of experience.
A multiple personality is in a certain sense normal, as I have just pointed out. There is usua lly an
organization of the whole self with reference to the community to which we belong, and the situation
in which we find ourselves. What the society is, whether we are living with people of the present,
people of our own imaginations, people of the past, varies, of course, with different individuals.
Normally, within the sort of community as a whole to which we belong, there is a unified self, but that
may be broken up. To a person who is somew hat unsta ble nervou sly and in whom there is a line of
cleavage, certain activities becom e impossible, and that set of activities may separate and evolve
another self. Two separate "Me's" and "I's," two different selves, result, and that is the condition
under which there is a tendency to break up the personality. There is an accou nt of a professor of
education who disappeared, was lost to the community, and later turned up in a logging camp in the
West. He freed himself of his occu pation and turne d to the woods where he felt, if you like, more at
home. The pathological side of it was the forgetting, the leavi ng out of the rest of the self. This resul t
involve d getting rid of certain bodily memories which would identify the individual to himself. We
often recognize the lines of cleavag e that run throu gh us. We would be glad to forget certain things,
get rid of thing s the self is bound up with in past experiences. What we have here is a situation in
which there can be different selves, and it is dependent upon the set of social reactions that is
involve d as to which self we are going to be. If we can forget every thing involv ed in one set of
activities, obviously we relinquish that part of the self. Take a person who is unstable, get him
occu pied by speech, and at the same time get his eye on something you are writing so that he is
carryin g on two separate lines of communication, and if you go about it in the right way you can get
those two currents going so that they do not run into each other. You can get two entirely different
sets of activities going on. You can bring about in that way the dissociation of a perso n's self. It is a
process of setting up two sorts of communication which separ ate the behavior of the individual. For

one individual it is this thing said and heard, and for the other individual there exists only that which
he sees written. You must, of course , keep one experience out of the field of the other.
Dissociations are apt to take place when an event leads to emotional upheavals. That which is
sepa rated goes on in its own way.
The unity and structure of the complete self reflects the unity and structure of the social process as
a whole; and each of the elementary selves of which it is composed reflects the unity and structure
of one of the various aspe cts of that process in which the individual is implicated. In other words, the
vario us elementary selves which constitute, or are organized into, a complete self are the various
aspe cts of the structure of that c omplete self answering to the variou s aspects of the structure of the
socia l process as a whole; the structure of the complete self is thus a reflection of the complete
socia l process. The organization and unification of a social group is identical with the organization
and unification of any one of the selves arising within the social process in which that group is
engaged, or which it is carryin g on.[4]
The phenomenon of dissociation of perso nality is caused by a breaking up of the complete, unitary
self into the component selves of which it is composed, and which respectively corresp ond to
different aspects of the social process in which the person is involved, and within which his
complete or unitary self has arisen; these aspects being the different social groups to which he
belongs within that process.
Endnotes
1.Man' s behavior is such in his social group that he is able to become an object to himself, a
fact which const itutes him a more advanced product of evolutionary devel opment than are
the lower animals. Fundamentally it is this socia l fact-and not his alleged possession of a
soul or mind with which he, as an individual, has been mysteriously and supernaturally
endowed, and with which the lower animals have not been endowed-that differentiates him
from them .
2.a) All social interr elations and interactio ns are rooted in a certain common socio –
physi ological endowment of every individual involved in them. These physi ological bases of
socia l behavior-which have their ultimate scat or locus in the lower part of the individual's
centra l nervo us system-are the bases of such behavior, precis ely because they in
them selves are also social; that is, because they cons ist in drives or instincts or behavior
tendencies, on the part of the given individual, which he cannot carry out or give overt
expression and satisfaction to witho ut the coop erative aid of one or more other individuals.
The physiological processes of behavior of which they are the mechanisms are proce sses
which necessarily involve more than one individual, processes in which other individuals
besides the given individual are perforce implicated. Examples of the fundamental social
relations to which these physio logical bases of social behavior give rise are those betwee n
the sexes (expressing the repro ductive instinct), between parent and child (expressing the
parental instinct), and betwe en neighbors (expressing the gregarious instin ct). Thes e
relative ly simple and rudimentary physio logical mechanisms or tendencies of individual
human behavior, besides constitutin g the physiological bases of all human social behavior,
are also the fundamental biological materials of human nature; so that when we refer to
human nature, we are referring to something which is essentially social.
b)Sexually and parentally, as well as in its attacks and defenses, the activities of the
physi ological organism are socia l in that the acts begun within the organism require their
completion in the action s of others……… But while the pattern of the individual act may be
said to be in these cases social, it is only so in so far as the organism seeks for the stimuli in
the attitudes and characters of other forms for the completion of its own respo nses, and by
its behavior tends to maintain the other as a part of its own environment. The actual
behavior of the other or the others is not initiated in the individual form as a part of its own
pattern of behavior (MS).
3.It is generally recognized that the spec ifically social expressions of intelligence, or the
exercise of what is often called "socia l intelligence," depend upon the given individual's
ability to take the roles of, or "put himself in the place of," the other individuals implicated
with him in given socia l situatio ns; and upon his consequent sens itivity to their attitudes

toward himself and toward one another. These specifically social expressions of intelligence,
of course, acquire unique significance in terms of our view that the whole natur e of
intelligence is socia l to the very core- that this putting of one's self in the plac es of others, this
taking by one's self of their roles or attitudes, is not mere ly one of the various aspects or
expressions of intelligence or of intelligent behavior, but is the very essence of its character.
Spearman's "X factor" in intelligence – the unknown factor which, accordi ng to him,
intelligence contains-is simply (if our socia l theory of intelligence is correct) this ability of the
intelligent individual to take the attitude of the other, or the attitudes of others, thus realizing
the significations or grasping the meanings of the symbols or gestur es in terms of which
thinking proceeds; and thus being able to carry on with himself the internal conversation with
these symb ols or gestures which thinking involves.
4.The unity of the mind is not identical with the unity of the self. The unity of the self is
constitute d by the unity of the entire relational pattern of social behavior and experience in
which the individual is implicated, and which is reflected in the str ucture of the self; but many
of the aspects or features of this entire pattern do not enter into consciousness, so that the
unity of the mind is in a sens e an abstraction from the more inclusive unity of the self.
19. THE BACKGR OUND OF THE GENESIS OF THE SELF
The problem now pres ents itself as to how, in detail, a self arises. We have to note something of the
background of its genesis. First of all there is the conversation of gestur es betwee n animals
involv ing some sort of cooperative activity. There the beginning of the act of one is a stimulus to the
other to respo nd in a certain way, while the beginning of this response becomes again a stimulus to
the first to adjust his action to the onco ming response. Such is the preparation for the completed act,
and ultimately it leads up to the cond uct which is the outcome of this preparation. The conversation
of gestures, however, does not carry with it the reference of the individual, the animal, the orga nism,
to itself. It is not actin g in a fashion which calls for a response from the form itself, although it is
cond uct with reference to the conduct of others. We have seen, howeve r, that there are certain
gesture s that do affect the organism as they affect other organisms and may, theref ore, arous e in
the organism responses of the same character as arous ed in the other. Here, then, we have a
situati on in which the individual may at least arouse responses in himself and reply to these
responses, the cond ition being that the socia l stimuli have an effect on the individual which is like
that which they have on the other. That, for example, is what is implied in language; otherwise
language as significant symbol would disappear, since the individual would not get the meaning of
that which he says.
The peculiar character possesse d by our human socia l environment belongs to it by virtue of the
pecu liar chara cter of human social activit y; and that character, as we have seen, is to be found in
the proce ss of communication, and more particularly in the triadic relation on which the existence of
meaning is based: the relation of the gesture of one organism to the adjustive response made to it
by another organism, in its indicative capa city as pointing to the completion or resultan t of the act it
initiates (the meaning of the gesture being thus the response Of the seco nd organism to it as such,
or as a gesture). What, as it were, takes the gesture out of the social act and isolates it as such-
what makes it someth ing more than just an early phase of an individual act-is the response of
another organism, or of other organisms, to it. Such a response is its meaning, or gives it its
meaning. The social situation and proce ss of behavior are here presupposed by the acts of the
individual orga nisms implicated there in. The gesture arise s as a separable element in the social act,
by virtue of the fact that it is selected out by the sensit ivities of other organisms to it; it does not exist
as a gesture merely in the experience of the single individual. The meaning of a gesture by one
organism, to repeat, is found in the response of anoth er organism to what would be the completion
of the act of the first organism which that gesture initiates and indicates.
We some times speak as if a person could build up an entire argument in his mind, and then put it
into words to convey it to someone else. Actually, our thinking always takes place by means of
some sort of symbols. It is possible that one could have the meaning of "chair" in his experience
witho ut there being a symb ol, but we wou ld not be thinking about it in that case. We may sit down in

a chair withou t thinking about what we are doing, that is, the approach to the chair is presumably
already aroused in our experience, so that the meaning is there. But if one is thinking about the
chair he must have some sort of a symbol for it. It may be the form of the chair, it may be the attitude
that somebody else takes in sitting down, but it is more apt to be some language symbol that
arouses this response. In a thought process there has to be some sort of a symbol that can refer to
this meaning, that is, tend to call out this response, and also serve this purpose for other perso ns as
well. It would not be a thoug ht process if that were not the case.
Our symbols are all universal. [1] You cannot say anythi ng that is absolutely particular; anythi ng you
say that has any meaning at all is univers al. You are saying someth ing that calls out a speci fic
response in anybody else provi ded that the symb ol exists for him in his experience as it does for
you. There is the language of spee ch and the language of hands, and there may be the language of
the expression of the countenance. One can register grief or joy and call out certai n responses.
There are primitive people who can carry on elaborate convers ations just by expressions of the
count enance. Even in these cases the perso n who communicates is affected by that expression just
as he expects somebody else to be affected. Thinking always implies a symbol which will call out
the same response in another that it calls out in the think er. Such a symbol is a univers al of
disco urse; it is universal in its character. We always assume that the symbol we use is one which
will call out in the other person the same response, provided it is a part of his mechanism of
cond uct. A perso n who is sayin g someth ing is saying to himself what he says to others; other wise
he does not know what he is talking about.
There is, of course, a great deal in one's conversation with others that does not arouse in one's self
the same response it arouses in others. That is particularly true in the case of emotional attitudes.
One tries to bully somebody else; he is not trying to bully himself. There is, further, a whole set of
values given in speech which are not of a symbolic character. The actor is conscious of these
values; that is, if he assumes a certain attitude he is, as we say, aware that this attitude represents
grief. If it does he is able to respond to his own gesture in some sens e as his audience does. It is
not a natural situatio n; one is not an actor all of the time. We do at times act and consi der just what
the effect of our attitude is going to be, and we may deliberately use a certain tone of voice to bring
about a certain result. Such a tone arouses the same response in ourselves that we want to arouse
in somebody else. But a very large part of what goes on in speech has not this symbolic status.
It is the task not only of the actor but of the artist as well to find the sort of expression that will arouse
in others what is going on in himself. The lyric poet has an experience of beauty with an emotional
thrill to it, and as an artist using words he is seeking for those words which will answe r to his
emotional attitude, and which will call out in others the attitude he himself has. He can only test his
results in himself by seei ng wheth er these words do call out in him the resp onse he wants to call out
in others. He is in somewhat the same position as that of the actor. The first direct and immediate
experience is not in the form of communication. We have an interesting light on this from such a
poet as Wordsworth, who was very much intere sted in the technique of the poet's expression; and
he has told us in his prefaces and also in his own poetry how his poems, as poems, arose and
uniformly the experience itself was not the immediate stimulus to the poetic expression. A period of
ten years might lie between the original experience and the expression of it. This process of finding
the expression in language which will call out the emotion once had is more easily accomplished
when one is dealing with the memory of it than when one is in the midst of the trance-like
experiences through which Wordsworth pass ed in his contact with nature. One has to experiment
and see how the expression that is given does answer to the respo nses which are now had in the
fainter memories of experience. Someone once said that he had very great difficulty in writing
poetry; he had plenty of ideas but could not get the language he needed. He was rightly told that
poetry was written in words, not in ideas.
A great deal of our speech is not of this genuinely aesthetic character; in most of it we do not
deliberately feel the emotions which we arouse. We do not normally use language stimuli to call out
in ourselves the emotional response which we are calling out in others. One does, of course, have
sympathy in emotional situations; but what one is seeking for there is something which is, after all,
that in the other which supports the individual in his own experience. In the case of the poet and
actor, the stimulus calls out in the artist that which it calls out in the other, but this is not the natur al
function of language; we do not assume that the person who is angry is calling out the fear in
himself that he is calling out in someone else. The emotional part of our act does not dir ectly call out
in us the respo nse it calls out in the other. If a person is hosti le the attitude of the other that he is

interested in, an attitude which flows naturally from his angered tones, is not one that he definitely
recognizes in himself. We are not frightened by a tone which we may use to frighten some body
else. On the emotional side, which is a very large part of the vocal gesture, we do not call out in
ourselves in any such degree the response we call out in others as we do in the case of significant
spee ch. Here we should call out in ourselves the type of respo nse we are calling out in others; we
must know what we are sayin g, and the attitude of the other which we arouse in ourselves should
contro l what we do say. Rationality means that the type of the response which we call out in others
shou ld be so called out in ourselves, and that this response shou ld in turn take its place in
deter mining what further thing we are going to say and do.
What is esse ntial to communication is that the symbol shou ld arouse in one's self what it arouses in
the other individual. It must have that sort of univers ality to any person who finds himself in the
same situa tion. There is a possibility of language whenever a stimulus can affect the individual as it
affects the other. With a blind perso n such as Helen Keller, it is a contact experience that could be
given to another as it is given to herself. It is out of that sort of language that the mind of Helen
Keller was built up. As she has recognized, it was not until she could get into communication with
other perso ns through symbols which could arouse in herself the respo nses they arouse in other
people that she could get what we term a mental content, or a self.
Another set of background factors in the genesis of the self is represented in the activities of play
and the game.
Among primitive people, as I have said, the nece ssity of distinguishing the self and the organism
was recognized in what we term the "double": the individual has a thing-like self that is affected by
the individual as it affects other people and which is distinguished from the immediate organism in
that it can leave the body and come back to it. This is the basis for the concept of the soul as a
sepa rate entity.
We find in children something that answers to this double, namely, the invisible, imaginary
companions which a good many children produce in their own experience. They organize in this way
the respo nses which they call out in other persons and call out also in them selves. Of course, this
playing with an imaginary companion is only a peculiarly interesting phase of ordinary play. Play in
this sense, especially the stage which precedes the organized games, is a play at someth ing. A
child plays at being a mother, at being a teach er, at being a policeman; that is, it is taking different
roles, as we say. We have something that suggests this in what we call the play of animals: a cat
will play with her kittens, and dogs play with each other. Two dogs playi ng with each other will attack
and defend, in a process which if carried throu gh would amount to an actual fight. There is a
combination of responses which checks the depth of the bite. But we do not have in such a situati on
the dogs taking a definite rôle in the sense that a child deliberately takes the role of another. This
tendency on the part of the children is what we are working with in the kindergarten where the rôles
which the children assu me are made the basis for training. When a child does assu me a rol e he has
in himself the stimuli which call out that particular response or group of responses. He may, of
cours e, run away when he is chas ed, as the dog does, or he may turn around and strike back just
as the dog does in his play. But that is not the same as playing at something. Children get together
to "play Indian." This means that the child has a certain set of stimuli which call out in itself the
responses that they would call out in others, and which answer to an Indian. In the play period the
child utilizes his own respo nses to these stimuli which he makes use of in building a self. The
response which he has a tendency to make to these stimuli organizes them. He plays that he is, for
insta nce, offering himself something, and he buys it; he gives a letter to himself and takes it away;
he addresses himself as a parent, as a teacher; he arrests himself as a policeman. He has a set of
stimuli which call out in himself the sort of responses they call out in others. He takes this group of
responses and organizes them into a certa in whole. Such is the simplest form of being another to
one's self. It involves a temporal situation. The child says something in one character and respo nds
in another chara cter, and then his responding in another character is a stimulus to him self in the first
character, and so the conversation goes on. A certa in organized structu re arise s in him and in his
other which replies to it, and these carry on the conversation of gestures betwe en themselves.
If we contr ast play with the situati on in an organized game, we note the essential difference that the
child who plays in a game must be ready to take the attitude of everyone else involve d in that game,
and that these different rôles must have a definite relationship to each other. Taking a very simple
game such as hide-and-seek, everyone with the excep tion of the one who is hiding is a person who

is hunting. A child does not require more than the person who is hunted and the one who is hunti ng.
If a child is playing in the first sens e he just goes on playing, but there is no basic organization
gained. In that early stage he pass es from one rôle to another just as a whim takes him. But in a
game wher e a number of individuals are involved, then the child taking one role must be ready to
take the rôle of everyone else. If he gets in a ball nine he must have the responses of each posit ion
involve d in his own position. He must know what everyon e else is going to do in order to carry out
his own play. He has to take all of these roles. They do not all have to be present in consci ousness
at the same time, but at some moments he has to have three or four individuals present in his own
attitude, such as the one who is going to throw the ball, the one who is going to catch it, and so on.
These respon ses must be, in some degree, present in his own make-up. In the game, then, there is
a set of responses of such others so organized that the attitude of one calls out the appropriate
attitude s of the other.
This organization is put in the form of the rules of the game. Children take a great interest in rules.
They make rules on the spot in order to help themselves out of difficulties. Part of the enjoyment of
the game is to get these rules. Now, the rules are the set of responses which a particular attitude
calls out. You can demand a certain respo nse in others if you take a certain attitude. These
responses are all in yourself as well. There you get an organized set of such responses as that to
which I have referred, which is something more elaborate than the rôles found in play. Here there is
just a set of responses that follow on each other indefinitely. At such a stage we spea k of a child as
not yet having a fully developed self. The child respo nds in a fairly intelligent fashion to the
immediate stimuli that come to him, but they are not organized. He does not organize his life as we
would like to have him do, namely, as a whole. There is just a set of responses of the type of play.
The child reacts to a certain stimulus, and the reactio n is in himself that is called out in others, but
he is not a whole self. In his game he has to have an organization of these rôles; otherwi se he
cann ot play the game. The game represents the passage in the life of the child from taking the rôle
of others in play to the organized part that is esse ntial to self-consciousness in the full sens e of the
term.
Endnotes
1.Thinking proceeds in terms of or by means of universals. A universal may be interpreted
behavioristically as simply the social act as a whole, involving the organization and
interr elation of the attitudes of all the individuals implicated in the act, as contro lling their
overt responses. This organization of the different individual attitudes and interactions in a
given social act, with reference to their interre lations as realized by the individuals
them selves, is what we mean by a universal; and it determines what the actual overt
responses of the individuals involved in the given social act will be, whether that act be
conc erned with a concr ete project of some sort (such as the relation of physical and social
means to ends desired) or with some purely abstract discussion, say the theory of relativity
or the Platonic ideas.
20. PLAY, THE GAME, AND THE GENERALIZE D OTH ER
We were speaking of the social conditions under which the self arises as an object. In addition to
language we found two illustrations, one in play and the other in the game, and I wish to sum marize
and expand my account on these points. I have spoken of these from the point of view of children.
We can, of course, refer also to the attitudes of more primitive people out of which our civilizatio n
has arisen. A striking illustrati on of play as distinct from the game is found in the myth s and various
of the plays which primitive people carry out, especially in religious pageants. The pure play attitude
which we find in the case of little children may not be found here, since the partici pants are adults,
and undoubtedly the relationship of these play process es to that which they interpret is more or less
in the minds of even the most primitive peop le. In the process of interp retati on of such rituals, there
is an organization of play which perhaps might be compared to that which is taking place in the
kindergarten in dealing with the plays of little children, where these are made into a set that will have
a definite structure or relationship. At least someth ing of the same sort is found in the play of

primitive people. This type of activity belongs, of course, not to the everyday life of the people in
their dealing with the objects about them-there we have a more or less definitely developed self-
consc iousness – but in their attitudes toward the forces about them, the nature upon which they
depend; in their attitude toward this nature which is vague and uncertain, there we have a much
more primitive respo nse; and that response finds its expression in taking the rôle of the other,
playing at the expression of their gods and their heroes, going through certain rites which are the
representation of what these individuals are supposed to be doing. The process is one which
deve lops, to be sure, into a more or less definite technique and is controlled; and yet we can say
that it has arise n out of situations similar to those in which little children play at being a parent, at
being a teach er-vagu e personalities that are about them and which affect them and on which they
depend. These are perso nalities which they take, rôles they play, and in so far contr ol the
deve lopment of their own personality. This outco me is just what the kindergarten works toward. It
takes the characters of these various vague beings and gets them into such an organized socia l
relationship to each. other that they build up the character of the little child.[1] The very introduction
of organization from outside supposes a lack of organization at this period in the child's experience.
Over against such a situation of the little child and primitive people, we have the game as such.
The fundamental difference betwe en the game and play is that in the latter the child must have the
attitude of all the others involv ed in that game. The attitudes of the other players which the
partic ipant assumes organize into a sort of unit, and it is that organization which control s the
response of the individual. The illustration used was of a perso n playing baseball. Each one of his
own acts is deter mined by his assumption of the action of the others who are playing the game.
What he does is controlled by his being everyon e else on that team, at least in so far as those
attitude s affect his own particular response. We get then an "other" which is an organization of the
attitude s of those involved in the same proce ss.
The organized community or socia l group which gives to the individual his unity of self may be
called "the generalized' other." The attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole
community.[2] Thus, for example, in the case of such a social group as a ball team, the team is the
generalized other in so far as it enters-as an organized process or socia l activity into the experience
of any one of the individual members of it.
If the given human individual is to develop a self in the fullest sens e, it is not sufficient for him
merely to take the attitude s of other human individuals toward himself and toward one another
within the human socia l process, and to bring that social process as a whole into his individual
experience merely in these terms: he must also, in the same way that he takes the attitudes of other
individuals toward himself and toward one another, take their attitudes toward the vario us phase s or
aspe cts of the common social activity or set of social undertakings in which, as members of an
organized society or socia l group, they are all engaged; and he must then, by generalizing these
individual attitudes of that organized society or social group itself, as a whole, act toward different
socia l projects which at any given time it is carrying out, or toward the various larger phases of the
general social process which constitutes its life and of which these projects are spec ific
manifestations. This gettin g of the broad activities of any given social whole or organized society as
such withi n the experiential field of any one of the individuals involved or included in that whol e is, in
other words, the essential basis and prerequisite of the fullest development of that individual's self:
only in so far as he takes the attitudes of the organized social group to which he belongs toward the
organized, cooperative social activit y or set of such activities in which that group as such is
engaged, does he develop a complete self or possess the sort of complete self he has develo ped.
And on the other hand, the complex cooperative processes and activities and institutional
functionings of organized human society are also possible only in so far as every individual involved
in them or belonging to that socie ty can take the gene ral attitudes of all other such individuals with
reference to these processe s and activities and institutional functionings, and to the organized social
whole of experiential relations and interactions thereby constituted-and can direct his own behavior
accor dingly.
It is in the form of the generalized other that the social process influences the behavior of the
individuals involved in it and carrying it on, i.e., that the community exercises control over the
cond uct of its individual members; for it is in this form that the socia l process or community enters
as a determining factor into the individual's thinking. In abstract thought the individual takes the,
attitude of the generalized other[3] toward himself, witho ut reference to its expression in any
partic ular other individuals; and in concrete thought he takes that attitude in so far as it is expressed

in the attitudes toward his behavior of those other individuals with whom he is involved in the given
socia l situation or act, But only by taking the attitude of the generalized other toward himself, in one
or another of these ways, can he think at all; for only thus can thinking -or the internalized
conversat ion of gestures which constitutes thinking-occur. And only throu gh the tak ing by ind ividuals
of the attitude or attitudes of the generalized other toward themselves is the existence of a universe
of discourse, as that system of common or social meanings which thinking presupposes at its
conte xt, rendered possi ble.
The self-conscious human individual, then, takes or assumes the organized social attitudes of the
given social group or community (or of some one section thereof to which he belongs, toward the
socia l problems of vario us kinds which confront that group or community at any given time, and
which arise in connection with the corresp ondingly different social projects or organized cooperative
enter prises in which that group or community as such is engaged; and as an individual partic ipant in
these socia l projects or cooperative enterprises, he governs his own cond uct accordingly. In politics,
for example, the individual identifies himself with an entire political party and takes the organized
attitude s of that entire party toward the rest of the given social community and toward the problems
which confront the party within the given social situation; and he consequently reacts or responds in
terms of the organized attitud es of the party as a whole. He thus enters into a special set of social
relations with all the other individuals who belong to that political party; and in the same way he
enters into various other special sets of socia l relations, with various other classes of individuals
respectivel y, the individuals of each of these class es being the other members of some one of the
partic ular organized subgroups (deter mined in socially functional terms) of which he himself is a
member within the entire given society or social community. In the most highly deve loped,
organized, and complicated human social communities-those evolve d by civilized man-these
vario us socially functional classes or subgroups of individuals to which any given individual belongs
(and with the other individual members of which he thus enters into a spec ial set of socia l relations)
are of two kinds. Some of them are concrete socia l classes or subg roups, such as political parties,
clubs, corporations, which are all actua lly functional social units, in terms of which their individual
members are directly related to one another. The others are abstract social class es or subgroups,
such as the class of debtors and the class of creditors, in terms of which their individual members
are related to one another only more or less indirectly, and which only more or less indirectly
function as social units, but which afford or represent unlimited possibilities for the widening and
ramifying and enriching of the social relations among all the individual members of the given society
as an organized and unified whole. The given individual's membership in several of these abstract
socia l classe s or subgroups makes possi ble his entrance into definite social relations (however
indirect) with an almost infinite number of other individuals who also belong to or are included within
one or another of these abstract social classes or subgroups cutting across functi onal lines of
demarcation which divide different human social communities from one another, and including
individual members from several (in some cases from all) such communities. Of these abstract
socia l classes or subg roups of human individuals the one which is most inclusive and extensive is,
of course, the one defined by the logical unive rse of discourse (or system of universally significant
symbols) determined by the participation and communicative interaction of individuals; for of all such
class es or subgroups, it is the one which claims the largest number of individual members, and
which enables the largest conceivable number of human individuals to enter into som e sort of social
relation, howev er indirect or abstract it may be, with one another – a relation arising from the
universal functioning of gestur es as significant symbols in the general human social process of
communication.
I have pointed out, then, that there are two general stages in the full devel opment of the self. At the
first of these stages, the individual's self is constituted simply by an organization of the particu lar
attitude s of other individuals toward himself and toward one another in the spec ific social acts in
which he participates with them. But at the second stage in the full development of the individual's
self that self is constituted not only by an organization of these particular individual attitudes, but
also by an organization of the social attitudes of the generalized other or the socia l group as a whole
to which he belongs. These social or group attitude s are brought within the individual's field of direct
experience, and are included as elements in the structure or constitution of his self, in the same way
that the attitudes of particu lar other individuals are; and the individual arrives at them, or succeeds in
taking them, by means of further organizing, and then generalizing, the attitudes of particular other
individuals in terms of their organized social bearings and implications. So the self reaches its full
deve lopment by organizing these individual attitudes of others into the organized socia l or group
attitude s, and by thus becoming an individual reflection of the general systematic pattern of social or

group behavior in which it and the others are all involved-a pattern which enters as a whole into the
individual's experience in terms of these orga nized group attitudes which, throu gh the mechanism of
his centr al nervous system, he takes toward himself, just as he takes the individual attitudes of
others.
The game has a logic, so that such an organizatio n of the self is rendered possi ble: there is a
definite end to be obtai ned; the action s of the different individuals are all related to each other with
reference to that end so that they do not conflict; one is not in conflict with himself in the attitude of
another man on the team. If one has the attitude of the person throwin g the ball he can also have
the respo nse of catchi ng the ball. The two are related so that they further the purpose of the game
itself. They are interr elated in a unitary, organic fashion. There is a definite unity, then, which is
introduced into the organizatio n of other selves when we reach such a stage as that of the game, as
over against the situati on of play where there is a simple succession of one rôle after another, a
situati on which is, of course, character istic of the child's own personality. The child is one thing at
one time and another at another, and what he is at one moment does not determ ine what he is at
another. That is both the charm of childhood as well as its inadequacy. You cannot count on the
child; you cannot assu me that all the things he does are going to deter mine what he will do at any
moment. He is not organized into a whole. The child has no definite character, no definite
personality.
The game is then an illustration of the situation out of which an organized perso nality arises. In so
far as the child does take the attitude of the other and allows that attitude of the other to deter mine
the thing he is going to do with reference to a common end, he is beco ming an organic member of
society. He is taking over the morale of that society and is becom ing an essentia l member of it. He
belongs to it in so far as he does allow the attitude of the other that he takes to control his own
immediate expression. What is involved here is some sort of an organized proce ss. That which is
expresse d in terms of the game is, of cours e, being continually expressed in the socia l life of the
child, but this wider process goes beyond the immediate experience of the child himself. The
importance of the game is that it lies entirely inside of the child's own experience, and the
importance of our modern type of education is that it is brought as far as possible within this realm.
The different attitudes that a child assu mes are so organized that they exercis e a definite control
over his response, as the attitudes in a game contro l his own immediate response. In the game we
get an orga nized other, a generalized other, which is found in the nature of the child itself, and Ands
its expression in the immediate- experience of the child. And it is that organized activit y in the child's
own nature controlling the particular response which gives unity, and which builds up his own self.
What goes on in the game goes on in the life of the child all the time. He is continually taking the
attitude s of those about him, especially the roles of those who in some sens e control him and on
whom he depends. He gets the function of the process in an abstract sort of a way at first. It goes
over from the play into the game in a real sens e. He has to play the game. The morale of the game
takes hold of the child more than the larger morale of the whole community. The child passes into
the game and the game expresses a social situation in which he can completely enter; its morale
may have a greater hold on him than that of the family to which he belongs or the community in
which he lives. There are all sorts of social organizations, some of which are fairly lasting, some
temp orary, into which the child is entering, and he is playing a sort of social game in them. It is a
period in which he likes "to belong," and he gets into organizations which come into existence and
pass out of existence. He becomes a something which can function in the organized whole, and
thus tends to determine himself in his relationship with the group to which he belongs. That process
is one which is a striking stage in the devel opment of the child's morale. It constitutes him a self-
consc ious member of the community to which he belongs.
Such is the process by which a personality arises. I have spoken of this as a proce ss in which a
child takes the role of the other, and said that it takes place essenti ally throu gh the use of language.
Language is predominantly based on the vocal gestur e by means of which cooperative activities in a
community are carrie d out. Language in its significant sens e is that vocal gesture which tends to
arouse in the individual the attitude which it arouses in others, and it is this perfecting of the self by
the gestur e which mediates the s ocial activities that gives rise to the proc ess of taking the rôle of the
other. The latter phrase is a little unfortunate because it suggests an actor's attitude which is actually
more sophisticated than that which is involve d in our own experience. To this degree it does not
correctly descr ibe that which I have in mind. We see the process most definitely in a primitive form
in those situations wher e the child's play takes different rôles. Here the very fact that he is ready to

pay out money, for instance, arouses the attitude of the person who receives money; the very
process is calling out in him the corres ponding activities of the other person involved. The individual
stimulates himself to the response which he is calling out in the other pers on, and then acts in some
degree in respo nse to that situation. In play the child does definitely act out the rôle which he himself
has aroused in himself. It is that which gives, as I have said, a definite content in the individual
which answe rs to the stimulus that affects him as it affects somebody else. The content of the other
that enters into one personality is the response in the individual which his gestur e calls out in the
other.
We may illustrate our basic concept by a reference to the notion of property. If we say "This is my
property, I shall contro l it," that affirmation calls out a certai n set of responses which must be the
same in any community in which property exists. It involves an organized attitude with reference to
property which is common to all the members of the community. One must have a definite attitude
of control of his own property and respect for the property of others. Those attitudes (as organized
sets of responses) must be there on the part of all, so that when one says such a thing he calls out
in himself the response of the others. He is calling out the respo nse of what I have called a
generalized other. That which makes society poss ible is such common responses, such organized
attitude s, with reference to what we term property, the cults of religion, the process of education,
and the relati ons of the family. Of course, the wider the society the more definitely universal these
objects must be. In any case there must be a definite set of responses, which we may speak of as
abstract, and which can belong to a very large group. Property is in itself a very abstract conce pt. It
is that which the individual himself can contro l and nobody else can control. The attitude is different
from that of a dog toward a bone. A dog will fight any other dog trying to take the bone. The dog is
not taking the attitude of the other dog. A man who says "This is my property" is taking an attitude of
the other person. The man is appealing to his rights because he is able to take the attitude which
everybo dy else in the group has with reference to property, thus arousing in himself the attitude of
others.
What goes to make up the organized self is the organization of the attitudes which are common to
the group. A perso n is a perso nality beca use he belongs to a community, because he takes over the
institutio ns of that community into his own conduct. He takes its language as a medium by whic h he
gets his personality, and then through a process of taking the different roles that all the others
furnish he comes to get the attitude of the members of the community. Such, in a certai n sense, is
the structu re of a man's personality. There are certain common respo nses which each individual has
toward certain common things, and in so far as those common responses are awakened in the
individual when he is affecting other persons he arouses his own self. The structure, then, on which
the self is built is this response which is common to all, for one has to be a member of a community
to be a self. Such responses are abstract attitudes, but they constitute just what we term a man's
character. They give him what we term his principles, the acknowledged attitudes of all members of
the community toward what are the value s of that community. He is putting himself in the place of
the generalized other, which repres ents the organized responses of all the members of the group. It
is that which guides conduct controlled by principles, and a person who has such an organized
group of responses is a man whom we say has character, in the moral sense.
It is a structure of attitudes, then, which goes to make up a self, as distinct from a group of habits.
We all of us have , for example, certain groups of habits, such as, the particular intonations which a
person uses in his spee ch. This is a set of habits of vocal expression which one has but which one
does not know about. The sets of habits which we have of that sort mean nothing to us; we do not
hear the intonations of our speech that others hear unless we are paying particular attention to
them. The habits of emotional expression whic h belong to our speech are of the same sort. W e may
know that we have expressed ourselves in a joyous fashion but the detai led proce ss is one which
does not come back to our conscious selves. There are whole bundles of such habits which do not
enter into a conscious self, but which help to make up what is termed the unco nscious self.
After all, what we mean by self-consciousness is an awakening in ourselves of the group of attitudes
which we are arousing in others, especially when it is an important set of respo nses which go to
make up the members of the community. It is unfortunate to fuse or mix up consciousness, as we
ordinarily use that term, and self-consc iousness. Consciousness, as frequently used , simply has
reference to the field of experience, but self-consciousness refers to the ability to call out in
ourselves a set of definite responses which belong to the others of the group. Consciousness and

self-consciousness are not on the same level. A man alone has, fortun ately or unfortunately, access
to his own toothach e, but that is not what we mean by self-consciousness.
I have so far emphasized what I have called the structures upon which the self is constructed, the
framework of the self, as it were. Of course we are not only what is common to all: each one of the
selves is different from everyone else; but there has to be such a common structure as I have
sketc hed in order that we may be members of a community at all. We cann ot be ourselves unless
we are also members in whom there is a community of attitudes which contro l the attitudes of all.
We cannot have rights unless we have common attitudes. That which we have acqu ired as self-
consc ious persons makes us such members of society and gives us selves. Selves can only exist in
definite relationships to other selves. No hard-and-fast line can be draw n betwe en our own selves
and the selves of others, since our own selves exist and enter as such into our experience only in so
far as the selves of others exist and enter as such into our experience also. The individual
poss esses a self only in relation to the selves of the other members of his social group; and the
structure of his self expresses or reflects the general behavior pattern of this socia l group to which
he belongs, just as does the structure of the self of every other individual belonging to this social
group.
Endnotes
1.["The Relation of Play to Education," University of Chicago Record, I (1896-97), 140 ff.]
2.It is possible for inanimate objects, no less than for other human organisms, to form parts of
the generalized and organized-the comp letely socialized – other for any given human
individual, in so far as he responds to such objects socia lly or in a social fashion (by means
of the mechanism of thoug ht, the internalized conversati on of gestures). Any thing -any
object or set of objects, whether animate or inanimate, human or animal, or merely physica l
– toward which he acts, or to which he responds, socia lly, is an element in what for him is
the generalized other; by taking the attitudes of which toward himself he becomes conscious
of himself as an object or individual, and thus develops a self or personality. Thus, for
example, the cult, in its primitive form, is merely the social embodiment of the relation
betwee n the given social group or community and its physical enviro nment-an organized
socia l means, adopted by the individual members of that group or community, of enteri ng
into social relations with that enviro nment, or (in a sense) of carryin g on conversations with
it; and in this way that environment becomes part of the total generalized other for each of
the individual members of the given socia l group or community.
3.We have said that the internal convers ation of the individual with himself in terms of words
or significant gestures – the conversation of which constitutes the proce ss or activity of
thinking – is carried on by the individual from the standpoint of the "generalized other." And
the more abstract that conversati on is, the more abstract thinking happens to be, the further
removed is the generalized other from any connectio n with partic ular individuals. It is
espe cially in abstract thinking, that is to say, that the convers ation involved is carried on by
the individual with the gene ralized other, rather than with any particular individuals. Thus it
is, for example, that abstract conc epts are concepts stated in terms of the attitudes of the
entire socia l group or community; they are stated on the basis of the individual's
consc iousness of the attitude s of the generalized other toward them, as a result of his taking
these attitudes of the generalized other and then responding to them. And thus it is also that
abstract propositions are stated in a form which anyone – any other intelligent individual–will
acce pt.
21. THE SELF AND THE SUBJECTIVE
The process out of which the self arises is a social process which implies interaction of individuals in
the group, implies the preexistence of the group.[1] It implies also certain co-operative activities in
which the different members of the group are involve d. It implies, further, that out of this process

there may in turn develop a more elaborate organizatio n than that out of which the self has arisen,
and that the selves may be the organs, the essential parts at least, of this more elaborate social
organization within which these selves arise and exist. Thus, there is a social process out of which
selves arise and within which further differentiation, further evoluti on, further organization, take
place.
It has been the tendency of psychol ogy to deal with the self as a more or less isolated and
independent element, a sort of entity that could conceivably exist by itself. It is possible that there
might be a single self in the universe if we start off by identifying the self with a certain feeling-
consc iousness. If we speak of this feeling as objective, then we can think of that self as existing by
itself. We can think of a separate physica l body existing by itself, we can assume that it has these
feelings or consci ous states in question, and so we can set up that sort of a self in thought as
existing simply by itself.
Then there is another use of "consc iousness" with which we have been partic ularly occupied,
denoting that which we term thinking or reflective intelligence, a use of consci ousness which always
has, implicitly at least, the reference to an "I" in it. This use of consc iousness has no necessary
conn ection with the other; it is an entirely different conception. One usage has to do with a certain
mechanism, a certai n way in which an organism acts. If an organism is endowed with sense organs
then there are objects in its envir onment, and among those objects will be parts of its own body.[2] It
is true that if the organism did not have a retina and a central nervous system there would not be
any objects of vision. For such objects to exist there have to be certa in physi ological cond itions, but
these objects are not in themselves necessa rily related to a self. When we reach a self we reach a
certai n sort of conduct, a certain type of socia l proce ss which involves the interaction of different
individuals and yet implies individuals engaged in some sort of cooperative activity. In that process a
self, as such, can arise .
We want to distinguish the self as a certain sort of structura l process in the conduct of the form, from
what we term consciousness of objects that are experienced. The two have no necessary
relationship. The aching tooth is a very important element. We have to pay attention to it. It is
identified in a certain sens e with the self in order that we may control that sort of experience.
Occasio nally we have experiences which we say belong to the atmo sphere. The whole world seems
to be depressed, the sky is dark, the weather is unpleasant, values that we are interested in are
sinking. We do not nece ssarily identify such a situation with the self; we simply feel a certa in
atmo sphere about us. We come to remember that we are subject to such sorts of depression, and
find that kind of an experience in our past. And then we get some sort of relief, we take aspirin, or
we take a rest, and the result is that the world changes its character. There are other experiences
which we may at all times identify with selves. We can distinguish, I think, very clear ly betwee n
certai n types of experience, which we call subjective because we alone have access to them, and
that experience which we call reflective.
It is true that reflection taken by itself is something to which we alone have access. One thinks out
his own demonstratio n of a proposition, we will say in Euclid, and the thinking is something that
takes place within his own conduct. For the time being it is a demonstratio n which exists only in his
thought. Then he publishes it and it becomes common property. For the time being it was
access ible only to him. There are other contents of this sort, such as memory images and the play
of the imagination, which are access ible only to the individual. There is a common characte r that
belongs to these types of objects which we generally identify with consciousness and this process
which we call that of thinking, in that both are, at least in certain phases, access ible only to the
individual. But, as I have said the two sets of phenomena stand on entire ly different levels. This
common feature of accessi bility does not necessa rily give them the same metaphysical status. I do
not now want to discu ss metaphysic al problems, but I do want to insist that the self has a sort of
structure that arises in socia l cond uct that is entirely distin guishable from this so-called subjective
experience of these partic ular sets of objects to which the organism alone has access- the common
character of privacy of access does not fuse them togeth er.
The self to which we have been refer ring arises when the c onversation of gest ures is taken over into
the conduct of the individual form. When this conversation of gestur es can be taken over into the
individual's conduct so that the attitude of the othe r forms can affect the orga nism, and the organism
can reply with its corres ponding gestu re and thus arouse the attitude of the other in its own process,
then a self arises. Even the bare conversa tion of gestu res that can be carried out in lower forms is to

be explained by the fact that thi s conversation of gestures has an intelligent function. Even there it is
a part of social process. If it is taken over into the conduct of the individual it not only maintains that
function but acqu ires still greater capacity. If I can take the attitude of a friend with whom I am going
to carry on a discus sion, in taking that attitude I can apply it to myse lf and reply as he replies, and I
can have things in very much better shape than if I had not employed that conversation of gestures
in my own cond uct. The same is true of him. It is good for both to think out the situation in advance.
Each individual has to take also the attitude of the community, the generalized attitude. He has to be
ready to act with reference to his own conditions just as any individual in the community would act.
One of the greatest advances in the development of the community arises when this reacti on of the
community on the individual takes on what we call an instituti onal form. What we mean by that is
that the whole community acts toward the individual under certain circumst ances in an identical way.
It makes no difference, over against a person who is steal ing your property, whet her it is Tom, Dick,
or Harry. There is an identical response on the part of the whole community under these conditions.
We call that the formation of the institution.
There is one other matter which I wish briefly to refer to now. The only way in which we can react
against the disapproval of the entire community is by setting up a higher sort of cornmunity which in
a certain sens e out-v otes the one we find. A person may reach a point of going against the whole
world about him; he may stand out by himself over against it. But to do that he has to speak with the
voice of reaso n to himself. He has to comprehend the voices of the past and of the future. That is
the only way in which the self can get a voice which is more than the voice of the community. As a
rule we assume that this general voice of the community is identical with the larger community of the
past and the future; we assume that an organized custo m represents what we call morality. The
thing s one cann ot do are those which everybod y would condemn. If we take the attitude of the
community over against our own respo nses, that is a true statement, but we must not forget this
other capac ity, that of replying to the community and insisting on the gesture -of the community
chan ging. We can reform the order of things; we can insist on making the community standards
better standards. We are not simply bound by the community. We are engaged in a conversat ion in
which what we say is liste ned to by t he com munity and its response is one which is affected by what
we have to say. This is espe cially true in critical situations. A man rises up and defends himself for
what he does; he has his "day in court"; he can present his views. He can perhaps change the
attitude of the community toward himself. The process of convers ation is one in which the individual
has not only the right but the duty of talking to the community of which lie is a part, and bringing
about those changes which take place throu gh the interaction of individuals. That is the way, of
cours e, in which socie ty gets ahead, by just such interactions as those in which some perso n think s
a thing out. We are continually changing our social system in some respects, and we are able to do
that intelligently beca use we can think.
Such is the reflective process within which a self arises; and what I have been trying to do is to
distin guish this kind of consc iousness from consc iousness as a set of chara cters determined by the
access ibility to the organism of certa in sorts of objects. It is true that our think ing is also, while it is
just thinking, accessible only to the organism. But that common character of being access ible only
to the organism does not make either thought or the self something which we are to identify with a
group of objects which simply are accessible. We cannot identify the self with what is commonly
called consciousness, that is, with the private or subjective thereness of the characters of objects.
There is, of course, a current distinctio n between conscious ness and self-consciousness:
consc iousness answe ring to certain experiences such as those of pain or pleasure, self-
consc iousness referring to a recognition or appearance of a self as an object. It is, however, very
generally assumed that these other conscious contents carry with them also a self-consciousness-
that a pain is always some body's pain, and that if there were not this reference to some individual it
would not be pain. There is a very definite element of truth in this, but it is far from the whole story.
The pain does have to belong to an individual; it has to be your pain if it is going to belong to you.
Pain can belong to anyb ody, but if it did belong to everybody it would be comparatively unimportant.
I suppose it is conceivable that under an anesthetic what takes place is the dissociation of
experiences so that the suffering, so to speak, is no longer your suffering. We have illustrati ons of
that, short of the anesthetic dissociation, in an experience of a disagreeable thing which loses its
power over us beca use we give our attention to something else. If we can get, so to speak, outside
of the thing, dissociating it from the eye that is regarding it, we may find that it has lost a great deal
of its unendurable character. The unen durableness of pain is a reaction against it. If you can

actua lly keep yoursel f from reacting against suffering you get rid of a certai n content in the suffering
itself. What takes place in effect is that it ceas es to be your pain. You simply regard it objectively.
Such is the point of view we are continually impressing on a person when he is apt to be swept
away by emo tion. In that case what we get rid of is not the offense itself, but the reacti on against the
offense. The objective character of the judge is that of a person who is neutral, who can simply
stand outside of a situation and assess it. If we can get that judicial attitude in regar d to the offenses
of a perso n against ourselves, we reach the point where we do not resent them but understand
them, we get the situation where to understand is to forgive. We remove much of experience
outsi de of our own self by this attitude . The distinctive and natural attitude against another is a
resentment of an offense, but we now have in a certain sens e passed beyon d that self and becom e
a self with other attitudes. There is a certa in techn ique, then, to which we subject ourse lves in
enduring suffering or any emotional situat ion, and which consi sts in partially sepa rating one's self
from the experience so that it is no longer the experience of the individual in question.
If, now, we could separate the experience entire ly, so that we should not remember it, so that we
shou ld not have to take it up continually into the self from day to day, from moment to moment, then
it would not exist any longer so far as we are concerned. If we had no memory which identifies
experiences with the self, then they would certainly disappear so far as their relation to the self is
conc erned, and yet they might continue as sensuous or sens ible experiences without being taken
up into a self. That sort of a situation is presented in the pathological case of a multiple personality
in which an individual loses the memory of a certa in phase of his existence. Every thing conn ected
with that phase of his existence is gone and he becomes a different personality. The past has a
reality whethe r in the experience or not, but here it is not identified with the self-it does not go to
make up the self. We take an attitude of that sort, for example, with reference to others when a
person has committed some sort of an offense which leads to a statement of the situatio n, an
admission, and perhaps regret, and then is dropped. A person who forgives but does not forget is an
unpleasant companion; what goes with forgiving is forgetting, getting rid of the memory of it.
There are many illustrations which can be brought up of the loose relationship of given contents to a
self in defense of our recognition of them as havi ng a certai n value outside of the self. At the least, it
must be grante d that we can approach the point wher e something which we recog nize as a content
is less and less esse ntial to the self, is held off from the prese nt self, and no longer has the value for
that self which it had for the former self. Extre me cases seem to supp ort the view that a certain
portion of such contents can be entirely cut of f from the self. While in some sense it is there ready to
appear under speci fic conditions, for the time being it is dissociated and does not get in above the
thresho ld of our self-consciousness.
Self-consciousness, on the other hand, is definitely organized about the social individual, and that,
as we have seen, is not simply because one is in a socia l group and affecte d by others and affects
them, but because (and this is a point I have been emphasizing) his own experience as a self is one
which he takes over from his action upon others. He becomes a self in so far as he can take the
attitude of another and act toward himself as others act. In so far as the conversation of gestur es
can become part of cond uct in the direction and control of experience, then a self can arise. It is the
socia l process of influencing others in a social act and then taking the attitude of the others aroused
by the stimulus, and then reacti ng in turn to this response, which constitutes a self.
Our bodies are parts of our enviro nment; and it is possible for the individual to experience and be
consc ious of his body, and of bodily sensations, witho ut being consci ous or aware of himself
-without, in other words, taking the attitude of the other toward himself. Accor ding to the socia l
theory of consci ousness, what we mean by consciousness is that pecu liar chara cter and aspect of
the envir onment of individual human experience which is due to human society, a society of other
individual selves who take the attitude of the other toward themselves. The physi ological conce ption
or theory of consc iousness is by itself inadequate; it requires supplementation from the socio-
psychol ogical point of view. The taking or feeling of the attitude of the other toward yourself is what
constitutes self-consciousness, and not mere organic sensations of which the individual is aware
and which he experiences. Until the rise of his self-consc iousness in the process of social
experience, the individual experiences his body-its feelings and sens ations-merely as an immediate
part of his environment, not as his own, not in terms of self-consc iousness. The self and self-
consc iousness have first to arise, and then these experiences can be identified pecu liarly with the
self, or appropriated by the self; to enter, so to spea k, into this heritage of experience, the self has
first to develop within the socia l process in which this heritage is involved.

Through self-consciousness the individual organism enters in some sense into its own
envir onmental field; its own body becom es a part of the set of environmental stimuli to which it
responds or reacts. Apart from the context of the social process at its higher levels-those at which it
involve s conscious communication, consc ious conversations of gestures, among the individual
organisms intera cting with it-the individual organism does not set itself as a whole over against its
envir onment; it does not as a whole become an object to itself (and hence is not self-conscious); it is
not as a whole a stimulus to which it reacts. On the contrary, it responds only to parts or separate
aspe cts of itself, and regards them, not as parts or aspects of itself at all, but simply as parts or
aspe cts of its enviro nment in general. Only within the socia l process at its higher levels, only in
terms of the more developed forms of the social environment or socia l situation, does the total
individual organism beco me an object to itself, and hence self-consc ious; in the social proc ess at its
lower, non-consc ious levels, and also in the merely psycho-physio logical environment or situat ion
which is logically antecedent to and presupposed by the socia l process of experience and behavior,
it does not thus become an object to itself. In such experience or behavior as may be called self-
consc ious, we act and react particularly with reference to ourselves, though also with reference to
other individuals; and to be self-conscious is esse ntially to beco me an object to one's self in virtue of
one's social relations to other individuals.

Emphasis should be laid on the centra l position of thinking when considering the natur e of the self.
Self-consciousness, rather than affective experience with its moto r accompaniments, provides the
core and primary structure of the self, which is thus esse ntially a cognitive rather than an emotional
phenomenon. The thinking or intellectual process-the internalization and inner dramatizatio n, by the
individual, of the external conversation of significant gestures which constitutes his chief mode of
interaction with other individuals belonging to the same society -is the earliest experiential phase in
the genesis and development of the self. Cooley and James, it is true, endeavor to find the basis of
the self in reflexive affective experiences, i.e., experiences involving "self-feeling"; but the theory
that the nature of the self is to be found in such experiences does not account for the origin of the
self, or of the self-feeling which is supposed to characterize such experiences. The individual need
not take the attitude s of others toward himself in these experiences, since these experiences merely
in themselves do not nece ssitate his doing so, and unless he does so, he cannot develop a self; and
he will not do so in these experiences unless his self has already originated otherwise, namely, in
the way we have been descri bing. The essen ce of the self, as we have said, is cognitive: it lies in
the intern alized conversat ion of gesture s which constitutes thinking, or in terms of which thoug ht or
reflection proceeds. And hence the origin and foundations of the self, like those of think ing, are
socia l.
Endnotes
1.The relation of individual organisms to the social whole of which they are members is
analogous to the relation of the individual cells of a multi-cellular organism to the organism
as a whole.
2.Our constructive selection of our enviro nment is what we term "consciousness," in the first
sens e of the term. The organism does not project sensuous qualities-colors, for example-
into the environment to which it responds; but it endows this envir onment with such qualities,
in a sense similar to that in which an ox endows grass with the quality of being food, or in
which – speaking more generally – the relation betwe en biological organisms and certain
envir onmental contents give rise to food objects. If there were no organisms with partic ular
sens e organs there would be no environment, in the proper or usual sense of the term. An
organism constructs (in the selective sense) its envir onment; and consciousness often refers
to the character of the environment in so far as it is determined or constructively selecte d by
our human organisms, and depends upon the relati onship betwee n the former (as thus
selected or constructed) and the latter.

22. THE "I" and the "ME"
We have discussed at length the social foundations of the self, and hinted that the self does not
consi st simply in the bare organizatio n of social attitudes. We may now explicitly raise the questi on
as to the natur e of the "I" which is aware of the social "me." I do not mean to raise the metaphysical
questio n of how a person can be both "I" and "me," but to ask for the significance of this distinction
from the point of view of conduct itself. Where in conduct does the "I" come in as over against the
"me"? If one determines what his posi tion is in society and feels himself as havi ng a certain functi on
and privilege, these are all defined with reference to an "I," but the "I" is not a "me" and cann ot
beco me a "me." We may have a better self and a worse self, but that again is not the "I" as over
against the "me," because they are both selves. We approve of one and disa pprove of the other, but
when we bring up one or the other they are there for such approval as "me's." The "I" does not get
into the limelight; we talk to ourselves, but do not see ourselves. The "I" reacts to the self which
arise s through the taking of the attitudes of others. Through taking those attitude s we have
introduced the "me" and we react to it as an "I."
The simplest way of handling the problem would be in terms of memory. I talk to mysel f, and I
remember what I said and perhaps the emotional conte nt that went with it. The "I" of this moment is
present in the "me" of the next moment. There again I cann ot turn around quick enough to catch
myse lf. I become a "me" in so far as I remember what I said. The "I" can be given, however, this
functional relationship. It is because of the "I" that we say that we are never fully aware of what we
are, that we surpr ise ourselves by our own action. It is as we act that we are aware of ours elves. It is
in memory that the "I" is constantly present in experience. We can go back directly a few moments
in our experience, and then we are dependent upon memory images for the rest. So that the "I" in
memory is there as the spokesman of the self of the second, or minute, or day ago. As given, it is a
"me," but it is a "me" which was the "I" at the earlier time. If you ask, then, where directly in your own
experience the "I" comes in, the answer is that it comes in as a historical figure. It is what you were a
seco nd ago that is the "I" of the "me." It is another "me" that has to take that rôl e. You cannot get the
immediate respo nse of the "I" in the process.[1] The "I" is in a certain sense that with which we do
identify ourselves. The getting of it into experience constitutes one of the problems of most of our
consc ious experience; it is not directly given in experience.
The "I" is the response of the organism to the attitudes of the others;,, the "me" is the organized set
of attitude s of others which one himself assumes. The attitude s of the others const itute the
organized "me," and then one reacts toward that as an "I." I now wish to examine these concepts in
great er detail.
There is neither "I" nor "me" in the conversation of gestures; the whole act is not yet carried out, but
the preparation takes place in this field of gesture. Now, in so far as the individual arouses in himself
the attitudes of the others, there arises an organized group of responses. And it is due to the
individual's ability to take the attitudes of these others in so far as they can be organized that he gets
self-consciousness. The taking of all of those organized sets of attitudes gives him his "me"; that is
the self he is aware of. He can throw the ball to some other member because of the demand made
upon him from other members of the team. That is the self that immediately exists for him in his
consc iousness. He has their attitudes, knows what they want and what the consequence of any act
of his will be, and he has assum ed responsibility for the situation. Now, it is the prese nce of those
organized sets of attitudes that constitutes that "me" to which he as an "I" is respo nding. But what
that respo nse will be he does not know and nobody else knows. Perh aps he will make a brilliant
play or an error. The respo nse to that situation as it appears in his immediate experience is
unce rtain, and it is that which constitutes the "I."
The "I" is his action over against that social situatio n within his own conduct, and it gets into his
experience only after he has carried out the act. Then he is awar e of it. He had to do such a thing
and he did it. He fulfils his duty and he may look with pride at the throw which he made. The "me"
arise s to do that duty-that is the way in which it arise s in his experience. He had in him all the
attitude s of others, calling for a certain response; that was the "me" of that situation, and his
response is the "I."
I want to call attention particularly to the fact that this response of the "I" is som ething that is more or
less uncertain. The attitudes of others which one assumes as affecting his own conduct constitute
the "me," and that is someth ing that is there, but the response to it is as yet not given. When one

sits down to think anything out, he has certain data that are there. Suppose that it is a social
situati on which he has to straighten out. He sees himself from the point of view of one individual or
another in the group. These individuals, related all together, give him a certain self. Well, what is he
going to do ? He does not know and nobody else knows. He can get the situation into his experience
beca use he can assu me the attitudes of the various individuals involved in it. He knows how they
feel about it by the assu mption of their attitudes. He says, in effect, "I have done certain things that
seem to commit me to a certain course of cond uct." Perh aps if he does so act it will place him in a
false position with another group. The "I" as a response to this situatio n, in contrast to the "me"
which is involve d in the attitudes which he takes, is uncertain. And when the respo nse takes place,
then it appears in the field of experience largely as a memory image.
Our specious present as such is very short. We do, however, experience passi ng events; part of the
process of the pass age of even ts is directly there in our experience, including some of the past and
some of the future. We see a ball falling as it pass es, and as it does pass part of the ball is covered
and part is being uncovered. We remember wher e the ball was a moment ago and we antici pate
wher e it will be beyond what is given in our experience. So of ourselves; we are doing someth ing,
but to look back and see what we are doing involves getting memory images. So the "I" really
appears experientially as a part of a "me." But on the basis of this experience we distinguish that
individual who is doing something from the "me" who puts the problem up to him. The response
enters into his experience only when it takes place. If he says he knows what he is going to do, even
there he may be mistaken. He starts out to do something and something happens to interfere. The
result ing action is always a little different from anything which he could antic ipate. This is true even if
he is simply carrying out the process of walking. The very taking of his expected steps puts him in a
certai n situat ion which has a slightly different aspect from what is expected, which is in a certai n
sens e novel. That movement into the future is the step, so to spea k, of the ego, of the "I." It is
someth ing that is not given in the "me."
Take the situatio n of a scientist solving a problem, where he has certai n data which call for certain
responses. Some of this set of data call for his applying such and such a law, while others call for
another law. Data are there with their implications. He knows what such and such colo ration means,
and when he has these data before him they stand for certai n responses on his part; but now they
are in confl ict with each other. If he makes one resp onse he cannot make anoth er. What he is going
to do he does not know, nor does anybody else. The action of the self is in response to these
conflicting sets of data in the form of a problem, with conflicting demands upon him as a scientist.
He has to look at it in different ways . That action of the "I" is something the natur e of which we
cann ot tell in advance.
The "I," then, in this relation of the "I" and the "me," is something that is, so to speak, responding to
a social situation which is within the experience of the individual. It is the answer which the
individual makes to the attitude which others take toward him when he assumes an attitude toward
them. Now, the attitudes he is taking toward them are present in his own experience, but his
response to them will contai n a novel element. The "I" gives the sense of freedom, of initiative. The
situati on is there for us to act in a self-conscious fashion. We are aware of ourselves, and of what
the situati on is, but exactly how we will act never gets into experience until after the actio n takes
place.
Such is the basis for the fact that the "I" does not appear in the same sense in experience as does
the "me." The "me" represents a definite organization of the community there in our own attitudes,
and calling for a response, but the respo nse that takes place is someth ing that just happens. There
is no certain ty in regard to it. There is a moral necessity but no mechanical necessity for the act.
When it does take place then we find what has been done. The above acco unt gives us, I think , the
relative positi on of the "I" and "me" in the situation, and the grounds for the separation of the two in
behavior. The two are separated in the proce ss but they belong together in the sense of being parts
of a whole. They are separated and yet they belong together. The separation of the "I" and the "me"
is not fictitious. They are not identical, for, as I have said, the "I" is something that is never entirely
calcu lable. The "me" does call for a certai n sort of an "I" in so far as we meet the obligations that are
given in cond uct itself, but the "I" is always something different from what the situati on itself calls for.
So there is always that distinction, if you like, between the "I" and the "me." The "I" both calls out the
"me" and responds to it. Taken togethe r they const itute a personality as it appears in social
experience. The self is essentially a social process going on with these two distinguishable phas es.

If it did not have these two phases there could not be conscious responsibility, and there would be
nothi ng novel in experience.
Endnotes
1.The sensitivity of the organism brings parts of itself into the envir onment. It does not,
however, bring the life-process itself into the envir onment, and the complete imaginative
presentation of the organism is unable to present the living of the organism. It can
conc eivably prese nt the conditions under which living takes place but not the unitary life-
process. The physical organism in the environment always remains a thing (MS).
2.[For the "I" viewed as the biologic individual, see Supplementary Essays II, III.]
23. SOCIAL ATTITUDES AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD
The self is not so much a substanc e as a process in which the conversat ion of gestur es has been
internalized within an organic form. This process does not exist for itself, but is simply a phase of the
whole social organization of which the individual is a part. The organizatio n of the socia l act has
been imported into the organism and becomes then the mind of the individual. It still includes the
attitude s of others, but now highly organized, so that they become what we call social attitudes
rather than rôles of separate individuals. This process of relating one's own organism to the others
in the interactions that are going on, in so far as it is imported into the cond uct of the individual with
the convers ation of the "I" and the "me," constitutes the self.[1] The value of this importation of the
conversat ion of gestures into the conduct of the individual lies in the superior co-ordination gained
for society as a whole, and in the increased efficiency of the individual as a member of the group. It
is the difference betwee n the process which can take place in a group of rats or ants or bees, and
that which can take place in a human community. The social process with its various implications is
actua lly taken up into the experience of the individual so that that which is going on takes place
more effectively, because in a certain sens e it has been rehearsed in the individual. He not only
plays his part better unde r those conditions but he also reacts back on the organization of which he
is a part.
The very nature of this conversation of gestu res requires that the attitude of the other is chan ged
throu gh the attitude of the individual to the other's stimulus. In the convers ation of gestures of the
lower forms the play back and forth is notic eable, since the individual not only adjusts himself to the
attitude of others, but also chan ges the attitudes of the others. The react ion of the individual in this
conversat ion of gestures is one that in some degree is continually modifying the socia l process
itself. It is this modification of the process which is of greatest interest in the experience of the
individual. He takes the attitude of the other toward his own stimulus, and in taking that he finds it
modified in that his response becomes a different one, and leads in turn to further change.
Fundamental attitudes arc presu mably those that are only changed gradually, and no one individual
can reorg anize the whole society; but one is conti nually affectin g society by his own attitude
beca use he does bring up the attitude of the group toward himself, responds to it, and through that
response changes the attitude of the group. This is, of course, what we are constantly doing in our
imagination, in our thou ght; we are utilizing our own attitude to bring about a different situat ion in the
community of which we are a part; we are exerting ourselves, bringing forward our own opinion,
criticizin g the attitudes of others, and approving or disapproving. But we can do that only in so far as
we can call out in ourselves the response of the comm unity; we only have ideas in so far as we are
able to take the attitude of the community and then respond to it.
In the case of lower animals the response of the individual to the social situation, its gesture as over
against the social situation, is what answers to the idea in the human animal. It is not, however, an
idea. We use the vocal gestu re to call out the respo nse which answe rs to tha t of the community. W e
have, then, in our own stimulus, a reply to that response, and it is that reply which is an idea. You
say that "it is my idea that such and such a thing should be done." Your idea is the reply which you

make to the social demand made upon you. The social demand, we will say, is that you should pay
taxes of a certain sort. You consider those taxes illegitimate. Now, your reply to the demand of the
community, speci fically to the tax assessor, as it takes place in your own experience, is an idea. To
the extent that you have in your own conduct symbols which are the expression of your reply to the
demand, you have an idea of what your assess ment ought to be. It is an ideal situation in so far as
you are taking the rôle of the tax assessor over against yourself, and replying to it. It is not like the
situati on in the dog-fight wher e the dog is actual ly preparing to spring and another dog takes
another attitude which defeats that spring. The difference is that the convers ation of gestur es is a
part of the actual realized fight, where as in the other case you are taking the attitude of the tax
authorities in advance and working or calling out your own response to it. When that takes place in
your experience you have ideas.
A person threate ns you, and you knock him down on the spot. There has been no ideal element in
the situation. If you coun t ten and cons ider what the threat means, you are having an idea, are
bringing the situa tion into an ideal setting. It is that, we have seen, which constitutes what we term
mind. We are taking the attitude of the community and we are responding to it in this conversation of
gesture s. The gestures in this case are vocal gestur es. They are significant symbols, and by symbol
we do not mean something that lies outside of the field of conduct. A symbol is nothing but the
stimulus whose respo nse is given in advance. That is all we mean by a symbol. There is a word,
and a blow. The blow is the histori cal antecedent of the word, but if the word means an insult, the
response is one now involved in the word, something given in the very stimulus itself. That is all that
is meant by a symbol. Now, if that respo nse can be given in terms of an attitude utilized for the
further control of actio n, then the relation of that stimulus and attitude is what we mean by a
significant symbol.
Our thinking that goes on, as we say, inside of us, is a play of symbols in the abov e sense. Through
gesture s respo nses are called out in our own attitudes, and as soon as they are called out they
evok e, in turn, other attitudes. What was the meaning now becomes a symbol which has another
meaning. The meaning has itself become a stimulus to another response. In the dogfight the
attitude of the one has the meaning of chan ging the attitude of the other dog, but the chan ge of
attitude now beco mes a symbol (though not a language or significant symbol) to the first dog and
he, too, changes his attitude. What was a meaning now beco mes a stimulus. Conversation is
conti nually going on, and what was respo nse beco mes in the field of gesture a stimulus, and the
response to that is the meaning. Responses are meanings in so far as they lie inside of such a
conversat ion of gesture s. Our thinking is just such a conti nual change of a situatio n by our capa city
to take it over into our own action; to change it so that it calls for a different attitude on our own part,
and to carry it on to the point where the social act may be completed.
The "me" and the "I" lie in the process of thinking and they indicate the give-and-take which
characterizes it. There would not be an "I" in the sens e in which we use that term if there were not a
"me"; there would not be a "me" witho ut a resp onse in the form of the "I." These two, as they appear
in our experience, constitute the personality. We are individuals born into a certain nationality,
located at a certain spot geographically, with such and such family relations, and such and such
political relations. All of these represent a certain situati on which constitutes the "me"; but this
nece ssarily involves a continued action of the organism toward the "me" in the process within which
that lies. The self is not something that exists first and then enters into relationship with others, but it
is, so to spe ak, an eddy in the social current and so still a part of the current. It is a process in whic h
the individual is continually adjusting himself in advance to the situat ion to which he belongs, and
reacti ng back on it. So that the "I" and the "me," this thinking, this consci ous adjustment, beco mes
then a part of the whole social process and makes a much more highly organized society poss ible.
The "I" and the "me" belong to the conversation of gestures. If there were simply "a word and a
blow," if one answered to a social situati on immediately without reflection, there would be no
personality in the foregoing sense any more than there is personality in the nature of the dog or the
horse. We, of cours e, tend to endow our domestic animals with personality, but as we get insight
into their conditions we see there is no place for this sort of importation of the social process into the
cond uct of the individual. They do not have the mechanism for it-language. So we say that they
have no personality; they are not responsible for the social situation in which they find themselves.
The human individual, on the other hand, identifies himself with that socia l situatio n. He respo nds to
it, and although his response to it may be in the nature of criticis m as well as support, it involve s an
acce ptance of the responsibility presented by the situati on. Such an acce ptance does not exist in

the case of the low er animals. We put personalities into the animals, but they do not be long to the m;
and ultimately we realize that those animals have no rights. We are at liberty to cut off their lives;
there is no wrong committed when an animal's life is taken away. He has not lost anythi ng because
the future does not exist for the animal; he has not the "me" in his experience which by the respo nse
of the "I" is in some sense under his control, so that the future can exist for him. He has no
consc ious past since there is no self of the sort we have been describing that can be extended into
the past by memories. There are presu mably images in the experience of lower animals, but no
ideas or memories in the required sens e.[2] They have not the personality that looks before or after.
They have not that future and past which gives them, so to speak, any rights as such. And yet the
common attitude is that of giving them just such personalities as our own. We talk to them and in
our talking to them we act as if they had the sort of inner world that we have.
A similar attribution is present in the immediate attitude which we take toward inanimate physical
objects about us. We take the attitude of social beings toward them. This is most elaborately true, of
cours e, in those whom we term nature poets. The poet is in a social relation with the things about
him, a fact perhaps most vividly presented in Wordsworth. The "Lines on Tintern Abbey" gives us, I
believe, the social relationships of Wordsworth when he was a child and their conti nuation through
his life. His state ment of the relationship of man to nature is esse ntially the relationship of love, a
socia l relati on. This social attitude of the individual toward the physica l thing is just the attitude
which one has toward other objects; it is a social attitude. The man kicks the chair he stumbles over,
and he has an affection for an object conn ected with him in his work or play. The immediate reacti on
of children to things about them is social. There is an evident basis for the particu lar response which
we make to little things, since there is something that calls out a parental respo nse in any small
thing; such a thing calls out a parental response which is universa l. This holds for physica l things, as
well as for animals.
The physical object is an abstraction which we make from the socia l response to nature. We talk to
natur e; we address the clouds, the sea, the tree, and objects about us. We later abstract from that
type of response because of what we come to know of such objects.[3] The immediate respon se is,
however, social; where we carry over a thinking proce ss into nature we are making nature rational. It
acts as it is expected to act . We are taking the attitude of the physical thing s about us, and when we
chan ge the situat ion nature responds in a different way.
The hand is responsible for what I term physic al things, distinguishing the physica l thing from what I
call the cons ummation of the act. If we took our food as dogs do by the very organs by which we
masticate it, we shou ld not have any ground for distinguishing the food as a physical thing from the
actua l consu mmation of the act, the cons umption of the food. We shou ld reach it and seize it with
the teeth, and the very act of taking hold of it would be the act of eating it. But with the human
animal the hand is interposed between the consummation and the getting of the object to the mouth.
In that case we are manipulating a physical thing. Such a thing comes in betwe en the beginning of
the act and its final consummation. It is in that sens e a universal. When we speak of a thing we
have in mind a physical thing, something we can get hold of. There are, of course, "things" you
cann ot get hold of, such as property rights and the imaginations of a poet; but when we ordinarily
spea k of things about us we refer to physical things. The characters that go to make these up are
primarily determined by the hand. Contact constitutes what we call the substa nce of such a thing. It
has color and odor, of course, but we think of these as inherent in the something which we can
manipulate, the physic al thing. Such a thing is of very great importance in the devel opment of
human intelligence. It is universa l in the sens e that it is a physi cal thing, whether the cons ummation
is that of eating, or of listening to a concert. There is a whole set of physic al things that come in
betwee n the beginning of an act and its consummation, but they are univers al in the sense that they
belong to the experience of all of us. Th e consummation that we get out of a concert is very different
for all of us, but the physical thing s we are dealing with are common, univers al in that sens e. The
actua l enjoyments may take on forms which represent an experience that is access ible only to
sepa rate individuals, but what the hand handles is someth ing that is universal. We isolate a
partic ular locality to which any person may come. We have a set of apparatus which any person
may use. We have a certain set of weights and measures by means of which we can define these
physica l things. In this sens e the physica l thing comes in to make possible a common quality within
which the selves can operate.[4]
An engineer who is constructing a bridge is talking to nature in the same sens e that we talk to an
engineer. There are stresses and strains there which he meets, and natur e comes back with other

responses that have to be met in another way. In his thinking he is taking the attitude of physic al
thing s. He is talking to nature and nature is replying to him. Nature is intelligent in the sense that
there are certain responses of nature toward our action which we can present and which we can
reply to, and which become different when we have replied. It is a change we then can answ er to,
and we finally reach a point at which we can cooperate with nature.

Such is the devel opment of modern science out of what we term magic. Magic is just this same
response, but with the further assumption that physica l things do think and act as we do. It is
preserved in the attitude which we have toward an offending object or the trustworthy object upon
which we depend. We all carry about a certain amount of this sort of magic. We avoid something
beca use we feel it is in some way dangerous; we all respe ct certain omens to which we pay some
attention. We keep up some social response to nature about us, even though we do not al low this to
affect us in important decisions. These are attitudes which perhaps we normally cover up, but which
are reveal ed to us in numerous situatio ns. In so far as we are ration al, as we reason and think, we
are taking a social attitude towar d the world about us, critically in the case of scienc e, uncritically in
the case of magic.
Endnotes
1.Accor ding to this view, consci ous communication develops out of unconscious
communication within the social process; conversation in terms of significant gestures out of
conversat ion in terms of non-significant gestures; and the development in such fashion of
consc ious communication is coincident with the development of minds and selves within the
socia l process.
2.There is no evidence of animals being able to recognize that one thing is a sign of
someth ing else and so make use of that sign …. (1912).
3.The physic al object is found to be that object to which there is no social response which
calls out again a socia l response in the individual. The objects with which we cannot carry
on social interc ourse are the physical objects of the world (MS).
We have carried our attitude in physica l scienc e over into psychology, so that we have lost
sight of the socia l nature of our early consciousness. The child forms social objects before
he forms physi cal objects (1912).
4.[On the social genesis and nature of the physical thing, see Sectio n 35; also The Philosophy
of the Prese nt, 119-39.]
24. MIND AS THE INDIVIDUAL IMPORTATION OF THE SOC IAL PRO CESS
I have been presenting the self and the mind in terms of a social process, as the importation of the
conversat ion of gesture s into the conduct of the individual organism, so that the individual organism
takes these organized attitudes of the others called out by its own attitude, in the form of its
gesture s, and in react ing to that respo nse calls out other organized attitude s in the others in the
community to which the individual belongs. This process can be charact erized in a certain sens e in
terms of the "I" and the "me," the "me" being that group of orga nized attitudes to which the individual
responds as an "I."
What I want particularly to emphasize is the temp oral and logical preexistence of the social process
to the self-consci ous individual that arise s in it.[1] The conversati on of gestur es is a part of the
socia l process which is going on. It is not someth ing that the individual alone makes possible. What
the development of language, especially the significant symbol, has rendered poss ible is just the
taking over of this exter nal social situat ion into the conduct of the individual himself. There follows
from this the enormous development which belongs to human society, the poss ibility of the previsi on

of what is going to take place in the response of other individuals, and a preliminary adjustment to
this by the individual. These, in turn, produce a different social situatio n which is again reflected in
what I have termed the "me," so that the individual himself takes a different attitude.
Consider a politician or a statesman puttin g throu gh some project in which he has the attitude of the
community in himself. He knows how the comm unity reacts to this proposal. He reacts to this
expression of the community in his own experience-he feels with it. He has a set of organized
attitude s which are those of the community. His own contribution, the "I" in this case, is a project of
reorganization, a project which he brings forward to the community as it is reflected in himself. He
himself chan ges, of course, in so far as he brings this project forward and makes it a political issue.
There has now arise n a new social situation as a result of the project which he is presenting. The
whole procedure takes place in his own experience as well as in the general experience of the
community. He is successf ul to the degree that the final "me" reflects the attitude of all in the
community. What I am pointing out is that what occurs takes place not simply in his own mind, but
rather that his mind is the expression in his own conduct of this socia l situati on, this great
coop erative community proce ss which is going on.
I want to avoid the implication that the individual is taking something that is objective and making it
subjective. Ther e is an actual process of living together on the part of all members of the community
which takes place by means of gestur es. The gestures are certai n stages in the cooperative
activities which mediate the whole process. Now, all that has taken place in the appearance of the
mind is that this proce ss has been in some degree taken over into the cond uct of the particular
individual. There is a certai n symbol, such as the policeman uses when he directs traffic. That is
someth ing that is out there. It does not become subjective when the engineer, who is engaged by
the city to examine its traffic regulations, takes the same attitude the policeman takes with reference
to traffic, and takes the attitude also of the drivers of machines. We do imply that he has the driver's
organization; he knows that stopping means slow ing dow n, putting on the brakes. There is a definite
set of parts of his organism so traine d that under certain circu msta nces he brings the machine to a
stop. The raising of the policeman's hand is the gesture which calls out the various acts by means of
which the machine is chec ked. Those variou s acts are in the expert's own organization; he can take
the attitude of both the policeman and the driver. Only in this sense has the socia l process been
made "subjective." If the expert just did it as a child does, it would be play; but if it is done for the
actua l regulation of traffic, then there is the operation of what we term mind. Mind is nothing but the
importation of this extern al process into the cond uct of the individual so as to meet the problems
that arise.
This peculiar orga nization arises out of a social process that is logically its antecedent. A community
within which the orga nism acts in such a cooperative fashion that the action of one is the stimulus to
the other to respond, and so on, is the antec edent of the peculiar type of organization we term a
mind, or a self. Take the simple family relation, where there is the male and the female and the child
which has to be cared for. Here is a process which can only go on throu gh interactions within this
group. It cann ot be said that the individuals come first and the community later, for the individuals
arise in the very process itself, just as much as the human body or any multi-cellular form is one in
which differentiated cells arise.
There has to be a life-proce ss going on in order to have the differentiated cells; in the same way
there has to be a social process going on in order that there may be individuals. It is just as true in
society as it is in the physio logical situati on that there could not be the individual if there was not the
process of which he is a part. Given such a social process, there is the poss ibility of human
intelligence when this social process, in terms of the conv ersation of gestures, is taken over into the
cond uct of the individual-and then there arises, of course, a different type of individual in terms of
the responses now possible. There might conc eivably be an individual who simply plays as the child
does, without gettin g into a social game; but the human individual is possible because there is a
socia l process in which it can function responsibly. The attitudes are parts of the socia l reacti on; the
cries would not maintain themselves as vocal gestures unless they did call out certain responses in
the others; the attitude itself could only exist as such in this interp lay of gestu res.
The mind is simply the interplay of such gestures in the form of significant symbols. We must
remember that the gesture is there only in its relationship to the response, to the attitude. One would
not have words unless there were such respo nses. Language would never have arisen as a set of
bare arbitrary terms which were attached to certain stimuli. Words have arisen out of a socia l

interr elationship. One of Gulliver's tales was of a community in which a machine was created into
which the letters of the alphabet could be mechanically fed in an endless number of combinations,
and then the members of the community gathe red arou nd to see how the letters arranged after each
rotation, on the theory that they might come in the form of an Iliad or one of Shakespeare's plays, or
some other great work. The assu mption back of this wou ld be that symb ols are entirely independent
of what we term their meaning. The assu mption is baseless: there cannot be symbols unless there
are respo nses. There would not be a call for assista nce if there was not a tende ncy to respond to
the cry of distress. It is such significant symbols, in the sens e of a sub-set of social stimuli initiating a
coop erative respo nse, that do in a certain sens e constitute our mind, provided that not only the
symbol but also the respo nses are in our own natur e. What the human being has succee ded in
doing is in organizing the response to a certain symbol which is a part of the socia l act, so that he
takes the attitude of the other perso n who coop erates with him. It is that which gives him a mind.
The sentinel of a herd is that member of the herd which is more sensitive to odor or soun d than the
others. At the approach of danger, he starts to run earlier than the others, who then follow along, in
virtue of a herding tendency to run together. There is a social stimulus, a gesture, if you like, to
which the other forms respond. The first form gets the odor earlier and starts to run, and its starting
to run is a stimulus to the others to run also. It is all extern al; there is no mental process involve d.
The sentinel does not regard itself as the individual who is to give a signal; it just runs at a certa in
moment and so starts the others to run. But with a mind, the animal that gives the signal also takes
the attitude of the others who respo nd to it. He knows what his signal means. A man who calls "fire"
would be able to call out in himself the reacti on he calls out in the other. In so far as the man can
take the attitude of the other-his attitude of response to fire, his sense of terror-that response to his
own cry is something that makes of his cond uct a mental affair, as over against the conduct of the
others.[2] But the only thing that has happened here is that what takes place externally in the herd
has been imported into the cond uct of the man. There is the same signal and the same tende ncy to
respond, but the man not only can give the signal but also can arouse in himself the attitude of the
terrifi ed escape, and throu gh calling that out he can come back upon his own tende ncy to call out
and can check it. He can react upon himself in taking the organized attitude of the whole group in
trying to escape from danger. There is nothing more subjective about it than that the response to his
own stimulus can be found in his own conduct, and that he can utilize the conve rsation of gestur es
that takes place to determine his own conduct. If he can so act, he can set up a rational control, and
thus make possib le a far more highly organized socie ty than otherw ise. The process is one which
does not utilize a man endowed with a consciousness where there was no consciousness before,
but rather an individual who takes over the whole socia l process into his own cond uct. That ability,
of cours e, is dependent first of all on the symbol being one to which he can respond; and so far as
we know, the vocal gesture has been the cond ition for the development of that type of symbol.
Whether it can develop witho ut the vocal gestu re I cannot tell.
I want to be sure that we see that the content put into the mind is only a devel opment and prod uct of
socia l intera ction. It is a devel opment which is of enormous importance, and which leads to
complexities and complications of society which go almost beyond our powe r to trace, but originally
it is nothing but the taking over of the attitude of the other. To the extent that the animal can take the
attitude of the other and utilize that attitude for the contro l of his own conduct, we have what is
termed mind; and that is the only apparatus involved in the appearance of the mind.
I know of no way in which intelligence or mind could arise or could have arise n, other than throu gh
the internalization by the individual of social processe s of experience and behavior, that is, through
this intern alization of the conversati on of significant gestu res, as made poss ible by the individual's
taking the attitudes of other individuals toward himself and toward what is being thoug ht about. And
if mind or thought has arise n in this way, then there neither can be nor could have been any mind or
thought without language; and the early stages of the development of language must have been
prior to the deve lopment of mind or thought.
Endnotes
1.The relation of mind and body is that lying between the organizatio n of the self in its
behavior as a member of a rational community and the bodily organism as a physica l thing.
The rational attitude which characterizes the human being is then the relationship of the
whole proc ess in which the individual is engaged to himself as reflected in his assum ption of

the organized rôles of the others in stimulating himself to his respo nse. This self as
distin guished from the others lies within the field of communication, and they lie also within
this field. What may be indicated to others or one's self and does not respond to such
gesture s of indication is, in the field of perception, what we call a physic al thing. The human
body is, especially in its analysis, regarded as a physical thing.
The line of demarcation betwee n the self and the body is found, then, first of all in the social
organization of the act within which the self arises, in its contrast with the activity of the
physi ological organism (MS).
The legitimate basis of distinction betwe en mind and body is between the social patterns
and the patterns of the organism itself. Education must bring the two closely together. We
have, as yet, no comprehending categ ory. This does not mean to say that there is anything
logically against it; it is merely a lack of our apparatus or knowledge (1927).
2.Language as made up of significant symbols is what we mean by mind. The content of our
minds is (i) inner conv ersation, the importation of conv ersation from the social group to the
individual (2) …. imagery. Imagery should be regarded in relation to the behavior in which its
functions (1931).
Imag ery plays just the part in the act that hunger does in the food proce ss (1912). [See
Supplementary Essay 1.]
25. THE "I" AND THE "ME" AS PHASES OF THE SELF[1]
We come now to the position of the self-conscio us self or mind in the community. Such a self finds
its expression in self-assertion, or in the devotion of itself to the cause of the community. The self
appears as a new type of individual in the social whole. There is a new social whole because of the
appearance of the type of individual mind I have described, and because of the self with its own
assertio n of itself or its own identification with the community. The self is the important phase in the
deve lopment because it is in the possi bility of the importation of this social attitude into the
responses of the whole community that such a society could arise . The change that takes place
throu gh this importation of the conversat ion of gestur es into the conduct of the individual is one that
takes place in the experience of all of the component individuals.
These, of cours e, are not the only changes that take place in the community. In spee ch definite
chan ges take place that nobody is awar e of at all. It requires the investig ation of scientists to
discove r that such processes have taken place. This is also true of other phases of human
organization. They change, we say, unconsciously, as is illustrated in such a study of the myth as
Wundt has carried out in his Volkerpsych ologie. The myth carries an account of the way in which
organization has taken place while largely witho ut any conscious direction-and that sort of change is
going on all the time. Take a person's attitude toward a new fashion. It may at first be one of
objection. After a while he gets to the point of thinking of himself in this changed fashion, noticing
the clothe s in the window and seeing himself in them. The change has taken place in him without
his being aware of it. There is, then, a process by means of which the individual in interaction with
others inevitably becomes like others in doing the same thing, without that process appearing in
what we term consciousness. We become consc ious of the process when we do definitely take the
attitude of the others, and this situation must be distinguished from the previ ous one. Perhaps one
says that he does not care to dress in a certain fashion, but prefers to be different; then he is taking
the attitude of others toward himself into his own conduct. When an ant from another nest is
introduced into the nest of other forms, these turn on it and tear it to pieces. The attitude in the
human com munity may be that of the individual himself, refusing to submit himself because he does
take that common attitude. The ant case is an entirely external affair, but in the human individual it is
a matter of taking the attitude s of the others and adjusting one's self or fighting it out. It is this
recognition of the individual as a self in the process of using his self-consciousness which gives him
the attitude of self-assertion or the attitude of devo tion to the community. He has become, then, a
definite self. In such a case of self-assertion there is an entirely different situation from that of the
member of the pack who perhaps dominates it, and may turn savagely on different members of it.
There an individual is just acting instinctive ly, we say, in a certain situatio n. In the human society we
have an individual who not only take s his own attitude but takes the attitude in a certai n sens e of his

subjects; in so far as he is dominating he knows what to expect. When that occurs in the experience
of the individual a different respo nse results with different emotional accompaniments, from that in
the case of the leader of the pack . In the latter case there is simple anger or hostility, and in the
other case there is the experience of the self asserting itself consciously over against other selves,
with the sense of power, of domination. In ge neral, whe n the community reaction has been imported
into the individual there is a new value in experience and a new order of response.
We have discussed the self from the point of view of the "I" and the "me," the "me" repre senting that
group of attitudes which stands for others in the community, especially that organized group of
responses which we have detai led in discussing the game on the one hand and social institutio ns
on the other. In these situations there is a certain organized group of attitudes which answ er to any
socia l act on the part of the individual organism. In any cooperative process, such as the family, the
individual calls out a response from the other members of the group. Now, to the extent that those
responses can be called out in the individual so that he can answer to them, we have both those
conte nts which go to make up the self, the "other" and the "I." The distinction expresses itself in our
experience in what we call the recog nition of others and the recognition of ourse lves in the others.
We cannot realize ourselves except in so far as we can recognize the other in his relationship to us.
It is as he takes the attitude of the other that the individual is able to realize himself as a self.
We are referring, of course, to a socia l situatio n as distinct from such bare organic responses as
reflexes of the organism, some of which we have already discussed, as in the case where a person
adjusts himself unconsciously to those about him. In such an experience there is no self-
consc iousness. One attains self-consci ousness only as he takes, or finds himself stimulated to take,
the attitude of the other. Then he is in a position of reacting in himself to that attitude of the other.
Suppose we find ourse lves in an economic situatio n. It is when we take the attitude of the other in
making an offer to us that we can express ourselves in accept ing or declining such an offer. That is
a different respo nse of the self from a distinctly automatic offering that can take place withou t self-
consc iousness. A small boy thrusts an advertising bill into our hand and we take it without any
definite consc iousness of him or of ourse lves. Our thought may be elsewhere but the process still
goes on. The same thing is true, of course, in the care of infants. Young children experience that
which come s to them, they adjust themselves to it in an immediate fashion, withou t there being
present in their experience a self.
When a self does appear it always involves an experience of another; there could not be an
experience of a self simply by itself. The plant or the lower animal reacts to its environment, but
there is no experience of a self. When a self does appear in experience it appears over against the
other, and we have been delineating the condition under which this other does appear in the
experience of the human animal, namely in the presence of that sort of stimulation in the
coop erative activit y which arouses in the individual himself the same response it arouses in the
other. When the response of the other becomes an essential part in the experience or conduct of
the individual; when taking the attitude of the other becomes an essenti al part in his behavior- then
the individual appears in his own experience as a self; and until this happens he does not appear as
a self.
Rational society, of course, is not limited to any speci fic set of individuals. Any person who is
rational can become a part of it. The attitude of the community toward our own resp onse is imported
into ourselves in terms of the meaning of what we are doing. This occurs in its widest extent in
universal discourse, in the reply which the rational world makes to our remark. The meaning is as
universal as the community; it is necessa rily involved in the ration al character of that community; it is
the respo nse that the world made up out of rational beings inevitably makes to our own statement.
We both get the object and ourselves into experience in terms of such a process; the other appears
in our own experience in so far as we do take such an organized and generalized attitude.
If one meets a person on the street whom he fails to recognize, one's reaction toward him is that
toward any other who is a member of the same community. He is the other, the organized,
generalized other, if you like. One takes his attitude over against one's self. If he turns in one
directio n one is to go in another direction. One has his respo nse as an attitude within himself. It is
having that attitude within himself that makes it possible for one to be a self. That involves
someth ing beyond the mere turning to the right, as we say, instinctive ly, without self-consci ousness.
To have self-consci ousness one must have the attitude of the other in one's own organism as
contro lling the thing that he is going to do. What appears in the immediate experience of one's self

in taking that attitude is what we term the "me." It is that self which is able to maintain itself in the
community, that is recog nized in the community in so far as it recognizes the others. Such is the
phase of the self which I have referred to as that of the "me."
Over against the "me" is the "I." The individual not only has rights, but he has duties; he is not only a
citizen, a member of the community, but he is one who reacts to this comm unity and in his react ion
to it, as we have seen in the conv ersation of gestures, changes it. The "I" is the response of the
individual to the attitude of the community as this appears in his own experience. His respo nse to
that organized attitude in turn changes it. As we have pointed out, this is a change which is not
present in his own experience until after it takes place. The "I" appears in our experience in memory.
It is only after we have acted that we know what we have done; it is only after we have spoken that
we know what we have said. The adjustment to that organized world which is present in our own
natur e is one that represents the "me" and is constantly there. But if the response to it is a respo nse
which is of the nature of the conversation of gesture s, if it creat es a situation whic h is in some sense
nove l, if one puts up his side of the case, asserts himself over against others and insists that they
take a different attitude toward himself, then there is someth ing important occurr ing that is not
previ ously present in experience.
The general conditions under which one is going to act may be present in one's experience, but he
is as ignorant of just how he is going to respond as is the scientist of the particular hypoth esis he will
evolve out of the consi deration of a problem. Such and such things are happening that are contrary
to the theory that has been held. How are they to be explained? Take the discovery that a gram of
radium would keep a pot of water boiling, and seemingly lead to no expenditure of energy. Here
someth ing is happening that runs contrary to the theory of physics up to the conception of radium
activity . The scientis t who has these facts before him has to pick out some explanation. He suggests
that the radium atom is breaking down, and is cons equently setting free energy. On the previo us
theory an atom was a permanent affair out of which one could not get energy. But now if it is
assu med that the atom itself is a system involving an interr elationship of energies, then the breaking
down of such a system sets free what is relative ly an enormous amount of energy. The point I am
making is that the idea of the scientis t comes to him, it is not as yet there in his own mind. His mind,
rather, is the proce ss of the appearance of that idea. A perso n assertin g his rights on a certain
occas ion has rehearsed the situatio n in his own mind; he has reacted toward the community and
when the situation arise s he arouses himself and says something already in his mind. But when he
said it to himself in the first place he did not know what he was going to say. He then said someth ing
that was novel to himself, just as the scientist's hypothesi s is a nove lty when it flashes upon him.
Such a nove l reply to the socia l situation involved in the organized set of attitudes constit utes the "I"
as over against the "me." The "me" is a conventional, habitual individual. It is always there. It has to
have those habits, those respo nses which everybo dy has; otherw ise the individual could not be a
member of the community. But an individual is const antly reacting to such an organized community
in the way of expressing himself, not nece ssarily asserti ng himself in the offensive sens e but
expressing himself, being himself in such a coop erative process as belongs to any community. The
attitude s involved are gathe red from the group, but the individual in whom they are organized has
the opportunity of giving them an expression which perhaps has never taken place before.
This brings out the general question as to whet her anything nove l can appear.[2] Practic ally, of
cours e, the nove l is constantly happening and the recogn ition of this gets its expression in more
general terms in the concept of emergence. Emergence involves a reorganizatio n, but the
reorganization brings in something that was not there before. The first time oxygen and hydrogen
come together, water appears. Now water is a combination of hydrogen and oxyg en, but water was
not there before in the sepa rate elements. The conception of emergence is a concept which recent
philosophy has made much of. If you look at the world simply from the point of view of a
math ematical equation in which there is absolute equality of the different sides, then, of course,
there is no novelty . The world is simply a satisfaction of that equation. Put in any values for X and
the same equation holds. The equations do hold, it is true, but in their holding something else in fact
arise s that was not there before. For insta nce, there is a group of individuals that have to work
togethe r. In a society there must be a set of common organized habits of response found in all, but
the way in which individuals act under specific circu msta nces gives rise to all of the individual
differences which characterize the different perso ns. The fact that they have to act in a certai n
common fashion does not deprive them of originality. The com mon language is there, but a different
use of it is made in every new contact betwe en perso ns; the element of nove lty in the reconstructi on

takes place through the reaction of the individuals to the group to which they belong. That
reconstructi on is no more given in adva nce than is the partic ular hypothesis which the scientist
brings forward given in the statem ent of the problem. Now, it is that react ion of the individual to the
organized "me," the "me" that is in a certain sense simply a member of the community, which
represents the "I" in the experience of the self.
The relative values of the "me" and the "I" depend very much on the situat ion. If one is maintaining
his property in the community, it is of primary importance that he is a member of that community, for
it is his taking of the attitude of the others that guarantees to him the recog nition of his own rights.
To be a "me" under those circumst ances is the important thing. It gives him his position, gives him
the dignity of being a member in the community, it is the source of his emotional response to the
values that belong to him as a member of the community. It is the basis for his entering into the
experience of others.
At times it is the response of the ego or "I" to a situatio n, the way in which one expresses himself,
that brings to one a feeling of prime importance. One now asserts himself against a certai n situation,
and the emphasis is on the respo nse. The demand is freedom from conventions, from given laws.
Of course, such a situation is only possible wher e the individual appeals, so to spea k, from a narrow
and restricted community to a larger one, that is, larger in the logical sense of having rights which
are not so restricted. One appeals from fixed conventions which no longer have any meaning to a
community in which the rights shall be publicly recognized, and one appeals to others on the
assu mption that there is a group of organized others that answer to one's own appeal-even if the
appeal be made to posterity. In that case there is the attitude of the "I" as over against the me.
Both aspects of the "I" and "me" are esse ntial to the self in its full expression. One must take the
attitude of the others in a group in order to belong to a community; he has to employ that outer
socia l world taken within himself in order to carry on thought. It is throu gh his relationship to others
in that community, because of the ration al social proce sses that obtain in that community, that he
has being as a citizen. On the other hand, the individual is const antly reacti ng to the social attitudes,
and chan ging in this cooperative process the very community to which he belongs. Those changes
may be humble and trivial ones. One may not have anything to say, altho ugh he takes a long time to
say it. And yet a certain amount of adjustm ent and readjustment takes place. We speak of a person
as a conventio nal individual; his ideas are exactly the same as those of his neighbors; he is hardly
more than a "me" under the circumst ances; his adjustm ents are only the slight adjustments that take
place, as we say, unconsciously. Over against that there is the person who has a definite
personality, who replies to the organized attitude in a way which makes a significant difference. With
such a person it is the "I" that is the more important phase of the experience. Those two const antly
appearing phases are the important phases in the self.[3]
Endnotes
1.[See also "The Definition of the Psychical," University of Chicago Decennial Publications,
1903, pp. 104 ff.; "The Mech anism of Social Consciousness," Journal of Philosophy, IX
(1912), 401 ff.; "The Social Self," ibid., X (1913), 374 ff.]
2.[Cf. The Philosophy of the Act, Part III.] [Editors' note from Georg e's Page: this footnote
refers to a book that will not exist for another 6 years. There apparently was a revisi on of the
text of Mind, Self and Society after its first printing]
3.Psychol ogists deal as a rule with the proce sses which are involve d in what we term
perception," but have very largely left out of accou nt the character of the self. It has been
largely through the patho logist that the importance of the self has entere d into psychol ogy.
Dissociations have centered attention on the self, and have shown how absolutely
fundamental is this socia l character of the mind. That which constitutes the personality lies in
this sort of give- and-take betwee n members in a group that engage in a cooperative
process. It is this activity that has led to the humanly intelligent animal.

26. THE REAL IZATION OF THE SELF IN THE SOCIAL SITUATION
There is still one phase in the development of the self that needs to be presented in more deta il: the
realizatio n of the self in the social situatio n in which it arises.
I have argued that the self appears in experience esse ntially as a "me" with the organizat ion of the
community to which it belongs. This organization is, of course, expressed in the particular
endowment and particular socia l situati on of the individual. He is a member of the community, but
he is a partic ular part of the community, with a particular heredity and position which distinguishes
him from anybody else . He is what he is in so far as he is a member of this community, and the raw
mate rials out of which this particular individual is born would not be a self but for his relati onship to
others in the community of which he is a part. Thus is he aware of himself as such, and his not only
in political citizenship, or in membership in groups of which he is a part, but also from the point of
view of reflective thought. He is a member of the community of the thinkers whose literatur e he
reads and to which he may contribute by his own published thought. He belongs to a society of all
rational beings, and the rationality that he identifies with himself involves a conti nued socia l
interc hange. The widest community in which the individual finds himself, that which is everywher e,
throu gh and for everybo dy, is the thought world as such. He is a member of such a community and
he is what he is as such a member.
The fact that all selves are constitute d by or in terms of the socia l process, and are individual
reflections of it-or rather of this organized behavior pattern which it exhibits, and which they prehend
in their respective structures- is not in the least incompatible with, or destruct ive of, the fact that
every individual self has its own peculiar individuality, its own unique pattern; beca use each
individual self within that proce ss, while it reflects in its organized structure the behavior pattern of
that process as a whole, does so from its own particular and unique standpoint within that process,
and thus reflects in its organized structure a different aspect or perspective of this whole social
behavior pattern from that which is reflected in the organized structure of any other individual self
within that process (just as every monad in the Leibnizian universe mirrors that universe from a
different point of view, and thus mirrors a different aspect or perspective of that universe). In other
words, the organized structure of every individual self within the human social process of experience
and behavior reflects, and is constituted by, the organized relational pattern of that process as a
whole; but each individual self-structure reflects, and is constituted by, a different aspect or
perspective of this relational pattern, beca use each reflects this relational pattern from its own
unique standpoint; so that the common social origin and constitution of individual selves and their
structures does not preclude wide individual differences and variati ons among them, or contradict
the peculiar and more or less distin ctive individuality which each of them in fact possesses. Every
individual self within a given society or social community reflects in its organized structure the whole
relational pattern of orga nized socia l behavior which that society or community exhibits or is carrying
on, and its organized structure is constitute d by this pattern; but since each of these individual
selves reflects a uniquely different aspe ct or perspective of this pattern in its structure, from its own
partic ular and unique place or stand point within the whole process of organized socia l behavior
which exhibits this pattern- since, that is, each is differently or uniquely related to that whole process,
and occupies its own essentially unique focus of relations therein-the structure of each is differently
constitute d by this pattern from the way in which the structure of any other is so const ituted.
The individual, as we have seen, is continually reacti ng back against this society. Every adjustment
involve s some sort of change in the community to which the individual adjusts himself. And this
chan ge, of cours e, may be very important. Take even the widest community which we can present,
the rational community that is repres ented in the so-called universal discourse. Up to a
comparatively recent time the form of this was that of an Aristote lian world. But men in America,
England, Italy, Germany, France, have very cons iderably changed the structure of that world,
introducing a logic of multiple relations in place of the Aristotelian relation of substance and
attribute. Another fundamental change has taken place in the form of the world throug h the reaction
of an individual-Einstein. Great figures in history bring about very fundamental changes. These
profound changes which take place through the actio n of individual minds are only the extreme
expression of the sort of chan ges that take place steadily through-reactions which are not simply
those of a "me" but of an "I." Thes e changes are changes that t ake place grad ually and more or less
imperceptibly. We know that as we pass from one historical period to another there have been
fundamental chan ges, and we know these changes are due to the reactions of different individuals.
It is only the ultimate effect that we can recognize, but the differences are due to the gesture s of

these countless individuals actually changing the situation in which they find themselves, although
the specific chan ges are too minute for us to identify. As I have pointed out, the ego or "I" that is
responsible for changes of that sort appears in experience only after its react ion has taken place. It
is only after we have said the word we are saying that we recog nize ourselves as the person that
has said it, as this particular self that says this particular thing; it is only after we have done the thing
that we are going to do that we are aware of what we are doing. However caref ully we plan the
future it alway s is different from that which we can previse, and this someth ing that we are
conti nually bringing in and adding to is what we identify with the self that comes into the level of our
experience only in the completion of the act.
In some respects, of course, we can determine what that self is going to do. We can accept certai n
responsibilities in adva nce. One makes contracts and promises, and one is bound by them. The
situati on may chan ge, the act may be different from that which the individual himself expected to
carry out, but he is held to the contract which he has made. He must do certain things in order to
remain a member of the comm unity. In the duties of what we call rational conduct, in adjusting
ourselves to a world in which the laws of natur e and of econ omics and of political systems obtain,
we can state what is going to happen and take over the responsibility for the thing we are going to
do, and yet the real self that appears in that act awaits the completion of the act itself. Now, it is this
living act which never gets directly into reflective experience. It is only after the act has taken place
that we can catch it in our memory and place it in terms of that which we have done. It is that "I"
which we may be said to be conti nually trying to realize, and to realize throu gh the actual conduct
itself. One does not ever get it fully before himself. Sometimes somebody else can tell him
someth ing about himself that he is not awar e of. He is never sure about himself, and he astonishes
himself by his cond uct as much as he astonishes other people.
The poss ibilities in our nature, those sorts of energy which William James took so much pleasure in
indicating, are possibilities of the self that lie beyond our own immediate presentation. We do not
know just what they are. They are in a certain sense the most fascinating contents that we can
conte mplate, so far as we can get hold of them. We get a great deal of our enjoyment of romance,
of moving pictures, of art, in setting free, at least in imagination, capa cities which belong to
ourselves, or which we want to belong to ourselves. Inferiority complexes arise from those wants of
a self which we should like to carry out but which we cannot-we adjust ourse lves to these by the so-
called inferiority complexes. The poss ibilities of the "I" belong to that which is actually going on,
taking place, and it is in some sense the most fascinating part of our expe rience. It is there that
nove lty arises and it is there that our most important values are located. It is the realizatio n in some
sens e of this self that we are conti nually seeking.
There are various ways in which we can realize that self. Since it is a socia l self, it is a self that is
realized in its relationship to others. It must be recog nized by others to have the very value s which
we want to have belong to it. It realizes itself in some sense through its superiority to others, as it
recognizes its inferiorities in comparison with others. The inferiority complexes are the reverse
situati ons to those feelings of superiority which we entertai n with reference to ourselves as over
against people about us. It is interesting to go back into one's inner consc iousness and pick out
what it is that we are apt to depend upon in maintaining our self-respect. There are, of cours e,
profound and solid foundations. One does keep his word, meet his obligations; and that provid es a
basis for self-respect. But those are characters which obtain in most of the members of the
community with whom we have to do. We all fall dow n at certain points, but on the whole we alway s
are people of our words. We do belong to the community and our self-respect depends on our
recognition of ourselves as such self-respecting individuals. But that is not enough for us, since we
want to recognize ourselves in our differences from other persons. We have, of cours e, a spec ific
econ omic and social status that enables us to so distin guish ourselves. We also have to some
extent positions in various groups which give a means of self-identification, but there is back of all
these matters a sense of things which on the whole we do better than other people do. It is very
interesting to get back to these supe riorities, many of them of a very trivial character, but of great
importance to us. We may come back to manners of speech and dress, to a capacity for
remembering, to this, that, and the other thing-but always to something in which we stand out above
people. We are careful, of cours e, not directly to plume ourselves. It wo uld seem childish to intimate
that we take satisfaction in showing that we can do something better than others. We take a great
deal of pains to cover up such a situation; but actual ly we are vastly gratified. Among children and
among prim itive communities these super iorities are vaunte d and a person glories in them; but even
among our more advanced groups they are there as essenti al ways of realizing one's self, and they

are not to be identified with what we term the expression of the egoistic or self-centered person. A
person may be as genuine as you like in matters of dollars and cents or efforts, and he may be
genuine in recognizing other people's successes and enjoy them, but that does not keep him from
enjoying his own abilities and getting peculiar satisfaction out of his own successes.
This sens e of superiority does not repre sent necessarily the disagreeable type of assertive
character, and it does not mean that the person wants to lower other people in order to get himself
into a higher standing. That is the form such self-realization is apt to appear to take , to say the least ,
and all of us recognize such a form as not simply unfortunate but as morally more or less
desp icable. But there is a demand, a constant demand, to realize one's self in some sort of
supe riority over those about us. It appears, perhaps, more definitely in such situations as those to
which I have referred, and which are the hardest things to explain. There is a certain enjoyableness
about the misfortunes of other people, especially those gathered about their personality. It finds its
expression in what we term gossip, even mischievous gossip. We have to be on our guard against
it. We may relate an event with real sorrow, and yet there is a certa in satisfaction in something that
has happened to somebody else but has not happened to us.
This is the same attitude that is involve d in the humor of somebody else tumbling down. In such
laughter there is a certain release from the effort which we do not have to make to get up again. It is
a direct response, one that lies back of what we term self-consci ousness, and the humor of it does
not go along with the enjoyment of the other perso n's suffering. If a person does actually break a leg
we can sympathize with him, but it was funny, after all, to see him sprawling out. This is a situati on
in which there is a more or less identification of the individual with the other. We do, so to speak,
start to fall with him, and to rise up after he has fallen, and our theory of laughter is that it is a
release from that im mediate tendency to catch ours elves under those conditions. We have identified
ourselves with the other person, taken his attitude. That attitude involves a strenu ous effort which
we do not have to carry out, and the release from that effort expresses itself in laughter. Laughter is
the way in which the "I," so to speak, responds under those cond itions. The individual probably sets
to work helping the other person to get up, but there was an element in the respo nse which
expresse d itself in the sense of the superiority of the person standing toward the person on the
sidewalk. Now, that general situat ion is not simply found under physic al situations, but is equally
evident in the community in which a person committing a faux pas; we have here the same sense of
amusement and of superiority.
I want to bring out in these instances the difference betwee n the naive attitude of the "I" and the
more soph isticated attitude of the "me." One behaves perfectly properly, suppresses his laughter, is
very prompt to get the fallen perso n on his feet again. There is the social attitude of the "me" over
against the "I" that does enjoy the situat ion; but enjoys it, we will say, in a certain harmless way.
There is nothi ng vicious about it, and even in those situati ons where one has a certain sort of
satisf action in following out the scan dals and difficulties of a more serio us sort, there is an attitude
which involves the sens e of superiority and at the same time does not carry with it anything that is
vicious. We may be very caref ul about what we say, but there is still that attitude of the self which is
in some sense superior under such conditions; we have not done this particular untoward thing, we
have kept out of it.
The sens e of superiority is magnified when it belongs to a self that identifies itself with the group. It
is aggravated in our patriotism, where we legitimize an assertion of superiority which we would not
admit in the situat ions to which I have been referring. It seems to be perfectly legitimate to assert the
supe riority of the nation to which one belongs over other natio ns to brand the cond uct of other
natio nalities in black colors in order that we may bring out values in the conduct of those that make
up our own nation. It is just as true in politics and religion in the putting of one sect over against the
others. This took the p lace of the exclusive expressions of nationalism in the early period, the per iod
of religious wars. One belonged to one group that was superior to other groups and could assert
himself confidently because he had God on his side. There we find a situation under which it
seemed to be perfectly legitimate to assert this sort of super iority which goes with self-
consc iousness and which in some sense seems to be essential to self-consci ousness. It is not, of
cours e, confined to nationalism and patriotism. We all believe that the group we are in is superior to
other groups. We can get togeth er with the members in a bit of gossip that with anyo ne else or any
other group would be impossible. Leadership, of course, plays its part, since the enthu siasm for
those who have a high standing among us aids in the organization of the group; but on the whole we
depend upon a common recognition that other people are not quite as good as we are.

The feeling of group superiority is generally explained in terms of the organization of the group.
Grou ps have survi ved in the past in so far as they have organized against a common enemy. They
maintain themselves beca use they have acted as one against the common enemy-such is the
explanation, from the stand point of the survival of the fittest , of the community which is most
satisf actori ly organized. It certain ly is the easiest way of getting togethe r, and it may be that it is an
adequate explanation.
If one does have a genuine superiority it is a super iority which rests on the performance of definite
functions. One is a good surgeon, a good lawyer, and he can pride himself on his superiority-but it is
a superiority which he makes use of. And when he does actual ly make use of it in the very
community to which he belongs it loses that element of egoism which we think of When we think of
a perso n simply pluming himself on his supe riority over somebody else. I have been emphasizing
the other aspect beca use we do sometimes cover it up in our own experience. But when the sens e
of supe riority goes over into a functional expression, then it beco mes not only entir ely legitimate, but
it is the way in which the individuals do change the situations in which they live. We change things
by the capacities which we have that other people do not have. Such capacity is what makes us
effective. The immediate attitude is one which carrie s with it a sens e of superiority, of maintaining
one's self. The superiority is not the end in view. It is a means for the preservation of the self. We
have to distinguish ourselves from other people and this is acco mplished by doing something which
other people cann ot do, or cannot do as well.
Now, to be able to hold on to ourselves in our pecu liarities is something which is lovable. If it is
taken simply in the crude fashion of the person who boasts of himself, then a cheap and ugly side of
this process is exhibited. But if it is an expression which goes out into the functions which it
sustai ns, then it loses that character. We assume this will be the ultimate outco me of the
expressions of natio nalism. Natio ns ought to be able to express themselves in the functional fashion
that the professional man does. There is the beginning of such an organization in the league of
Nations. One natio n recognizes certain things it has to do as a member of the community of nations.
Even the mandate system at least puts a functional aspect on the action of the directing nation and
not one which is simply an expression of powe r.
27. THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE "ME" AND THE "I"
I have been undertaking to distin guish betwee n the "I" and the "me" as different phases of the self,
the "me" answ ering to the organized attitudes of the others which we definitely assume and which
deter mine consequently our own cond uct so far as it is of a self-conscious charact er. Now the "me"
may be regar ded as giving the form of the "I." The novelty comes in the action of the "I," but the
structure, the form of the self is one which is conve ntional.
This conve ntional form may be reduc ed to a minimum. In the artist's attitude, where there is artistic
creati on, the emphasis upon the element of nove lty is carried to the limit. This demand for the
unco nventional is espe cially noticeable in modern art. Here the artist is supp osed to break away
from conve ntion; a part of his artistic expression is thought to be in the breakdown of convention.
That attitude is, of course, not essential to the artistic function, and it probably never occurs in the
extre me form in which it is often proclaimed. Take certain of the artists of the past. In the Greek
world the artists were, in a certain sense, the supreme artisans. What they were to do was more or
less set by the community, and acce pted by themselves, as the expression of heroic figures, certain
deities, the erection of temples. Definite rules were accepted as esse ntial to the expression. And yet
the artist introd uced an originality into it which distinguishes one artist from another. In the case of
the artist the emphasis upon that which is unconv entional, that which is not in the structure of the
"me," is carrie d as far, perhaps, as it can be carried.
This same emphasis also appears in certain types of conduct which are impulsive. Impulsive
cond uct is uncontrolled cond uct. The structure of the "me" does not there determine the expression
of the "I." If we use a Freudian expression, the " me " is in a certa in sense a cens or. It determines
the sort of expression which can take place, sets the stage, and gives the cue. In the case of
impulsive conduct this structure of the (,me" involve d in the situati on does not furnish to any such

degree this control. Take the situation of self-asserti on wher e the self simply asserts itself over
against others, and suppose that the emotional stress is such that the forms of polite society in the
performance of legitimate conduct are overthrown, so that the person expresses himself violently.
There the "me" is determined by the situation. There are certai n recog nized fields within which an
individual can assert himself, certain rights which he has within these limits. But let the stress
beco me too great, these limits are not observed, and an individual asserts himself in perhaps a
violent fashion. Then the "I" is the dominant element over against the "me." Under what we cons ider
normal conditions the way in which an individual acts is determined by his taking the attitude of the
others in the group, but if the individual is not given the opportunity to come up against people, as a
child is not who is held out of interc ourse with other people, then there results a situat ion in which
the reacti on is uncontrolled.
Social control[1] is the expression of the "me" over against the expression of the "I." It sets the
limits, it gives the determination that enables the "I," so to speak, to use the "me" as the means of
carryin g out what is the undertaking that all are interested in. Where persons are held outside or
beyo nd that sort of organized expression there arises a situati on in whic h socia l control is absent. In
the more or less fanta stic psychology of the Freudian group, thinkers are dealing with the sexual life
and with self-assertion in its violent form. The normal situation, however, is one which involves a
reacti on of the individual in a situation which is socially determined, but to which he brings his own
responses as an "I." The response is, in the experience of the individual, an expression with which
the self is identified. It is such a respo nse which raise s him above the instituti onalized individual.
As I have said before, an institutio n is, after all, nothing but an organizatio n of attitudes which we all
carry in us, the organized attitudes of the others that control and determine conduct. Now, this
institutio nalized individual is, or shou ld be, the means by which the individual expresses himself in
his own way, for such individual expression is that which is identified with the self in those values
which are essential to the self, and which arise from the self. To speak of them as arising from the
self does not attach to them the character of the selfish egoist, for under the norm al cond itions to
which we were referring the individual is making his contribution to a common undertaking. The
base ball player who makes a brilliant play is making the play called for by the nine to which he
belongs. He is playing for his side. A man may, of course, play the gallery, be more interested in
making a brilliant play than in helping the nine to win, just as a surgeon may carry out a brilliant
operation and sacrifice the patient. But under normal conditions the contribution of the individual
gets its expression in the social processes that are involved in the act, so that the attachment of the
values to the self does not involve egoism or selfishness. The other situatio n in which the self in its
expression does in some sense exploit the group or socie ty to which it belongs is one which sets up,
so to spea k, a narrow self whic h takes advantage of the whol e group in satisfying itself. Even such a
self is still a social affair. We disting uish very definitely betwe en the selfish man and the impulsive
man. The man who may lose his temper and knock another down may be a very unselfish man. He
is not necessarily a person who would utilize a certa in situati on for the sake of his own interests.
The latter case involves the narrow self that does not relate itself to the whole social group of which
it is a part.
Values do definitely attach to this expression of the self which is pecu liar to the self; and what is
pecu liar to the self is what it calls its own. And yet this value lies in the social situation, and would
not be apart from that social situation. It is the contr ibution of the individual to the situati on, even
though it is only in the social situation that the value obtai ns.
We seek certai nly for that sort of expression which is self-expression. When an individual feels
himself hedged in he recognizes the nece ssity of getting a situation in which there shall be an
opportunity for him to make his addition to the undertaking, and not simply to be the
convent ionalized "me." In a perso n who carries out the routin e job, it leads to the reacti on against
the machine, and to the demand that that type of routine work shall fall into its place in the whole
socia l process. There is, of course , a certa in amount of real mental and physical health, a very
esse ntial part of one's life, that is involved in doing routine work. One can very well just carry out
certai n processe s in which his contrib ution is very slight, in a more or less mechanical fashion, and
find himself in a better posit ion because of it. Such men as John Stuart Mill have been able to carry
on routi ne occup ations during a certain part of the day, and then give themselves to orig inal work for
the rest of the day. A person who cannot do a certain amount of stereo typed work is not a healthy
individual. Both the health of the individual and the stability of society call for a very cons iderable
amount of such work. The reaction to machine industry simply calls for the restriction of the amount

of time given to it, but it does not involve its total abolition. Neve rtheless, and grant ing this point,
there must be some way in whic h the individual can express himself. It is the situati ons in which it is
possi ble to get this sort of expression that seem to be particularly prec ious, namely, those situa tions
in which the individual is able to do something on his own, where he can take over responsibility and
carry out thing s in his own way, with an opportunity to think his own thoughts. Those social
situati ons in which the structure of the "me" for the time being is one in which the individual gets an
opportunity for that sort of expression of the self bring some of the most exciting and gratifying
experiences.
These experiences may take place in a form which involves degradation, or in a form which involves
the emergence of higher values. The mob furnishes a situation in which the "me" is one which
simply supp orts and emphasizes the more violent sort of impulsive expression. This tendency is
deeply imbedded in human nature. It is aston ishing what part of the "I" of the sick is constituted by
murder stories. Of course, in the story itself, it is the tracking-down of the murd erer that is the focal
point of interest; but that tracking-down of the murderer takes one back to the venge ance attitude of
the primitive community. In the murder story one gets a real villain, runs him down, and brings him
to justic e. Such expressions may involve degradation of the self. In situations involving the defense
of the country a mob attitude or a very high moral attitude may preva il, depending upon the
individual. The situation in which one can let himself go, in which the very structu re of the "me"
opens the door for the "I," is favorable to self-expression. I have referred to the situation in which a
person can sit down with a friend and say just what he is thinking about someone else. There is a
satisf action in letting one's self go in this way. The sort of thing that under other circu mstances you
would not say and would not even let yourself think is now natur ally uttered. If you get in a group
which thinks as you do then one can go to lengths which may surprise the person himself. The "me"
in the above situatio ns is definitely constitute d by the socia l relations. Now if this situatio n is such
that it opens the door to impulsive expression one gets a peculiar satisfaction, high or low, the
sourc e of which is the value that attache s to the expression of the "I" in the social process.
Endnotes
1.[On the topic of socia l control see "The Gene sis of the Self and Soci al Control," Internat ional
Journal of Ethics, XXXV (1924-25), 251 ff.; "The Working Hypothesis in Social Reform,"
American Journal of Sociology, V (I 899-1900), 367 ff.; "The Psycho logy of Punitive justic e,"
ibid., XXIII (1917-18), 577 ff.]
28. THE SOCIAL CREATIVITY OF THE EMERGENT SELF
We have been discu ssing the value whic h gathers about the self, especially that which is involve d in
the "I" as over against that involve d in the "me." The "me" is esse ntially a member of a social group,
and represents, therefore, the value of the group, that sort of experience which the group makes
possi ble. Its values are the values that belong to society. In a sense these values are supre me.
They are values which under certai n extreme moral and religious conditions call out the sacrif ice of
the self for the whole. Without this structure of things, the life of the self would become impossible.
These are the conditions under which that seeming paradox arises, that the individual sacrifices
himself for the whole which makes his own life as a self poss ible. Just as there could not be
individual consciousness exce pt in a social group, so the individual in a certain sense is not willing
to live under certain cond itions which would involve a sort of suicide of the self in its process of
realizatio n. Over against that situati on we referred to those values which attach partic ularly to the "I"
rather than to the "me," those values which are found in the immediate attitude of the artist, the
inventor, the scientist in his discovery, in general in the action of the "I" which cannot be calculated
and which involves a recon struction of the society , and so of the "me" which belongs to that society.
It is that phase of experience which is found in the "I" and the values that attach to it are the value s
belonging to this type of experience as such. These values are not pecu liar to the artist, the
inventor, and the scientific discoverer, but belong to the experience of all selves wher e there is an "I"
that answers to the "me."

The response of the "I" involves adaptation, but an adaptation which affects not only the sclf but also
the social environment which helps to constitute the self; that is, it implies a view of evolution in
which the individual affects its own envir onment as well as being affected by it. A statement of
evolution that was common in an earlier period assumed simply the effect of an environment on
organized living protoplasm, molding it in some sense to the world in which it had to live. On this
view the individual is really passive as over against the influences which are affecting it all the time.
But what needs now to be recog nized is that the character of the organism is a determinant of its
envir onment. We speak of bare sensitivity as existent by itself, forgetting it is always a sensitivity to
certai n types of stimuli. In terms of its sens itivity the form selects an envir onment, not selecting
exactly in the sense in which a person selects a city or a coun try or a particular climate in which to
live, but selects in the sens e that it finds those character istics to which it can respond, and uses the
result ing experiences to gain certain organic results that are esse ntial to its conti nued life-process.
In a sense, therefore, the organism states its environment in terms of means and ends. That sort of
a determination of the envir onment is as real, of course, as the effect of the environment on the
form. When a form deve lops a capacity, howeve r this takes place, to deal with parts of the
envir onment which its progenitors could not deal with, it has to this degree created a new
envir onment for itself. The ox that has a digestive organ capable of treating grass as a food adds a
new food, and in adding this it adds a new object. The substance which was not food before
beco mes food now. The envir onment of the form has increased. The organism in a real sens e is
deter minative of its enviro nment. The situa tion is one in which there is action and reactio n, and
adaptation that changes the form must also change the environment.
As a man adjusts himself to a certain environment he beco mes a different individual; but in
beco ming a different individual he has affected the community in which he lives. It may be a slight
effect, but in so far as he has adjusted himself, the adjustments have chan ged the type of the
envir onment to which he can respond and the world is accordingly a different worl d. There is alwa ys
a mutual relationship of the individual and the community in which the individual lives. Our
recognition of this under ordinary conditions is confined to relatively small socia l groups, for here an
individual cannot come into the group witho ut in some degree changing the character of the
organization. People have to adjust themselves to him as much as he adjusts himself to them. It
may seem to be a molding of the individual by the forces about him, but the society likewise
chan ges in this proce ss, and becomes to some degree a different society. The change may be
desirable or it may be undesirable, but it inevitably takes place.
This relationship of the individual to the community becomes striking when we get minds that by
their adven t make the wider society a notice ably different society. Perso ns of great mind and great
character have strikingly changed the comm unities to which they have responded. We call them
leaders, as such, but they are simply carrying to the nth power this chan ge in the community by the
individual who makes himself a part of it, who belongs to it.[1] The great characters have been
those who, by being what they were in the community, made that community a different one. They
have enlarged and enriched the community. Such figures as great religious characters in history
have, throu gh their membership, indefinitely increased the possi ble size of the community itself.
Jesus generalized the conception of the community in terms of the family in such a statement as
that of the neighbor in the parables. Even the man outsi de of the community will now take that
generalized family attitude toward it, and he makes those that are so brought into relationship with
him members of the community to which he belongs, the community of a universal religion. The
chan ge of the community throu gh the attitude of the individual becomes, of course, peculiarly
impressive and effective in history. It makes separ ate individuals stand out as symbolic. They
represent, in their personal relati onships, a new order, and then become representative of the
community as it might exist if it were fully deve loped along the lines that they had started. New
conc eptions have brought with them, throug h great individuals, attitudes which enorm ously enlarge
the environment within which these individuals lived. A man who is a neighbor of anyb ody else in
the group is a member of a larger society , and to the extent that he lives in such a community he
has helped to create that society.
It is in such reacti ons of the individual, the "I," over against the situation in which the "I" finds itself,
that important social changes take place. We frequently speak of them as expressions of the
individual genius of certain persons. We do not know when the great artist, scientist, statesman,
religious leader will come-persons who will have a formative effect upon the society to which they
belong. The very definition of genius wou ld come back to someth ing of the sort to which I have been

referring, to this incalculable quality, this change of the envir onment on the part of an individual by
himself beco ming a member of the community.
An individual of the type to which we are referring arise s always with reference to a form of socie ty
or socia l order which is implied but not adequately expressed. Take the religious genius, such as
Jesus or Buddha, or the reflective type, such as Socrates. What has given them their unique
importance is that they have taken the attitude of living with reference to a larger society. That larger
state was one which was already more or less implied in the institutions of the community in which
they lived. Such an individual is diver gent from the point of view of what we would call the prejudices
of the community; but in another – sens e he expresses the principles of the community more
completely than any other. Thus arises the situation of an Athenian or a Hebrew stoning the genius
who expresses the principles of his own society, one the principle of rationality and the other the
principle of complete neighborliness. The type we refer to as the genius is of that sort. There is an
analogous situation in the field of artistic creation: the artists also reveal contents which represent a
wider emotional expression answering to a wider society. To the degree that we make the
community in which we live different we all have what is essential to genius, and which becomes
genius when the effects are profound.
The response of the "I" may be a process which involves a degradation of the social state as well as
one which involves higher integration. Take the case of the mob in its various expressions. A mob is
an organizatio n which has eliminated certain values which have obtained in the interre lation of
individuals with each other, has simplified itself, and in doing that has made it possible to allow the
individual, especially the repressed individual, to get an expression which otherwis e would not be
allowed. The individual's response is made possible by the actual degradation of the social structure
itself, but that does not take away the immediate value to the individual which arises under those
cond itions. He gets his emotional response out of that situation beca use in his expression of
violence he is doing what everyone else is doing. The whole community is doing the same thing.
The repression which existed has disappeared and he is at one with the community and the
community is at one with him. An illustration of a more trivial character is found in our perso nal
relations with those about us. Our manners are methods of not only mediated interco urse between
persons but also ways of prote cting ourselves against each other. A perso n may, by manners,
isolate himself so that he cannot be touched by anyone else. Manners provide a way in which we
keep people at a distance, people that we do not know and do not want to know. We all make use of
processes of that sort. But there are occas ions in which we can drop off the type of manner which
holds people at arm's length. We meet the man in some distant country whom perhaps we would
seek to avoid meeting at home, and we almost tear our arms off embracing him. There is a great
deal of exhilaration in situations involved in the hosti lity of other nations; we all seem at one against
a common enemy; the barriers drop, and we have a social sense of comradeship to those stand ing
with us in a common undertaking. The same thing takes place in a political campaign. For the time
being we extend the glad hand-and a cigar-to anyone who is a member of the particular group to
which we belong. We get rid of certain restriction s under those circu mstances, restrictions which
really keep us from intense social experiences. A person may be a victim of his good manners; they
may incase him as well as protect him. But under the conditions to which I have referred, a person
does get outside of himself, and by doing so makes himself a definite member of a larger
community than that to which he previo usly belonged.
This enlarged experience has a profound influence. It is the sort of experience which the neophyte
has in conversion. It is the sense of belonging to the community, of having an intimate relationship
with an indefinite number of individuals who belong to the sam e group. That is the experience which
lies back of the sometimes hysterical extremes which belong to conversi ons. The person has
enter ed into the universal community of the church, and the resulting experience is the expression
of that sense of identification of one's self with everyone else in the community. The sense of love is
show n by such proceedings as washi ng the feet of lepers; in general, by finding a person who is
most distant from the community, and by making a seemingly servile offering, identifying one's self
completely with this individual. This is a process of breaking down the walls so that the individual is
a brother of everyon e. The medieval saint worked out that method of identifying himself with all
living beings, as did the religious technique of India. This breakdown of barriers is something that
arouses a flood of emotions, because it sets free an indefinite number of possible contacts to other
people which have been checked, held repressed. The individual, by enteri ng into that new
community, has, by his step in making himself a member, by his experience of identification, taken
on the value that belongs to all members of that community.

Such experiences are, of course, of immense importance. We make use of them all the time in the
community. We decry the attitude of hosti lity as a means of carrying on the interrelations between
natio ns. We feel we should get beyond the meth ods of warf are and diplomacy, and reach some sort
of political relation of nations to each other in which they could be regarded as members of a
common community, and so be able to express thems elves, not in the attitude of hostil ity, but in
terms of their common value s. That is what we set up as the ideal of the League of Nations. We
have to remember, howev er, that we are not able to work out our own political institutions without
introducing the hostilities of parties. Without parties we could not get a fracti on of the voters to come
to the polls to express themselves on issue s of great public importance, but we can enrol a
consi derable part of the community in a political party that is fighting some other party . It is the
element of the fight that keeps up the interest. We can enlist the interest of a number of people who
want to defeat the opposing party, and get them to t-he polls to do that. The party platform is an
abstractio n, of course , and does not mean much to us, since we are actually depending
psychol ogically upon the operation of these more barbarous impulses in order to keep our ordinary
institutio ns running. When we object to the organization of corrupt political machines we ought to
remember to feel a certai n gratitude to people who are able to enlist the interest of people in public
affairs.
We are normally dependent upon those situatio ns in which the self is able to express itself in a
direct fashion, and there is no situation in which the self can express itself so easily as it can over
against the common enemy of the groups to which it is unite d. The hymn that comes to our minds
most frequently as expressive of Christendom is "Onwar d Christian Soldiers"; Paul organized the
churc h of his time against the world of heathens; and "Revelation" represents the community over
against the world of darkness. The idea of Satan has been as essential to the organization of the
churc h as politics has been to the organization of democracy. There has to be something to fight
against because the self is most easily able to express itself in joining a definite group.
The value of an ordered society is essential to our existence, but there also has to be room for an
expression of the individual himself if there is to be a satisfactor ily deve loped society. A means for
such expression must be provided. Until we have such a social structure in which an individual can
express himself as the artist and the scientist does, we are thrown back on the sort of structure
found in the mob, in which everybody is free to express himself against some hated object of the
group.
One difference betwe en primitive human society and civilized human society is that in primitive
human society the individual self is much more completely determined, with regard to his thinking
and his behavior, by the general pattern of the organized social activity carried on by the partic ular
socia l group to which he belongs, than he is in civilized human society. In other words, primitive
human society offers much less scope for individuality-for original, unique, or creative thinking and
behavior on the part of the individual self within it or belonging to it-than does civilized human
society; and indeed the evolution of civilized human society from primitive human society has largely
depended upon or resulted from a progressive socia l liberation of the individual self and his conduct,
with the modifications and elaborations of the human socia l process which have followed from and
been made possible by that liberation. In primitive society, to a far greater extent than in civilized
society, individuality is constituted by the more or less perfect achievement of a given socia l type a
type already given, indicated, or exemplified in the organized pattern of social conduct, in the
integ rated relational structure of the social process of experience and behavior which the given
socia l group exhibits and is carrying on; in civilize d society individuality is constituted rather by the
individual's departure from, or modified realizatio n of, any given social type than by his conformity,
and tends to be something much more distinctive and singular and peculiar than it is in primitive
human society. But even in the most modern and highly-evolve d forms of human civilization the
individual, however original and creative he may be in his thinking or behavi or, alway s and
nece ssarily assumes a definite relation to, and reflects in the structure of his self or personality, the
general organized pattern of experience and activit y exhibited in or characterizing the socia l life-
process in which he is involve d, and of which his self or personality is essentially a creative
expression or embodiment. No individual has a mind which operates simply in itself, in isolation
from the social life-process in which it has arisen or out of which it has emerged, and in which the
pattern of organized socia l behav ior has consequently been basically impressed upon it.

Endnotes
1.The behavior of a genius is socia lly conditioned, just as that of an ordinary individual is; and
his achievements are the results of, or are responses to, social stimuli, just as those of an
ordinary individual are. The genius, like the ordinary individual, comes back at himself from
the stand point of the organized social group to which he belongs, and the attitudes of that
group toward any given project in which he becomes involved; and he responds to this
generalized attitude of the group with a definite attitude of his own toward the given project,
just as the ordinary individual does. But this definite attitude of his own with which he
responds to the generalized attitude of the group is unique and original in the case of the
genius, where as it is not so in the case of the ordinary individual; and it is this uniqueness
and originality of his respon se to a given socia l situation or problem or project – which
neverthe less conditions his behavior no less than it does that of the ordinary individual – that
distin guishes the genius from the ordinary individual.
29. A CONTRAST OF INDIVIDUALISTIC AND SOC IAL THEORIES OF THE SELF
The differences betwee n the type of socia l psycho logy which derives the selves of individuals from
the social process in which they are implicated and in which they empirically interact with one
another, and the type of socia l psychol ogy which instead derives that process from the selves of the
individuals involved in it, are clear. The first type assumes a socia l proce ss or social order as the
logical and biological precondition of the appearance of the selves of the individual organisms
involve d in that process or belonging to that order. The other type, on the contra ry, assumes
individual selves as the presuppositions, logically and biologically, of the social process or order
within which they interact.
The difference between the social and the individual theories of the development of mind, self, and
the social process of experience or behavior is analogous to the difference betwee n the evolutionary
and the contract theories of the state as held in the past by both rationalists and empiricists.[1] The
latter theory takes individuals and their individual experiencing-individual minds and selves-as
logically prior to the social process in which they are involve d, and explains the existence of that
socia l process in terms of them; whereas the former takes the social process of experience or
behavior as logically prior to the individuals and their individual experiencing which are involve d in it,
and explains their existence in terms of that social proce ss. But the latter type of theory cannot
explain that which is taken as logically prior at all, cannot explain the existence of minds and selves;
wher eas the former type of theory can explain that which it takes as logically prior, namely, the
existence of the socia l process of behavior, in terms of such fundamental biological or physi ological
relations and interactions as reproduction, or the cooperation of individuals for mutu al protection or
for the secur ing of food.
Our contention is that mind can never find expression, and could never have come into existence at
all, except in terms of a socia l envir onment; that an organized set or pattern of socia l relations and
interactions (especially those of communication by means of gestures functioning as significant
symbols and thus creati ng a universe of discourse) is nece ssarily presupposed by it and involved in
its nature. And this entirely social theory or interpretation of mind [2] this contention that mind
deve lops and has its being only in and by virtue of the social process of experience and activity,
which it hence presupposes, and that in no other way can it develop and have its being-must be
clearly distinguished from the partially (but only partially) social view of mind. On this view, though
mind can get expression only within or in terms of the environment of an organized social grou p, yet
it is nevert heless in some sense a native endowment – a congenital or hereditary biological attribute
– of the individual organism, and could not otherw ise exist or manifest itself in the social process at
all; so that it is not itself essentially a social phenomenon, but rather is biological both in its nature
and in its origin, and is social only in its characteristic manifestations or expressions. According to
this latter view, moreover, the social proce ss presupposes, and in a sens e is a product of, mind; in
direct contrast is our oppo site view that mind presupposes, and is a product of, the socia l process.
The adva ntage of our view is that it enables us to give a detai led acco unt and actua lly to explain the
genesis and development of mind; wher eas the view that mind is a congenital biological endowment

of the individual organism does not really enable us to explain its nature and origin at all: neith er
what sort of biological endowment it is, nor how organisms at a certain level of evolutionary progress
come to possess it.[3] Furthermore, the supposition that the social process presu pposes, and is in
some sense a prod uct of, mind seems to be contradicted by the existence of the social communities
of certain of the lower animals, especially the highly complex social organizat ions of bees and ants,
which appa rently operate on a purely instinctive or reflex basis, and do not in the least involve the
existence of mind or consc iousness in the individual organisms which form or constitute them. And
even if this contradiction is avoided by the admission that only at its higher levels-only at the levels
represented by the socia l relations and interactions of human beings-does the social process of
experience and behavior presu ppose the existence of mind or beco me necessa rily a product of
mind, still it is hardly plausible to suppose that this already ongoing and developing process should
sudd enly, at a particular stage in its evolution, beco me dependent for its further continuance upon
an entirely extraneous factor, introduced into it, so to spea k, from withou t.
The individual enters as such into his own experience only as an object, not as a subject; and he
can enter as an object only on the basis of social relations and interactions, only by means of his
experiential transactions with other individuals in an organized social environment. It is true that
certai n conten ts of experience (particularly kinaesthetic) are access ible only to the given individual
organism and not to any others; and that these private or "subjective," as opposed to public or
"objective," contents of experience are usually regarded as being peculiarly and intimately
conn ected with the individual's self, or as being in a special sense self-experiences. But this
access ibility solely to the given individual organism of certain contents of its experience does not
affect, nor in any way conflict with, the theory as to the social natur e and origin of the self that we
are presenting; the existence of private or "subjective" contents of experience does not alter the fact
that self-consciousness involves the individual's becoming an object to himself by taking the
attitude s of other individuals toward himself within an organized setting of socia l relationships, and
that unless the individual had thus beco me an object to himself he would not be self-conscious or
have a self at all. Apart from his social interactions with other individuals, he would not relate the
private or "subjective" contents of his experience to himself, and he could not become awar e of
himself as such, that is, as an individual, a perso n, merely by means or in terms of these contents of
his experience; for in order to beco me awar e of himself as such he must, to repeat, beco me an
object to himself, or enter his own experience as an object, and only by socia l means-only by taking
the attitudes of others toward himself-is he able to become an object to himself.[4]
It is true, of course, that once mind has arisen in the social process it makes possi ble the
deve lopment of that process into much more complex forms of socia l intera ction among the
component individuals than was possible before it had arise n. But there is nothing odd about a
product of a given process contributing to, or becoming an essential factor in, the further
deve lopment of that process. The social process, then, does not depend for its origin or initial
existence upon the existence and interactions of selves; though it does depend upon the latter for
the higher stages of complexity and organization which it reaches after selves have arisen within it.
Endnotes
1.Histori cally, both the rationalist and the empiricist are committed to the interpretation of
experience in terms of the individual (1931).
Other people are there as much as we are there; to be a self requires other selves (1924).
In our experience the thing is there as much as we are here. Our experience is in the thing
asmuch as it is in us (MS).
2.In defending a social theory of mind we are defending a functional, as opposed to any form
of substanti ve or entitive, view as to its nature. And in partic ular, we are opposing all
intracra nial or intra-epidermal views as to its character and locus. For it follows from our
socia l theory of mind that the field of mind must be co-extensive with, and include all the
components of, the field of the socia l proce ss of experience and behavior, i.e., the matrix of
socia l relations and interactions among individuals, which is presupposed by it, and out of
which it arises or comes into being. If mind is socially constituted, then the field or locus of
any given individual mind must extend as far as the socia l activit y or apparatus of social
relations which constitutes it extends; and hence that field cannot be bounded by the skin of
the individual organism to which it belongs.

3.Accor ding to the traditional assumption of psychol ogy, the content of experience is entirely
individual and not in any measure to be primarily accounted for in socia l terms , even though
its setting or context is a socia l one. And for a social psycho logy like Cooley's – which is
founded on precisely this same assumption – all social interactions depend upon the
imaginations of the individuals involved, and take place in terms of their direct consci ous
influences upon one another in the processes of socia l experience. Cooley's social
psychol ogy, as found in his Human Nature and the Social Order, is hence inevitab ly
intros pective, and his psycholo gical method carries with it the implication of complete
solipsism: socie ty really has no existence except in the individual's mind, and the concept of
the self as in any sense intrin sically socia l is a product rf imagination. Even for Cooley the
self presupposes experience, and experience is a process within which selves arise; but
since that process is for him primarily internal and individual rather than external and social,
he is committed in his psycho logy to a subjectivistic and idealistic, rather than an
objectivistic and natura listic, metaphysical position.
4.The human being's physi ological capacity for devel oping mind or intelligence is a product of
the proce ss of biological evolution, just as is his whole organism; but the actual development
of his mind or intelligence itself, given that capa city, must proceed in terms of the social
situati ons wher ein it gets its expression and import; and hence it itself is a product of the
process of social evolution, the process of socia l experience and behavior.
30. THE BASIS OF HUMAN SOCIET Y: MAN AND THE INSECTS
In the earlier parts of our discu ssion we have followed out the development of the self in the
experience of the human organism, and now we are to consider something of the social organism
within which this self arises.
Human society as we know it could not exist without minds and selves, since all its most
characteri stic featur es presuppose the possession of minds and selves by its individual members;
but its individual members would not poss ess minds and selves if these had not arisen within or
emerged out of the human social proce ss in its lower stages of deve lopment-those stages at which
it was merely a resultant of, and wholly dependent upon, the physi ological differentiations and
demands of the individual organisms implicated in it. There must have been such lower stages of
the human socia l proce ss, not only for physiological reaso ns, but also (if our social theory of the
origin and nature of minds and selves is correct) beca use minds and selves, consc iousness and
intelligence, could not otherwise have emerged; because, that is, some sort of an ongoing socia l
process in which human beings were implicated must have been there in advance of the existence
of minds and selves in human beings, in order to make possi ble the devel opment, by human beings,
of minds and selves within or in terms of that process.[1]
The behavior of all living organisms has a basically socia l aspect: the fundamental biological or
physi ological impulses and needs which lie at the basis of all such behavior-espe cially those of
hunger and sex, those connected with nutriti on and repro duction-are impulses and needs which, in
the broadest sense, are social in character or have social implications, since they involve or require
socia l situations and relations for their satisfaction by any given individual organism; and they thus
constitute the foundation of all types or forms of social behavior, however simple or complex, crude
or highly organized, rudimen tary or well developed. The experience and behavior of the individual
organism are always components of a larger socia l whole or proce ss of experience and behavior in
which the individual organism-by virtue of the social character of the fundamental physi ological
impulses and needs which motivate and are expressed in its experience and behavior-is necessarily
implicated, even at the lowest evolutionary levels. There is no living organism of any kind whose
natur e or constitution is such that it could exist or maintain itself in comp lete isolation from all other
living organisms, or such that certain relations to other living organisms (wheth er of its own or of
other speci es)-relations which in the strict sens e are social-do not playa necessary and
indispensable part in its life. All living organisms are bound up in a general social environment or
situati on, in a complex of social interrelations and interactions upon which their conti nued existence
depends.

Among these fundamental socio-physiological impulses or needs (and consequent attitudes) which
are basic to social behavior and socia l organization in all species of living organisms, the one which
is most important in the case of human social behavior, and which most decisively or deter minately
expresse s itself in the whole general form of human social organization (both primitive and civilized),
is the sex or reproductive impulse; though hardly less important are the parental impulse or attitude,
which is of course closely connected or associated with the sex impulse, and the impulse or attitude
of neighborliness, which is a kind of generalization of the parental impulse or attitude and upon
which all coop erative socia l behavior is more or less dependent. Thus the family is the fundamental
unit of reproduction and of maintenance of the spec ies: it is the unit of human social organization in
terms of which these vital biological activities or functions are performed or carried on. And all such
larger units or forms of human social organization as the clan or the state are ultim ately based upon,
and (whet her directly or indirectly) are devel opments from or extensions of, the family. Clan or tribal
organization is a direct generalization of family organization; and state or natio nal organization is a
direct generalizatio n of clan or tribal organization-hence ultimately, though indirectly, of family
organization also. In short, all organized human society-even in its most complex and highly
deve loped forms-is in a sense merely an extension and ramification of those simple and basic
socio -physiological relations among its individual members (relations between the sexe s resul ting
from their physiological differentiation, and relations betwee n parents and children) upon which it is
founded, and from which it originates.
These socio-physiol ogical impulses on which all socia l organizations are based constitute,
moreover, one of the two poles in the general process of socia l differentiation and evoluti on, by,
expressing them selves in all the complexities of socia l relations and interactions, socia l responses
and activities. They are the essential physiological materials from which human nature is socia lly
formed; so that human nature is someth ing social through and through, and always presu pposes
the truly socia l individual. Indeed, any psychol ogical or philosophical treatment of human natur e
involve s the assumption that the human individual belongs to an organized social community, and
derives his human nature from his socia l interactions and relations with that community as a whole
and with the other individual members of it. The other pole of the general process of social
differentiation and evolution is constitute d by the responses of individuals to the identic al responses
of others, that is, to class or social responses, or to responses of whole organized social groups of
other individuals with reference to given sets of social stimuli, these class or social responses being
the sources and base s and stuff of social institutions. Thus we may call the former pole of the
general process of social differentiation and evolution the Individ ual or physi ological pole, and the
latter pole of this process the instituti onal pole.[2]
I have pointed out that the social organism is used by individuals whose cooperative activity is
esse ntial to the life of the whole. Such social organisms exist outside of the human society. The
insects reveal a very curious devel opment. We are tempted to be anthro pomorphic in our accou nts
of the life of bees and ants, since it seems comparatively easy to trace the organization of the
human community in their organizations. There are different types of individuals with corresponding
functions, and a life-proce ss which seems to deter mine the life of the different individuals. It is
tempt ing to refer to such a lifeprocess as analogous to a human society. We have not, however, any
basis as yet for carry ing out the analogy in this fashion beca use we are unable to identify any
system of communication in insect societi es, and also because the principle of organization in these
communities is a different one from that found in the human community.
The principle of organization among these insects is that of physiological plasticity, giving rise to an
actua l development in the physiological process of a different type of form adjusted to certain
functions. Thus, the who le process of reproduction is carrie d on for the entire community by a single
queen bee or queen ant, a single form with an enormous deve lopment of the reproductive organs,
with the corresponding degeneration of the reproductive organs in other insects in the community.
There is the development of a single group of fighters, a differentiation carrie d so far that they
cann ot feed themselves. This proce ss of physiological deve lopment that makes an individual an
organ in the social whole is quite comparable to the devel opment of different tissues in a
physi ological organism. In a sens e, all of the funct ions which are to be found in a multicellular form
may be found in a single cell. Unicellular forms may carry out the entire vital process; they move, get
rid of their waste products, repro duce. But in a multicellular form there is a differentiation of tissue
forming musc le cells for movement, cells which take in oxygen and pass out waste products, cells
set aside for the process of reproduction. Thus, there results tissue made up of cells which are
differentiated. Likewise there is in a community of ants, or of bees, a physi ological differentiation

among different forms which is comparable to the differentiation of different cells in the tissue of a
multicellular form.
Now, such differentiation is not the principle of organization in human socie ty. There is, of course,
the fundamental distinction of sex which remains a physiological difference, and in the main the
distin ctions betwe en the parent-forms and child-forms are physi ological distinctions, but apart from
these there is practically no physiological distinction betwe en the different individuals that go to
make up the human community. Hence, organization cannot take plac e, as it does in the community
of ants or bees, through physiological differentiation of certain forms into social organs. On the
contrary, all of the individuals have essent ially the same physio logical structu res, and the process of
organization among such forms has to be an entire ly different process from that found among the
insects.
The degree to which insect differentiation can be carried is astonishing. Many of the products of a
high social organizatio n are carried on by these communities. They capture other minute forms
whos e exudations they delight in, and keep them much as we keep milk cows . They have warri or
class es and they seem to carry on raids, and carry off slaves, making later use of them. They can
do what the human society cann ot do: they can determine the sex of the next generation, pick out
and determine who the parent in the next generation will be. We get aston ishing developments
which parallel our own undertakings that we try to carry on in socie ty, but the manner in which they
are carried on is esse ntially different. It is carried on throu gh physi ological differentiation, and we fail
to find in the study of these animals any medium of communication like that throug h which human
organization takes place. Altho ugh we are still very largely in the dark with reference to this social
entity of the beehive or the ant's nest, and although we note an obvious likeness betwe en them and
human society, there is an entirely different system of organizatio n in the two cases.
In both cases there is an organization within which the particular individuals arise and which is a
cond ition for the appearance of the different individuals. There could not be the peculiar
deve lopment found in the beehive except in a bee community. We can in some degree get a
sugg estion for understa nding the evolution of such a social group. We can find solitary forms such
as the bumble-bee, and can more or less profitably speculate as to other forms out of which the
deve lopment of an insect society might take place. Presu mably the finding of a surpl us of food
which these forms could carry over from one generation to another would be a determining factor. In
the life of the solitary form the first generation disappears and the larvae are left behind, so that
there is a complete disappearance of the adults with each appearance of the new generation. In
such organizations as the beehive there arise the cond itions under which, due to the abundance of
food, the forms carry over from one generation to another. Under those conditions a complex social
deve lopment is possible, but dependent still upon physiological differentiation. We have no
evidence of the accruing of an experience which is passed on by means of communication from one
generation to another. Nevertheless, under those cond itions of surplus food this physiological
deve lopment t flowers out in an aston ishing fashion. Such a differentiation as this could only take
place in a community. The queen bee and the fighter among the ants could only arise out of an
insect society . One could not bring togethe r these different individuals and constit ute an insect
society; there has to be an insect society first in order that these individuals might arise.
In the human community we might not seem to have such disparate intelligences of separate
individuals and the development of the individuals out of the social matrix, such as is responsible for
the devel opment of the insects. The human individuals are to a large degree identical; there is no
esse ntial difference of intelligence from the point of view of physiological differentiation betwe en the
sexe s. There are physi ological organisms which are essentially identical, so we do not seem to
have there a social matrix that is responsible for the appearance of the individual. It is because of
such consi derations that a theory has developed that human societies have arise n out of individuals,
not individuals out of society. Thus, the contract theory of society assu mes that the individuals are
first all there as intelligent individuals, as selves, and that these individuals get together and form
society. On this view societies have arisen like business corporations, by the deliberate coming-
togethe r of a group of investors, who elect their officers and constitute them selves a society. The
individuals come first and the societies arise out of the mastery of certai n individuals. The theory is
an old one and in some of its phase s is still current. If, however, the position to which I have been
referring is a correct one, if the individual reaches his self only throu gh communication with others,
only throug h the elaboration of socia l proce sses by means of significant communication, then the
self could not anted ate the social organism. The latter would have to be there first.

A social process is involved in the relation of parents and children among the mammals. There we
start off with the only physical differentiation (except sex) which exists among human individuals,
and these physi ological differences give a basis for the socia l process. Such families can exist
among animals lower than man. Their orga nization is on a physiological basis, that is, one form acts
in a certai n way on account of its physio logical structure and another responds on account of its own
physi ological structure. There must be in that process a gestu re which calls out the respo nse, but
the conversation of gestures is not at this early stage significant. The beginning of communication is
neverthe less there in the process of organization dependent upon the physio logical differences;
there 's also the conflict of individuals with each other, which is not base d necessa rily on
physi ological conditions.
A fight takes place betwee n individuals. There may be a physio logical background such as hunger,
sex rivalry, rivalry in leadership. We can perhaps always find some physio logical back ground, but
the contest is between individuals that stand practically on the same level, and in such conflicts
there is the same conversation of gest ures which I have illustrated in the dog-fight. Thus, we get the
beginnings of the proce ss of communication in the cooperative process, whether of reproduction,
carin g for the young, or fighting. The gestur es are not yet significant symbols, but they do allow of
communication. Back of it lies a socia l process, and a certa in part of it is dependent upon
physi ological differentiation, but the process is one which in addition involves gestur es.
It is seemingly out of this process that there arises significant communication. It is in the process of
communication that there appears another type of individual. This process is, of course, dependent
upon a certain physi ological structure: if the individual was not sensitive to his own stimuli which are
esse ntial to the carrying- out of the response to the other form, such communication could not take
place. In fact we find that in the case of the deaf and dumb, if no care is given to the development of
language, the child does not develop normal human intelligence, but remains on the level of lower
animals. There is then a physiological background for language, but it is not one of physiological
differentiation between the various forms. We all have vocal organs and auditory organs, and in so
far as our development is a normal development, we are all capa ble of influencing ourselves as we
influence others. It is out of this capacity for being influenced by our own gesture as we influence
others that has arise n the peculiar form of the human social organism, made up out of beings that to
that degree are physiologically identical. Certain of the socia l processes within which this
communication takes place are dependent upon physio logical differences, but the individual is not in
the social process differentiated physio logically from other individuals. That, I am insisting,
constitutes the fundamental difference between the societies of the insects and human society.[3] It
is a distinctio n which still has to be made with reservations, beca use it may be that there will be
some way of discovering in the future a language among the ants and bees. We do find, as I have
said, a differentiation of physio logical characters which so far explain the peculiar organization of
these insect societies. Human society, then, is dependent upon the development of language for its
own distin ctive form of organization.
It is tempting to look at the physi ology of the insect as over against the physi ology of the human
form and note its differences. But while it is tempting to speculate on such differences, there is as
yet no adequate basis for generalizatio n in that field. The human form is different from the insect
form. Of course, the ants and bees have brains but they have not anythin g that answ ers to the
cortex. We do recognize that just as we have a type of society built up on this principle of
physi ological differentiation, so we must have a different physiological organization. We get unity
into the varied structures of the human form by means of an additional organ, the brain and the
cortex. There is unity in the insect form by actual collaboration of physiological parts. There is some
physi ological basis back of this, obscure though the details are.[4] It is important to recognize that
the intelligent form does attain the development of intelligence throu gh such an organ as the central
nervou s system with its peculiar deve lopment of the brain and the cortex. The spinal column
represents sets of more or less fixed respo nses. It is the devel opment of the cortex that brings about
all sorts of possible combinations of these numerous but relatively fixed respon ses. By means, then,
of an organ which is superimposed on the central nervous system, connections can be set up
betwee n the different types of responses which arise through the lower system. There thus arises
the almost indefinite multiplicity of the responses of the human organism.
While it is in the devel opment of the brain as such that we get the poss ibility of the appearance of
distin ctively human conduct., human cond uct, if put simply in terms of the stem of the brain and
column, would be very restricted, and the human animal would be a feeble and unimportant animal.

There would not be much he could do. He could run and climb, and eat what he could bring to his
mouth with his hands, in virtue of those reflexes which go back to the original central nervous
system. But a set of combinations of all the different proce sses found there gives an indefinite
number of possible reactions in the activities of the human animal. It is beca use of the variety of
combinations In the connections of the respo nses to stimuli, which take place in the paths that run
into the cortex, that one can make any sort of combination of all the different ways in which a human
being can use his arms, his legs, and the rest of his body.[5]
There is, as we have seen, another very important phase in the development of the human animal
which is perhaps quite as essential as speech for the development of man's peculiar intelligence,
and that is the use of the hand for the isolation of physical things. Speech and the hand go along
togethe r in the development of the social human being. There has to arise self-consciousness for
the whole flower ing-out of intelligence. But there has to be some phase of the act which stops short
of consummation if that act is to devel op intelligently, and language and the hand provide the
nece ssary mechanisms. We all have hands and speech, and are all, as social beings, identical,
intelligent beings. We all have what we term "consciousness" and we all live in a world of things. It is
in such media that human society develops, media entirely different from those within which the
insect society devel ops.
Endnotes
1.On the other hand, the rate of development or evolu tion of human society, since the
emergence of minds and selves out of the human social processes of experience and
behavior, has been tremendously accelerated as a result of that emergence.
Social evolut ion or deve lopment and self-evolution or deve lopment are correlative and
interdependent, once the self has arisen out of the socia l life-process.
2.The selfish versus the unselfish aspects or sides of the self are to be accoun ted for in terms
of the content versus the structu re of the self. We may say, in a sense, that the content of
the self is individual (selfish, therefore, or the source of selfishness), where as the structure
of the self is social – hence unselfish, or the basis of unselfishness.
The relation betwee n the rational or primarily social side of the self and its impulsive or
emotional or primarily anti-social and individual side is such that the latter is, for the most
part, controlled with respe ct to its behavioristic expressions by the former; and that the
conflicts which occur from time to time among its different impulses – or among the various
components of its impulsive side – are settled and reconciled by its rational side.
3.The socia lized human animal takes the attitude of the other toward himself and toward any
given socia l situat ion in which he and other individuals may happen to be placed or
implicated; and he thus identifies himself with the other in that given situat ion, responding
implicitly as the other does or would respo nd explicitly, and governing his own explicit
reacti on accord ingly. The socialized non-human animal, on the other hand, does not take
the attitude of the other toward himself and toward the given social situation in which they
are both involved beca use he is physio logically incapable of doing so; and hence, also, he
cann ot adjustively and cooperatively control his own explicit respo nse to the given social
situati on in terms of an awareness of that attitude of the other, as the socialized human
animal can.
All communication, all convers ations of gestures, among the lower animals, and even
among the members of the more highly devel oped insect societies, is presumably
unco nscious. Hence, it is only in human society – only within the peculiarly complex conte xt
of social relations and intera ctions which the human central nervou s system makes
physi ologically possi ble – that minds arise or can arise; and thus also human beings are
evidently the only biological organisms which are or can be self-conscio us or possessed of
selves.
4.The individual members of even the most advanced inverte brate societies do not possess
sufficient physi ological capac ities for developing minds or selves, consci ousness or
intelligence, out of their socia l relations and interactions with one another; and hence these
societ ies cann ot attain either the degree of complexity which would be presu pposed by the
emergence of minds and selves within them, of the further degree of complexity which would

be possible only if minds and selves had emerged or arisen within them . Only the individual
members of human societi es posse ss the required physi ological capa cities for such social
deve lopment of minds and selves; and hence only human societies are able to reach the
level of complexity, in their structure and organizatio n, which beco mes Possible as a result
of the emergence of minds and selves in their individual members.
5.We have said in general that the limit of poss ible socia l devel opment in any species of
animal organism-the degree of comp lexity of social organization which individuals of that
speci es are capa ble of attaining-is determined by the nature and extent of their relevant
physi ological equipment, their physiological capacities for social behavior; and this limit of
possi ble social deve lopment in the particular case of the human species is deter mined,
theor etica lly at least, by the number of nerve cells or neural elements in the human brain,
and by the cons equent number and diversity of their poss ible combinations and
interr elations with reference to their effect upon, or control of, overt individual behavi or.
All that is innate or hereditary in connection with minds and selves is the physi ological
mechanism of the human centr al nervo us system, by means of which the genesis of minds
and selves out of the human social process of experience and behavior- out of the human
matri x of social relations and interactions-is made biologically poss ible in human individuals.
31. THE BASIS OF HUMAN SOCIET Y: MAN AND THE VERTEBRATES
We have seen that human socie ty is organized on a principle different from the insect societi es,
which are based on physiological differentiation. Human individuals are identical in large respects
with each other and physiologically differentiated relatively slightly. The self-conscious individual
that goes to constitute such a society is not dependent upon the physio logical differentiations, even
wher e they exist, while in the insect community the very existe nce of the communities is dependent
upon such physi ological differentiation. The organizatio n of social attitudes const ituting the structure
and conte nt of the human individual self is effected both in terms of the organization of neural
elements and their interc onnections in the individual's centra l nervous system, and in terms of the
general ordered pattern of socia l or grou p behavior or cond uct in which the individual –as a member
of the society or group of individuals carryi ng on that behavior – is involved.
It is true, also, that many vertebra te forms with the beginnings of a society do not depe nd on
physi ological differentiation. Such societies lower than man are relatively insignificant. The family, of
cours e, is significant, and we can say that the family exists lower than man. There is not only the
nece ssary relati onship of parent and child which is due to the period of infancy, but also the
relationship between the sexe s, which may be relatively permanent, and which leads to an
organization of the family. But there is not found an organizati on of a larger group on the basis
solely of the family organizatio n. The herd, the scho ol of fishes, groups of birds, so far as they form
loose aggr egations, do not arise out of the development of a physio logical function which belongs to
the family. Such herds exhibit what we may call "instinctive relationships," in the sense that the
forms keep togeth er and seem to find in each other a stimulus for carryin g on their own activit y.
Animals in a group will perform the grazi ng functions better than when alone. There seem to be
instin ctive tendencies on the part of these forms to move in the directio n which other animals are
movi ng, such as is found in any grou p of cattle drifting across the prair ie together as they graze. The
movement of one form is a stimulus to the other form to move on in the direction in which the other
form is movi ng. That seems to be about the limit of that phase of herding. There are also forms
huddled together in defense or in attack, as the herd which defends itself against the attack of the
wolves, or the wolves running together in attack ing the herd. But such mechanisms give relatively
slight bases for organization, and they do not enter into the life of the individual so as to determine
that life throughout. The individual is not determined through his relationship to the herd. The herd
comes in as a new sort of orga nization and makes the li fe of the individual possi ble from the point of
view of the defense from an attack, but the actua l processes of eating and of propagation are not
dependent on the herding itself. It does not repres ent such an organizatio n of all the members as to
deter mine the life of the separate members. Still more fundamentally, the family, so far as it exists
among the lower forms, does not come in as that which makes poss ible the structure of the herd as
such. It is true that in this mass ing togeth er of cattle against the attack from outside the young form

is put inside of the circle, and this is a development of the family relation, of that general attitude of
parental care toward the young. But it is not an instinct which is here devel oped definitely into a
process of defense or into a process of attack.
In the case of the human group, on the other hand, there is a devel opment in which the complex
phases of society have arise n out of the organization which the appearance of the self made
possi ble. One perhaps finds in the relationship of the different members of the most primitive group
attitude s of mutual defense and attack. It is likely that such co-operative attitudes, combined with the
attitude s of the family, supply the situations out of which selves arise. Given the self, there is then
the possib ility of the further devel opment of the society on this self-conscious basis, which is so
distin ct from the loose organization of the herd or from the complex socie ty of the insects. It is the
self as such that makes the distinctively human society possi ble. It is true that some sort of
coop erative activit y antedates the self. There must be some loose organization in which the different
organisms work togeth er, and that sort of cooperation in which the gesture of the individual may
beco me a stimulus to himself of the same type as the stimulus to the other form, so that the
conversat ion of gestures can pass over into the conduct of the individual. Such cond itions are
presupposed in the devel opment of the self. But when the self has developed, then a basis is
obtai ned for the devel opment of a socie ty which is different in its chara cter from these other
societ ies to which I have referred.
The family relation, you might say, gives us some suggestion of the sort of organization which
belongs to the insect, for here we have physio logical differentiation between the different members,
the parents and the child. And in the mob we have a reversion to the society of a herd of cattle. A
group of individuals can be stampeded like cattle. But in those two expressions, taken by
them selves and apart from the self, you do not have the structu re of a human society; you could not
make up a human society out of the family as it exists in forms lower than man; you could not make
up human society out of a herd. To suggest this would be to leave out of account the fundamental
organization of human society about a self or selves.
There is, of course, in one sens e, a physiological basis for human society, namely, in the
deve lopment of the central nervou s system, such as belongs to the vertebrates, and which reach es
its highest development in man. Through the organization of the central nervo us system the different
reacti ons of the form may be combined in all sorts o f orders, spati al and temporal, the spinal column
representing a whole series of different possible reactio ns which, when excited, go off by
them selves, while the cortical levels of the central nervous system provi de all sorts of combinations
of these various possi ble reactions. These higher levels of the brain make possible the variety of
activities of the higher vertebrates. Such is the raw stuff, stated in physiological terms, from which
the intelligence of the human social being arise s.
The human being is socia l in a distinguishing fashion. Physiologically he is social in relative ly few
responses. There are, of cours e, fundamental processes of propagation and of the care of the
youn g which have been recognized as a part of the socia l devel opment of human intelligence. Not
only is there a physiological period of infancy, but it is so lengthened that it represents about one-
third of the individual's expectation of life. Corresponding to that period, the parental relation to the
individual has been increased far beyo nd the family; the deve lopment of schools, and of institutio ns,
such as those involved in the churc h and the gover nment, is an exten sion of the parental relation.
That is an external illustration of the indefinite complication of simple physiological processe s. We
take the care of an infant form and look at it from the standpoint of the moth er; we see the care that
is given to the moth er before the birth of the child, the consideration that is given for providing
proper food; we see the way in which the school is carried on so that the beginning of the education
of the child starts with the first year of its life in the formation of habits which are of primary
importance to it; we take into acco unt education in the form of recreation, which comes one way or
another into public control; in all these ways we can see what an elaboration there is of the
immediate care which parents give to children under the most primitive cond itions, and yet it is
nothi ng but a continued complication of sets of processes which belong to the original care of the
child.
This, I say, is an extern al picture of the sort of development that takes place in a central nervo us
system. There arc groups of relative ly simple reactio ns which can be made indefinitely complex by
uniting them with each other in all sorts of orders, and by breaking up a complex reaction,
reconstructi ng it in a different fashion, and uniting it with other processes. Consider the playing of

musical instruments. There is an immediate tende ncy to rhythmic processes, to use the rhythm of
the body to emphasize certain sounds, movements which can be found among the gorillas. Then
comes the possibility of picking to pieces the action of the whole body, the constructio n of elaborate
dances, the relation of the dance to sound which appears in song, phenomena which get their
expression in the great Gree k dram as. These results are then externalized in musical instru ments,
which are in a way replicas of vario us organs of the body. All these external complications are
nothi ng but an exter nalization in society of the sort of complication that exists in the higher levels of
the central nervous system. We take the primitive reacti ons, analyze them, and reconstruct them
under different conditions. That kind of reconstruction takes place through the development of the
sort of intelligence which is identified with the appearance of the self. The institutions of society,
such as libraries, systems of transportation, the complex interr elationship of individuals reached in
political organizatio ns, are nothing but ways of throwi ng on the social screen, so to speak, in
enlarged fashion the complexities existing inside of the central nervo us system, and they must, of
cours e, express functi onally the operation of this system.
The possibility of carrying this elaboration to the extent which has appeared in the human animal
and the correspo nding human society, is to be found in the development of communication in the
cond uct of the self. The arousing of the attitude which would lead to the same sort of actio n as that
which is called out in the other individual makes possible the process of analysis, the breaking-up of
the act itself. In the case of the fencer or boxer, wher e a man makes a certain feint to call out a
certai n response on the part of his opponent, he is at the same time calling out, in so far as he is
awar e of what he is doing, the beginning of the same resp onse in himself. When he is doing that he
is stimulating a certain area in the central nervous system which, if allowed to be the dominant
area., would lead to the individual doing the same thing that his opponent does. He has taken his
activity and isolated that partic ular phase of it, and in isolating that he has also broken up his
response so that the different things he can do are within himself. He has stimulated those areas
which answer to the different parts of the complex process. He can now combine them in various
ways, and his combination of them is a process of reflective intelligence. It is a process which is
illustrated most fully in a chess player. A good chess player has the response of the other person in
his system. He can carry four or five moves ahead in his mind. What he is doing is stimulating
another person to do a thing while he stimulates himself to do the same thing. That enables him to
analyze his mode of attack into its different elements in terms of the respo nses coming from his
opponent and then to reconstruct his own activit y on that basis.
I have stressed the point that the process of communication is nothing but an elaboration of the
pecu liar intelligence with which the vertebrate form is endowed. The mechanism which can analyze
the respo nses, take them to pieces, and reconstruct them, is made poss ible by the brain as-such,
and the process of communication is the means by which this is brought under the control of the
individual himself. He can take his response to pieces and present it to himself as a set of different
thing s he can do under conditions more or less control lable. The process of communication simply
puts the intelligence of the individual at his own disposal. But the individual that has this ability is a
socia l individual. He does not deve lop it by himself and then enter into society on the basis of this
capa city. He becomes such a self and gets such contro l by being a socia l individual, and it is only in
society that he can attain this sort of a self which will make it poss ible for him to turn back on himself
and indicate to himself the different thing s he can do.
The elaboration, then, of the intelligence of the vertebra te form in human society is dependent upon
the devel opment of this sort of social reacti on in which the individual can influence himself as he
influences others. It is this that makes it possible for him to take over and elaborate the attitudes of
the other individuals. He does it in terms of the higher levels of the central nervous system that are
representative of the reactions that take place. The reaction of walking, striking, or any simple
reacti on, belongs to the column at the stem of the brain. What takes place beyond this is simply the
combinations of reactions of this type. When a person goes across the room to take up a book, what
has taken place in his brain has been the conn ection of the processes involved in going across the
room with those in taking up the book. When you take the attitude of another you are simply
arousing the above responses which combine a react ion with different reacti ons to effect the
nece ssary respo nse. The centers involve d in the combining of the respo nses of the lower forms
answ er to the higher mental proce sses, and make possible the elaboration of respo nses in these
complex forms.

The human form has a mechanism for making these combinations within itself. A human individual
is able to indicate to himself what the other person is going to do, and then to take his attitude on the
basis of that indication. He can analyze his act and reconstruct it by means of this process. The sort
of intelligence he has is not based on physio logical differentiation, nor based upon herd instinct, but
upon the devel opment throug h the socia l process which enables him to carry out his part in the
socia l reacti on by indicating to himself the different possible reactio ns, analyzing them, and
recombining them. It is that sort of an individual which makes human society poss ible. The
preceding cons iderations are to be opposed to the utterly illogical type of analysis which deals with
the human individual as if he were physio logically differentiated, simply because one can find a
differentiation of individuals in the human society which can be compared with the differentiation in a
nest of ants. In man the functional differentiation through language gives an entirely different
principle of organizatio n which produces not only a different type of individual but also a different
society.
32. ORG ANIS M, COMMUNITY, AND ENVIRONMENT
I want to take up next the relationship of the organism to the envir onment as this gets expression in
the relation of the community and its envir onment.
We have seen that the individual organism determines in some sense its own envir onment by its
sensit ivity. The only enviro nment to which the organism can react is one that its sensitivity reveals.
The sort of environment that can exist for the organism, then, is one that the organism in some
sens e determines. If in the deve lopment of the form there is an incre ase in the divers ity of sensitivity
there will be an increase in the respo nses of the organism to its enviro nment, that is, the organism
will have a corresp ondingly larger envir onment. There is a direct reactio n of the organism upon the
envir onment which leads to some measure of control. In the matter of food, in the matter of
protecti on against the rain and cold and against enemies, the form does in some sense directly
contro l the environment throu gh its respo nse. Such direct contro l, however, is very slight as
compared with the determination of the enviro nment dependent upon the sensi tivity of the form.
There may be, of cours e, influences which affect the form as a whole which do not answe r to this
type of determination, such as great cataclysms like earth quakes, events which lift the orga nism into
different environments without the sensitivity of the form being itself immediately involved. Grea t
geological changes, such as the gradual advance and disappearance of the glacial epoch, are just
supe rinduced on the organism. The organism cannot control them; they just take place. In that
sens e the environment contro ls the form rather than being controlled by it. Nevertheless, in so far as
the form does respond it does so in virtue of its sensit ivity. In this sens e it selects and picks out what
constitutes its envir onment. It selects that to which it respo nds and makes use of it for its own
purposes purposes involved in its life-proce sses. It utilizes the earth on which it treads and through
which it burrows, and the trees that it climbs; but only when it is sensitive to them. There must be a
relation of stimulus and response; the environment must lie in some sense inside of the act if the
form is to respond to it.
This intimate relati onship of enviro nment and form is something that we need to impress on
ourselves, for we are apt to approach the situation from the standpoint of a preexistent environment
just there, into which the living form enters or within which it happens, and then to think of this
envir onment affecting the form, setting the conditions under which the form can live. In that way
there is set up the problem of an environment within which adjustment is supposed to take place.
This is a natural enough approach from the scientific point of view Of the history of life on the earth.
The earth was there before life appeared, and it remains while different forms pass away and others
come on. We regard the forms that appear in the geological record as incidents, and more or less
accid ental. We can point to a number of critical periods in the history of the earth in which the
appearance of life is dependent upon things that happen, or appear. The forms seem to be quite at
the mercy of the environment. So we state the enviro nment not in terms Of the form but the form in
terms of the enviro nment.
Neverthe less, the only environment to which the form respo nds is the environment which is
predetermined by the sensit ivity of the form and its response to it. It is true that the resp onse may be

one which is unfavorable to the form, but the chan ges that we are interested in are those chan ges of
the form in an enviro nment which it itself does select and which it itself organizes in terms of its own
cond uct. It exists at a distance from objects which are favorable or unfavorable to it, and it measures
the distance in terms of its own move ments toward or away from the objects. That which affects it in
its distant experience is a promise of what will happen after contact takes place. It may be favor able
contact with food, or contact with the jaws of its enemies. It is such resultants which the distant
experience is indicating; this is the way in which an enviro nment exists.
The things we see at a distance are the contacts that we shall get after we move toward the thing.
Our environment exists in a certain sense as hypotheses. "The wall is over there, " means "We have
certai n visua l experiences which promise to us certain contacts of hardness, roughness, coolness."
Every thing that exists about us exists for us in this hypoth etical fashion. Of cours e, the hypotheses
are supported by conduct, by experiment, if you like. We put our feet down with an assur ance born
out of past experience, and we expect the customary result. We are occasionally subject to illusions,
and then we realize that the world that exists about us does exist in a hypothetical fashion. What
comes to us through dista nt experience is a sort of language which reveals to us the probable
experience we should get if we were actual ly to traverse the distance between us and those objects.
The form which has no distant experience, such as an amoeba, or which has such distant
experience involved only functionally, has not the sort of environment that other forms have. I want
to bring this out to emphasize the fact that the environment is in a very real sense determined by the
character of the form. It is possible for us, from the standpoint of our scientific acco unt of the world,
to get outsid e of these envir onments of the different forms and relate them to each other. We there
have a study of environments in their relationship to the forms themselves, and we state our
envir onments first and then relate them to the form. But as far as environments exist for the form
itself they exist in this selected chara cter and as constructed in terms of possi ble responses.[1]
Over against this control which the form exercises on its environment (expressible in terms of
selectio n and organizatio n), there is a further control which I have referred to in a form which does
actua lly determine by its respo nses the objects that exist about it. In so far as an animal digs a hole
or builds a nest, it does get things together so that it makes a house for itself. These actual
constructi ons are of a different character from that sort of contr ol to which I previ ously referred. The
ants, for example, actually keep certai n forms of vegetatio n in their galleries upon which they feed.
This gives a control of the enviro nment that goes beyond those to which we have yet referred, since
it necessitates active responses by the animals determining what the vegeta ble growth will be. Such
actio ns make up a very slight part of the lives of these insects, but they do occur. Tha t sort of control
goes beyond the building of the burrow or the nest, since there is an actual constructio n of the
envir onment within which the animal carries on its life-process. The striking thing about the human
organism is the elaborate extension of control of the type I have just referred to in the case of the
insects.
The envir onment, I have said, is our environment. We see what we can reach, what we can
manipulate, and then deal with it as we come in contact with it. I have emphasized the importance of
the hand in the building-up of this environment. The acts of the living form are those which lead up
to consummations such as that of eating food. The hand comes in between the beginning and the
end of this process. We get hold of the food, we handle it, and so far as our statem ent of the
envir onment is concerned, we can say that we prese nt it to ourselves in terms of the manipulated
object. The fruit that we can have is a thing that we can handle. It may be fruit which we can eat or a
representation of it in wax. The object, however, is a physi cal thing. The world of physic al things we
have about us is not simply the goal of our movement but a world which permits the consummation
of the act. A dog can, of cours e, pick up sticks and bring them back. He can utilize his jaws for
carryin g, but that is the only extension possible beyond their actual utilizatio n for the process of
devo uring. The act is quickly carried throu gh to its consu mmation. The human animal, how ever, has
this implemental stage that comes between the actua l consummation and the beginning of the act,
and the thing appears in that phase of the act. Our environment as such is made up out of physica l
thing s. Our cond uct transl ates the objects to which we respond over into physical things which lie
beyo nd our actual cons ummation of the immediate act. The thing s that we can get hold of, that we
can break up into minute parts, are the things which we reach short of the consummation of the act,
and which we can in some sense manipulate with reference to further activit y. If we spea k now of
the animal as constituting its environment by its sensitivity, by its movements toward the objects, by
its reactions, we can see that the human form constitutes its enviro nment in terms of these physic al
thing s which are in a real sense the products of our own hands. They, of cours e, have the further

adva ntage from the point of view of intelligence that they are implements, thing s we can use. They
come betwixt and between the beginning of the act and its consu mmation, so that we have objects
in terms of which we can express the relation of means to ends. We can analyze our ends in terms
of the means at our disposal. The human hand, backed up, of course, by the indefinite number of
actio ns which the central nervou s system makes possible, is of critical importance in the
deve lopment of human intelligence. It is important that a man should be able to desc end from a tree
(provid ing his ancestors lived in a tree), but it is of greater importance that he should have a thum b
opposite the fingers to grasp and utilize the objects that he needs. We thus break up our world into
physica l objects, into an environment of things that we can manipulate and can utilize for our final
ends and purposes.
Beyo nd this individual function lies the uses to which we put such physical objects in facilitating the
contro l whic h the organized group gets over its world. Reduce this group to its lowest terms -such as
we find in our romances about the cave man-and the things with which it operates are hardly
anythin g more than clubs or stones. Its environment is not so different from the environment of the
animals. But the development of human society on a larger scale has lea to a very complete control
of its environment. The human form establ ishes its own home where it wishe s; builds cities; brings
its water from great distances; estab lishes the vegetati on which shall grow about it; deter mines the
animals that will exist; gets into that struggle which is go ing on now with insect life, determining what
insects shall continue to live; is attempting to determine what microorganisms shall remain in its
envir onment. It determines, by means of its cloth ing and housing, what the temperature shall be
about it; it regulates the exte nt of its environment by means of its meth ods of locomotion. The whole
onward struggle of mankind on the face of the earth is such a determination of the life that shall
exist about it and such a contro l of physical objects as determine and affect its own life. The
community as such creates its envir onment by being sensit ive to it.
We spea k of Darwinian evolution, of the conflict of different forms with each other, as being the
esse ntial part of the problem of development; but if we leave out some of the insects and micro-
organisms, there are no living forms with which the human form in its social capacity is in basic
conflict. We determine what wild life we will keep; we can wipe out all the forms of animal or
vegeta ble life that exist; we can sow what seed we want, and kill or breed what animals we want.
There is no longer a biological environment in the Darwinian sense to set our problem. Of course,
we cannot control the geological forces, the so-called "acts of God." They come in and wipe out
what man has create d. Changes in the solar system can simply annihilate the planet on which we
live; such force s lie outsi de our control. But if we take those forces which we look upon as important
in the development of this spec ies on the face of the globe, they are to a great extent under the
contro l of human society. The problem of the pressur e of population has always played a large part
in the selection of forms that survive. Natur e has to select on the princ iple of overpro duction in order
that there may be, speaking in an anthropomorphic fashion, variati ons, some of which may possess
adva ntages over the others . just as Burrow s used numerous varietie s in his plant experiments in the
hope that some would be of advanta ge, so, speaking anthropomorphically, nature uses variety,
producing more forms that can survi ve in the hope that some super ior form will survi ve. The death-
rate of a certain insect is 99.8, and those forms that survive are of a diminishing number. There
remain problems of population for the human form, but man coul d determine the population which is
to exist in terms of knowledge he already possesses. The problem is in the hands of the community
as far as it reacts intelligently upon its problems. Thus, even those problems which come from within
the community itself can be definitely controlled by the community. It is this control of its own
evolution which is the goal of the deve lopment of human society.
It has been legitimately said that there is not any goal presented in biological evolution, that the
theory of evolution is part of a mechanical theory of nature. Such evolution works, so to speak, from
behind. The explanation is in terms of forces already there, and in this proce ss the particu lar forms
appear which do fit certain situati ons and so survive in the struggle for existence. Such a process of
adaptation is not necessarily a process which picks out what we consi der the more desirable form.
The parasite is definitely a result of evolutionary process. It loses vario us organs because they are
no longer necessary, but it has adapted itself to the life of feeding on the host. We can explain that
from the point of view of evolution. From such a point of view we do not have to regard nature as
producing more and more highly complicated, more perfect forms. The changes are simply
explained by varia tions and adaptation to the situations that arise. There is no necessity of bringing
in an end toward which all creati on moves.

Neverthe less, the human situation which I have just presented does in a certai n sense prese nt an
end, not, if you like, in the physiological sense, but as a deter mination of the process of life on the
surfa ce of the earth . The human society that can itself determine what the conditions are within
which it lives is no longer in a situatio n of simply trying to meet the problems that the enviro nment
presents. If humanity can control its enviro nment, it will in a certai n sense stabilize itself and reach
the end of a process of deve lopment, except in so far as the socie ty goes on deve loping in this
process of contro lling its own envir onment. We do not have to devel op a new form with hairy
coverin g to live in cold climates; we can simply produce cloth es which enable the explorers to go to
the North Pole. We can determine the conditions under which the heat of the tropics shall be made
endurable. We can, by putting a wire into the wall of a room, raise or lower the temperature. Even in
the case of the microorganisms, if we can control these, as human society in part does, we have
deter mined not only what the envir onment is in its immediate relation to us, but also what the
physica l environment is in its influence on the form; and that would produce a terminus as a goal of
evolution.
We are so far away from any actual final adjustment of this sort that we correctly say that the
evolution of the social organism has a long road ahead of it. But supposing it had attained this goal,
had determined the conditions within which it could live and reproduce itself, then the further
chan ges in the human form would no longer take place in terms of the principles that have
deter mined biological evolution. The human situati on is a devel opment of the control which all living
forms exerc ise over their environment in selectio n and in organization, but the human society has
reached an end which no other form has reached, that of actually deter mining, within certa in limits,
what its inorganic envir onment will be. We cann ot transp ort ourselves to other planets, or determine
what the movements of the solar system will be (possible changes of that sort lie beyond any
conc eivable control of the human organism); but apart from such limits, those forces which affect
the life of the form and can conceivably change it in the Darwinian sense have come under the
contro l of the society itself, and, in so far as they come under the exercised control of the society,
human society prese nts an end of the process of organic evolution. It is needless to add that, so far
as the devel opment of human society is concerned, the process itself is a long way from its goal.
Endnotes
1.(For the relation of the world of common experience and of science, see The Philosophy of
the Act, Part II.) [Editors ' note: This is a referen ce to a book which would not be published
for another six years and may represent a revision after the first printing of Mind Self and
Society]
33. THE SOCIAL FOUNDA TIONS AND FUNCTIONS OF THOUGHT AND COMMUNICATIO N
In the same socio-physiological way that the human individual becomes conscious of himself he
also becomes consc ious of other individuals; and his consci ousness both of himself and of other
individuals is equally important for his own self-development and for the development of the
organized society or socia l group to which he belongs.
The principle which I have suggested as basic to human social organization is that of
communication involving partici pation in the other. This requires the appearance of the other in the
self, the identification of the other with the self, the reaching of self-consci ousness throu gh the other.
This participation is made poss ible throu gh the type of communication which the human animal is
able to carry out – a type of communication distinguished from that which takes place among other
forms which have not this principle in their societies. I discussed the sentinel, so-cal led, that may be
said to communicate his discovery of the danger to the other members, as the clucking of the hen
may be said to communicate to the chick. There are conditions under which the gestur e of one form
serves to place the other forms in the proper attitude toward exter nal conditions. In one sense we
may say the one form communicates with the other, but the difference betwe en that and self-
consc ious communication is evident. One form does not know that communication is taking place
with the other. We get illustrations of that in what we term mob-consc iousness , the attitude which an

audience will take whe n under the influence of a great spea ker. One is influenced by the attitudes of
those about him, which are reflected back into the different members of the audience so that they
come to respo nd as a whole. One feels the general attitude of the whole audience. There is then
communication in a real sense, that is, one form communicates to the other an attitude which the
other assum es toward a certain part of the environment that is of importance to them both. That
level of communication is found in forms of society which are of lower type than the social
organization of the human group.
In the human group, on the other hand, there is not only this kind of communication but also that in
which the person who uses this gesture and so communicates assumes the attitude of the other
individual as well as calling it out in the other. He himself is in the rôle of the other person whom he
is so exciting and influencing. It is through taking this rôle of the other that he is able to come back
on himself and so direct his own process of communication. This taking the rôle of the other, an
expression I have so often used, is not simply of passing importance. It is not somet hing that just
happens as an incidental result of the gestur e, but it is of importance in the development of
coop erative activity. The immediate effect of such rôle-taking lies in the contro l which the individual
is able to exercise over his own response.[1] The control of the action of the individual in a
coop erative proce ss can take place in the conduct of the individual himself if he can take the rôle of
the other. It is this control of the response of the individual himself through taking the rôle of the
other that leads to the value of this type of communication from the point of view of the organizat ion
of the conduct in the group. It carries the process of cooperative activity farthe r than it can be carried
in the herd as such, or in the insect society.
And thus it is that social control, as operating in terms of self-criticis m, exerts itself so intimately and
extensively over individual behavior or conduct, serving to integrate the individual and his actions
with reference to the organized socia l process of experience and behavior in which he is implicated.
The physiological mechanism of the human individual's central nervous system makes it poss ible
for him to take the attitudes of other individuals' and the attitudes of the organized social group of
which he and they are members, toward himself, in terms of his integrated social relations to them
and to the group as a whole; so that the general socia l process of experience and behavior which
the group is carrying on is directly pres ented to him in his own experience, and so that he is thereby
able to gover n and direct his conduct consci ously and critica lly, with reference to his relations both
to the social group as a whole and to its other individual members, in terms of this socia l process.
Thus he beco mes not only self-conscious but also self-critical; and thus, throu gh self-criticism,
socia l control over individual beha vior or conduct operates by virtue of the socia l origin and basis of
such criticism . That is to say, self-criticism is essentially social criticism, and behavi or controlled by
self-criticism is esse ntially behavior contr olled socia lly.[2] Hence social contro l, so far from tendi ng
to crush out the human individual or to obliterate his self-consci ous individuality, is, on the contrary,
actua lly constitutive of and inextricably associated with that individuality; for the individual is what he
is, as a conscious and individual personality, just in as far as he is a member of society, involved in
the social process of experience and activit y, and thereby socially controlled in his conduct.

The very organization of the self-conscious community is dependent upon individuals taking the
attitude of the other individuals. The devel opment of this proce ss, as I have indicated, is dependent
upon getting the attitude of the group as distinct from that of a separate individual-getting what I
have termed a "generalized other." I have illustrated this by the ball game, in which the attitudes of a
set of individuals are involved in a cooperative response in which the different rôles involve each
other. In so far as a man takes the attitude of one individual in the group, he must take it in its
relationship to the actio n of the other members of the group; and if he is fully to adjust himself, he
would have to take the attitudes of all involved in the process. The degree, of cours e, to which he
can do that is restrain ed by his capacity, but still in all intelligent processes we are able sufficiently to
take the rôles of those involve d in the activity to make our own action intelligent. The degree to
which the life of the whole community can get into the self-conscious life of the separate individuals
varies enormously. History is largely occu pied in tracin g out the development which could not have
been present in the actual experience of the members of the community at the time the historian is
writin g about. Such an account explains the importance of history. One can look back over that
which took place, and bring out changes, force s, and interests which nobody at the time was
consc ious of. We have to wait for the historian to give the picture because the actual process was
one which transcended the experience of the separate individuals.

Occasio nally a person arises who is able to take in more than others of an act in proce ss, who can
put himself into relati on with whole groups in the community whose attitudes have not entered into
the lives of the others in the community. He becomes a leader. Classes unde r a feudal order may
be so separate from each other that, while they can act in certai n traditio nal circu mstances, they
cann ot understand each other; and then there may arise an individual who is capa ble of enter ing
into the attitudes of the other members of the group. Figures of that sort become of enormous
importance because they make possi ble communication betwe en groups otherw ise completely
sepa rated from each other. The sort of capacity we speak of is in politics the attitude of the
statesman who is able to enter into the attitudes of the group and to mediate betwee n them by
making his own experience universa l, so that others can enter into this form of communication
throu gh him.
The vast importance of media of communication such as those involve d in journalism is seen at
once, since they report situations through which one can enter into the attitude and experience of
other persons. The drama has serve d this function in pres enting what have been felt to be important
situati ons. It has picked out characters which lie in men's minds from tradition, as the Greeks did in
their tragedies, and then expressed throu gh these characters situations which belong to their own
time but which carry the individuals beyo nd the actual fixed walls which have arisen betwee n them,
as members of different classes in the community. The deve lopment of this type of communication
from the drama into the novel has histor ically something of the same importance as journalism has
for our own time. The novel presents a situatio n which lies outside of the immediate purview of the
reader in such form that he enters into the attitude of the group in the situati on. There is a far higher
degree of partici pation, and cons equently of possible communication, under those cond itions than
otherwi se. There is involved, of course, in such a development the existence of common interests.
You cannot build up a society out of elements that lie outside of the individual's life-processes. You
have to presu ppose some sort of cooperation within which the individuals are them selves actively
involve d as the only possible basis for this participation in communication. You cannot start to
communicate with people in Mars and set up a society when you have no antece dent relationship.
Of course, if there is an already existing community in Mars of the same character as your own, then
you can possibly carry on communication with it; but a community that lies entirely outside of your
own community, that has no common interest, no cooperative activity, is one with which you could
not communicate.
In human society there have arisen certa in univers al forms which found their expression in univers al
religions and also in univers al economic proce sses. These go back, in the case of religion, to such
fundamental attitudes of human beings toward each other as kindliness, helpfulness, and
assistan ce. Such attitudes are involved in the life of individuals in the group, and a generalizatio n of
them is found back of all universal religions. These processes are such that they carry with them
neighborliness and, in so far as we have co-operative activit y, assista nce to those in trouble and in
suffering. The fundamental attitude of helping the other person who is down, who finds himself in
sickness or other misfortune, belongs to the very structure of the individuals in a human community.
It can be found even under conditions where there is the opposing attitude of complete hostility, as
in giving assistance to the wounded enemy in the midst of a battle. The attitude of chivalry, or the
mere breaking of bread with another, identifies the individual with the other even if he is an enemy.
Those are situations in which the individual finds himself in an attitude of coop eration; and it is out of
situati ons like that, out of universa l cooperative activity, that the universa l religions have arise n. The
deve lopment of this fundamental neighborliness is expressed in the parable of the good Samaritan.
On the other hand, we have a fundamental process of exchange on the part of individuals arising
from the goods for which they have no immediate need themselves but which can be utilized for
obtai ning that which they do need. Such exchange can take place whereve r individuals who have
such surpl uses are able to communicate with each other. There is a partic ipation in the attitude of
need, each putting himself in the attitude of the other in the recognition of the mutual value which
the exchange has for both. It is a highly abstract relationship, for something which one cannot
himself use brings him into relationship with anybody else in exchange. It is a situation which is as
universal as that to which we have referred in the case of neighborliness. These two attitudes
represent the most highly universal, and, for the time being, most highly abstract socie ty. They are
attitude s which can transcend the limits of the different socia l groups organized about their own life-
processes, and may appear even in actual hostility betwe en groups. In the process of exchange or
assistan ce persons who would be otherwi se hostile can come into an attitude of cooperative activity.

Back of these two attitudes lies that which is involved in any genuine communication. It is more
universal in one respect than religious and economic attitudes, and less in another. One has to have
someth ing to communicate before communicating. One may seemingly have the symbol of another
language, but if he has not any common ideas (and these involve common responses) with those
who speak that language, he cannot communicate with them; so that back even of the process of
disco urse must lie coop erative activity. The proce ss of communication is one which is more
universal than that of the universal religion or universa l economic process in that it is one that
serves them both. Those two activities have been the most univers al cooperative activities. The
scient ific community is one which has come to be perhaps as universal in one sense, but even it
cann ot be found among people who have no conscious signs or literature. The process of
communication is, then, in one sens e more universal than these different cooperative processes. It
is the medium throug h which these cooperative activities can be carried on in the self-conscious
society. But one must recognize that it is a medium for cooperative activities; there is not any field of
thought as such which can simply go on by itself. Thinking is not a field or realm which can be taken
outsi de of possible social uses. There has to be some such field as religion or economics in which
there is someth ing to communicate, in which there is a cooperative process, in which what is
communicated can be socially utilized. One must assume that sort of a coop erative situation in
order to reach what is called the "universe of disco urse." Such a universe of discourse is the
medium for all these different social processes, and in that sens e it is more univers al than they; but
it is not a process that, so to speak, runs by itself.
It is necessary to emphasize this because philosophy and the dogmas that have gone with it have
set up a process of thou ght and a thinking substa nce that is the antecedent of these very processes
within which thinking goes on. Thinking, how ever, is nothing but the response of the individual to the
attitude of the other in the wide social process in which both are involved, and the directing of one's
antici patory action by these attitude s of the others that one does assum e. Since that is what the
process of thinking consi sts in, it cannot simply run by itself.
I have been looking at language as a principle of social organization which has made the
distin ctively human society possi ble. Of course, if there are inhabitants in Mars , it is possible for us
to enter into communication with them in as far as we can enter into social relations with them. If we
can isolate the logical constants which are esse ntial for any process of thinking, presumably those
logical constants would put us into a positi on to carry on communication with the other community.
They would constitute a common socia l process so that one could possibly enter into a social
process with any other being in any historical period or spatial position. By means of thoug ht one
can project a society into the future or past, but we are always presupposing a social relationship
within which this process of communication takes place. The process of communication cann ot be
set up as some thing that exists by itself, or as a presupposition of the social process. On the
contrary, the social process is presupposed in order to render thought and communication poss ible.
Endnotes
1.From the standpoint of social evolution, it is this bringing of any given social act, or of the
total social process in which that act is a constituent, directly and as an organized whole into
the experience of each of the individual organisms implicated in that act, with reference to
which he may cons equently regulate and gover n his individual conduct, that constitutes the
pecu liar value and significance of self-consciousness in these individual organisms.
We have seen that the process or activit y of think ing is a conversation carried on by the
individual betwe en himself and the generalized other; and that the general form and subject
matter of this conversati on is given and determined by the appearance in experience of
some sort of problem to be solve d. Human intelligence, which expresses itself in thoug ht, is
recognized to have this character of facing and dealing with any problem of enviro nmental
adjustment which confr onts an organism. poss essing it. And thus, as we have also seen, the
esse ntial characteri stic of intelligent behavior is delayed responses – a halt in behavior while
thinking is going on; this delayed response and the thinking for the purposes of which it is
delayed (including the final selection, as the result of the thinking, of the best or most
expedient among the severa l resp onses possible in the given enviro nmental situatio n) being
made possi ble physiologically through the mechanism of the central nervous system, and
socia lly through the mechanism of language.

2.Freud's conception of the psycho logical "censor" represents a partial recog nition of this
operation of socia l contr ol in terms of self-criticism, a recognition, namely, of its operation
with reference to sexual experience and conduct. But this same sort of' censorship or
criticis m of himself by the individual is reflected also in all other aspects of his social
experience, behavior, and relations-a fact which follows naturally and inevita bly from our
socia l theory of the self.
34. THE COMMUNITY AND THE INST ITUTION[1]
There are what I have termed "generalized social attitudes" which make an organized self possible.
In the community there are certain ways of acting under situations which are esse ntially identical,
and these ways of actin g on the part of anyone are those which we excite in others when we take
certai n steps. If we assert our rights, we are calling for a definite response just because they are
rights that are universal-a respo nse which everyone should, and perhaps will, give. Now that
response is present in our own nature; in some degree we are ready to take that same attitude
toward somebody else if he makes the appeal. When we call out that response in others, we can
take the attitude of the other and then adjust our own conduct to it. There are, then, whole series of
such common responses in the community in which we live, and such responses are what we term
"instituti ons." The institutio n represents a common response on the part of all members of the
community to a particular situat ion. This common response is one which, of course, varies with the
character of the individual. In the case of theft the response of the sheriff is different from that of the
attorney- general, from that of the judge and the jurors, and so forth; and yet they all are responses
which maintain property, which involve the recognition of the property right in others. There is a
common response in varied forms . And these variations, as illustrate d in the different officials, have
an organization which gives unity to the variety of the responses. One appeals to the policeman for
assistan ce, one expects the state's attorney to act, expects the court and its vario us functionaries to
carry out the process of the trial of the criminal. One does take the attitude of all of these different
officials as involved in the very maintenance of property; all of them as an organized process are in
some sense found in our own natures. When we arouse such attitudes, we are taking the attitude of
what I have termed a " generalized other." Such organized sets of response are related to each
other; if one calls out one such set of respo nses, he is implicitly calling out others as well.
Thus the institutions of society are organized forms of group or social activit y-forms so organized
that the individual members of society can act adequately and socially by taking the attitudes of
others toward these activities. Oppressi ve, stereotyped, and ultra-conse rvative social institutions-like
the church-which by their more or less rigid and inflexible unprogressiveness crush or blot out
individuality, or disco urage any distin ctive or original expressions of thought and behavior in the
individual selves or personalities implicated in and subjected to them, are undesirable but not
nece ssary outco mes of the general socia l process of experience and behavior. There is no
nece ssary or inevita ble reaso n why socia l institutions should be oppressive or rigidly cons ervative,
or why they should not rather be, as many are, flexible and progressive, foster ing individuality rather
than discouraging it. In any case, without socia l instituti ons of some sort, witho ut the organized
socia l attitudes and activities by which social institutions are constituted, there could be no fully
matu re individual selves or personalities at all; for the individuals involved in the general socia l life-
process of which social institutions are organized manifestations can deve lop and possess fully
matu re selves or perso nalities only in so far as each one of them reflects or prehends in his
individual experience these organized social attitudes and activities which social institutions embody
or represent. Social institutio ns, like individual selves, are developments within, or partic ular and
formalized manifestations of, the social life-process at its human evolutionary level. As such they
are not necessarily subversiv e of individuality in the individual members; and they do not necessarily
represent or uphold narrow definitions of certain fixed and spec ific patterns of acting which in any
given circu mstances should character ize the behavior of all intelligent and socially responsible
individuals (in opposition to such unintelligent and socially irresponsible individuals as morons and
imbeciles), as members of the given community or social group. On the contrary, they need to
define the social, or socia lly responsible, patterns of individual cond uct in only a very broad and
general sense, affording plenty of scop e for originality, flexibility, and variety of such conduct; and as
the main formalized functional aspects or phases of the whole organized structure of the social life-

process at its human level they properly parta ke of the dyna mic and progressive chara cter of that
process.[2]
There are a great number of institutio nalized responses which are, we often say, arbitrary, such as
the manners of a particu lar community. Manners in their best sense, of course, cann ot be
distin guished from morals, and are nothing but the expression of the courtesy of an individual
toward people about him. They ought to express the natura l courtesy of everyone to everyone else.
There should be such an expression, but of course a great many habits for the expression of
courtesy are quite arbitrary. The ways to greet people are different in different communities; what is
appropriate in one may be an offense in another. The question arise s whether a certai n manner
which expresses a courteous attitude may be what we term "conven tional." In answer to this we
propose to distinguish betwe en manners and conv entions. Conventions are isolated social
responses which woul d not com e into, or go to make up, the nature of the community in its esse ntial
character as this expresses itself in the social reactio ns. A source of confusion would lie in
identifying manners and morals with conve ntions, since the former are not arbitrary in the sens e that
convent ions are. Thus cons ervatives identify what is a pure convention with the essence of a social
situati on; nothing must be changed. But the very distinction to which I have referred is one which
implies that these various institutions, as socia l responses to situations in which individuals are
carryin g out social acts, are organically related to each other in a way which conv entions are not.

Such interrelation is one of the points which is brought out, for example, in the economic
interpretation of history. It was first presented more or less as a party doctri ne by the Marxian
socia lists, implying a particular economic interp retati on. It has now passed over into the historian's
techn ique with a recognition that if he can get hold of the real economic situation, which is, of
cours e, more accessi ble than most socia l expressions, he can work out from that to the other
expressions and institutio ns of the community. Medieval economic institutions enable one to
interpret the other instituti ons of the period. One can get at the econ omic situation directly and,
following that out, can find what the other institutions were, or must have been. Institutions,
manners, or words, present in a certain sense the life-habits of the community as such; and when all
individual acts toward others in, say, econ omic terms, he is calling out not simply a single response
but a whole group of related respo nses.
The same situation preva ils in a physiological organism. If the balance of a person who is standing
is distur bed, this calls for a readjustment which is possible only in so far as the affected parts of the
nervou s system lead to certai n definite and interconnected responses. The different parts of the
reacti on can be isolated, but the organism has to act as a whole. Now it is true that an individual
living in society lives in a certai n sort of organism which reacts toward him as a whole) and he calls
out by his action this more or less organized response. There is perhaps under his attentio n only
some very minor fraction of this organized respo nse-he consi ders, say, only the pass age of a
certai n amount of money. But that exchange could not take place without the entire econ omic
organization, and that in turn involves all the other phases of the group life. The individual can go
any time from one phase to the others, since he has in his own nature the type of response which
his actio n calls for. In taking any institutionalized attitude he organizes in some degree the whole
socia l process, in proportion as he is a complete self.
The getting of this social response into the individual constitutes the process of education which
takes over the cultural media of the community in a more or less abstract way.[3] Educ ation is
definitely the proce ss of taking over a certain organized set of respo nses to one's own stimulation;
and until one can respo nd to himself as the community respo nds to him, he does not genuinely
belong to the community. He may belong to a small community, as the small boy belongs to a gang
rather than to the city in which he lives. We all belong to small cliques, and we may remain simply
inside of them. The "organized other" present in ourse lves is then a community of a narrow
diameter. We are struggling now to get a certa in amount of international-mindedness. We are
realizing ourselves as members of a larger community. The vivid nationalism of the present period
shou ld, in the end, call out an intern ational attitude of the larger community. The situation is
analogous to that of the boy and the gang; the boy gets a larger self in proportion as he enters into
this larger community. In general, the self has answer ed definitely to that organization of the social
response which constitutes the community as such; the degree to which the self is deve loped
depends upon the community, upon the degree to which the individual calls out that institutio nalized

group of respon ses in himself. The criminal as such is the individual who lives in a very small grou p,
and then makes depredations upon the larger community of which he is not a member. He is taking
the property that belongs to others, but he himself does not belong to the community that recognizes
and preserves the rights of property.
There is a certain sort of organized response to our acts which represents the way in which people
react toward us in certai n situatio ns. Such responses are in our nature because we act as members
of the community toward others, and what I am emphasizing now is that the organization of these
responses makes the community poss ible.
We are apt to assu me that our estimate of the value of the community shou ld depend upon its size.
The American worships bigness as over against qualitative socia l conte nt. A little community such
as that of Athens produced some of the greatest spiritu al products which the world has ever seen;
contrast its achievements with those of the United States, and there is no need to ask whether the
mere bigness of the one has any relati onship to the qualitative content s of the achievements of the
other. I wish to bring out the implicit universality of the highly developed, highly organized
community. Now, Athens as the home of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the seat of a great
meta physical deve lopment in the same period, the birthplace of political theor ists and great
dramatists, actually belongs to the whole world. These qualitative achievements which we ascri be to
a little community belong to it only in so far as it has the organization that makes it unive rsal. The
Athenian community rested upon slave labor and upon a political situatio n which was narrow and
contracte d, and that part of its social organization was not unive rsal and could not be made the
basis for a large community. The Roman Empire disintegrated very largely beca use its whole
econ omic structure was laid on the basis of slave labor. It was not organized on a universal basis.
From the legal standpoint and administrative organization it was universal, and just as Gree k
philosophy has come down to us so has Roman law. To the degree that any achievement of
organization of a community is successf ul it is universa l, and makes possible a bigger community. In
one sens e there cannot be a community which is larger than that represented by ration ality, and the
Gree k brou ght ration ality to its self-conscious expression.[4] In that same sense the gospel of Jesus
brought definitely to expression the attitude of neighborliness to which anyone could appeal, and
provi ded the soil out of which could arise a universal religion. That which is fine and admirable is
universal -although it may be true that the actual society in which the univers ality can get its
expression has not arisen.
Politically, America has, in a certain sense, given universality to what we term "self-government."
The socia l organization of the Midd le Ages existed under feudalism and craft guilds. The immediate
socia l organizations in which there was self-govern ment were all partic ular provisional guilds or
partic ular communities. What has happened in America is that we have generalized the principle of
self-government so that it is the essential agency of political contro l of the whole community. If that
type of control is made poss ible there is theoretically no limit to the size of the community. In that
sens e alone would political bigness beco me an expression of the achievement of the community
itself.
The organizatio n, then, of social responses makes it poss ible for the individual to call out in himself
not simply a single response of the other but the response, so to speak, of the community as a
whole. That is what gives to an individual what we term "mind." To do anythi ng now means a certain
organized respo nse; and if one has in himself that respo nse, he has what we term "mind." We refer
to that respo nse by the symbols which serve, as the means by which such resp onses are called out.
To use the terms "government," "prop erty," "family," is to bring out, as we say, the meaning they
have. Now, those meanings rest upon certai n responses. A person who has in himself the universal
response of the community toward that whic h he does, has in that sense the mind of the community.
As a scientist) we will say, one's community consists of an his colleagues, but this community
includes anyone who can understand what is said. The same is true of literatur e. The size of its
audience is a functional one; if the achievement of organizatio n is obtained, it may be of any size.
Bigness may in this sense be an indication of qualitative achievement. That which is great is always
in one sense objective, it is always universal. The mental development of the individual cons ists in
gettin g in himself these organized respo nses in their implicated relationships to each other.
The rational phas e of it, that which goes with what we term "language," is the sym bol; and this is the
means, the mech anism, by which the response is carried out. For effective coop eration one has to
have the symbols by means of which the responses can be carried out, so that getting a significant

language is of first importance. Language implies organized responses; and the value, the
implication of these responses, is to be found in the comm unity from which this organization of
responses is taken over into the nature of the individual himself. The significant symbol is nothing
but that part of the act which serves as a gesture to call out the other part of the process, the
response of the other, in the experience of the form that makes the gesture. The use of symbols is
then of the highest importance, even when carried to the point attained in mathematics, wher e one
can take the symbols and simply combine them in accor dance with the rules of the mathematical
community to which they belong without knowing what the symbols mean. In fact, in such fields one
has to abstract from the meaning of the symbols; there is here a process of carryin g on the rational
process of reaso ning without knowing what the meaning is. We are dealing with x and y, and how
these can be combined with each other; we do not know in advance to what they apply. Although
symbols under certain cond itions can be handled in such a fashion, we do, after all, bring them to
earth and apply them. The symbols as such are simply ways of calling out responses. They are not
bare words, but words that do answer to certain responses; and when we combine a certai n set of
symbols, we inevitably combine a certai n set of respo nses.
This brings up again the problem of the universal. In so far as the individual takes the attitude of the
other that symbol is universal, but is it a true universal whe n it is so limited? Can we get beyond that
limitation? The logicians' universe of disco urse lays plain the extent of univers ality. In an earlier
stage that universa lity was supposed to be represented in a set of logical axioms, but the supposed
axioms have been found to be not universal. So that, in fact, "unive rsal" disco urse to be universal
has had to be continually revised. It may represent those rational beings with whom we are in
contact, and there is potential universality in such a world as that. Such would be, I suppose, the
only universal that is involved in the use of significant symbols. If we can get the set of significant
symbols which have in this sense a universa l meaning, anyone that can talk in that language
intelligently has that universality. Now, there is no limitation exce pt that a person should talk that
language, use the symbols which carry those significations; and that gives an absolute universality
for anyone who enters into the language. There are, of course, different universes of discourse, but
back of all, to the extent that they are potentially comprehensible to each other, lies the logicians'
universe of discourse with a set of constants and propositional functions, and anyone using them
will belong to that same universe of discou rse. It is this which gives a potential universality to the
process of communication.[5]
I have tried to bring out the position that the society in which we belong represents an organized set
of responses to certain situations in which the individual is involve d, and that in so far as the
individual can take those organized responses over into his own nature, and call them out by means
of the symb ol in the social response, he has a mind in which mental processe s can go on, a mind
whos e inner structure he has taken from the community to which he belongs.
It is the unity of the whole socia l proce ss that is the unity of the individual, and socia l control over the
individual lies in this common process which is going on, a process which differentiates the
individual in his partic ular function while at the same time control ling his reacti on. It is the ability of
the person to put himself in other people's places that gives him his cues as to what he is to do
under a speci fic situation. It is this that gives to the man what we term his character as a member of
the community; his citizenship, from a political standpoint; his membership from any one of the
different standpoints in which he belongs to the community. It makes him a part of the community,
and he recognizes himself as a member of it just because he does take the attitude of those
conc erned, and does control his own conduct in terms of common attitudes.
Our membership in the society of human beings is some thing that calls out very little attention on
the part of the avera ge individual. He is seldom content to build up a religion on the basis of human
society in and of itself with nothi ng else added -the wider the extent of a religion, the fewer the
people who consciously belong to it, We have not taken very seriously our membership in the
human society, but it is becoming more real to us. The World War has shaken down a great many
values; and we realize that what takes place in India, in Afghanistan, iii Mesop otamia, is entering
into our lives, so that we are getting what we term "international mindedness." We are reacting in a
way that answers to the respo nses of people on the other side of the human group.
The questio n whether we belong to a larger community is answered in terms of wheth er our own
actio n calls out a response in this wider community, and whether its response is reflected back into
our own conduct. Can we carry on a conversation in international terms?[6] The question is largely

a question of social organizatio n. The necessary responses have beco me more definitely a part of
our experience because we are getting closer to other peoples than before. Our economic
organization is getting more and more work ed out, so that the goods we sell in South America, in
India, in China, are definitely affecting our lives. We have to be on good terms with our customers; if
we are going to carry on a successful economic policy in South America, we must explain what is
the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine, and so on and on.
We are getting to realize more and more the whole society to which we belong because the social
organization is such that it brings out the response of the other person to our own act not only in the
other perso n but also in ourse lves. Kipling says: "East is East, and West is West, and never the
twain shall meet"; but they are meeting. The assu mption has been that the respo nse of the East to
the West and of the West to the East are not comp rehensible to each other. But, in fact, we find that
we are awakening, that we are beginning to interchange rôles. A process of organization is going on
underneath our conscious experience, and the more this organizatio n is carrie d out the closer we
are brought together. The more we do call out in ourse lves the response which our gestures call out
in the other, the more we understand him.
There is, of course, back of all this a larger community referred to in religious terms as a "blesse d
community," the community of a universal religion. But that, too, rests on co-operative activities. An
illustration is that of the good Samaritan, where Jesus took people and show ed that there was
distress on the part of one which called out in the other a respo nse which he understo od; the
distress of the other was a stimulus, and that stimulus called out the respo nse in his own nature.
This is the basis of that fundamental relationship which goes under the name of "neighborliness." It
is a response which we all make in a certain sens e to everybo dy. The perso n who is a stranger calls
out a helpful attitude in ourselves, and that is anticipated in the other. It makes us all akin. It
provi des the common human nature on which the universa l religions are all built. However, the
situati ons under which that neighborliness may express itself are very narrow; and conse quently
such religions as are built up on it have to restrict human lives to just a few relationships, such as
sympathy in distress, or limit themselves to expressing the emotional sides of human natur e. But if
the social relation can be carried on further and further then you can conc eivably be a neighbor to
everybo dy in your block, in your community, in the world, since you are brought much close r to the
attitude of the other when this attitude is also called out in yourself. What is essential is the
deve lopment of the whol e mechanism of socia l relationship which brings us tog ether, so that we can
take the attitude of the other in our various life-processes.
The human individual who poss esse s a self is always a member of a larger socia l community, a
more exten sive socia l group, than that in which he immediately and directly finds himself, or to
which he immediately and directly belongs. In other words, the general pattern of social or group
behavior which is reflected in the respective organized attitudes-the respe ctive integr ated structures
of the selves-of the individuals involved, always has a widcr reference, for those individuals, than
that of its direct relation to them, namely, a reference beyond itself to a wider social envir onment or
conte xt of social relationships which includes it, and of which it is only a more or less limited part.
And their aware ness of that reference is a cons equence of their being sentie nt or consc ious beings,
or of their having minds, and of the activities of reasoning which they hence carry on.[7]
Endnotes
1.[See "Natural Rights and the Theory of the Political Institutio n," Journal of Philosophy, XII
(1915), 141 ff.]
2.Human society , we have insisted, does not merely stam p the pattern of its organized social
behavior upon any one of its individual members, so that this pattern beco mes likewise the
pattern of the individual's self; it also, at the same time, gives him a mind, as the means or
ability of consci ously conversing with himself in terms of the social attitudes which constitute
the structure of his self and which embody the pattern of human society's organized
behavior as reflected in that structure. And his mind enables him in turn to stamp the pattern
of his further developing self (further deve loping through his mental activity) upon the
structure or orga nization of human society, and thus in a degree to reco nstruct and modify in
terms of his self the general pattern of social or group behavior in terms of which his self
was originally constitute d.

3.[Amo ng some eighteen notes, editorials, and articles on education attention may be called to
the following: "The Relation of Play to Education," University of Chicago Record, I (1896),
140 ff.; "The Teac hing of Science in College," Science, XXIV (1906), 390 ff.; "Psycho logy of
Social Consciousness Implied in Instruction," ibid., XXXI (1910), 688 ff.; "Industrial
Education and Trade Schools," Elementary Scho ol Teacher, VIII (1908), 402 ff.; "Industri al
Education and the Working Man and the School," ibid., IX (1909), 369 ff., "On the Problem
of History in the Elementary School," ibid., 433; "Moral Train ing in the Schools," ibid., 327 ff.;
"Scie nce in the High Scho ol," School Review, XIV (1906), 237 ff. See Bibliography at end of
volume.]
4.Plato held that the city-state was the best-if not, indeed, the only practicable or feasible-type
of state or social organization; and Aristo tle agreed. Accord ing to Plato, moreover, the
complete socia l isolation of any one city-state from the rest of the world was desirable.
Aristotle, on the other hand, did recognize the necessity for socia l inter- relations among
different city-states, or between any one city-state and the rest of the civilized world, but he
could not discover a general principle in terms of which those interre lations could be
deter mined without disastro usly damaging or vitiating the political and socia l structure of the
city-state itself; and this structure he wished, as did Plato, to pres erve. That is to sa y, he was
unable to get hold of a fundamental principle in terms of which the social and political
organization of the Greek city-state could be generalized to apply to the interrelations
betwee n several such states within A single socia l whole, like the Alexandrian empire, in
which they were all included as units, or to apply to that socia l whole or empire itself; and
espe cially to apply to such a social whole or empire even if it did not contai n city-states as its
units. If we are right, this fundamental principle which he was unable to discover was simply
the principle of social integ ration and organizat ion in terms of rational selves, and of their
reflection, in their respective organized structures, of the patterns of organized socia l
behavior in which they are involved and to which they owe their existence.
5.It is in terms of this mechanism of unive rsals (or universally significant gestures or symbols)
by means of which thinking operates, that the human individual transce nds the local socia l
group to which he immediately belongs, and that this social group accor dingly (through its
individual members) transcends itself, and relates itself to the whole larger contex t or
envir onment of organized social relations and interactio ns which surrou nds it and of which it
is only one part.
Physi ologically, universality of mind in the hum an social order is fundamentally based on the
universality of a similar neural structure in all the individuals belonging to that social order:
the type of neural structu re, namely, which the social deve lopment of mind requires.
6.(See "National-Mind edness and Internati onal-Mindedness," International Journ al of Ethics,
XXXIX (1929), 38S ff,; "The Psychol ogical Base s of Interna tionalism," Survey, XXXIII (1914-
15), 604 ff.)
7.It is especially in terms of the logical universe of discourse-the general system of univers ally
significant symbols-which all thought or reasoning presupposes as the field of its activity,
and which transcends the bounds of different languages and different racial and natio nal
custo ms, that the individuals belonging to any given social group or community become
consc ious of this wider social reference of that group or community beyond itself, to the
further and larger conte xt of social relations and interactions of human society or civilizatio n
as a whol e in which, with all other particu lar human societi es or organized social groups, it is
implicated. This wider reference or relational implication of the general behavior pattern of
any given human social group or community is least evident in the case of primitive man,
and is most apparent in the case of highly civilized modern man. In terms of his rational self,
or in terms of that organization of social attitude s toward himself and toward others which
constitutes the structure of his ration al self, and which reflects not only the pattern of
behavior of the immediate socia l group in itself that he belongs to but also the reference of
this pattern beyond itself to the whole wider general pattern of human social or group
behavior of which it forms only one part, the modern civilized human individual is and feels
himself to be a member not only of a certain local community or state or nation, but also of
an entire given race or even civilization as a whole.

35. THE FUSIO N OF THE "I" AND THE ME" IN SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
In a situation where persons are all trying to save someone from drown ing, there is a sense of
common effort in which one is stimulated by the othe rs to do the sam e thing they are doing. In those
situati ons one has a sense of being identified with all because the reactio n is essenti ally an identical
reacti on. In the case of team work, there is an identification of the individual with the group; but in
that case one is doing something different from the others, even thoug h what the others do
deter mines what he is to do. If things move smoothly enough, there may be some thing of the same
exaltation as in the other situati on. There is still the sense of directed contro l. It is where the "I" and
the "me" can in some sense fuse that there arise s the peculiar sense of exaltation which belongs to
the religious and patriotic attitude s in which the react ion which one calls out in others is the
response which one is making himself. I now wish to discuss in more detail than previously the
fusion of the "I" and the "me" in the attitudes of religion, patriot ism, and team work.
In the conce ption of univers al neighborliness, there is a certa in group of attitudes of kindliness and
helpfulness in which the respo nse of one calls out in the other and in himself the same attitude.
Hence the fusion of the "I" and the "me" which leads to intense emotional experiences. The wider
the social process in which this is involve d, the great er is the exaltation, the emotional response,
which results . We sit down and play a game of bridge with friends or indulge in some other
relaxation in the midst of our daily work. It is something that will last an hour or so, an d then we shal l
take up the grind again. We are, however, involve d in the whole life of society; its obligations are
upon us; we have to assert ourselves in various situations; those factors are all lying back in the
self. But under the situatio ns to which I am now referring that which lies in the background is fused
with what we are all doing. This, we feel, is the meaning of life-and one experiences an exalted
religious attitude. We get into an attitude in which everyone is at one with each other in so far as all
belong to the same community. As long as we can retain that attitude we have for the time being
freed ourselves of that sense of control which hangs over us all because of the responsibilities we
have to meet in difficult and trying social conditions. Such is the normal situati on in our socia l
activity , and we have its problems back in our minds; but in such a situation as this, the religious
situati on, all seem to be lifted into the attitude of acce pting everyone as belonging to the same
group. One's interest is the interest of all. There is complete identification of individuals. Within the
individual there is a fusion of the "me" with the "I."
The impulse of the "I" in this case is neighborliness, kindliness. One gives bread to the hungry. It is
that socia l tendency which we all have in us that calls out a certa in type of respo nse: one wants to
give. When one has a limited bank account, one cann ot give all he has to the poor. Yet under
certai n religious situatio ns, in groups with a certain background, he can get the attitude of doing just
that. Giving is stimulated by more giving. He may not have much to give, but he is ready to give
himself completely. There is a fusion of the "I" and the "me." The " me" is not there to control the "I,"
but the situatio n has been so constructed that the very attitude aroused in the other stimulates one
to do the same thing. The exaltation in the case of patriotism presents an analogous insta nce of this
fusion.
From the emotional standpoint such situations are pecu liarly precious. They involve, of cours e, the
successf ul completion of the social proce ss. I think that the religious attitude involves this relation of
the social stimulus to the world at large, the carrying-over of the social attitude to the larger world. I
think that that is the definite field within which the religious experience appears. Of course, wher e
one has a clear ly marked theo logy in which there are definite dealings with the deity, with whom one
acts as concretely as with another person in the room, then the conduct which takes place is simply
of a type which is comparable to the conduct with reference to another social group, and it may be
one which is lacking in that peculiar mystica l character which we generally ascri be to the religious
attitude. It may be a calculating attitude in which a person makes a vow, and carries it out providing
the deity gives him a particular favor. Now, that attitude would normally come under the general
statem ent of religion, but in addition it is generally recog nized that the attitude has to be one that
carries this particu lar extension of the social attitude to the universe at large. I think it is that which
we generally refer to as the religious experience, and that this is the situation out of which the
mystical experience of religion arises. The social situation is sprea d over the entire world.

It may be only on certai n days of the week and at certa in hours of that day that we can get into that
attitude of feeling at one with everybody and everything about us. The day goes around; we have to
go into the market to compete with other people and to hold our heads above the water in a difficult
econ omic situation. We cannot keep up the sense of exaltation, but even then we may still say that
these demands of life are only a task which is put on us, a duty which we must perform in order to
get at particular moments the religious attitude. When the experience is attained, however, it comes
with this feeling of complete identification of the self with the other.
It is a different, and perhaps higher, attitude of identification which comes in the form of what I have
referred to as "team work." Here one has the sort of satisfaction which come s from working with
others in a certain situation. There is, of course, still a sense of contr ol; after all, what one does is
deter mined by what other persons are doing; one has to be keenly awar e of the positio ns of all the
others; he knows what the others are going to do. But he has to be constantl y awake to the way in
which other people are respo nding in order to do his part in the team work. That situat ion has its
delight, but it is not a situation in which one simply throws himself, so to speak, into the stream
wher e he can get a sense of abandonment. That experience belongs to the religious or patriotic
situati on. Team work carries, howeve r, a conte nt which the other does not carry . The religious
situati on is abstract as far as the conte nt is concerned. How one is to help others is a very
complicated undertaking. One who undertakes to be a univers al help to others is apt to find himself
a universal nuisance. There is no more distressing person to have about than one who is consta ntly
seeking to assist everybo dy else. Fruitful assistan ce has to be intelligent assistance. But if one can
get the situation of a well-organized group doing something as a unit, a sens e of the self is attained
which is the experience of team work , and this is certai nly from an intellectual standpoint higher than
mere abstract neighborliness. The sense of team work is found where all are working toward a
common end and everyone has a sense of the common end interpenetrating the particular function
which he is carrying on.
The frequent attitud e of the person in social servic e who is trying to express a fundamental attitude
of neighborliness[1] may be compared with the attitude of the engineer, the organizer, which
illustrates in extreme form the attitude of team work. The engineer has the attitudes of all the other
individuals in the group, and it is beca use he has that partic ipation that he is able to direct. When
the engineer comes out of the machine shop with the bare blue print, the machine does not yet
exist; but he must know what the people are to do, how long it shou ld take them, how to measure
the proce sses involved, and how to eliminate waste. That sort of taking the attitudes of everyone
else as fully and completely as poss ible, enter ing upon one's own actio n from the standpoint of such
a complete taking of the rôle of the others, we may perhaps refer to as the "attitude of the engineer."
It is a highly intelligent attitude; and if it can be formed with a profound interest in social team work, it
belongs to the high socia l processes and to the significant experiences. Here the full concreteness
of the "me" depends upon a man's capa city to take the attitude of everybody else in the process
which he directs. Here is gained the concr ete content not found in the bare emotional identification
of one's self with everyon e else in the group.
These are the different types of expressions of the "I" in their relationship to the "me" that I wanted
to bring out in order to complete the statement of the relation of the "I" and the "me." The self under
these circum stances is the action of the "I" in harmony with the taking of the rôle of others in the
"me." The self is both the "I" and the "me"; the "me" setting the situation to which the "I" responds.
Both the "I" and "me" are involved in the self, and here each supports the other.
I wish now to discuss the fusion of the "I" and the "me" in terms of anoth er approach, namely,
throu gh a comparison of the physica l object with the self as a social object.
The "me," I have said, presents the situation within which conduct takes place, and the "I" is the
actua l response to that situation. This twofold separation into situation and response is
characteri stic of any intelligent act even if it does not involve this social mechanism. There is a
definite situation which presents a problem, and then the organism responds to that situat ion by an
organization of the different reactio ns that are involved. There has to be such an organizat ion of
activities in our ordinary movements among different articles in a room, or throug h a forest, or
among automobiles. The stimuli present tend to call out a great variety of respo nses; but the actua l
response of the organism is an organization of these tendencies, not a single response which
mediates all the others. One does not sit down in a chair ., one does not take a book, open a
window, or do a great variety of things to which in a certain sens e the individual is invited when he

enters a room. He does some speci fic thing; he perhaps goes and takes a soug ht paper out of a
desk and does not do anything else. Yet the objects exist there in the room for him. The chair, the
windows, tables, exist as such beca use of the uses to which he normally puts these objects. The
value that the chair has in his perception is the value which belongs to his response; so he moves
by a chair and past a table and away from a window. He builds up a landscape there, a scene of
objects which make possible his actual movement to the drawer which contains the paper that he is
after. This landscape is the means of reach ing the goal he is pursuing; and the chair, the table, the
window, all enter into it as objects. The physi cal object is, in a certain sense, what you do not
respond to in a consummatory fashion. If, the moment you step into a room, you drop into a chair
you hardly do more than direct your attention to the chair ; you do not view it as a chair in the same
sens e as when you just recog nize it as a chair and direct your move ment toward a distant object.
The chair that exists in the latter case is not one you are sitting down in; but it is a something that
will receive you after you do drop into it, and that gives it the character of an object as such.
Such physic al objects are utilized in building up the field in which the distant object is reached. The
same result occurs from a temporal standpoint whe n one carries out a more distant act by means of
some prece dent act which must be first carrie d through. Such organization is going on all the time in
intelligent conduct. We organize the field with reference to what we are going to do. There is now, if
you like, a fusion of the getting of the paper out of the draw er and the room through which we move
to accomplish that end, and it is this sort of fusion that I referred to previ ously, only in such insta nces
as religious experiences it takes place in the field of social mediation, and the objects in the
mechanism are social in their chara cter and so represent a different level of experience. But the
process is analogous: we are what we are in our relationship to other individuals throu gh taking the
attitude of the other individuals toward ours elves so that we stim ulate ourselves by our own gestur e,
just as a chair is what it is in terms of its invitation to sit down; the chair is something in which we
might sit down, a physic al "me," if you like. In a social "me" the various attitude s of all the others are
expresse d in terms of our own gestur e, which represents the part we are carryin g out in the social
coop erative activit y. Now the thing we actua lly do, the words we speak, our expressions, our
emotions, those are the "I"; but they are fused with the "me" in the same sense that all the activities
involve d in the articles of furniture of the room are fused with the path followed toward the draw er
and the taking out of the actual paper. The two situat ions are identical in that sens e.
The act itself which I have spoken of as the "I" in the social situation is a sourc e of unity of the
whole, while the "me" is the social situation in which this act can express itself. I think that we can
look at such conduct from the general standpoint of intelligent conduct; only, as I say, conduct is
taking place here in this social field in which a self arises in the social situation in the group, just as
the room arises in the activity of an individual in getting to this particular object he is after. I think the
same view can be applied to the appearance of the self that applies to the appearance of an object
in a field that constitutes in some sense a problem; only the peculiar character of it lies in the fact
that it is a social situation and that this social situation involves the appearance of the "me" and the
"I" which are essentially socia l elements. I think it is consistent to recognize this parallelism between
what we call the "physical object" over against the organism, and the social object over against the
self. The "me" does definitely answer to all the different reactio ns which the objects about us tend to
call out in us. All such objects call out respo nses in ourselves, and these respo nses are the
meanings or the natures of the objects: the chair is some thing we sit down in, the window is
someth ing that we can open, that gives us light or air. Likewise the "me" is the response which the
individual makes to the other individuals in so far as the individual takes the attitude of the other. It is
fair to say that the individual take s the attitude of the chair. We are definitely in that sense taking the
attitude of the objects about us; while normally this does not get into the attitude of communication
in our dealing with inanimate objects, it does take that form when we say that the chair invites us to
sit down, or the bed tempts us to lie down. Our attitude under those circumstances is, of course, a
socia l attitude. We have already discussed the social attitude as it appears in the poetry of nature, in
myths, rites, and ritual s. There we take over the social attitude toward nature itself. In music there is
perhaps always some sort of a social situation, in terms of the emotional response involved; and the
exaltation of music would have, I suppose, reference to the comp leteness of the organization of the
response that answers to those emotional attitudes. The idea of the fusion of the "I" and the "me"
gives a very adequate basis for the explanation of this exaltation. I think behavioristic psycho logy
provi des just the opportunity for such development of aesthetic theory. The significance of the
response in the aesth etic experience has already been stressed by critics of painting and
archit ecture .

The relationship of the "me" to the "I" is the relationship of a situation to the organism. The situation
that presents the problem is intelligible to the organism that respo nds to it, and fusion takes place in
the act. One can approach it from the "I" if one knows definitely what he is going to do. Then one
looks at the whole process simply as a set of means for reaching the known end. Or it can be
approached from the point of view of the means and the problem appears then as a decision among
a set of different ends. The attitude of one individual calls out this response, and the attitude of
another individual calls out another respo nse. There are varied tendencies, and the response of the
"I" will be one which relates all of these togeth er. Whether looked at from the viewpo int of a prob lem
which has to be solved or from the position of an "I" which in a certain sense determines its field by
its conduct, the fusion takes place in the act itself in which the means expresses the end.
Endnotes
1.["Philanthropy from the Point of View of Ethics," Intelligent Philanthropy, edited by Faris,
Lane, and Dodd.]
36. DEMOCRACY AND UNIVERSALITY IN SOCIETY
There is in human socie ty a universa lity that expresses itself very early in two different ways-o ne on
the religious side and the other on the economic side. These processes as social process es are
universal. They provide ends which any form that makes use of the same medium of communication
can enter upon. If a gorilla could bring cocoa nuts and exchange them in some sort of market for
someth ing he might conce ivably want, he would enter into the economic social organizatio n in its
widest phase. All that is nece ssary is that the animal should be able to utilize that method of
communication which involves, as we have seen , the existence of a self. On the other hand, any
individual that can regard himself as a member of a society in which he is-to use a familiar phrase a
neighbor of the other, also belongs to such a unive rsal group. These religious and econ omic
expressions of univers ality we find deve loping in one form or another in the Roman Empire, in India,
and in China. In the outgr owth of the Empire into Christianity we find a form of propaganda issuing
in the deliberate attempt to organize this sort of universa l society.
If evolution is to take place in such a society, it would take place betwee n the different organizations,
so to speak, within this larger organism. There would not simply be a competition of different
societ ies with each other, but competition would lie in the relati onship of this or that society to the
organization of a universal society. In the case of the universal religions we have such forms as that
of the Mohammedan, which undertook by the force of the sword to wipe out all other forms of
society, and so found itself in opposition to other communities which it undertook either to annihilate
or to subo rdinate to itself. On the other hand, we have the propaganda represented by Christianity
and Buddhism, which merely undertook to bring the vario us individuals into a certain spiritual group
in which they would recognize themselves as members of one society. This undertaking inevita bly
bound itself up with the political structure, especially in the case of Christianity; and back of that lies
the assumption, which found its expression in miss ionary unde rtakings, that this social principle, this
recognition of the brotherhood of men, is the basis for a universa l society.
If we look at the econ omic proceedings, there is no such propaganda as this, no assu mption of a
single econ omic society that is undertaking to establish itself. An economic society defines itself in
so far as one individual may trade with others; and then the very processes themselves go on
integ rating, bringing a closer and closer relationship betwee n communities which may be definitely
opposed to each other politically. The more complete economic texture appears in the development
of trading itself and the deve lopment of a financial medium by means of which such trading is
carried on, and there is an inevitable adjustment of the production in one community to the needs of
the international economic community. There is a development which starts with the lowest sort of
universal society and in which the original abstractne ss gives way to a more and more concrete
socia l organization. From both of these standpoints there is a univers al society that includes the
whole human race, and into which all can so far enter into relationship with others through the
medium of communication. They can recognize others as members, and as broth ers.

Such communities are inevita bly universa l in their character. The proce sses expresse d in the
universal religion inevit ably carry with them that of the logical community represented by the
universe of disco urse, a community based simply on the ability of all individuals to converse with
each other through use of the same significant symbols. Language provides a univers al community
which is something like the economic community. It is there in so far as there are common symbols
that can be utilize d. We see such symbols in the bare signs by means of which savage tribes who
do not spea k the same language can communicate. They find some common language in the use of
the fingers, or in symbolic drawings. They attain some sort of ability to communicate, and such a
process of communication has the tendency to bring the different individuals into close r relationship
with each other. The linguistic process is in one sens e more abstract than the econ omic process.
The economic process, starting off with bare exch ange, turns over the surplus of one individual in
return for the surplus of another individual. Such processe s reflect back at once to the process of
production and more or less inevitably stimulate that sort of production which leads to profitable
exch ange. When we come to bare interc ourse on the basis of significant symbols, the process by
itself perhaps does not tend to such an integration, but this process of comm unication will carry or
tend to carry with it the very processe s in which it has served as a medium.
A person learns a new language and, as we say, gets a new soul. He puts himself into the attitude
of those that make use of that language. He cannot read its literature, cannot convers e with those
that belong to that community, without taking on its peculiar attitudes. He becomes in that sense a
different individual. You cannot convey a language as a pure abstract ion; you inevitably in some
degree convey also the life that lies behind it. And this result builds itself into relati onship with the
organized attitudes of the individual who gets this language and inevitably brings about a
readjustment of views. A community of the Western world with its different nationalities and different
languages is a community in which there will be a contin ued interplay of these different groups with
each other. One nation cannot be taken simply by itself, but only in its relationship to the other
groups which belong to the larger whole.

The universe of disco urse which deals simply with the highest abstractio ns opens the door for the
interr elationship of the different groups in their different characters. The universe of discourse within
which people can express themselves makes possi ble the bringing-togeth er of those organized
attitude s which repre sent the life of these different communities into such relationship that they can
lead to a higher organization. The very universality of the proce sses whic h belong to hum an society,
whethe r looked at from the point of view of religion or trading or logical think ing, at least opens the
door to a universal society; and, in fact, these tende ncies all express themselves wher e the social
deve lopment has gone far enough to make it possi ble.
The political expression of this growth of universality in society is signalized in the dominance of one
group over other groups. The earliest expression of this is in the empires of the valleys of the Nile,
the Tigris, and the Euphrates. Different communities came in competition with each other, and in
such competition is found a condition for the development of the empire. There is not simply the
conflict of one tribe with another which undertakes to wipe out the other, but rather that sort of
conflict which leads to the dominance of one group over anoth er by the maintenance of the other
group. It is of importance to notice this difference when it signalizes the expression of self-
consc iousness reac hed through a realization of one's self in others. In a moment of hostil ity or fierce
anger the individual or the community may seek simply to wipe out its enemies. But the dominant
expression in terms of the self has been, even on the part of a militaristic society, rather that of
subjection, of a realizatio n of the self in its super iority to and exploitation of the other. This attitude of
mind is an entire ly different attitude from that of the mere wiping-out of one's enemies. There is,
from this point of view at least, a definite achievement on the part of the individual of a higher self in
his overcom ing of the other and holding the other in subjection.
The sens e of national prestige is an expression of that self-respect which we tend to preserve in the
maintenance of supe riority over other people. One does get the sense of one's self by a certain
feeling of superiority to others, and that this is fundamental in the deve lopment of the self was
recognized by Wundt. It is an attitude which passes over, under what we consider higher cond itions,
into the just recognition of the capacity of the individual in his own fields. The superiority which the
person now has is not a superiority over the other, but is grounded in that which he can do in
relation to the functions and capacity of others. The deve lopment of the expert who is superior in the

performance of his functio ns is of a quite different character from the superiority of the bully who
simply realizes himself in his ability to subo rdinate somebody to himself. The person who is
competent in any partic ular field has a superiority which belongs to that which he himself can do and
which perhaps someone else cannot do. It gives him a definite position in which he can realize
himself in the community. He does not realize himself in his simple superiority to someone else, but
in the function which he can carry o ut; and in so far as he can carry it out better than anyone else he
gets a sense of prestige which we recog nize as legitimate, as over against the other form of self-
assertio n which from the standpoint of our highest sense of social standards is felt to be illegitimate.
Communities may stand in this same kind of relation to each other. There is the sens e of pride of
the Roman in his administrative capa city as well as in his marti al power, in his capacity to subjugate
all the people around the Mediterranean world and to administer them. The first attitude was that of
subjugation, and then came the administrative attitude which was more of the type to which I have
already referred as that of functi onal superiority. It was that which Virgil expressed in his demand
that the Roman should realize that in his ruling he was possess ed with the capa city for
administration. This capacity made the Roman Empire entire ly different from the earlier empires,
which carried nothing but brute strength behind them. The passa ge in that case is from a sense of
political superiority and prest ige expressed in a power to crush, over into a power to direct a social
undertaking in which there is a larger cooperative activity. The political expression starts off with a
bare self-assertion, coupled with a military attitude, which leads to the wiping-out of the other, but
which leads on, or may lead on, to the devel opment of a higher community, where dominance takes
the form of administration. Conceivably, there may appear a larger international community than the
empire, organized in terms of function rather than of force.
The bringing-togeth er of the attitude of universa l religion on the one hand and the widening political
deve lopment on the other has been given its widest expression in democracy. There is, of course, a
democracy such as that of the Gree k cities in which the control is simply the control of the masses in
their opposition to certai n economically and politically powerful classes. There are, in fact, various
forms of democratic govern ment; but democracy, in the sense here relevant, is an attitude which
depends upon the type of self which goes with the universal relations of brothe rhood, however that
be reached. It received its expression in the French Revo lution in the conc eption of fraternity and
union. Every individual was to stand on the same level with every other. This conc eption is one
which received its first expression in the universal religions. If carried over into the field of politics, it
can get its expression only in such a form as that of democracy; and the doctrine that lies behind it
is very largely Rousseau's conception, as found in the Social Contract.
The assumption there is of a society in which the individual maintains himself as a citizen only to the
degree that he recog nizes the rights of everyone else to belong to the same community. With such
a unive rsality, such a uniformity of inter ests, i t woul d be poss ible for the masses of the comm unity to
take the attitude of the soverei gn while he also took the attitude of the subjects. If the will of each
one was the will of all, then the relationship of subject and sovere ign could be embodied in all the
different individuals. We get what Rousseau referred to as the "general will of the community" only
when as a man is able to realize himself by recog nizing others as belonging to the same political
organization as himself.[1]
That conc eption of democracy is in itself as universa l as religion, and the appearance of this political
movement was esse ntially religious in so far as it had the gosp el of Rousseau behind it. It
proceeded also with a sense of propaganda. It undertook to overthrow the old organization of
society and substitute its own form of society in its place. In that sense these two factors-one the
dominance of the individual or group over other groups, the other the sense of brotherhood and
identity of different individuals in the same group-came togeth er in the democratic movement; and
togethe r they inevita bly imply a universal society, not only in a religious sense, but ultimately in a
political sens e as well. This gets an expression in the League of Nations, where every community
recognizes every other community in the very process of asserting itself. The smallest community is
in a position to express itself just beca use it recog nizes the right of every other nation to do the
same.
What is involved in the devel opment of a universal society is just such a functional organization as
we find in economic devel opment. The economic development is one which starts off on the basis of
the exchange. You offer what you do not want in exchange for something which another does not
want. That is abstract. But after you find you can produce someth ing you do not want and exchange

it for something you want, you stimulate by that action a functi onal devel opment. You are stimulating
one group to produce this and anoth er to produce that; and you are also control ling the economic
process, because one will not continue to produce more than can be offered in exchange on the
market. The sort of thing ultimately produced will be that which answers to the demand of the
custo mer. In the resulting functional organization one devel ops an econ omic personality of a certain
sort which has its own sense of superiority but which is used in the carrying-out of its particular
function in relation to the others in the group. There can be a self-consc iousness based on the
ability to manufacture something better than anybo dy else; but it can maintain its sense of
supe riority only when it adjusts itself to the community that needs the products in this proce ss of
interc hange. In such a situation there is a tende ncy toward functi onal development, a functional
deve lopment which may take place even in the political domain.
It might seem that the funct ional aspect is contr adictory to the ends of democracy in so far as it
consi ders the individual in relation to a whole and in that way ignores the individual; and that,
accor dingly, real democracy must express itself more in the tone of the religious attitude and in
making secondary the functional aspect. If we go back to the ideal of democracy as prese nted in the
French Revo lution, we do reach just such a sort of conflict. There you have recogn ition of quality;
you demand in yourself what you recognize in others, and that does provid e the basis for a social
structure. But when you consi der the functional expression of that time there is not the same sort of
equality. However, equality in a functional sense is possible, and I do not see any reason why it
shou ld not carry with it as deep a sense of the realization of the other in one's self as the religious
attitude. A physician who through his supe rior skill can save the life of an individual can realize
himself in regard to the person he has benefited. I see no reason why this functional attitude should
not express itself in the realization of one's self in the other. The basis of spirit ual expression is the
ability to realize one's self in the many, and that certainly is reached in the social organizatio n. It
seems to me that the apparent conflict under cons ideration refers to the abstract and preliminary
deve lopment of the functional organizatio n. Until that functional organization is fully carried out,
there is the opportunity for exploitation of the individual; but with the full devel opment of such
organization we should get a higher spiritual expression in which the individual realizes himself in
others throu gh that which he does as peculiar to himself.[2]
Endnotes
1.If you can make your demand universa l, if your right is one that carries with it a
corresp onding obligation, then you recog nize the same right in everyone else, and you can
give a law, so to spea k, in the terms of all the community. So there can be a general will in
terms of the individual becau se everyone else is expressing the same thing. There then
arise s a community in which everyon e can be both sovereign and subject, sovereign in so
far as he asserts his own rights and recognizes them in others, and subject in that he obeys
the laws which he himself makes (1927).
2.[For a discussion of pragmatism in relation to the American scene see "The Philosophies of
Royc e, James and Dewey in their American Setting, " Interna tional Journ al of Ethics, XL
(1930), 211 ff.; for historical genesis of pragmatism, see Moveme nts of Thought in the
Nineteenth Century.]
37. FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF RELIGIOUS AND ECONOMIC ATTITUDES
I want to spea k again of the organizing nature of these larger and more abstract socia l relationships
which I have been discussing, those of religion and econ omics. Each of them becomes universa l in
its work ing character, not universal because of any philosophical abstracti on involved in them. The
primitive man who trades or the modern man on the stock exchange is not intere sted in the form of
econ omic society that is implied in the exch anges he makes; nor is it at all necessary to assume
that the individual who in his immediate assista nce of another in trouble identifies himself with this
other, presents to himself a form of society in which the intere st of one is the interest of all. And yet,
as I indicated, these two processe s are in their nature universa l; they can be applied to anyone.

One who can assist any individual whom he finds suffering may extend that universa lity far beyond
man, and put it into the form of allowing no suffering to any sensuous being. The attitude is one
which we take towar d any other form that actually does, or conceivably may, appeal to us when in
distress, or any being to which we can convey immediate satisfaction by our own acts. It finds its
expression in a certain attitude of tende rness. It may be generalized in individuals far beyond one's
family. Love may show itself toward any young form which excites the parental attitude, even when it
is not a human form. Small articles call out a sort of tende r attitude. Such facts show how very wide
the actual universality of this attitude is; it takes in practic ally everything, every possible being with
whom one can have a personal relation. It is not always dominant, of course , since sometimes the
hostil e reactions are more powerful in their expression than any other; but to the extent that it is
present it makes possi ble a universal form of society. The Christian saints represented that sort of
society to which every individual could conc eivably belong. The ideal receive d an expression in the
religious conc eption of a world where all are to have absolutely identical interests.
The other process is that of exchange in which one pass es over, so to speak, that which he does
not need for something which he does need. Relative wants on a basis of communication and
common interests make exchange poss ible. This is a proce ss which does not exte nd below man, as
the other attitude does. One cannot excha nge with the ox or the ass, but he may have a kindly
feeling for them.
What I want to refer to especially is the orga nizing power that these two types of attitudes may have,
and have had, in the human community. As I have stated, they are primarily attitudes which one
may enter into with any actual or ideal human being with whom he can poss ibly communicate, and
in one case at least, with other beings with whom he cannot communicate. We are in socia l
relationships with domestic animals, and our responses assume the identification of the animal with
ourselves as much as ourse lves with the animal, an assu mption which has no ultimate justification.
Our own fundamental attitude is a socia l relationship base d on the self; so we treat the acts of
domestic animals as if they had selves. We take their attitude, and our conduct in dealing with them
implies that they take our attitude ; we act as if the dog knew what we wanted. I need not add that
our conduct which implies selves in domestic animals has no rational justification.
Such attitudes, then, are attitudes that may lead to a social organization which goes beyon d the
actua l structure in which individuals find themselves involved. It is for this reason that it is possible
for these attitude s themselves to work toward, or at least to assist in, the creation of the structure of
these larger communities. If we look first of all at the economic attitude where the exchange of one's
own surpl us with somebody else's surplus puts one in the attitude of production, producing such
surpl uses for the purpose of exchange (and makes one in particu lar look toward the ways of
exch ange, of estab lishing markets, of setting up means for transportation, of elaborating the media
of exchange, of building up banking systems), we recog nize that all this may flow from the mere
process of excha nge providing the value of it is recog nized so as to lead sufficiently to the
production of the surpl uses which are the basis of the original process. Two children can exchange
their toys with each other, the one exchanging an old toy with a friend who is willing to part with his;
here there is an exchange of surp luses which does not lead to production. But in the case of human
beings who can look ahead and see the advantages of exchange, exchange leads to production.
A notable illustration of that is the development of the woolen industry in England. At first the
exch ange simply took place in England itself, where the wool was spun under feudal cond itions; and
then came the carryi ng of this from one locality to another, and the sprin ging-up of an overse as
trade. The changes that took place inside of England's communities as a result of this industry are
commonly known, as is the very large part that it played in the development of foreign trade,
bringing about the gradual change from the agricultural to the industrial life of the community itself.
And then as the woolen cloth passed over the natio n's boundaries a network of economic
organization grew up which has underlain the whole later devel opment of England.
When such an immediate attitude of exchange becomes a principle of social cond uct, it carries with
it a process of social devel opment in the way of production, of transportation, and of all the media
involve d in the econ omic process, that sets up something of the very unive rsal society that this
attitude carries with it as a poss ibility. It is a process, of course, of bringing the man who has the
goods to exchange into direct relationship with the person who is willing to exch ange for them what
he needs. And the process of producti on and transportation, and of taking the goods receive d in
return, relates the individuals more closely to the others involved in the economic proce ss. It is a

slow process of the integration of a socie ty which binds people more and more closely together. It
does not bring them spati ally and geographically togeth er but unites them in terms of
communication. We are familiar with the abstraction in the textbo ok illustration of three or four men
located on the desert island who carry on the process of trading with each other. They are highly
abstract figures, but they exist as abstractions in the economic community and as such represent an
interr elationship of communication in which the individual in his own process of production is
identifying himself with the individual who has someth ing to exch ange with him. He has to put
himself in the place of the other or he could not produce that which the other wants. If he starts off
on that process he is, of course, identifying himself with any possible custom er, any possi ble
producer; and if his mechanism is of this very abstract sort, then the web of commerce can go
anywh ere and the form of society may take in anyb ody who is willing to enter in this process of
communication. Such an attitude in socie ty does tend to build up the structure of a universal social
organism.
As taught in econ omics, money is nothing but a token, a symbol for a certai n amount of wealth. It is
a symbol for something that is wanted by individuals who are in the attitude of willingness to
exch ange; and the forms of exchange are then the methods of conversation, and the media of
exch ange become gestures which enable us to carry out at vast distances this process of passing
over something one does not want, to get something he does, by means of bringing himself into the
attitude of the other person. The media of these tokens of wealth are, then, in this process of
exch ange just such gestures or symbols as language is in other fields.
The other universal attitude discussed was neighborliness, which passes over into the principle of
religious relationship, the attitude which made religion as such possible. The immediate effect of the
attitude may be nothing but sharing one's food with a perso n who is hungry, giving water to the
thirst y, helping the person who is down and out. It may be noth ing but surrendering to the impulse to
give something to the man who touch es you on the street . It may accomplish nothing more than
that, just as exchange betwee n two children may not go beyond the process of exchange. But, in
fact, the attitude once assumed has proved to have enormous power of social reorganization. It is
that attitude which has expressed itself in the universal religions, and which expresses itself in a
large part of the socia l organization of modern society.
Christianity pave d the way for the socia l progr ess-political, economic, scientific-of the modern world,
the social progress which is so dominantly characteristic of that world. For the Christian notion of a
rational or abstract universa l human society or social order, though originating as a primarily
religious and ethical doctri ne, gradually lost its purely religious and ethic al assoc iations, and
expanded to include all the other main aspects of concr ete human social life as well; and so
beca me the larger, more complex notion of that many-sided, ration ally universal human socie ty to
which all the social reconstructions constitutin g modern social progress involve intellectual reference
by the Individuals carrying them out.
There is a striking contrast between the ancient-and especially the ancient Greek-world and the
modern world relative to the notio n of progress. That notion or conception was utterly foreign to, and
almost comp letely abse nt from, the thought and civilizatio n of the ancient world; whereas it is one of
the most characteristic and dominant ideas in the thought and civilization of the modern world. For
the world-view of modern cultur e is essenti ally a dynamic one – a world-view which allows for, and
indeed emphasizes, the reality of genuine creative change and evolution in things; where as the
world-view of ancient culture was essentially a static one – a world -view which did not admit the
occurre nce or actuality of any genuinely creative chan ge or evolution in the universe at all: a world-
view according to which nothing of which the final cause was not already give n (and eterna lly give n)
in reality could come into existence; i.e., nothing could come into being except as or by the
individual realization of a fixed univers al type that was already there and always had been there.
Accor ding to modern thought, there are no fixed or deter mined ends or goals toward which social
progress necessarily moves; and such progress is hence genuinely creative and would not
otherwi se be progress (indeed, creat iveness is essential to the modern idea of progress). But
ancient thought, on the contrary, did not recog nize the reality or existence or possibility of progress
at all, in the modern sense of the term; and the only progress of any sort which it recog nized as
possi ble or real was progress toward etern ally fixed ends or goals – progress (which modern
thought would not consi der to be genuine progress at all) towar d the realizatio n of given,
predetermined types.

The notio n of progress was meaningless for Greek society or civilizatio n, by virtue of the distinctive
organization of the Greek state, which was wholly impotent to deal effectively with the socia l
conflicts-or conflicts of social intere sts-that arose within it. But progress is dominantly characteristic
of modern society or civilizatio n, by virtue of the distinctive organization of the modern state which is
sufficiently flexible to be able to cope, to some extent at least, with the socia l conflicts among
individuals that arise within it; because it lends itself-in a way in which the organization of the Gree k
state did not-to that more or less abstract intellectual extension of its boundaries, by the minds of the
individuals implicated in it, which we have mentioned: an extensi on whereby these minds are able to
envis age a large r social organizatio n or organized social whole enviro ning them, one in which the
conflicts of social interests within it are in some degree harmonized or canceled out, and by
reference to which, accordingly, these minds are able to bring about the reconstructions within it that
are needed to resolve or settle those conflicts.
The economic and religious principles are often put in opposition to each other. There is, on the one
hand, the assu mption of an econ omic process which we call "materialistic" in character; and, on the
other hand, the identification of people in common inter ests which we speak of in idealistic terms. O f
cours e, some justification can be found for this view, but it overlooks the importance of the fact that
these attitudes have to be continually corrected. It is assu med that the econ omic process is always
a self-centered one in which the individual is simply advancing his own interest over against the
other, that one is taking the attitude of the other only to get the better of him. While it has been
insisted that free trade, the opportunity to exch ange, is something that leads to a recognition of
common interests, it has always been assu med that this is the by-product of the economic proce ss,
and not involve d in the attitude itself, although we do find economic idealism in such a man as
James Bryce. On the other hand, religions have been as much sources of warfare in the past as
econ omic competition has been under the prese nt cond itions. One of the striking effects of every
war is to emphasize the national character of the religion of the people. During the war we had the
God of the Germans and the God of the Allies; deity was divided in allegiance. The extent to which
the religious life adjusts itself to conflict is frequently illustrate d in history; illustrations of the idealistic
phases of economic life are not entire ly lacking. There is no question but that the economic process
is one which has continually brought people into closer relationship with each other and has tended
to identify individuals with each other. The outstand ing illustration of this is the intern ational
character of labor, and the development within the local community of a labor organization as such.
There is both the identification of the laborer with his fellow-laborers in the group, and the
identification of the laborers in one community with those in another community. In socialism the
labor movement has become a religion. The economic process is one which brings groups
inevit ably closer togeth er through the proce ss of communication which involve s participation. It has
been the most universa l socializing factor in our whole modern society, more universally
recognizable than religion.
The religion gathered about the cult of a community becomes very concrete, identifies itself with the
immediate history and life of the community, and is more conse rvative than almost any other
institutio n in the community. The cult has a mysterious value which attaches to it that we cann ot fully
rationalize, and there fore we preserve it in the form which it alwa ys has had, and in its social setting.
It tends to fix the character of the religious expression, so that while the religious attitude is one
which leads to identification with any other, the cult in which it instituti onalizes itself is apt to be
speci alized almost to the last degree. It is quite possible to understand anybody who comes to you
with someth ing of value which you want to get; if he can express himself in commercial terms, you
can understa nd him. If he comes to you, howeve r, with his particular religious cult, the chan ces are
very great that you cann ot comprehend him. The missionary movement, which has been so
characteri stic of different religions, is a movement in which the universal character of the religion
has in turn challenged the fixed conservative character of the cult, as such, and has had enormous
effects on the charact er of the religion itself. But even here religion has undertaken to transf er itself
as a cult with all its chara cter, its creed and its dogma, so that it has not lent itself so directly as a
means of universa l communication as has the econ omic process.
The two attitudes, of course, are attitude s which are quite different from each other. The one attitude
identifies the individual with the other only when both are engaged in a tradin g operation. Exchange
is the life-blood of the econ omic proce ss, and that process abstracts everything from the other
individual exce pt what is involve d in trading. The religious attitude, on the contrary, takes you into
the immediate inner attitude of the other individual; you are identifying yourse lf with him in so far as
you are assisti ng him, helping him, saving his soul, aiding him in this world or the world to come-

your attitude is that of salvation of the individual. That attitude is far more profound in the
identification of the individual with others. The econ omic process is more superficial and there fore is
one which perhaps can travel more rapidly and make poss ible an easier communication. The two
processes, however, are always univers al in their character, and so far as they get expression they
tend to build up in some sense a common community which is as universal as the attitudes
them selves. The processes taken simply by themselves, as where one child trades a toy for another
child's toy or where one animal helps another, may immediately stop with the exercise of the act; but
wher e one has a group made up of selves as such, individuals that identify thems elves with the
others, that arouse the attitude of the other as a means of gettin g their own selves, the processe s
then go far beyon d a mere seizing of something which one can get that the other does not want, or
beyo nd the bare impulse to help the other. In carryi ng out these activities the individual has set up a
process of integr ation which brings the individuals close r together, creatin g the mechanism by wh ich
a deeper communication with participation is poss ible.
It is important to recog nize this development going on in history; the two processe s taken by
them selves tend to bring about the larger community even when the persons have not any ideals for
its realizatio n. One cannot take the attitude of identifying himself with the other without in some
sens e tending to set up such communities. It is the partic ular funct ion of history to enable us to look
back and see how far such social reconstruction has taken place-reconstruction that people at the
time did not recognize, but which we can recog nize because of our advantage of greate r distance.
And the functi on of the leader, the individual who is able to grasp such movements and so carry
along the community, is to give direction and impetus, with a consci ousness of that which is taking
place.
It seems to me that such a view of the self as I have prese nted in detai l renders intelligible the
accu mulation of social growth.
If we can recognize that an individual does achie ve himself, his own consciousness, in the
identification of himself with the other, then we can say that the econ omic process must be one in
which the individual does identify himself with the poss ible custom ers with whom he exchanges
thing s, that he must be contin ually building up means of communication with these individuals to
make this process successful, and that, while the process in itself may be firmly self-center ed, it
must inevitably lead him to take more and more concretely the attitude of the other. If you are going
to carry on the economic process successfully, you have to come into closer and closer relationship
with the other individual, identify yourself not simply in the particular matter of exch ange, but find out
what he wants and why he wants it, what will be the conditions of payment, the partic ular character
of the goods desired, and so on. You have to identify yourself with him more and more. We are
rather scornful of the attitude of salesmanship which modern business emphasizes- salesmanship
which seems always to carry with it hypocri sy, to advo cate putting one's self in the attitude of the
other so as to trick him into buying someth ing he does not want. Even if we do not regard this as
justifiable, we can at least recognize that even here there is the assu mption that the individual has to
take the attitude of the other, that the recog nition of the intere st of the other is esse ntial to a
successf ul trade. The goal of this is seen when we carry the economic process beyo nd the profit
motive over into public-service concerns. The manager of a railroad or public utility has to put
himself in the place of the community that he serves, and we can readily see that such public
utilities could pass entirely out of the field of gain and become success ful economic undertakings
simply as a means of communication. The socialist makes out of this possibility a theory for all
business.
38. THE NATUR E OF SYMPATHY
The term "symp athy" is an ambiguous one, and a difficult one to interpret. I have referred to an
immediate attitude of care, the assistance of one individual by another, such as we find especially in
the relations among lower forms. Sympathy comes, in the human form, in the arousing in one's self
of the attitude of the individual whom one is assisting, the taking the attitude of the other when one
is assisting the other. A physician may simply carry through an operation in an objective fashion
witho ut any sympathetic attitude toward the patie nt. But in an attitude which is sympathetic we imply

that our attitude calls out in ourse lves the attitude of the person we are assisti ng. We feel with him
and we are able so to feel ourselves into the other because we have, by our own attitude, aroused in
ourselves the attitude of the person whom we are assisting. It is that which I regard as a proper
interpretation of what we ordinarily call "imitation," and "sympathy," in the vague, undefined sens e
which we find in our psychologies, when they deal with it at all.
Take, for example, the attitude of parents to the child. The child's tone is one of complaint, suffering,
and the parent's tone is one that is soothing. The parent is calling out in himself an attitude of the
child in accepting that consolation. This illustration indicates as well the limitation of sympathy.
There are persons with whom one finds it difficult to sympathize. In order to be in sympathy with
someone, there must be a response which answ ers to the attitude of the other. If there is not a
response which so answe rs, then one cannot arouse sympathy in himself. Not only that, but there
must be coop eration, a reply on the part of the person sympathized with, if the individual who
sympathizes is to call out in himself this attitude. One does not put himself immediately in the
attitude of the person suffering apart from one's own sympathetic attitude toward him. The situation
is that of a person assistin g the other, and because of that calling out in himself the response that
his assista nce calls out in the other. If there is no response on the part of the other, there cannot be
any sympathy. Of cours e, one can say that he can recognize what such a person must be suffering
if he could only express it. He thereby puts himself in the place of another who is not there but
whom he has met in experience, and interprets this individual in view of the former experience. But
active sympathy means that the individual does arouse in another the response called out by his
assistan ce and arouses in himself the same respo nse. If there is no response, one cannot
sympathize with him. That presents the limitation of sympathy as such; it has to occur in a
coop erative proce ss. Nevertheless, it is in the foregoing sense that one person identifies himself
with another. I am not referring to an identification in the Hegelian sense of an Ego, but of an
individual who perfectly natur ally arouses a certain respo nse in himself because his gesture
operates on himself as it does on the other.
To take a distinctive ly human, that is, self-consci ous, social attitude toward another individual, or to
beco me aware of him as such, is to identify yoursel f sympathetically with him, by taking his attitude
toward, and his rôle in, the given socia l situation, and by thus respo nding to that situation implicitly
as he does or is about to do explicitly; in essentially the same way you take his attitude toward
yoursel f in gestural conversation with him, and are thus made self-consc ious. Human social
activities depend very largely upon social cooperation among the human individuals who carry them
on, and such coop eration results from the taking. by these individuals of socia l attitudes toward one
another. Human society endows the human individual with a mind; and the very socia l nature of that
mind requires him to put himself to some degree in the experiential places of, or to take the attitudes
of, the other individuals belonging to that society and involv ed with him in the whole social process
of experience and behavior which that society repre sents or carries on.
I wish now to utilize this mechanism in dealing with religion and the econ omic process. In the
econ omic field the individual is taki ng the attitude of the other in so far as he is offering something to
the other and calling out in reply a response of giving in the individual who has a surplus. There
must be a situat ion in which the individual brings forward his own object as something that is
valuable. Now, from his point of view it is not valuable, but he is putting himself in the attitude of the
other individual who will give something in return because he can find some use for it. He is calling
out in himself the attitude of the other in offering something in return for what he offers; and although
the object has for the individual no direct value, it becomes valua ble from the point of view of the
other individual into whose place the first individual is able to put himself.
What makes this process so universal is the fact that it is a dealing with surpluses, dealing with that
which is, so to speak, from the point of view of the individual without value. Of course , it gets a value
in the market and then one assesse s it from the point of view of what one can get for it, but what
makes it a universal thing is that it does not pass into the individual's own direct use. Even if he
takes something that he can use and trade s that, he has to regard it as something he is going to get
rid of in order to get something still more valuable; it has to be someth ing he is not going to use. The
immediate value of our owning a thing directly is the use to which we put it, its consumption; but in
the economic process we are dealing with something that is immediately without value. So we set
up a universal sort of a process. The univers ality is dependent upon this fact that each person is
bringing to the market the things he is not going to use. He states them in terms of the abstraction of
money by means of which he can get anything else. It is this negative value that gives the

universality, for then it can be turne d over to anybody who can give something in return which can
be used.
In the primitive community wher e everybody is related to everybo dy else, a surplus as such has no
meaning. The things arc distrib uted in accor dance with definite custom; everybody shares the
surpl us. Wealth does not exist under such conditions at all. There are certa in returns given to the
artisa n, but they are not returns put into the form that can be expended for any goods which he
wants to get in return for something he does not want. The setting- up, then, of the media of
exch ange is something that is highly abstract . It depends upon the ability of the individual to put
himself in the place of the other to see that the other needs what he does not himself need, and to
see that what he himself does not need is something that anoth er does need. The whole proce ss
depends on an identification of one's self with the other, and this cannot take place among living
forms in which there is not a capacity for putting one's self in the place of the other through
communicating in a system of gestures which constitute language. Here are then two phases in
which univers al societies, although highly abstract socie ties, do actua lly exist, and what I have been
presenting is the import from the psycho logical standpoint of these unive rsal societies and their
tendencies to comp lete themselves. One cannot complete the process of bringing goods into a
market except by developing means of communication. The language in which that is expressed is
the language of money. The econ omic process goes right on tendi ng to bring people closer together
by setting up more and more econ omic techn iques and the language mechanism necessa ry to
these procedures.
The same is true in a somewhat different sense from the point of view of the universal religions.
They tend to define themselves in terms of communities, because they identify themselves with the
cult in the community, but break out beyond this in the missionary movement, in the form of
propagandists. The religion may be of a relative ly primitive sort, as in Mohammedanism, or in the
more complex forms of Buddhism and Christianity; but it inevitably undertakes to complete the
relations involved in the attitude of saving other people's souls, of helping, assisting, other people. It
deve lops the missionary who is a physic ian, those who are artisans, those who set up processes in
the community which will lead to the attachment to the very things involved in the religious attitude.
We see it first of all in the monasteries of Euro pe, where the monks undertook to set them selves up
as the artisans. They illustrate the tende ncy of religion to com plete itself, to com plete the community
which previously existed in an abstract form. Such is the picture that I wanted to present as one of
the valua ble interp retative contributions of such a view of the self as here deve loped.
39. CONFLICT AND INTEGRATION
I have been emphasizing the continued integration of the social process, and the psychology of the
self which underlies and makes possi ble this process. A word now as to the factors of conflict and
disintegration. In the base ball game there are competing individuals who want to get into the
limelight, but this can only be attained by playing the game. Those cond itions do make a certai n sort
of actio n necessary, but inside of them there can be all sorts of jealously competing individuals who
may wrec k the team. There seems to be abundant opportunity for disorganizatio n in the
organization essenti al to the team. This is so to a much larger degree in the econ omic process.
There has to be distribution, markets, mediums of exchange; but within that field all kinds of
competition and disorganizations are poss ible, since there is an "I" as well as a "me " in every case.
Histori cal conflicts start, as a rule, with a community which is socially pretty highly organized. Such
conflicts have to arise betwe en different groups where there is an attitude of hostility to others
involve d. But even here a wider social organization is usually the result; there is, for instance, an
appearance of the tribe over against the clan. It is a larger, vaguer organization, but still it is there.
This is the sort of situat ion we have at the prese nt time; over against the potential hostil ity of nations
to each other, they recognize them selves as forming some sort of community, as in the League of
Nations.
The fundamental socio-physiological impulses or behavior tendencies which arc common to all
human individuals, which lead those individuals collectively to enter or form themselves into

organized societi es or social com munities, and whic h constitute the ultimate basis of those societies
or socia l communities, fall, from the socia l point of 'View, into two main class es: those which lead to
socia l cooperation, and those which lead to social antagonism among individuals; those which give
rise to friendly attitudes and relations, and those which give rise to hosti le attitudes and relati ons,
among the human individuals implicated in the social situations. We have used the term "social" in
its broadest and strictest sens e; but in that quite common narrower sense, in which it bears an
ethic al connotation, only the fundamental physiological human impulses or behavior tendencies 'of
the former class (those which are friendly, or which make for friendliness and cooperation among
the individuals motivated by them) are "soci al" or lead to "soci al" cond uct; wher eas those impulses
or behavior tendencies of the latter class (those which are hosti le, or which make for hostility and
antagonism among the individuals motiva ted by them) are "antiso cial" or lead to "anti- social"
cond uct. Now it is true that the latter class of fundamental impulses or behavior tendencies in
human beings are "anti-social" in so far as they would, by thems elves, be destructive of all human
socia l organization, or could not, alone, constitute the basis of any organized human society; yet in
the broadest and strict est non-ethical sens e they are obviously no less social than are the former
class of such impulses or behavior tendencies. They are equally common to, or univers al among, all
human individuals, and, if anything, are more easily and immediately aroused by the appropriate
socia l stimuli; and as combined or fused with, and in a sens e controlled by, the former impulses or
behavior tendencies, they are just as basic to all human socia l organizati on as are the former, and
play a hardly less necessary and significant part in that social organization itself and in the
deter mination of its general character. Consider, for example, from among these "hostile" human
impulses or attitudes, the functioning or expression or operation of those of self-protectio n and self-
preservatio n in the organization and organized activities of any given human society or social
community, let us say, of a modern state or natio n. Human individuals realize or become aware of
them selves as such, almost more easily and readily in terms of the social attitudes conn ected or
assoc iated with these two "hostil e" impulses (or in terms of these two impulses as expresse d in
these attitudes) than they do in terms of any other social attitudes or behavior tendencies as
expresse d by those attitudes. Within the social organizati on of a state or nation the "anti- social"
effects of these two impulses are curbed and kept under contr ol by the legal system which is one
aspe ct of that organizatio n; these two impulses are made to constitute the fundamental principles in
terms of which the econ omic system, which is another aspe ct of that organization, operates; as
combined and fused with, and organized by means of the "friendly" human impulses-the impulses
leading to social cooperation among the individuals involved in that organization-they are prevent ed
from giving rise to the frictio n and enmity among those individuals which would otherwise be their
natur al consequence, and which would be fatally detrimental to the existe nce and well-being of that
organization; and having thus been made to enter as integral elements into the foundations of that
organization, they are utilized by that organizatio n as fundamental impulsive forces in its own further
deve lopment, or they serve as a basis for social progress within its relational framework. Ordin arily,
their most obvious and concrete expression or manifestation in that organization lies in the attitudes
of rivalry and competition which they generate inside the state or natio n as a who le, among different
socia lly functional subgroups of individuals-subg roups determined (and especially economically
deter mined) by that organization; and these attitudes serve definite socia l ends or purposes
presupposed by that organization, and constitute the motives of functionally necessary socia l
activities within that organization. But self-protective and self-preservatio nal human impulses also
express or manifest thems elves indirectly in that organization, by giving rise throug h their
assoc iation in that organization with the "friendly" human impulses, to one of the primary constitutive
ideals or principles or motives of that organizatio n-namely, the affording of social prote ction, and the
lending of social assista nce, to the individual by the state in the cond uct of his life; and by enhancing
the efficacy, for the purposes of that organization, of the "friendly" human impulses with a sense or
realizatio n of the poss ibility and desirability of such organized social protectio n and assistan ce to the
individual. More over, in any speci al circumstances in which the state or natio n is, as a whole,
confronted by some danger common to all its individual members, they become fused with the
"friendly" human impulses in those individuals, in such a way as to streng then and intensify in those
individuals the sense of organized socia l union and coop erative social interrelationship among them
in terms of the state; in such circumst ances, so far from constitutin g force s of disintegration or
destructio n within the social organization of the state or nation, they beco me, indirectly, the
principles of increased social unity, coherence, and coordination within that organization. In time of
war, for example, the self-protective impulse in all the individual members of the state is unitedly
directed against their common enemy and ceases, for the time being, to be directed among
them selves; the attitudes of rivalry and competition which that impulse ordinarily generates betwee n
the different smaller, socially functional groups of those individuals within the state are temp orarily

broken down; the usual social barriers betwee n these groups are likewise removed; and the state
presents a united front to the given common danger, or is fused into a single unity in terms of the
common end shared by, or reflected in, the respecti ve consci ousnesses of all its individual
members. It is upon these war-time expressions of the self-protective impulse in all the individual
members of the state or nation that the general efficacy of national appeals to patriotism is chiefly
base d.
Furth er, in those social situations in which the individual self feels dependent for his conti nuation or
conti nued existence upon the rest of the members of the given social group to which he belongs, it
is true that no feeling of superiority on his part toward those other members of that group is
nece ssary to his continuation or conti nued existence. But in those social situations in which he
cann ot, for the time being, integrate his socia l relations with other individual selves into a common,
unita ry pattern (i.e., into the behavior pattern of the organized society or social community to which
he belongs, the socia l behavior pattern that he reflects in his self-structure and that constitutes this
structure), there ensues, temporarily (i.e., until he can so integrate his social relations with other
individual selves), an attitude of hostil ity, of "latent oppo sition," on his part toward the organized
society or social community of which he is a member; and during that time the given individual self
must "call in" or rely upon the feeling of superiority toward that society or social community, or
toward its other individual members, in order to buoy himself up and "keep himself going" as such.
We always present ourselves to ourselves in the most favor able light possible; but since we all have
the job of keeping ourselves going, it is quite neces sary that if we are to keep ourse lves going we
shou ld thus present ourse lves to ourselves.
A highly developed and organized human society is one in which the individual members are
interr elated in a multiplicity of different intricate and complicated ways whereby they all share a
number of common social interests,-i nterests in, or for the betterment of, the society-and yet, on the
other hand, are more or less in conflict relative to num erous other intere sts which they possess only
individually, or else share with one another only in small and limited groups. Conflicts among
individuals in a highly devel oped and organized human society are not mere conflicts among their
respective primitive impulses but are conflicts among their respective selves or personalities, each
with its definite social structure- highly complex and organized and unified-and each with a number
of different social facets or aspe cts, a number of different sets of socia l attitudes const ituting it.
Thus, within such a society, conflicts arise between different aspect s or phases of the same
individual self (conflicts leading to cases of split personality when they are extre me or violent
enough to be psycho pathological), as well as between different individual selves. And both these
types of individual conflict are settled or terminated by reconstructio ns of the partic ular social
situati ons, and modifications of the given framework of social relationships, wherein they arise or
occur in the general human social life-proce ss – these reconstructions and modifications being
performed, as we have said, by the minds of the individuals in whose experience or between whos e
selves these conflicts take place.
Mind, as constructive or reflective or problem-solving thinking, is the socially acqu ired means or
mechanism or apparatus wher eby the human individual solves the various problems of
envir onmental adjustm ent which arise to confront him in the cours e of his experience, and which
prevent his conduct from proceeding harmoniously on its way, until they have thus been dealt with.
And mind or thinking is also-as poss esse d by the individual members of human society-the means
or mechanism or apparatus where by socia l reconstruction is effected or acco mplished by these
individuals. For it is their possession of minds or powers of thinking which enables human
individuals to turn back critically, as it were, upon the organized social structure of the society to
which they belong (and from their relations to which their minds are in the first insta nce derive d),
and to reorganize or reconstruct or modify that social structure to a greater or less degree, as the
exigencies of socia l evolu tion from time to time require. Any such social reconstruction, if it is to be
at all far-reach ing, presupposes a basis of common social interests shared by all the individual
members of the given human society in which that reconstructi on occurs; share d, that is, by all the
individuals whose minds must participate in, or whose minds bring about, that reconstruction. And
the way in which any' such socia l reconstruction is actually effected by the minds of the individuals
involve d is by a more or less abstract intellectual extension of the boundaries of the given society to
which these individuals all belong, and which is undergoing the reconstruction-an extension
result ing in a larger socia l whole in terms of which the social conflicts that nece ssitate the
reconstructi on of the given society are harmonized or recon ciled, and by reference to which,
accor dingly, these conflicts can be solve d or eliminated.[1]

The chan ges that we make in the social order in which we are implicated necessa rily involve our
also making changes in ourselves. The social conflicts among the individual members of a given
organized human society , which, for their removal, necessitate conscious or intelligent
reconstructi ons and modifications of that society by those individuals, also and equally necessitate
such reconstructions or modifications by those individuals of their own selves or perso nalities. Thus
the relations betwe en socia l reconstructi on and self or personality reconstructi on are reciprocal and
internal or organic; social reconstructi on by the individual members of any organized human society
entai ls self or personality reconstructi on in some degree or other by each of these individuals, and
vice versa, for, since their selves or personalities are constitute d by their organized social relations
to one another, they cannot reconstruct those selves or personalities without also reconstructing, to
some extent, the given social order, which is, of course, likewise constituted by their organized
socia l relations to one anoth er. In both types of reconstruction the same fundamental material of
organized social relations among human individuals is involved, and is simply treated in different
ways, or from different angles or points of view, in the two cases, respecti vely; or in short , social
reconstructi on and self or personality reconstruction are the two sides of a single process-the
process of human social evolution. Human social progress involves the use by hum an individuals of
their socially deriv ed mechanism of self-consciousness, both in the effecting of such progressive
socia l changes, and also in the deve lopment of their individual selves or personalities in such a way
as adaptively to keep pace with such socia l reconstruction.
Ultimately and fundamentally societi es deve lop in complexity of organization only by means of the
progressive achievement of greater and greater degrees of functional, behavioristic differentiation
among the individuals who constitute them; these functional, behavioristic differentiations among the
individual members implying or presupposing initial oppositions among them of individual needs
and ends, oppositions which in terms of social organization, however, are or have been transf ormed
into these differentiations or into mere spec ializations of socia lly functio nal individual behavior.
The human social ideal-the ideal or ultimate goal of human socia l progress-is the attainment of a
universal human society in which all human individuals would possess a perfected socia l
intelligence, such that all social meanings would each be similarly reflected in their respe ctive
individual consci ousnesses such that the meanings of any one individual's acts or gestures (as
realized by him and expressed in the structure of his self, through his ability to take the social
attitude s of other individuals toward himself and toward their common socia l ends or purposes)
would be the same for any other individual whatever who responded to them .
The inter locking interdependence of human individuals upon one another within the give n organized
socia l life-process in which they are all involved is beco ming more and more intricate and closely
knit and highly orga nized as human socia l evolut ion proc eeds on its course. The wide difference, for
example, betwe en the feudal civilization of medieval times, with its relatively loose and disintegrated
socia l organization, and the national civilization of modern times, with its relatively tight and
integ rated social organizatio n (together with its trend of develo pment toward some form of
international civilization), exhibits the const ant evolution of human social organization in the
directio n of great er and greater relational unity and complexity, more and more closely knit
interl ocking and integrated unifying of all the socia l relations of interdependence which constitute it
and which hold among the individuals involved in it.
Endnotes
1.The reflexive character of self-consciousness enables the individual to conte mplate himself
as a whole; his ability to take the socia l attitudes of other individuals and also of the
generalized other toward himself, within the given organized society of which he is a
member, makes possi ble his bringing himself, as an objective whole, within his own
experiential purvi ew; and thus he can consciously integrate and unify the various aspe cts of
his self, to form a single consistent and coherent and organized personality. More over, by
the same means, he can undertake and effect intelligent reconstructions of that self or
personality in terms of its relations to the given socia l order, whenever the exigencies of
adaptation to his social environment demand such reconstructi ons.

40. THE FUNCTIONS OF PERSONALITY AND REASON IN SOC IAL ORG ANIZ ATION
Where a socie ty is organized around a monarch, where people within the same state are so
sepa rate from each other that they can identify themselves with each other only throug h being
subjects of a common monarch, then, of course, the relationship of the subject to the monarch
beco mes of supreme importance. It is only through such relationships that such a community can be
set up and kept togethe r. This situation is found in the ancient empires of Mesop otamia, wher e
people of different languages and different custo ms had relati onship only throu gh the great kings. It
provi des the most immediate process of relationship; only so far as the king's authority goes, and
this common basis of relationship to the king extends, has this type of society organization.
The importance of the monarch over against the feudal order lay in the fact that the king could set
up relationships to the people widely separated except for the relationship with him. The king
represented the people in a univers al form, where previously they had no relationship to each other
exce pt the hostil ity of feudal communities for each other. There you get the personal relation, the
relation of status, which is important in the community. The relation is, of course, that of subject to
monarch. It involves the acceptance of an inferior positi on, but this is an acceptance which is gladly
made because of the significance to the community at large which such an order makes possi ble.
The community to which the individual belongs is typified in his relation to the king, and even under
a constituti onal monarchy the monarch acts to hold it togethe r. Through the feeling of relation to the
king one can get a feeling for the vast congeries of comm unities that do in some way hang together.
In this way a situa tion of status makes poss ible that wider and larger community. It is possible
throu gh perso nal relati onships betwee n a sovereign and subject to constitute a community which
could not otherw ise be so constitute d, and this fact has played a very important part in the
deve lopment of states.
It is interesting to see how this situation appeared in the Roman Empire. There the relationship of
the emperor to the subjects as such was one of absolute power, but it was defined in legal terms
which carried over the definitions that belonged to Roman law into the relationship between the
emperor and his subjects. This, howev er, const ituted too abstract a relati onship to meet the
demands of the community, and the deification of the emperor under these conditions was the
expression of the necessit y of setting up some sort of more personal relation. When the Roman
member of the community offered his sacrifice to the emperor he was putting himself into personal
relationship with him, and because of that he could feel his connection with all the members in the
community. Of course, the conc eption of the deity under those circu mstances was not comparable
with the conception that was developed in Christianity, but it was the setting-up of a personal
relationship which in a certain sens e went beyon d the purely legal relations involved in the
deve lopment of Roman law.
We are all familiar with this function of personality in social organization. We express it in terms of
leadership or in the vague term "perso nality." Where an office force is organized by a good
manager, we speak of his personality as playing a part. Where the action of a man in the office is
more or less dependent upon his dread of a reprimand or desire for approval from the manager
himself, there the element of a personal relationship of selves to each other plays a considerable
part, perhaps the dominant part, in the actual social organization. It plays, of cours e, the dominant
part in the relation of children to their parents. It is found in the relation of parents to each other. It
frequently plays a part in political organization, where a leader is one whose personality awakens a
warm respo nse. It is not necessary to multiply the instances in which this sort of relationship of
selves to each other in terms of personality is of importance in social organization.
It is of importance, howev er, to recognize the difference betwe en that organization and an
organization which is founded, we will say, upon a rational basis. If people get together, form a
business corporation, look for a competent manager, discu ss the candidates from the point of view
of their intelligence, of their training, their past experience, and finally settle upon a certain
individual; and then while they get him to take techn ical control, the members of the corporation of
directors appointed by the stockh olders undertake to determine what the policy shall be, there arise s
a situati on in which this sort of perso nal relationship is not essential for the organization of this
partic ular community. The officers are depending upon the capacity of the chos en man, and the
interests of all involve d in the concern, to give the needed control. just to the degree that people are

intelligent in such a situation, they will organize in the recognition of functions which others have to
perform, and in the realization of the necessity on the part of each of performing his own functions in
order that the whole may succee d. They will look for an expert to carry out the managerial functions.
The managerial form of government is an illustrati on of the definite advance from an organization
which depends very cons iderably upon personal relations to political leaders, or the devoti on of
parties to persons in charge, to this sort of rational organization on the basis of what a govern ment
ought to do in the community. If we can make the function of the government sufficiently clear; if a
consi derable portion of the community can be fairly aware of what they want the government to do;
if we can get the public problems, public utilities, and so on, sufficiently before the community so
that the members can say, "We want just such a sort of govern ment; we know what results are
wanted; and we are looking for a man capable of giving us those resul ts," then that would be a
rational treat ment eliminating all elements of personality which have no bearing upon the function of
govern ment. It would avoid the difficulty communities labor under in running their communities by
means of parties. If gove rnment is by means of parties, it is necessary to organize those partie s
more or less on personal relations. When a man becomes a good organizer of his ward, what is
looked for in such a man is one who gets hold of people (especially those who want to profit by
power), awakens their personal relations, and calls forth what is known as "loyalty." Such a situation
is made necessary by party organizatio n, and a gove rnment conducted on that basis cannot
eliminate or rationalize such conditions, exce pt under crises in which some particular issue comes
before the country.
I want to indicate this dividing line betwe en an organizatio n depending on what the community
wants to accomplish throu gh its government and the directio n of the gover nment from the point of
view of personal relations. The dependence upon personal relations we have in some sense
inherited from the past. They are still esse ntial for our own democracy. We could not get interest
enough at the present time to cond uct the government without falling back on the personal relations
involve d in political parties. But it is of interest, I think , to distinguish between these two principles of
organization. So far as we have the managerial form of government, it is worth notin g that where it
has come in, hardly any communities have given it up. This illustrates a situation that has passed
beyo nd personal relati onships as the basis for the organization of the community. But as a rule it
can be said that our various democratic organizations of society still are dependent upon perso nal
relations for the operation of the community, and especially for the operation of the government.
These personal relations are also of very great importance in the organizat ion of the community
itself. If looked at from the functional standpoint, they may seem rather ignoble; and we generally try
to cover them up. We may regard them as a way of realizing one's self by some sort of supe riority to
somebody else. That phase is one which goes back to the situati on in which a man plumes himself
when he gets somebody else in a conflict and emerges victorious. We have very frequently that
sens e of superiority in what seems relativel y unimportant matters . We are able to hold on to
ourselves in little things; in the ways in which we feel ourselves to be a little superior. If we find
ourselves defeated at som e point we take refuge in feeling that somebody else is not as good as we
are. Any person can find those little supports for what is called his self-respect. The importance of
this phenomenon comes out in the relation of groups to each other. The individual who identifies
himself with the group has the sens e of an enlarged personality. So the cond itions under which this
satisf action can be obtained are the conditions sought for as the basis of all situations in which
groups get together and feel themselves in their superiority over other groups. It is on this basis that
warfare is carrie d on. Hate come s back to the sense of super iority of one com munity over another. It
is intere sting to see how trivial the basis of that superiority may be; the American may travel abroad
and come back with simply a sense of the better hotels in America.
A striking difference is found in the form in whic h values attached to the self appear in the two forms
of socia l organization we are discussing. In the one case you realize yourself in these personal
relations that co me back to the superiority of yourself to others, or to the grou p superiority over other
groups; in the other case you come back to the intelligent carryin g-out of certai n social functio ns and
the realization of yourse lf in what you do under those circumstances. There may be conce ivably as
great an enthusiasm in one as in the other case, but we can realize the difference betwe en the
actua l felt values. In the first case your felt value depends directly or indirectly on the sense of
yoursel f in terms of your superiority which is in a certai n sens e sublimated; but you come back to a
direct feeling of super iority throu gh the identification of yourself with somebody else who is superior.
The other sense of the importance of your self is obtained, if you like, throug h the sens e of

performing a social function, throu gh fulfilling your duty as com mander of the community, finding out
what is to be done and going about to do it. In this realization of yourse lf you do not have to have
somebody else who is inferior to you to carry it out. You want other people to fulfil their functions as
well. You may feel that you are better than your neighbor who did not do his job, but you regret the
fact that he did not do it. You do not feel your self in your superiority to somebody else but in the
interr elation necessa ry in carrying out the more or less common function.
It is the difference betwe en these values that I wanted to call attention to, and, of course , the
recognition of the super iority of the seco nd over the first. We cannot ignore the importance of the
community base d on direct personal relationships, for it has been in a large degree respo nsible for
the organization of large communities which could otherw ise not have appeared. It gives a common
ground to persons who have no other basi s for union; it provides the basis for the ideal communities
of great univers al religions. We are contin ually falling back upon that sort of personal relation where
it is throu gh opposition that one realizes himself, where a relationship of supe riority or inferiority
enters directly into the emotional field. We are dependent upon it in many ways even in highly
rational organizations, where a man with push gets into a situat ion and just makes people keep at
their jobs. But we always recognize that the sens e of the self obtai ned throug h the realization of a
function in the community is a more effective and for various reasons a higher form of the sense of
the self than that which is dependent upon the immediate personal relations in which a relation of
supe riority and inferiority is involved.
Consider the situation in Europe at the present time. There is an evident desire on the part of
natio nal communities to get together in a ration al organization of the community in which all the
natio ns exist, and yet there is no desire to dispense with the sense of hostility as a means of
preservin g national self-consciousness. Nations have to preserve this sense of self; they cannot just
go to pieces and disappear. The getting of this national self-consci ousness was a distin ct step
ahead, as was the earlier setting-up of an empire. The comm unities at Geneva would rather go for
one another's throats than give up the self-consciousness that makes their organizatio ns possible.
Geneva is a stage, or ought to be a stage, on which communities can get together in a functional
relationship, realizing themselves witho ut shaking their fists at one another. If the self cannot be
realized in any other way, it is probably better to do it in the latter way. To realize the self is
esse ntial, and, if it has to be done by fighting, it may be better to keep at least the threat of a fight;
but the realizatio n of the self in the intelligent performance of a social function remains the higher
stage in the case of nations as of individuals.
41. OBSTACLES AND PROMISES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEAL SOCIETY
We have presented the self from the side of experience; it arises through coop erative activity; it is
made possi ble throu gh the identical reactio ns of the self and others. In so far as the individual can
call out in his own natur e these organized responses and so take the attitude of the other toward
himself, he can devel op self-consciousness, a reaction of the organism to itself. On the other hand,
we have seen that an essential moment in this process is the response of the individual to this
reacti on which does contain the organized group, that which is common to all, that which is called
the "me." If individuals are so distinguished from each other that they cannot identify them selves
with each other, if there is not a common basis, then there cannot be a whole self present on eithe r
side.
Such a distinction, for example, does lie between the infant and the human society in which he
enters. He cannot have the whole self-consc iousness of the adult; and the adult finds it difficult, to
say the least, to put himself into the attitude of the child. That is not, however, an impossible thing,
and our devel opment of modern education rests on this possi bility of the adult finding a common
basis betwe en himself and the child. Go back into the literature in which children are introduced in
the sixtee nth, sevente enth, and even eighte enth centuries, and you find children treated as little
adults; the whole attitude toward them from the point of view of morals, as well as training, was that
they were adults who were somewhat deficient and needed to be disciplined in order to get them
into the proper attitude. That which they were to learn was to be brought to them in the form in which
an adult makes use of the knowledge. It was not until the last century that there was a definite

undertaking on the part of those interested in the education of children to enter into the experience
of the child and to regard it with any respect.
Even in the society erected on the basis of castes there are some common attitudes; but they are
very restri cted in number, and as they are restricted they cut down the poss ibility of the full
deve lopment of the self. What is necessary under those circumsta nces to get such a self is a
withdraw al from that caste order. The medieval period in which there was a definite caste
organization of society, with serfs, overl ords, and ecclesiastical distin ctions, presents a situati on in
which the attainment of membership in the spiritual community required the withdra wal of the
individual from the society as ordered in the caste fashion. Such is at least a partial explanation of
the cloistered life, and of ascetic ism. The same thing is revealed in the development of saints in
other communities who withdraw from the social order, and get back to some sort of a socie ty in
which these castes as such are mediated or absent. The development of the democratic community
implies the removal of castes as essenti al to the personality of the individual; the individual is not to
be what he is in his specific caste or group set over against other groups, but his distincti ons are to
be distinctions of functi onal difference which put him in relationship with others instead of separating
him.[1]
The caste distinction of the early warrior class was one which separated its members from the
community. Their characters as soldiers differentiated them from the other members of the
community; they were what they were because they were essentially different from others. Their
activity separated them from the community. They even preyed upon the community which they
were supp osed to be defending, and would do so inevitably becaus e their activity was esse ntially a
fighting activity. With the development of the national army which took place at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, there was the possibility of everyone's being a warrior, so that the man who was
a fighting man was still a perso n who could identify himself with the other members of the
community; he had their attitudes and they had the attitude of the fighting man. Thus the normal
relationship betwe en the fighting man and the rest of the community was one which bound people
togethe r, integ rated the army and the body of the state, instead of separating them. The same
progression is found in the other caste s, such as the governing as over against the governed, an
esse ntial difference which made it impossible for the individual of that particular group to identify
himself with the others, or the others to identify themselves with him. The democratic order
undertakes to wipe that difference out and to make everyone a sovereign and everyone a subject.
One is to be a subject to the degree that he is a sovereign. He is to undertak e to administer rights
and maintain them only in so far as he recog nizes those rights in others. And so one might go on
throu gh other caste divisions.
Ethic al ideas,[2] within any given human society, arise in the consciousness of the individual
members of that society from the fact of the common social dependence of all these individuals
upon one anoth er (or from the fact of the common social dependence of each one of them upon that
society as a whole or upon all the rest of them), and from their awar eness or sensing or conscious
realizatio n of this fact. But ethical problems arise for individual members of any give n human society
whenever they are individually confronted with a social situatio n to which they cannot readily adjust
and adapt thems elves, or in which they cannot easily realize themselves, or with which they cannot
immediately integrate their own behavior; and the feeling in them which is conco mitant with their
facing and solution of such problems (which are essentially problems of social adjustment and
adaptation to the interests and conduct of other individuals) is that of self-superiority and temporary
opposition to other individuals. In the case of ethical problems, our socia l relationships with other
individual members of the given human society to which we belong depe nd upon our apposition to
them, rather than, as in the case of the devel opment or formulation of ethic al ideals, upon our unity,
coop eration, and identification with them. Every human individual must, to behave ethic ally,
integ rate himself with the pattern of organized social behavior which, as reflected or prehended in
the structure of his self, makes him a self-conscious personality. Wrong, evil, or sinful conduct on
the part of the individual runs counter to this pattern of organized social behavior which makes him,
as a self, what he is, just as right, good, or virtuous behavior accords with this pattern; and this fact
is the basis of the profound ethical feeling of conscience-of "ought" and "ought not" which we all
have, in varying degrees, respe cting our conduct in given social situations. The sense which the
individual self has of his dependence upon the organized society or social community to which he
belongs is the basis and origin, in short, of his sense of duty (and in general of his ethic al
consc iousness); and ethical and unethical behavior can be defined esse ntially in social terms: the
former as behavior which is socially beneficial or conducive to the well-being of society , the latter as

behavior which is socially harmful or cond ucive to the disru ption of society. From another point of
view, ethical ideals and ethic al problems may be cons idered in terms of the conflict betwee n the
socia l and the asocial (the impersonal and the personal) sides or aspects of the individual self. The
socia l or impersonal aspe ct of the self integ rates it with the social group to which it belongs and to
which it owes its existence; and this side of the self is character ized by the individual's feeling of
coop eration and equality with the other members of that socia l group. The asoc ial or personal
aspe ct of the self (which, nevertheless, is also and equally socia l, fundamentally in the sens e of
being socially derived or originated and of existentially involving socia l relations with other
individuals, as much as the impersonal aspect of the self is and does), on the other hand,
differentiates it from, or sets it in distinctive and unique opposition to, the other members of the
socia l group to which it belongs; and this side of the self is characterized by the individual's feeling
of supe riority toward the other members of that group. The "soci al" aspect of human society- which is
simply the social aspe ct of the selves of all individual members taken collectively-with its
conc omitant feelings on the parts of all these individuals of coop eration and social interdependence,
is the basis for the development and existence of ethical ideals in that society; w hereas the "asocial"
aspe ct of human society -which is simply the asocial aspect of the selves of all individual members
taken collectively-with its conco mitant feelings on the parts of all these individuals of individuality,
self-superiority to other individual selves, and socia l independence, is respo nsible for the rise of
ethic al problems in that society. Thes e two basic aspects of each single individual self are, of
cours e, responsible in the same way or at the same time for the development of ethical ideals and
the rise of ethic al problems in the individual's own experience as opposed to the experience of
human society as a whole, which is obviously nothing but the sum-total of the social experiences of
all its individual members.
Those social situa tions in which the individual finds it easiest to integrate his own behavior with the
behavior of the other individual selves are those in which all the individual participants are members
of some one of the numerous socially functional groups of individuals (groups organized,
respectivel y, for various speci al social ends and purposes) within the given human society as a
whole; and in which he and they are actin g in their respective capa cities as members of this
partic ular group. (Every individual member of any given human society, of course , belongs to a large
number of such different functi onal groups.) On the other hand, those social situations in which the
individual finds it most difficult to integrate his own behavior with the behavior of others are those in
which he and they are acting as members, respectively, of two or more different socia lly functional
groups: groups whose respective socia l purposes or interests are antagonistic or conflicting or
widely separated. In socia l situatio ns of the former general type each individual's attitude toward the
other individuals is essentially social; and the combination of all these socia l attitudes toward one
another of the individuals represents, or tends to realize more or less completely, the ideal of any
socia l situation respecting organizat ion, unification, co-operation, and integration of the behavi or of
the several individuals involved. In any social situatio n of this general type the individual realizes
himself as such in his relation to all the other members of the given socia lly functional group and
realizes his own particular social function in its relations to the respective functions of all other
individuals. He takes or assu mes the social attitudes of all these other individuals toward himself
and toward one another, and integrates himself with that situation or group by contro lling his own
behavior or conduct accord ingly; so that there is nothing in the least competitive or hostile in his
relations with these other individuals. In soci al situatio ns of the latter general type on the other hand,
each individual's attitude toward the other individuals is essent ially asoc ial or hostil e (though these
attitude s are of course social in the fundamental non-ethical sense, and are socially derived); such
situati ons are so complex that the various individuals involved in any one of them either cannot be
brought into common social relations with one another at all or else can be brought into such
relations only with great difficulty, after long and tortuous proce sses of mutual social adjustment; for
any such situat ion lacks a common group or socia l interest shared by all the individuals-it has no
one common social end or purpose characterizing it and serving to unite and coordinate and
harmoniously interrelate the actions of all those individuals; instead, those individuals are motivated,
in that situati on, by severa l different and more or less conflicting social interests or purposes.
Examples of social situations of this general type are those involving interactions or relations
betwee n capital and labor, i.e., those in which some of the individuals are acting in their socia lly
functional capacity as members of the capitalistic class, which is one econ omic aspect of modern
human social organization; whereas the other individuals are acting in their socially functional
capa city as members of the laboring class, which is another (and in social interests directly
opposed) economic aspect of that social organization. Other examples of socia l situat ions of this
general type are those in which the individuals involved stand in the econ omic relations to each

other of producers and cons umers, or buyers and sellers, and are acting in their respective socia lly
functional capacities as such. But even the social situati ons of this general type (involving complex
socia l antagonisms and diversities of socia l interests among the individuals implicated in any one of
them, and respe ctively lacking the coordinating, integ rating, unifying influence of common socia l
ends and motives shared by those individuals), even these social situations, as occurr ing within the
general human social process of experience and behavior, are definite aspects of or ingredients in
the general relational pattern of that process as a whole.
What is esse ntial to the order of society in its fullest expression on the basis of the theory of the self
that we have been discus sing is, then, an organization of common attitudes which shall be found in
all individuals. It might be supposed that
such an organization of attitudes would refer only to that abstract human being which could be found
as identical in all members of society, and that that which is pecu liar to the personality of the
individual would disappear. The term "personality" implies that the individual has certa in common
rights and values obtained in him and throu gh him; but over and above that sort of social
endowment of the individual, there is that which distinguishes him from anybo dy else, makes him
what he is. It is the most preci ous part of the individual. The question is whether that can be carried
over into the social self or wheth er the socia l self shall simply embody those reacti ons which can be
common to him in a great community. On the account we have given we are not forced to accept
the latter alternative.
When one realizes himself, in that he distinguishes himself, he asserts himself over others in some
pecu liar situati on which justifies him in maintaining himself over against them. If he could not bring
that pecu liarity of himself into the common community, if it could not be recognized, if others could
not take his attitude in some sense, he could not have appreciation in emotional terms, he could not
be the very self he is trying to be. The author, the artist, must have his audience; it may be an
audience that belongs to posterity, but there must be an audience. One has to find one's self in his
own individual creation as appreciated by others; what the individual acco mplishes must be
someth ing that is in itself social. So far as he is a self, he must be an organic part of the life of the
community, and his contrib ution has to be something that is social. It may be an ideal which he has
discove red, but it has its value in the fact that it belongs to society. One may be somewhat ahead of
his time, but that which he brings forward must belong to the life of the community to which he
belongs. There is, then, a functi onal difference, but it must be a functional difference which can be
enter ed into in some real sens e by the rest of the community. Of course, there are contri butions
which some make that others cannot make, and there may be contri butions which people cannot
enter into; but those that go to ma ke up the self are only those which can be share d. To do justice to
the recognition of the uniqueness of an individual in socia l terms, there must be not only the
differentiation which we do have in a highly organized society but a differentiation in which the
attitude s involved can be taken by other members of the group.
Take, for example, the labor movement. It is essential that the other members of the community
shall be able to enter into the attitude of the laborer in his functions. It is the caste organization, of
cours e, which makes it impossible; and the deve lopment of the modern labor movement not only
brought the situati on actual ly involve d before the com munity but inevita bly helped to break down the
caste organization itself. The caste organization tended to separate in the selves the essential
functions of the individuals so that one could not enter into the other. This does not, of course, shut
out the possi bility of some sort of social relationship; but any such relationship involves the
possi bility of the individual's taking the attitude of the other individuals, and functional differentiation
does not make that impossible. A member of the community is not nece ssarily like other individuals
beca use he is able to identify himself with them. He may be different. There can be a common
conte nt, common experience, without there being an identity of function. A difference of functions
does not preclude a common experience; it is possi ble for the individual to put himself in the place
of the other although his function is different from the other. It is that sort of functi onally
differentiated personality that I wante d to refer to as over against that which is simply common to all
members of a community.
There is, of course, a certa in common set of reactions which belong to all, which are not
differentiated on the social side but which get their expression in rights, uniformities, the common
meth ods of actio n which chara cterize members of different communities, manners of speech, and
so on. Distinguishable from those is the identity which is compatible with the difference of social

functions of the individuals, illustrate d by the capacity of the individual to take the part of the others
whom he is affecting, the warrior putting himself in the place of those whom he is proceeding
against, the teach er putting himself in the position of the child whom he is undertaking to instruct.
That capa city allows for exhibiting one's own -pec uliarities, and -at the same time taking the attitude
of the others whom he is himself affecting. It is poss ible for the individual to devel op his own
pecu liarities, that which individualizes him, and still be a member of a community, provided that he
is able to take the attitude of those whom he affects. Of course, the degree to which that t akes place
varies tremendously, but a certai n amount of it is essential to citizens hip in the community.
One may say that the attainment of that funct ional differentiation and social participation in the full
degree is a sort of ideal which lies before the human community. The present stage of it is
presented in the ideal of democracy. It is often assumed that democracy is an order of society in
which those personalities which are sharp ly differentiated will be eliminated, that everything will be
ironed down to a situati on where everyone will be, as far as poss ible, like everyone else. But of
cours e that is not the implication of democracy: the implication of democracy is rather that the
individual can be as highly developed as lies within the possibilities of his own inheritance, and still
can enter into the attitudes of the others whom he affects. There can still be leaders, and the
community can rejoice in their attitudes just in so far as these superior individuals can themselves
enter into the attitude s of the community which they undertake to lead.
How far individuals can take the rôles of other individuals in the community is dependent upon a
number of factors. The comm unity may in Its size transce nd the socia l organization, may go beyond
the social organization whic h makes such identification poss ible. The most striking illustrati on of that
is the economic community. This includes everybody with whom one can trade in any
circu mstances, but it repre sents a whole in which it would be next to impossible for all to enter into
the attitudes of the others. The ideal communities of the universal religions are communities which
to some extent may be said to exist, but they imply a degree of identification which the actual
organization of the community cannot realize. We often find the existence of castes in a community
which make it impossible for persons to enter into the attitude of other people although they are
actua lly affecting and are affected by these other people. The ideal of human society is one which
does bring people so closely together in their interr elationships, so fully devel ops the nece ssary
system of communication, that the individuals who exercise their own peculiar functi ons can take
the attitude of those whom they affect. The development of communication is not simply a matter of
abstract ideas, but is a process of putting one's self in the place of the other person's attitude,
communicating throu gh significant symbols. Remember that what is essential to a significant symbol
is that the gesture which affects others should affect the individual himself in the same way. It is only
when the stimulus which one gives another arouses in himself the same or like response that the
symbol is a significant symbol. Human communication takes place through such significant
symbols, and the problem is one of organizing a community which makes this possi ble. If that
system of communication could be made theor etica lly perfect, the individual would affect himself as
he affects others in every way. That would be the ideal of communication, an ideal attained in logical
disco urse where ver it is understood. The meaning of that which is said is here the sam e to one as it
is to everybod y else. Universal disco urse is then the formal ideal of communication. If
communication can be carried through and made perfect, then there would exist the kind of
democracy to which we have referred, in which each individual would carry just the response in
himself that he knows he calls out in the community. That is what makes communication in the
significant sens e the organizing process in the community. It is not simply a process of transf erring
abstract symbols; it is always a gestu re in a social act which calls out in the individual himself the
tendency to the same act that is called out in others.
What we call the ideal of a human socie ty is approached in some sense by the economic society on
the one side and by the univers al religions on the other side, but it is not by any means fully
realized. Those abstractions can be put togeth er in a single community of the democratic type. As
democracy now exists, there is not this development of communication so that individuals can put
them selves into the attitudes of those whom they affect. There is a consequent leveling-down, and
an undue recog nition of that which is not only common but identic al. The ideal of human society
cann ot exist as long as it is impossible for individuals to enter into the attitudes of those whom they
are affecting in the performance of their own peculiar functions
Endnotes

1.In so far as speci alizatio n is normal and helpful, it increases concrete social relations.
Differences in occu patio n do not themselves build up castes. The caste has arisen through
the importation of the outsider into the group, just as the animal is brought in, when throu gh
the conce ption of property he can be made useful. The clement of hostility toward the
person outside the group is essential to the development of the caste. Caste in India arose
out of conq uest. It always involves the group enemy, when that has been imported into the
group; so that I should not myself agree with Cooley that hereditary transmission of
differentiated occupation produces caste s.
The caste system breaks down as the human relations becom e more concrete….. Slaves
pass over into serfs, peasants, artisans, citizens. In all these stages you have an increase of
relations. In the ideal cond ition separation from the point of view of caste will become social
function from the point of view of the group….. Democratic consciousness is generated by
differences of functions (1912).
2.[For the implied ethical position, see Supplementary Essay IV.
42. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
We have approached psycho logy from the standpoint of behaviorism; that is, we have undertaken to
consi der the conduct of the organism and to locat e what is termed "intelligence," and in partic ular,
"self-conscious intelligence," within this cond uct. This position implies organisms which are in
relationship to environments, and environments that are in some sense determined by the selection
of the sensitivity of the form of the organism. It is the sensitivity of the organism that determ ines
what its environment shall be, and in that sense we can speak of a form as determining its
envir onment. The stimulus as such as found in the enviro nment is that whic h sets free an impulse, a
tendency to act in a certain fashion. We spea k of this cond uct as intelligent just in so far as it
maintains or advances the interests of the form or the species to which it belongs. Intelligence is,
then, a function of the relation of the form and its environment. The cond uct that we study is always
the action of the form in its commerce with the environment. Such intelligence we may find in plants
or animals when the form in its reaction to the environment sets free its impulses through the stimuli
that come from the enviro nment.
Earlier psycho logists-and many psychologists of the present time, for that matter-assume that at a
certai n point in the develo pment of the organism consci ousness as such arise s. It is supposed to
appear first of all in affective states, those of pleasure and pain; and it is assu med that through
pleasure and pain the form controls its conduct. It is assumed that later consci ousness finds its
expression in the sensati on of the antecedent stimulus process in the environment itself. But these
sens ations, from the point of view of our study, involve the statem ent of the environment itself; that
is, we cannot state the environment in any other way than in terms of our sensations, if we acce pt
such a definition of sens ation as a consciousness that simply arises. If we try to define the
envir onment within which sensation does arise, it is in terms of that which we see and feel and that
which our observation assu mes to be present. The suggestion I have made is that consci ousness,
as such, does not represe nt a sepa rate substa nce or a separate something that is superinduced
upon a form, but rather that the term "consc iousness" (in one of its basic usages) represents a
certai n sort of an environment in its relation to sensitive organisms.
Such a statement brings together two philosophic concepts, one of emergence and one of relativity .
We may assu me that certain types of characters arise at certain stages in the course of
deve lopment. This may exten d, of course, far below the range to which we are referr ing. Water, for
example, arises out of a combination of hydro gen and oxyg en; it is something over and above the
atom s that make it up. When we speak, then, of such characters as sensations arising, emerging,
we are really asking no more than when we ask the character of any organic compound. Anything
that as a whole is more than the mere form of its parts has a nature that belongs to it that is not to
be found in the elements out of which it is made.
Consciousness, in the widest sense, is not simply an emergent at a certain point, but a set of
characters that is dependent upon the relationship of a thing to an organism. Color, for instance,

may be conce ived of as arising in relati onship to an organism that has an organ of vision. In that
case, there is a certa in environment that belongs to a certain form and arises in relationship to that
form. If we accept those two concepts of emergence and relativity, all I want to point out is that they
do answe r to what we term "consciousness," namely, a certain environment that exists in its
relationship to the orga nism, and in which new characte rs can arise in virtue of the organism. I have
not undertaken here[1] to defend this as a philosophic view, but simply to point out that it does
answ er to certain consci ous characteristics which have been given to forms at certa in points in
evolution. On this view the charact ers do not belong to organisms as such but only in the
relationship of the organism to its environment. They are characteri stics of objects in the
envir onment of the form. The objects are colored, odorous, pleasant or painful, hideous or beautiful,
in their relationship to the organism. I have sugg ested that in the deve lopment of forms with
envir onments that answer to them and that are regulated by the forms themselves there appe ar or
emerge characters that are dependent on this relation between the form and its environment. In one
sens e of the term, such characters constitute the field of consciousness.
This is a conce ption which at times we use without any hesitancy. When an animal form appears,
certai n objects become food; and we recognize that those objects have become food because the
animal has a certain sort of digestive apparatus. There are certa in micro-organisms that are
dangerous to human beings, but they would not be dangerous unless there were individuals
susce ptible to the attack of these germs. We do const antly refer to certain objects in the
envir onment as existing there because of the relationship betwe en the form and the envir onment.
There are certa in objects that arc beautiful but that would not be beautiful if there were not
individuals that have an appreciation of them. It is in that organic relation that beauty arises. In
general, then, we do recognize that there are objective fields in the world dependent upon the
relation of the enviro nment to certain forms. I am sugg esting the extension of that recognition to the
field of consciousness. All that I aim to point out here is that with such a conception we have hold of
what we term "consci ousness," as such; we do not have to endo w the form with consciousness as a
certai n spiritual substan ce if we utilize these conceptions, and, as I said, we do utilize them when we
spea k of such a thing as food emerging in the envir onment because of the relationship of an object
with the form. We might just as well speak of color, sound, and so on, in the same way.
The psychical in that case answe rs to the peculiar character which the enviro nment has for a
partic ular organism. It comes back to the distinction which we made between the self in its universa l
character and in its individual character. The self is universal, it identifies itself with a universal "me. "
We put ourselves in the attitude of all,, and that which we all see is that which is expressed in
universal terms; but each has a different sensitivity, and one color is different to me from what it is to
you. These are differences which are due to the peculiar character of the organism as over against
that which answe rs to universality.
I want to keep in the field of psycho logical analysis; but it does seem to me that it is important to
recognize the poss ibility of such a treatment of consc iousness, beca use it takes us into a field
wher e the psycho logists have been work ing. It is important to determine wheth er experienced
characters are states of consciousness or whethe r they belong to the surrou nding world. If they are
states of consciousness, a different orientation results than if so-called "consci ous states" are
recognized as the characters of the world in its relation to the individual. All I am asking is that we
shou ld make use of that conception as we do use it in other conn ections. It opens the door to a
treatment of the consc ious self in terms of a behaviorism which has been regarded as inadequate at
that point. It avoids, for example, the criticis m made by the configuration psychol ogists, that
psychol ogists have to come back to certain conscious states which people have.
The "I" is of importance, and I have treated it in so far as it has relation to the definite field of
psychol ogy, without undertaking to cons ider or defend what metaphysical assu mptions may be
involve d. That limitation is justified, for the psycho logist does not undertake to maintain a
meta physics as such. When he deals with the world about him, he just accepts it as it is. Of cours e,
this attitude is shot throu gh and throu gh with metaphysical problems, but the approach is
scient ifically legitimate.
Furth er, what we term "mental images" (the last resort of consc iousness as a substa nce) can exist
in their relation to the organism witho ut being lodged in a subst antial consc iousness. The mental
image is a memory image. Such images which, as symbols, play so large a part in thinking, belong
to the environment.[2] The passage we read is made up from memory images, and the people we

see about us we see very largely by the help of memory images. Very frequently we find that the
thing We see and that we suppose answers to the character of an object is not really there; it was
an image. The image is there in its relati on to the individual who not only has sense organs but who
also has certain past experiences. It is the organism that has had such experiences that has such
imagery. In saying this we are taking an attitude which we are const antly using when we sa), we
have read a certain thing; the memory image is there ill its relationship to a certa in organism with
certai n past experiences, with certain values also definitely there in relation to that particular
envir onment as remembered.
Consciousness as such refers to both the organism and its enviro nment and cann ot be located
simply in eithe r. If we free the field in this sense, then we can proceed with a behavioristic treatment
witho ut having the difficulties in which Watson found himself in dealing with mental images. He
denied there was any such thing , and then had to admit it, and then tried to minimize it. Of cours e,
the same difficulty lies in dealing with experience regarded as states of consciousness. If we
recognize that these characters of things do exist in relation to the organism, then we are free to
approach the organism from the standpoint of behaviorism.
I do not regard consci ousness as having selective power, in one current sense of "selection." What
we term "consciousness" is just that relation of organism and environment in which selection takes
place. Consciousness arises from the interrelation of the form and the enviro nment, and it involves
both of them. Hunger does not create food, nor is an object a food object without relation to hunger.
When there is that relation betwee n form and environment, then objects can appear which would
not have been there otherw ise; but the animal does not create the food in the sense that he makes
an object out of nothi ng. Rather, when the form is put into such relation with the environment, then
there emerges such a thing as food. Wheat becomes food; just as water arises in the relati on of
hydrog en and oxygen. It is not simply cutting something out and holding it by itself (as the term
"sele ction" seems to sugg est), but in this process there appears or emerges something that was not
there before. There is not, I say, anything about this view that impresses us as involving any sort of
magic when we take it in the form of the evolution of certain other characters, and I want to insist
that this conception does cover just that field which is referred to as consc iousness.
Of course, when one goes back to such a conception of consc iousness as early psycho logists used,
and everything experienced is lodged in consciousness, then one has to create another world
outsi de and say that there is something out there answe ring to these experiences. I want to insist
that it is possible to take the behavioristic view of the world withou t being troubled or tripped up by
the conception of consciousness; there are certa inly no more serious difficulties involved in such a
view as has been proposed than there are in a conception of consciousness as a something that
arise s at a certain point in the history of physi cal forms and runs parallel in some way with speci fic
nervou s states. Try to state that conception in a form applicable to the work of the psychologist and
you find yourself in all sorts of difficulties that are far greater than those in the conceptions of
emergence and relativity. If you are willing to approach the world from the standpoint of these
conc eptions, then you can approach psycho logy from the behaviorist's point of view.
The other conception that I have brought out concerns the particular sort of intelligence that we
ascri be to the human animal, so-cal led "rational intelligence," or consc iousness in another sense of
the term. If consciousness is a substa nce, it can be said that this consci ousness is rational per se;
and just by definition the problem of the appearance of what we call rationality is avoided. What I
have attempted to do is to bring rationality back to a certain type of conduct, the type of conduct in
which the individual puts himself in the attitude of the whole group to which he belongs. This implies
that the whole group is involved in some organized activit y and that in this organized activit y the
actio n of one calls for the action of all the others. What we term "reaso n" arises when one of the
organisms takes into its own response the attitude of the other organisms involved. It is poss ible for
the organism so to assume the attitudes of the group that are involved in its own act within this
whole cooperative process. When it does so, it is what we term "a ration al being." If its conduct has
such universa lity, it has also nece ssity, that is, the sort of necessity involved in the whole act-if one
acts in one way the others must act in another way. Now, if the individual can take the attitude of the
others and control his action by these attitudes, and control their action throu gh his own, then we
have what we can term "rationality." Rationality is as large as the group which is involved; and that
group could be, of course, functi onally, potentially, as large as you like. It may include all beings
spea king the same language.

Language as such is simply a process by means of which the individual who is engaged in
coop erative activit y can get the attitude of others involv ed in the same activity. Through gestur es,
that is, throu gh the part of his act which calls out the response of others, he can arous e in himself
the attitude of the others. Language as a set of significant symbols is simply the set of gestu res
which the organism employs in calling out the response of others. Those gestures primarily are
nothi ng but parts of the act which do natura lly stimulate others engaged in the cooperative process
to carry out their parts. Rationality then can be stated in terms of such behavior if we recog nize that
the gesture can affect the individual as it affects others so as to call out the response which belongs
to the other. Mind or reason presupposes social organization and cooperative activit y in this social
organization. Thinking is simply the reasoning of the individual, the carryin g-on of a conversati on
betwee n what I have terme d the "I" and the "me."
In taking the attitude of the group, one has stimulated himself to respond in a certai n fashion. His
response, the "I," is the way in which he acts. If he acts in that way he is, so to speak, putting
someth ing up to the group, and chan ging the group. His gesture calls out then a gesture which will
be slightly different. The self thus arise s in the development of the behavior of the social form that is
capa ble of taking the attitude of othe rs involved in the sa me cooperative activit y. The prec ondition of
such behavior is the deve lopment of the nervous system which enables the individual to take the
attitude of the others. He could not, of course, take the indefinite number of attitudes of others, even
if all the nerve paths were present, if there were not an organized social activity going on such that
the action of one may reproduce the actio n of an indefinite number of others doing the same thing.
Given, however, such an organized activity, one can take the attitude of anyon e in the group.

Such are the two conce ptions of consciousness that I wanted to bring out, since they seem to me to
make possible a development of behaviorism beyon d the limits to which it has been carrie d, and to
make it a very suitable approach to the objects of social psycho logy. With those key concepts one
does not have to come back to certain consci ous fields lodged inside the individual; one is dealing
throu ghout with the relation of the conduct of the individual to the environment.
Endnotes
1.[See The Philosophy of the Present and The Philosophy of the Act for such a defense.)
2.[Supplementary Essay I deals further with the topic of imagery.]
SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS
1. THE FUNCTION OF IMAGER Y IN CONDUCT[1]
a) Human behavior, or conduct, like the behavior of lower animal forms, springs from impulses. An
impulse is a congenital tendency to react in a specific manner to a certain sort of stimulus, under
certai n organic conditions. Hunger and anger are illustrations of such impulses. They are best
termed "Impulses," and not "instincts," because they are subject to exten sive modifications in the
life-history of individuals, and these modifications are so much more extensive than those to which
the instincts of lower animal forms are subject that the use of the term "instinct" in describing the
behavior of normal adult human individuals is seriously inexact.
It is of importance to emphasize the sens itivity to the appropriate stimuli which call out the impulses.
This sensitivity is otherwise referred to as the "selective character of attention," and attention on its
active motor side connotes hardly anythin g beyon d this relationship of a preformed tende ncy to act
to the stimulus which sets the impulse free. It is questi onable whether there is such a thing as
passive attentio n. Even the dependence of sensory attention upon the inten sity of stimuli implies

general attitudes of escape or prote ction which are mediated through such stimuli or throu gh the
pain stimuli which attend intense stimulation. Where throu gh the modification arising out of
experience – e.g., the indifference to loud noises which Workmen attain in factories-the response of
the individual to these intens e stimuli lapses, it is at least not unreasonable to assu me that the
abse nce of power to hold so-called "passive attention" is due to the dissociation of these stimuli
from the attitudes of reflexive avoid ance and flight.
There is another proce dure by which the organism selects the appropriate stimulus, where an
impulse is seeking expression. This is found in the relation to imagery. It is most frequently the
image which enables the individual to pick out the appropriate stimulus for the impulse which is
seeking expression. This imagery is dependent on past experience. It can be studied only in man,
since the image as a stimulus or a part of the stimulus can only he identified by the individual, or
throu gh his acco unt of it give n in socia l conduct. But in this experience of the individual or of a group
of individuals, the object to which the image refers, in the same sens e in which a senso ry process
refers to an object, can be identified, either as existing beyond the immediate range of sensory
experience or as havin g existed in what is called the "past." In other words, the image is never
witho ut such reference to an object. This fact is embodied in the asserti on that all our imagery arises
out of previous experience. Thus, when one recalls the face of one whom he has met in the past,
and identifies it through actual vision of the face, his attitude is identical with that of a man who
identifies an object seen uncerta inly at a distance. The image is private or psychical only in the
situati on in which the sens ory process may be private or psychical. This situatio n is that in which
readjustment of the individual organism and its environment is involve d in the carrying -out of the
living process. The private or psychic al phase of the experience is that conte nt which fails to
function as the direct stimulus for the setting-free of the impulse. In so far as the contents from past
experience enter into the stimulus, filling it out and fitting it to the demands of the act, they become a
part of the object, though the result of the reactio n may lead us to recognize that it failed, when our
judgment is that what looked hard or soft or near or far proves to be quite otherwise. In this case we
descr ibe the content so estimated as private or psychical. Thus contents which refer to objects not
present in the field of stimulation and which do not enter into the object, i.e., images of dista nt
objects in time and space which are not integral parts of the physical surro undings as they extend
beyo nd the range of immediate perception, nor of the memory field which constitutes the
background of the self in its social structure, are psychical.
This definition of the private and psychical stands, therefore, on an entirely different basis from that
which identifies the private or psychic al with the experience of the individual, as his own, for in so far
as the individual is an object to himself in the same sense as that in which others are objects to him,
his experiences do not become private and psychica l. On the contrary, he recog nizes the common
characters in them all, and even that which attaches to the experience of one individual as
distin guished from others is felt to represent a contribution which he makes to a common
experience of all. Thus what one man alone, throu gh keener vision, detects would not be regarded
as psychical in its character. It is that experience which falls short of the objective value which it
claims that is private and psychical. There are, of course, experiences which are necessarily
confined to a partic ular individual, and which cannot in their individual chara cter be shared by
others; e.g., those which arise from one's own organism, and affective experiences -feelings-which
are vague and incapable of reference to an object, and which cannot be made common property of
the community to which one belongs (such mystical experiences are in part responsible for the
assu mption of a spiritual being – a God- who can enter into and comprehend these emotional
states). But these states either have, or are assumed to have, objective reference. The toothache
from which a man suffers is no less objective because it is something that cannot be shared, coming
as it does from his own organism. One's moods may helplessly reach out toward something that
cann ot be attained, leaving him merely with the feelings and a reference which is not achieved; but
there is still an implication of something that has objective reality. The psychic al is that which fails to
secur e its reference and rema ins there fore the experience simply of the individual. Even then it
invites reconstructi on and interpretation, so that its objective character may be discovered; but until
this has been secured, it has no habitat exce pt the experience of the individual and no description
exce pt in terms of his subjective life. Here belong the illusions, the errors of perception, the
emotions that stand for frustrated values, the observat ions which record genuine exceptions to
acce pted laws and meanings. From this standpoint the image. in so far as it has objective reference,
is not private or psychic al. Thus the extended landscape reaching beyo nd our visual horizon,
bounded perhaps by nearby trees or buildings; the immediate past that is subject to no question-
these stand out as real as do the objects of perce ption, as real as the distance of neighboring

houses, or the polished cool surface of a marble table, or the line of the printed page on which the
eye in its apperceptive leaps rests but two or three times. In all these experiences sensuous
conte nts which we call "imagery" (because the objects to which they refer are not the immediate
occas ions of their appearance) are involved, and are only rendered private or psychic al by having
their objectivity questioned in the same manner in which the sensuous contents which answ er to
immediate excitements of end-organs may be questioned. As the perceptual sensu ous experience
is an expression of the adjustment of the organism to the stimulation of objects temporally and
spati ally prese nt, so the images are adjustments of the organism to objects which have been
present but are now spati ally and temp orally abse nt. These may merge into immediate perceptions,
giving the organism the benefit of past experience in filling out the object of perception; or they may
serve to exten d the field of experience beyond the range of immediate perception, in space or time
or both; or they may appear witho ut such reference, although they always imply a possible
reference, i.e., we hold that they could always be referred to the experiences out of which they arose
if their whole conte xt could be deve loped.
In the latter case the images are spoken of as existing in the mind. It is important to recognize that
the location of the the stuff of the imagery, for imagery in the mind is not due to the same stuff goes
into our perceptions and into the objects beyon d immediate perception) which exist beyond our
spati al and temp oral horizons. It due rather to the contro l over the appearance of the imagery in the
mental processe s which are
commonly called those of "assoc iation," especially in the process of thinking in which we readjust
our habits and recon struct our objects.
The laws of association are now generally recognized as simple processe s of redintegration, in
which the imagery tends to complete itself in its temporal, spatial, or functional (similarity) phases. It
has been found most conve nient to deal with these tendencies as expressions of neural co-
ordinations. The association of ideas has been superseded by associations of nerve elements. Thus
the sight of a room recalls an individual whom one has met there. The area of the centra l nervou s
system affected on the occasi on of the encounter being partially affected by the sight of the room on
the later occasion is -arou sed by this stimulation and the image of the acquaintance appears. As a
piece of mechanism this is not different from the perception of dista nce or solidity which
acco mpanies our visual experiences through the imagery of past contacts filling out the immediate
visua l expe rience, except that the image of the acquaintance does not fit into the visual experience
so as to become a part of the perception. In the case of a hallucination this does take place, and
only the attempt to establish contact with the acquaintance proves that one is dealing with an image
inste ad of a perceptual fact. What is still unexplained in such a statement of assoc iation is the fact
that one image appears rather than coun tless others which have also been a part of the experience
of the room. The custom ary explanation derived from frequency and vividness and contrast Proves
inadequate, and we must fall back upon the impulses seeking expression, in other words, upon
interest, or in still other terms, upon attention. The so-called "selecti ve nature" of consciousness is
as necessary for the explanation of assoc iation as for that of attention and shows itself in our
sensit ivity to the stimuli which set free impulses seeking expression, when those stimuli arise from
objects in the immediate field of perception or from imagery. The former answ er to adjustment of the
organism to objects prese nt in spac e and time, the latter to those which are no longer so present but
which are still reflected in the nervo us structure of the organism. The sensitizing of the organism
holds for both class es of stimulation. Imagery thus far cons idered no more exists in a mind than do
the objects of external sens e perce ption. It constitutes a part of the field of stimulation to which our
attitude s or impulses seek ing expression sensitize us. The image of the stimulus we need is more
vivid than others. It serves to organize the perceptual attitude toward the object which we need to
recognize, as embodied in Herbart's phrase, "apperception-mass." The sens uous content of the
imagery may be relatively slight, so slight that many psycho logists have taught that much of our
thinking is imageless; but thoug h the adjustment of the organism to the carrying-out of the resp onse
involve d in the whole act may be the most readily recognized, and thus this part of the imagery be
regarded as the most important, there is no reason to question the presence of the sensuous
conte nt which serves as stimulation.
The dominant part which the doctrine of associ ation of ideas has played in explaining conduct finds
its ground in the control over the imagery which thought exercises. In thinking, we indicate to
ourselves imagery which we may use in reconstructi ng our perceptual field, a process which will be
the subject of later discussion. What I wish to point out here is that imagery so contro lled has been
regarded as subject to the same principles of redintegration as those by which we bring it into the

process of thought. The latter principles are the relations of the significant vocal gestures or signs to
that which they signify. We speak of words as associated with things, and carry over this relation to
the connections of images with each other, together with the reactions they help to mediate. The
principle of the association of words and things is in large measure that of habit-forming. It has no
import for the explanation of the sort of habit to be formed. It has no relation to the structure of
experience throu gh which we adjust ourselves to changing cond itions. The child makes habits of
applying certain names to certai n things. This does not explain the relati ons of thing s in the child's
experience or the type of his reactions to them, but this is just what the associ ational psycho logist
assu mes. A habit fixes a certai n respo nse, but its habitual character does not explain either the
inception of the reacti on or the ordering of the world within which the react ion takes place. In this
preliminary account of mind we recogn ize, first, contents which are not objective, that is, do not go
to constitute the immediate perceptual world to which we react- which are then termed "subjective
imagery"; and, seco nd, the thought-process and its contents, arising throu gh the social process of
conversat ion with the self as another, whose functio n in behavior we have to investigate later. It is
important to recognize that the self, as one among other individuals, is not subjective, nor are its
experiences as such subjective. This acco unt is introduced to free imagery as such from an all
inclusive predicate of subjectivity. Certain images are there just as are other perce ptual conte nts,
and our sensitivity to them serve s the same function as does our sensitivity to other perceptual
stimulations, namely, that of select ing and building out the objects which will give expression to the
impulses [MS].
b) Of imagery the only thing that can be said is that it does not take its place among our distant
stimuli which build up the surrounding world that is the extension of the manipulatory area . Prob ably
Hume's distinction of vividness is legitimate here, though the better statement is to be found in its
efficiency in carrying out the function of calling forth the movement toward the distant object and
receiv ing the confirmation of contact experience. It is true that characters in the distance experience
presumably com e in from imagery and do call out the respo nse. Thus the contours of a familiar face
may be filled in by imagery, and lead to approach to the individual and the grasp of the hand, which
ultimately assure s us of his real existence in the prese nt experience. Hallucinations and illusions
also call out these respo nses and lead to the results which correct the first impression. If we find that
we have met a stranger instead of the supp osed friend, we identify, perhaps, the part of the dista nce
experience which was imagery as distinct from what is called "sensation." We speak of imagery as
"psychica lly prese nt." What do we mean by this? The simplest answ er would be that the imagery is
the experience of the individual organism that is the percipient event in the perspective. If by this we
mean that there is an experience in the central nervo us system which is the cond ition of the
appearance of the imagery, the statement has a certa in meaning. But it is confessed that the
distur bance in the centra l nervous system is not what we term the "imagery," unless we place some
inner psychical content in the molecules of the brain, and then we are not talking about the central
nervou s system which is a poss ible object in the field [of perception].
Imag ery is, of course, not confined to memory. Whatever may be said about its origin in past
experience, its reference to the future is as genuine as to the past. Indeed, it is fair to say that it only
refers to the past in so far as it has a future reference in some real sens e. It may be there without
immediate reference to either future or to past. We may be quite unable to place the image. The
location of imagery in a psychic al field implies the self as existent and cann ot be made the account
of its locus in a theory which undertakes to show how the self arises in an experience within which
imagery must be assumed as antecedent to the self. Here we are thrown back on the vividness as a
reason for the organism not responding to it as it does to the distant stimulus which we do not call
imagery Perh aps there is someother character which is not expressed in the term "vividn ess." But it
is evide nt that if the imagery had the quality which belongs to the so-called "sensu ous experience"
we should react to it, and its entrance into sens uous experience as above noted indicates that it is
not excluded by its quality. In our own sophistic ated experience the c ontrolling factor seem s to be its
failure to fit into the complex of the environment as a contin uous texture. Where as filling or as
hallucination it does so enter, there is no hesita ncy on the part of the organism in reactin g to it as to
sens uous stimuli, and it is there in the same sense in which the normal stimuli are there, i.e., the
individual acts to reach or avoid the contacts which the images imply. It is then its failure to become
a part of the distance environment whic h is respo nsible for its exclusion. That it is not the imagery of
hardness that constitutes the stuff of what we see, I have already insisted. Here again it is the
functional attitude of the orga nism in using the resistance which the dista nce stimulus is responsible
for, that constit utes the stuff of the distant object, and the image does not call out this attitude.
Imag ery has to be acce pted as there but as not a part of the field to which we respond in the sens e

in which we respond to the dista nce stimuli of sense experience, and the immediate reason for not
so responding seems to lie in its failure to fall into the structure of the field except as filling, when it
is indistinguishable. The light that we get upon its character Comes from the evidence that Its
conte nts have always been in former experiences, and from the part which the central nervou s
system seems to play in its appearance. But the part playe d by the central nervo us system is largely
inference from the functi on which memory and anticipation have in experience. The present
includes what is disappearing and what is emerging. Toward that which is emerging our action takes
us, and what is disappearing provides the cond itions of that action. Imagery then comes in to build
out both stretches. We look before and after, and sigh for what is not. This building-out process is
already in operation in building up the present, in -so far as the organism endows its field with
present existence [MS].
c) Imagery is an experience that takes place within the individual, being by its nature divorce d from
the objects that would give it a place in the perce ptual world; but it has representational reference to
such objects. This representational reference is found in the relation of the attitudes that answer to
the symb ols of the completion of the act to the varied stimuli that initiate the acts. The bringing of
these different attitudes into harmonious relation takes place throug h the reorganization of the
conte nts of the stimuli. Into this reorganization enter the so-called "images" of the completion of the
act. The conte nt of this imagery is varied. It may be of vision and contact or of the other sens es. It is
apt to be of the nature of the vocal gesture s. It serves as a preliminary testing of the success of the
reorganized object. Other imagery is located at the beginning of the act, as in the case of a memory
image of an absent friend that initiates an act of meeting him at an agreed rendezvous. Imagery
may be found at any place in the act, playing the same part that is played by objects and their
characteri stics. It is not to be distinguished, then, by its function.
What does characterize it is its appearance in the absence of the objects to which it refers. Its
recognized dependence upon past experience, i.e., its relati on to objects that were present, in some
sens e removes this difference; but it brings out the nature of the image as the conti nued presence
of the content of an object whic h is no longer present. It evidently belongs to that phase of the object
which is dependent upon the individual in the situat ion within which the object appears [MS].
Endnotes
1.[See also "Image or Sensation," Journal of Philosophy, I (1904), 604 ff.]
2. THE BIOL OGIC INDIVIDUAL
The distinction of greatest importance betwe en types of conduct in human behavior is that lying
betwee n what I will term the conduct of the "biologic individual" and the cond uct of the "socially self-
consc ious individual." The distinction answe rs roughly to that drawn betwee n cond uct which does
not involve conscious reasoning and that which does, between the conduct of the more intelligent of
the lower animals and that of man. While these types of conduct can be clearly distin guished from
each other in human behavior, they are not on sepa rate planes, but play back and forth into each
other, and constitute, under most conditions, an experience which appears to be cut by no lines of
cleavage. The skill with which one plays a fast game of tennis and that by which he plans a house or
a business undertaking seem to belong to the orga nic equipment of the same individual, living in the
same world and subject to the same ration al control. For the tennis-player criticizes his game at
times and learns to place the ball differently over against different opponents; while in the
soph isticated undertakings of planning, he depends confidently on his flair for cond itions and men.
And yet the distin ction is of real and profound importance, for it marks the distinctio n between our
biologic inheritance from lowe r life and the peculiar control which the human social animal exercises
over his envir onment and himself.
It would be a mistake to assu me that a man is a biologic individual plus a reason, if we mean by this
definition that he leads two separ able lives, one of impulse or instinct, and another of reason–
espe cially if we assu me that the control exercised by reason proceeds by means of ideas

consi dered as mental conte nts which do not arise within the impulsive life and form a real part
there of. On the contrary, the whole drift of modern psycho logy has been toward an undertaking to
bring will and reason within the impulsive life. The undertaking may not have been fully successf ul,
but it has been impossible to avoid the attempt to bring reaso n within the scope of evolution; and if
this attempt is success ful, rational conduct must grow out of impulsive conduct. My own attempt will
be to show that it is in the social behavior of the human animal that this evolution takes place. On
the other hand, it is true that reasoning conduct appears wher e impulsive cond uct breaks down.
Where the act fails to realize its function, when the impulsive effort to get food does not bring the
food-and, more especially, where conflicting impulses thwart and inhibit each other-here reasoning
may come in with a new proce dure that is not at the disposal of the biologic individual. The
characteri stic result of the reasoning proce dure is that the individual secures a different set of
objects to which to respond, a different field of stimulation. There has been discrimination, analysis,
and a rebuilding of the things that called out the conflicting impulses and that now call out a
response in which the conflicting impulses have been adjusted to each other. The individual who
was divided within himself is unified again in his reaction. So far, however, as we react directly
toward things about us witho ut the nece ssity of finding different objects from those which meet our
immediate vision and hearing and contact, so far are we acting impulsively; and we act accordingly
as biologic individuals, individuals made up of impulses sens atizin g us to stimuli, and answering
directly to this stimulation.
What are the great groups of impulses making up this biologic individual? The answer for the
purposes of this discussion need only be a rough answ er. There are, first of all, the adjustments by
which the individual maintains his position and balance in motion or at rest; (2) the organization of
responses toward dista nt objects, leading to movement toward or from them ; (3) the adjustment of
the surfaces of the body to contacts with objects which we have reach ed by movement, and
espe cially the manipulations of these objects by the hand; (4) attack on, and defense from, hosti le
forms of prey, involving speci alized organization of the general impulses just noted; (5) flight and
esca pe from dangerous objects; (6) movements toward, or away from, individuals of the opposite
sex, and the sexu al process; (7) securing and ingesting food; (8) nourishment and care of child
forms, and suckling and adjustment of the body of the child to parental care; (9) withdraw als from
heat, cold, and danger, and the relaxations of rest and sleep; and (10) the formation of various sorts
of habitats, serving the functions of prote ction and of parental care.
While this is but a roughly fashioned catalogue of primitive human impulses, it does cove r them, for
there is no primitive reacti on which is not found in the list, or is not a possi ble combination of them, if
we except the debatable field of the herding instinct. There seem to be in the last analysis two
factors in this so-called "Instinct"; first, a tendency of the member of the group that herds to move in
the direction of, and at the sam e rate as, other members of the group; seco nd, the carryi ng-out of all
the life-processes more normally and with less excitability in the group than outside it. The latter is
evidently a highly composite factor, and seems to point to a heightened sensitivity to the stimuli to
withdraw al and esca pe in the abse nce of the group. I have referred to this especially because the
vagu eness and lack of definition of this group of impulses have led many to use this instinct to
explain phenomena of social conduct that lie on an entirely different level of behavior.
It is custom ary to speak of the instincts in the human individual as subject to almost indefinite
modification, differing in this from the instincts in the lower animal forms. Instincts in the latter sense
can hardly be identified in man, with the exception of that of suckling and perhaps certain of the
immediate reactio ns of anger which very voting infants exhibit, together with a few others which are
too undeveloped to deserve the term. The life of the child in human society subjects these and all
the impulses with which human nature is endowed to a pressu re which carries them beyond
possi ble comparison with the animal instin cts, even though we have discovered that the instincts in
lower animals are subject to gradual changes through long-continued experience of shifting
cond itions. This pressure is, of course, only possi ble through the rational character that finds its
explanation, if I am correct, in the social behavior into which the child is able to enter.
This material of instinct or impulse in the lower animals is highly organized. It represents the
adjustment of the animal to a very definite and restricted world. The stimuli to which the animal is
sensit ive and which lie in its habitat constitute that world and answer to the possi ble reacti ons of the
animal. The two fit into each other and mutually deter mine each other for it is the instinct-seeking-
expression that deter mines the sens itivity of the animal to the stimulus, and it is the presence of the
stimulus which sets the instinct free. The organization represents not only the balance of attitude

and the rhythm of movement but the success ion of acts upon each other, the whole unified structure
of the life of the form and the spec ies. In any known human community, even of the most primitive
type, we find neither such a unified world nor such a unified individual. There is present in the
human world a past and an uncertain future, a future which may be influenced by the conduct of the
individuals of the group. The individual projects himself into varied possible situat ions and by
implements and social attitudes undertakes to make a different situation exist, which would give
expression to different impulses.
From the point of view of instin ctive behavior in the lower animals, or of the immediate human
response to a perceptual world (in other words, from the standpoint of the unfractured relation
betwee n the impulses and the objects which give them expression), past and future are not there;
and yet they are repre sented in the situati on. They are represented by facility of adjustment through
the selection of certain elements both in the direct sensuous stimulation throu gh the excitement of
the end-organs, and in the imagery. What repre sents past and what represents future are not
distin guishable as contents. The surro gate of the past is the actual adjustment of the impulse to the
object as stimulus. The surrog ate of the future is the contr ol which the changing field of experience
during the act maintains over its execution.
The flow of experience is not differentiated into a past and future over against an immediate now
until reflection affects certain parts of the experience with these characters, with the perfection of
adjustment on the one hand, and with the shifting control on the other. The biologic individual lives
in an undifferentiated now; the socia l reflective individual takes this up into a flow of experience
within which stands a fixed past and a more or less unce rtain future. The now of experience is
represented primarily by the body of impulses listed above, our. inherited adjustment to a physical
and social world, continuously reconstitute d by social reflective processes; but this reconstitution
takes place by analysis and selection in the field of stimulation, not by immediate direction and
recombination of the impulses. The control exercised over the impulses is always throug h selectio n
of stimulations conditioned by the sensitizing influence of various other impulses seeking
expression. The immediacy of the now is never lost, and the biologic individual stands as the
unquestioned reality in the minds of differently constructed pasts and projected future s. It has been
the work of scientific reflection to iso late certain of these fixed adjustments (in terms of our balanced
posture s, our movements toward objects, our contacts with and manipulations of objects) as a
physica l world, answering to the biologic individual with its intricat e nervo us system.
The physical world, which has arisen thus in experience, answ ers not only to our postures and
movements with reference to dista nt objects and our manipulations of these objects, but also to the
biological mechanism, especially its complex nervo us coordinations by which these reactions are
carried out. As it is in this physical world that we attain our most perfect contro ls, the tendency
toward placing the individual, as a mechanism, in this physical world is very strong. Just in so far as
we present ourselves as biological mechanisms are we better able to contr ol a correspondingly
great er field of conditions which determine conduct. On the other hand, this statement in mechanical
terms abstracts from all purposes and all ends of cond uct. If these appear in the statement of the
individual, they must be placed in mind, as an expression of the self -placed, in other words, in a
world of selves, that is, in a socia l world. I do not wish to enter the subtl e problems involved in these
distin ctions-the problems of mechanism and teleology, of body and mind, the psycho logical problem
of parallelism or interactio n. I desire simply to indicate the logical motive which carrie s the
mechanical statement of behavior into the physic al field and the statement of ends and purposes
into the mental world, as these terms are generally used. While these two emphases which have
been recog nized above in the distinction between the past and the future are of capital importance,
it is necessary to underscore the return which modern scienti fic method (and this is but an elaborate
form of reflection) inevit ably makes to unsophisticated immediate experience in the use of
experiment as the test of reality. Modern science brings its most abstract and subtle hypotheses
ultimately into the field of the "now" to evide nce their reliability and their truth.
This immediate experience which is reality, and which is the final test of the reality of scientific
hypoth eses as well as the test of the truth of all our ideas and suppositions, is the experience of
what I have called the "biologic individual." The term refers to the individual in an attitude and at a
moment in which the impulses sustain an unfra ctured relation with the objects around him. The final
registering of the pointer on a pair of scales, of the coincidence of the star with the hair line of a
telesc ope, of the presence of an individual in a room, of the actual consummation of a business
deal-these occurre nces which may confirm any hypothesis or supposition are not themselves

subject to analysis. What is sought is a coincidence of an antic ipated result with the actual event. I
have termed it "biologic" because the term lays emphasis on the living reality which may be
distin guished from reflection. A later reflection turns back upon it and endeavors to present the
complete interrelationship between the world and the individual in terms of physica l stimuli and
biological mechanism; the actual experience did not take place in this form but in the form of
unso phisticated reality [MS].
3. THE SELF AND THE PROC ESS OF REFLECTION
It is in social behavior that the process of reflection itself arises. This process shou ld first of all be
stated in its simplest appearance. It implies, as I have already stated, some defeat of the act,
espe cially one due to mutually inhibiting impulses. The impulse to advan ce toward food or water is
chec ked by an impulse to hold back or withdr aw throug h the evidence of danger or a sign forbidding
trespass. The attitude of the animal lower than man under these cond itions is that of advancing and
retreati ng-a process which may of itself lead to some solution without reflection. Thus the cats in the
trick box by conti nuous erratic movements find at last the spring that sets them free; but the solution
thus found is not a reflective solution, though continuous repetition may at last stamp this reaction
in, so that the experienced cat will at once release the spring when placed again in the puzzle box.
A very large part of human skill gained in playing games, or musical instruments, or in attaining in
general muscular adjustments to new situati ons, is acqu ired by this trial-and-error procedure.
In this proce dure one of the opposing impulses after the other is dominant, gaining expression up to
the point at which it is definitively checked by the opposing impulse or impulses. Thus a dog
approaching a stranger who offers it meat may almost reach him, and then under the summation of
the stimuli of the strangeness of the man suddenly dart away barking and snarling. Such a seesaw
betwee n opposing impulses may continue for some time, until, after exhausting each other, they
leave the door open to other impulses and their stimuli entirely outsid e the present field. Or this
approach and retreat many bring into play still other characters in the objects, arousing other
impulses which may thus solve the problem. A close r approach to the stranger may reveal a familiar
odor from the man and banish the stimulus which has set free the impulse of flight and hostility. In
the other instance cited-that of the cats in the box– one impulsive act after another finally leads by
chalice to the setting-off of the spring. The bungling, awkward, hesitating play of the beginner at
tenni s or on the violin is an instan ce of the same thing in human cond uct; and here we are able to
recor d the player himself as saying that he learn s witho ut knowing how he learns. He finds that a
new situation appears to him that he has not recognized in the past. The position of his opponent
and the angle of the approaching ball sudd enly beco me important to him. These objective situations
had not existed for him in the past. He has not built them up on any theory. They are simply there,
wher eas in the past they had not been in his experience; and introspection shows that he
recognizes them by a readiness to a new sort of respon se. His attention is called to them by his own
moto r attitudes. He is getting what he calls "form." In fact, "form" is a feel for those motor attitudes
by which we sensitize ourse lves to the stimuli that call out the responses seek ing expression. The
whole is an unreflective process in which the impulses and their corresp onding objects are there or
are not there. The reorganizatio n of the objective field and of conflicting impulses does take place in
experience. When it has taken place it is register ed in new objects and new attitudes, and for the
time being we may postpon e the manner in which the reorganization takes place. Current
explanations in terms of trial and error, stamping-in of successf ul reactions and elimination of
unsu ccessful reactions, and the selective power of the pleasure attending success and the pain
attending upon failure have not proved satisfyin g, but the processes lie outside the field of reflection
and need not detai n us at present.
As an example of simple reflection we may take the opening of a drawe r that refuses to give way to
repeated pulls of ever incre asing energy. Instead of surre ndering one's self to the effort to expend
all his strength until he may have pulled off the handles them selves, the individual exercises his
intelligence by locati ng, if possible, the resista nce, identifying a little give on this side or that, and
using his strength at the point wher e the resistance is greatest, or attending to the imagery of the
conte nts of the drawe r and removing the drawe r above so that he may take out the obstacle that has
defeated his efforts. In this procedure the striking difference from that unreflective method which we

have just been consi dering is found in the analysis of the object. The drawe r has ceased for the time
being to be a mere something to be pulled. It is a wooden thing of different parts, some of which
may have swollen more than others. It is also a crowd ed recep tacle of objects which may have
projected themselves against the contai ning frame. This analysis, however, does not take us out of
the field of the impulses. The man is operating with two h ands. A sense of greater resist ance on one
side rather than on the other leads to added effort where the resistan ce is the great est. The imagery
of the contents of the drawer answ ers to a tendency to drag away the offending hindrance. The
mechanism of ordinary perception, in which the person's tendencies to act lead him to remark the
objects which will give the tende ncies free play, is quite competent to deal with the problem, if he
can only secure a field of behavior within which the parts of the unitary object may answe r to the
parts of the organized reacti on. Such a field is not that of overt action, for the different suggestions
appear as competing hypotheses of the best plan of attack, and must be related to each other so as
to be parts of some sort of a new whole.
Mere inhibition of conflicting impulses does not provide such a field. This may leave us with objects
that simply negate each other-a drawe r that is not a drawer, since it cann ot be drawn, an individual
that is both an enemy and a friend, or a road that is a no-thorou ghfare; and we may simply bow to
the inevitab le, while the attention shifts to other fields of action. Nor are we at liberty to predicate a
mind, as a locus for reflection-a mind that at a certai n stage in evolution is there, a heaven-given
inner endowment ready to equip man with a new techni que of life. Our undertaking is to discover the
deve lopment of mind within behavior that took no thought to itself, and belonged entirely to a world
of immediate things and immediate react ions to things. If it is to be an evolution within behavior, it
must be statable in the way we have conc eived behavior to take place in living forms , i.e., every step
of the process must be an act in which an impulse finds expression throu gh an object in a
perceptual field. It may be necessary again to utter a warning against the easy assu mption that
experiences originating from under the skin provide an inner world within which in some obsc ure
manner reflection may arise, and against the assum ption that the body of the individual as a
perceptual object provides a center to which experiences may be attached, thus creating a priva te
and psychic al field that has in it the germ of representation and so of reflection. Neither a colic nor a
stubbed toe can give birth to reflection, nor do pleasures or pains, emotions or moods, constitute
inner psychical contents, inevita bly referred to a self, thus forming an inner world within which
autoc hthonous thought can spring up. Reflection as it appears in the instance cited above involve s
two attitudes at least: one of indicating a novel featu re of the object which gives rise to conflicting
impulses (analysis); and the other of so organizing the reaction toward the object, thus perce ived,
that one indicates the reaction to himself as he might to another (representation). The direct
activities out of which thought grows are socia l acts, and presumably find their earliest expression in
primitive social respo nses. It will be well, then, to cons ider first the simplest forms of social conduct
and return to reflection when we learn whet her such conduct provides a field and meth od for
reflection.
The socia l conduct of any individual may be defined as that cond uct arising out of impulses whose
speci fic stimuli are found in other individuals belonging to the same biologic group. These stimuli
may appeal to any of the sens e organs, but there is a class of such stimuli which needs to be
espe cially noted and emphasized. Thes e are the motor attitudes and early stag es in the move ments
of other individuals which govern the reactions of the individual in question. They have been largely
overl ooked by comparative psycho logists; or when discusse d, as they have been, by Darwin,
Piderit, and Wundt, they have been treated as affecting other individuals not directly but throu gh
their expression of emotion, of intention, or idea; that is, they have not been recognized as specific
stimuli but as secondary and deriv ed stimuli. But anyone who studies what may be called the
"convers ation of attitudes" of dogs preparing for a fight, or the adjustments of infants and their
moth ers, or the mutu al movements of herding animals will recognize that the beginnings of social
acts call out instin ctive or impulsive responses as immediately as do the animal forms, odors,
contacts, or cries. Wundt has done a great service in bringing these stimuli under the general term
of gestures, thus placing the uttered sounds which develop into articul ate significant speech in man
in this class, as vocal gestures. Another comment shou ld be made upon the conception of social
cond uct. It must not be confined to mutual reactions of individuals whos e conduct accepts,
cons erves, and serves the others. It must include the animal enemies as well. For the purposes of
socia l cond uct, the tiger is as much a part of the jungle society as the buffalo or the deer. In the
deve lopment of the group more narrowly conce ived, the instincts or impulses of hostility and flight,
togethe r with the gestures that represent their early stages, play most important rôles, not only in the
protecti on of the mutually supporting forms, but in the cond uct of these forms toward each other.

Nor is it amiss to point out that in the evolution of animal forms within the life-process the hunter and
the hunte d, the eater and the eate n, are as closely interwoven as are the mother and the child or the
individuals of the two sexes.
Among the lower forms, social conduct is implicated in the instincts of attack and flight, of sex,
parenthood and childhood, in those of the herding animals (though these are somewhat vagu e in
their outline), and probably in the constructi on of habitats. In all these processes the forms
them selves, their move ments, especially the early stages of these movements for in adjustment to
the action of another animal the earliest indication of the oncoming reactio n is of great est
importance and the soun ds they utter serve as speci fic stimuli to socia l impulses. The responses
are as immediate and objective in their character as are the responses to non-social physical
stimuli. However complex and intricate this conduct may become, as in the life of the bee and the
ant, or in building such habitats as those of the beaver, no conv incing evidence has been gained by
competent animal observers that one animal give to another an indication of an object or action
which is registered in what we have termed a "mind"; in other words, there is no evidence that one
form is able to convey information by significant gestures to another form. The beast that responds
directly to extern al objects, and presumably to imagery also, has no past or future, has no self as an
object-in a word, has no mind as above described, is capable of no reflection, nor of "ratio nal
cond uct" as that term is currently used.
We find among birds a curio us phenomenon. The birds make an extensive use of the vocal gesture
in their sexual and parental conduct. The vocal gesture has in a pecu liar degree the character of
possi bly affecting directly the animal that uses it, as it does the other form. It does not of course
follow that this effect will be realized; whether it is realized or not depends upon the presence of
impulses requiring the stimulus to set them free. In the common social life of animals the impulse of
one form would not be to do what it is stimulating the other form to do, so that even if the stimulus
were of such a character as to affect the sense organ of the individual itself as it does the other, this
stimulus would normally have no direct effect upon his conduct. There is, howeve r, some evidence
that this does take place in the case of birds. It is difficult to believe that the bird does not stimulate
itself to sing by its own notes.
If bird a by its note calls out a response in bird b, and bird b not only responds by a note which calls
out a response in bird a but has in its own organism an attitude finding expression in the same note
as that which bird a has uttered, bird b will have stimulated itself to utter the sam e note as that which
it has called out in bird a. This implies like attitudes seeking expression in the two birds and like
notes expressing these attitudes. If this were the case and one bird sang frequently in the hearing of
the other, there might resul t common notes and common songs. It is important to recog nize that
such a process is not what is commonly called "imitation." The bird b does not find in the note of bird
a a stimulus to utter the same note. On the contrary, the supp osition here is that its reply to bird a
stimulates itself to utter the same note that bird a utters. There is little or no convincing evidence that
any phase of the conduct of one animal is a direct stimulus to another to act in the same fashion.
One animal stimulating itself to the same expression as that which it calls out in the other is not
imitating in this sens e at least, thoug h it accou nts for a great deal that passes as such imitation. It
could only take place under the cond ition which I have emphasized: that the stimulus should act
upon the animal itself in the same manner as that in which it acts upon the other animal, and this
cond ition does obtain in the case of the vocal gesture. Certain birds, such as the mocking bird, do
thus reproduce the connected notes of other birds; and a sparrow placed in the cage with a cana ry
may reproduce the canary's song. The instance of this reproduction of vocal gesture with which we
are most familiar is that of the acco mplishments of talking birds. In these cases the combinations of
phonetic elements, which we call words, are reproduced by the birds, as the sparrow reproduces the
cana ry's song. It is a process of intere st for the light it may throw on a child's learning of the
language heard about it. It emphasizes the importance of the vocal gestu re, as possibly stimulating
the individual to respond to itself. While it is essential to recog nize that response of the animal to its
own stimulation can only take place where there are impulses seeking expression which this
stimulation sets free, the importance of the vocal gesture as a social act which is addressed to the
individual itself, as well as to other individuals, will be found to be very great.
Here in the field of behavior we reac h a situati on in which the individual may affect itself as it affects
other individuals, and may therefore respond to this stimulation as it would respo nd to the
stimulation of other individuals; in other words, a situation arise s here in which the individual may
beco me an object in its own field of behavior. This would meet the first condition of the appearance

of mind. But this respo nse will not take place unless there are reactio ns answ ering to these self-
stimulations which will adva nce and reinforce the individual's conduct. So far as the vocal gestures
in the wooing of birds of both sexes are alike, the excitement which they arouse will give expression
to other notes that again will increase excitement. An animal that is aroused to attack by the roar of
its rival may give out a like roar that stimulates the hostile attitude of the first. This roar, howev er,
may act back upon the animal itself and arouse a renewed battle excitement that calls out a still
louder roar. The cock that answers the crow of another cock, can stimulate itself to answe r its own
crow. The dog that bays at the moon would not probably conti nue its baying if it did not stimulate
itself by its own howls. It has been noted that parent pigeons excite each other in the care of the
youn g by their cooings. So far as these notes affect the other birds they have the tendency to affect
the bird that utters them in the same fashion. Here we find socia l situations in which the preparation
for the sexu al act, for the hostile enco unter, and for the care of the youn g, is adva nced by vocal
gesture s that play back upon the animal that utters them, prod ucing the same effect of read iness for
socia l activit y that they produce upon the individuals to wh ich they are immediately addressed. If, on
the other hand, the vocal gesture calls out a different reaction in the other form, which finds
expression in a different vocal gestur e, there would be no such immediate reinforcement of the
vocal gesture. The parental note which calls out the note of the child form, unless it called out in the
parent the respo nse of the child to stimulate again the parental note, would not stimulate the parent
to repeat its own vocal gestu re. This complication does arise in the case of human parents, but
presumably not in the relations of parent and offspring in forms lower than man.
In these instan ces we recognize socia l situati ons in which the cond uct of one form affects that of
another in carrying out acts in which both are engaged. They are acts in which the gestur es and
corresp onding attitudes are so alike that one form stimulates itself to the gesture and attitude of the
other and thus restimulates itself. In some stimulates itself. n so degree the animal takes the role of
the other and thus emphasizes the expression of its own role. In the forms we have cited this is
possi ble only where the rôles are, up to a certain stage of prep aration for the social act, more or less
identical. This action does not, however, belong to the type of inhibition out of which reflection
sprin gs (though in all adjustment of individuals to each other's action there must be some inhibition),
nor does it involve such variety of attitudes as is essential to analysis and repre sentation. Nor is this
lack of variety in attitude (by "attitude " I refer to the adjustment of the organism involve d in an
impulse ready for expression) due to lack of complexity in conduct. Many of the acts of these lower
forms are as highly com plex as many human acts whi ch are reflective ly control led. The distinction is
that which I have expressed in the distinction betwe en the instinct and the impulse. The instinct may
be highly complex, e.g., the preparation of the wasp for the larval life that will come from the egg
which is laid in its fabricated cell; but the different elements of the whole complex process are so
firmly organized togeth er that a check at any point frustrates the whole undertaking. It does not
leave the parts of the whole free for recombination in other forms. Human impulses, however, are
generally susceptible to just such analysis and recombination in the presence of obstac les and
inhibitions.
There is a circumstance that is not unconnected, I think, with this separable character of the human
act. I refer to the contact experiences which come to man through his hands. The contact
experiences of most of the verte brate forms lower than man represent the completion of their acts.
In fighting, the food process, sex, most of the activities of parenthood or childhood, attack, flight to a
place of securit y, searc h for prote ction against heat and cold, choice of a place for sleep, contact is
coincident with the goal of the instinct; while mart's hand provi des an intermediate contact that is
vastly richer in content than that of the jaws or the animal's paws. Man's implements are
elaborations and exten sions of his hands. They provid e still other and vastly more varied contacts
which lie between the beginnings and the ends of his undertakings. And the hand, of course,
includes in this cons ideration not only the member itself but its indefinite coordination through the
centra l nervous system with the other parts of the organism. This is of pecu liar importance for the
consi deration of the separability of the parts of the act, because our perceptions include the imagery
of the contacts which vision or some other dista nce sense promises. We see things hard or soft,
rough or smooth, big or little in measurement with ourse lves, hot or cold, and wet or dry. It is this
imaged contact that makes the seen thing an actual thing . These imaged contacts are therefore of
vast import in controlling cond uct. Varied contact imagery may mean varied thing s, and varied
thing s mean varied respo nses. Again I must emphasize the fact that this variety will exist in
experience only if there are impulses answering to this variety of stimuli and seeking expression.
However, man's manual contacts, intermediate betwee n the beginnings and the ends of his acts,
provi de a multitude of different stimuli to a multitude of different ways of doing things, and thus invite

alternative impulses to express themselves in the accomplishment of his acts, when obstacles and
hindrances arise. Man's hands have served greatly to break up fixed instincts by giving him a world
full of a number of thing s.
Retu rning now to the vocal gesture, let me note another feature of the human species that has been
of great importance in the development of man's peculiar intelligence-his long period of infancy. I do
not refer to the advan tage insisted upon by Fiske, the opportunities which come with a later maturity,
but to the part which the vocal gesture plays in the care of the child by the parent, especially by the
moth er. The phonetic elements, out of which later articulate speec h is constructe d, belong to the
socia l attitudes which call out answering attitudes in others together with their vocal gesture s. The
child's cry of fear belongs to the tendency to flight toward the parent, and the parent's encouraging
tone is part of the movement toward protection. This vocal gestur e of fear calls out the
corresp onding gesture of protectio n.
There are two intere sting human types of conduct that seemingly arise out of this relationship of
child and parent. On the one hand we find what has been called the imitation of the child, and on the
other the sympathetic respo nse of the parent. The basis of each of these types of conduct is to be
found in the individual stimulating himself to respond in the same fashion as that in which the other
responds to him. As we have seen, this is possi ble if two cond itions are fulfilled. The individual must
be affected by the stimulus which affects the other, and affected throug h the same sense chan nel.
This is the case with the vocal gesture. The sound which is uttered strikes on the ear of the
individual uttering it in the same physiological fashion as that in which it strikes on the ear of the
person addressed. The other condition is that there should be an impulse seeking expression in the
individual who utters the soun d, which is functionally of the same sort as that to which the stimulus
answ ers in the other individual who hears the sound. The illustrati on most familiar to us is that of a
child crying and then uttering the soothing soun d which belongs to the parenta l attitude of
protecti on. This childish type of conduct runs out later into the countless forms of play in which the
child assu mes the roles of the adults about him. The very univers al habit of playing with dolls
indicates how ready for expression, in the child, is the parental attitude, or perhaps one shou ld say,
certai n of the parental attitudes. The long period of dependence of the human infant during which
his interest centers in his relations to those who care for him gives a remarkable opportunity for the
play back and forth of this sort of taking of the roles of others. Where the young animal of lower
forms very quickly finds itself responding directly to the appropriate stimuli for the conduct of the
adult of its spec ies, with instin ctive activities that are early matured, the child for a cons iderable
period directs his attention toward the social enviro nment provided by the primitive family, seeking
supp ort and nourishment and warmth and protection through his gestures-especially his vocal
gesture s. These gestur es inevitably must call out in himself the parental response which is so
markedly ready for expression very early in the child's nature, and this response will include the
parent's corresp onding vocal gesture. The child will stimulate himself to make the sounds which he
stimulates the parent to make. In so far as the social situati on within which the child reacts is
deter mined by his social envir onment, that environment will determine what sounds he makes and
there fore what respo nses he stimulates both in others and himself. The life about him will indirectly
deter mine what parental responses he produces in his cond uct, but the direct stimulation to adult
response will be inevita bly found in his own childish appeal. To the adult stimulation he responds as
a child. There is nothing in these stimulations to call out an adult response. But in so far as he gives
attention to his own childish appeals it will be the adult resp onse that wil l appear-but will appear only
in case that some phases of these adult impulses are ready in him for expression. It is, of cours e,
the inco mpleteness and relative immaturity of these adult respo nses that gives to the child's cond uct
one of the pecu liar characters which attach to play. The other is that the child can stimulate himself
to this activit y. In the play of young children, even when they play togeth er, there is abundant
evidence of the child's taking different rôles in the process; and a solitary child will keep up the
process of stimulating himself by his vocal gestures to act in different rôles almost indefinitely. The
play of the young animal of other speci es lacks this self-stimulating characte r and exhibits far more
matu rity of instinctive response than is found in the early play of children. It is evid ent that out of just
such cond uct as this, out of addressing one's self and responding with the appropriate respo nse of
another, "self-consciousness" arises. The child during this period of infancy creates a forum within
which he assu mes variou s roles, and the child's self is gradually integrated out of these socially
different attitudes, always retaining the capa city of addressing itself and responding to that address
with a reaction that belongs in a certain sense to another. He comes into the adult period with the
mechanism of a mind.

The attitude that we character ize as that of sympathy in the adult springs from this same capac ity to
take the role of the other perso n with whom one is socially implicated. It is not included in the direct
response of help, support, and protectio n. This is a direct impulse, or in lower forms, a direct instinct,
which is not at all incompatible with the exercise on occasion of the opposite instincts. The parent
forms that on occasion act in the most ordinary parental fashion may, with seem ing heartlessness,
destroy and consu me their offspring. Sympathy always implies that one stimulates himself to his
assistan ce and cons ideration of others by taking in some degree the attitude of the person whom
one is assisting. The common term for this is "putting yourself in his place." It is presumably an
exclusively human type of conduct, marked by this involution of stimulating one's self to an action by
responding as the other respo nds. As we shall see, this control of one's conduct, through
responding as the other respo nds, is not confined to kindly conduct. We tend to reserve the term
"sympathetic," however, for those kindly acts and attitudes which are the essential binding-cords in
the life of any human group. Whether we agree with McDougall or not in his contention that the
fundamental chara cter of tenderness which goes out into whatever we denominate as humane, or
human in the sense of humane, has its source in the parental impulses, there can be no doubt that
the fundamental attitude of giving assistance in varied ways to others gets its striking exercise in
relation to children. Helplessness in any form reduces us to children, and arouses the parental
response in the other members of the community to which we belong. Every advance in the
recognition of a wider social grouping is like the kingdom of heaven; we can enter it only as little
children. The human adult has already come into society throu gh the door of childhood with a self of
some sort, a self that has arisen through assu ming vario us rôles; he turns to his or her own children
there fore with what we term "sympathy"; but the mother and the father exercise this attitude most
constant ly in their parental respo nses. More than in any other sense, psycho logically society has
deve loped out of the family. The parental attitudes, like the infantile attitudes, serve first of all the
purpose of the self-stimulation which we have noted in birds, and thus emphasize valuable
responses, but secon darily they provid e the mechanism of mind.
The most important activi ty of mind that can be identified in behavior is that of so adjusting
conflicting impulses that they can express themselves harmoniously. Recalling the illustration
already used, when the impulse to go ahead toward food or rest is checked by an impulse to draw
back from a sharp declivity, mind so organizes these mutually defeating tendencies that the
individual advanc es by a detour, both going ahead and esca ping the danger of the descent. This is
not accom plished throu gh a direct reorganization of motor process es. The mental proce ss is not
one of readjusting a mechanism from the inside, a rearrangement of springs and levers. Control
over impulse lies only in the shift of attentio n which brings other objects into the field of stimulation,
setting free other impulses, or in such a resettin g of the objects that the impulses express
them selves on a different time sche dule or with additions and subtractions. This shift of attention
again finds its explanation in the coming into play of tendencies that before were not immediately in
actio n. These tendencies render us sensitive to stimuli which are not in the field of stimulation, Even
sudd en powerful stimuli act upon us because there are in our make-up responses of sudden
withdraw al or attack in the prese nce of such stimulation. As I have already stated, in the cond uct of
lower forms such conflicts lead to the switching from one type of reaction to another. In these
animals the impulses are so firmly organized in fixed instin cts that alternatives of reaction lie only
betwee n one congenital habit and others. Stated in other terms, the instinctive individual cannot
break up his objects and reconstruct his conduct throu gh the adjustment to a new field of
stimulation, beca use its organized reactions cann ot be separated to come together again in new
combinations. The mechanical problem of mind, then, is in secur ing a type of conduct coming on
top of that of the biologic individual that will dissociate the elements of our organized responses.
Such a dismemberment of organized habits will bring into the field of perce ption all the objects that
answ er to the different impulses that made up the fixed habits.
It is from this standpoint that I wish to consider the socia l conduct into which the self has enter ed as
an integral factor. So far as it m erely emphasizes certain reactions through self- stimulation, as in the
case of the wooing of birds, it introduces no new principle of actio n. For in these cases the self is not
present as an object toward which an attitude is assu med as toward other objects, and which is
subject to the effects of conduct. When the self does beco me such an object to be chan ged and
directed as other objects are affected, there appears over and above the immediate impulsive
responses a manner of conduct which can conceivably both analyze the act throug h an attention
shifting where our various tende ncies to act direct it, and can allow representation, by holding out
the imagery of the results of the various react ions, instea d of allowing it to simply enter into the
presentation or perception of the objects. Such reflective direction of activi ty is not the form in which

intelligence first appears, nor is this its primitive function. Its earliest function, in the instan ce of the
infant, is effective adjustment to the little society upon which it has so long to depend. The child is
for a long time dependent upon moods and emotional attitudes. How quickly he adjusts himself to
this is a continual surpri se. He responds to facial expressions earlier than to most stimuli and
answ ers with appropriate expressions of his own, before he makes respo nses that we consi der
significant. He comes into the world highly sensitive to this so-called "mimic gesture," and he
exercises his earliest intelligence in his adaptation to his social envir onment. If he is congenitally
deprived of the vocal gesture that affects himself as it does others, and the loss is not early made
good, in part throu gh other means of communication which in principle follow the same procedure
as that of vocal com munication, he is confined to this instinctive means of adjustment to those about
him, and lives a life hardly abov e that of the lower animals-indeed, lower than theirs because of his
lack of their varie d instinctive reacti ons to the physical and socia l world about them. As we have
seen, in the norm al child the vocal gesture arouses in himself the responses of his elders, through
their stimulation of his own parental impulse and later of other impulses which in their childish form
are beginning to ripen in his central nervous system. These impulses find their expression first of all
in tones of voice and later in combinations of phonetic elements which become articul ate speech as
they do in the vocal gesture of the talking birds. The child has becom e, through his own impulses, a
parent to himself. The same selective process which leads him to use the phonetic elements of the
spee ch about him leads him to use the general types of attitudes of those about him, not by direct
imitation, but throu gh his tendi ng to call out in himself in any situati on the same reactio n which he
calls out in others. The society which determines these situations will, of cours e, deter mine not only
his direct replies but also those adult respo nses within himself which his replies arouse. In so far as
he gives expression to these, at first in voice and later in play, he is taking many rôles and
addressing himself in all of them. He is of course fitting himself in his play to take up the adult
activities later, and among primitive people this is practic ally all the training he receives. But he is
doing far more than this: he is gradually building up a definite self that becomes the most important
object in his world. As an object, it is at first the reflection of the attitudes of others toward it. Indeed,
the child in this early period often refers to his own self in the third person. He is a composite of all
the individuals he addresses when he takes the roles of those about him. It is only gradually that this
takes clear enough form to become identified with the biologic individual and endow him with a
clear-cut personality that we call self-consc ious. When this has taken place he has put himself in the
position of commenting on what he is doing and what he intends to do from the standpoint of any of
the roles that this so-called "imaginative conduct" finds him carryin g. In so far as these roles differ,
the undertaking has a different aspect, and different elements in the field of objects about him stand
out, answ ering to his own different impulses. If he cannot yet be said to be thinking, he has at least
the mechanism of thoug ht.
It is necessary to emphasize the wide stretch between the direct immediate life of the child and this
self growing in his conduct. The latter is almost imposed from withou t. He may passively acce pt the
individual that the group about him assigns to him as himself. This is very different from the
passi onate assertive biologic individual, that loves and hates and embraces and strikes. He is never
an object; his is a life of direct suffering and action. In the meantime, the self that is growing up has
as much reality and as little as the roles the child plays. Interesting documents on this early self are
to be found in the so-called -imaginary companions" with which many children confessedly, all
children implicitly, provi de themselves. They are, of course, the imperfectly personified responses in
the child to his own social stimulation, but which have more intimate and lasting import in his play
life than others of the shad owy clan. As the child com pletes the circle of the socia l world to which he
responds and whose action s he stimulates himself to produce, he has completed in some fashion
his own self toward which all these play activities can be directed. It is an acco mplishment that
announces itself in the passage from the earlier form of play into that of games, eithe r the
competitive or the more or less dramatic games, in which the child enters as a definite personality
that maintains itself throug hout. His interest passes from the story, the fairy tale, the folk tale, to the
conn ected accou nts in which he can sustai n a sympathetic identity with the hero or the heroine in
the rush of events. This not only involve s a more or less definitely organized self seen from the
standpoints of those about him whose attitudes he takes, but it involves, furthe r, a functional
interr elationship of this object-self with the biologic individual in his conduct. His reactions now are
not simply the direct respo nses to the social and physica l things about him, but are also to this self
which has becom e an object of continually incre asing moment. It is made up of socia l respo nses to
others regarded primarily throu gh their eyes as he takes their parts. Thus a child comes to regard
himself as a playmate who must share his toys with other children if he is to keep them as
playmates. This compels him to see other characters in the playthings beside their immediate

attraction to his play impulse and to that of poss ession. The playthi ng becomes a composite object;
it is not only that which gives expression to his own impulse but something that keeps with him his
cheri shed friends. His habits of response are recon structe d and he becomes a rational animal. The
reconstructi on takes place unwittingly as he recognizes the different features in the objects about
him which force themselves upon his attention as a self. But as the self becomes effectively
organized, it provides the techn ique that helps the child out of as many situatio ns as it creates. A
smooth interplay results between the biologic individual and the self. All conduct that prese nts
difficulties pass es into this reflective form. The subject is the biologic individual – never on the scene,
and this self adjusted to its social environment, and throug h this to the worl d at large, is the object. It
is true that the subject in the conversation between the two takes now this role and now that. We are
familiar with this in thought-processes which we carry on in the form of a discussion with another
individual. One not infrequently puts the arguments which he wishes to meet into the mouth of some
advocate of the idea. It is the argument which this supporter of the doctri ne offers which appears in
thought; and when one has replied to that, it is the reply whic h he would make that calls out the next
answ er. But though the voice is the voice of another, the source of it all is one's self-the organized
group of impulses which I have called the biologic individual. It is this individual in action, with his
attention on the object. He does not come into the field of his own vision. But in so far as he can
address himself, and call out a response, that self and its response does become an object, as we
have seen.
It is necessary to make another distinctio n here, for the experience is subtle in the extreme. At the
stage which we are considering, that of the young child, the role of the other which he assumes is
taken without recognition. The child is aware of his response to the role, not of the role he is taking.
It is only the later sophisticated inner experience that is aware of the characte r under which the
invisi ble "I" enters the scene, and then only throu gh a setting which must be later presented. The
medium of interacti on between the subject and object is the vocal gesture with the imagery which
gathers about it, but this vocal gesture is but part of a social act. It represents the adjustment to an
envir onment, in the attitude of some overt action. The action is, however, indicated to the self by the
gesture, and the self as another social being through its gestures takes the attitude of varying
responses-the conversation of gestur es which I have already described in the conduct of animals.
To this attitude and its gesture the biologic individual, the subject, again replies; but his reply is to
the self, while the responses of the self are not directed toward the subject but toward the social
situati on involved in the attitude which has called it out. Expressed in our adult thought, this is the
distin ction betwe en the idea that comes into our heads (the idea that occurs to us), and its relation
to the world, of which as objects we are a part. It is what the child is preparing to do and the
attitude s which he will take in conse quence. He starts to do something and finds himself in the early
stage of the process objecting and taking some other tack. In a sense he is trying out this
undertaking through the medium of communication with a self. Thus the biologic individual becomes
esse ntially interr elated with the self, and the two go to make up the personality of the child. It is this
conversat ion that constitutes the earliest mechanism of mind. Into it comes the material of
perception and imagery which are involv ed in the actions which these gestures initiate. In particu lar
the imagery of the results of the actions presaged by the gestures becomes of peculiar interest. As
we have seen , this imagery goes directly into the object under cond itions of direct action. In the
presence of alternative activities, in some sense competing with each other, this imagery of the
result of the acts is, for the time being, disso ciated from the objects and serves to chec k and call for
readjustments.
I have noted two standpoints from which imagery may be regarded. It is there, as percepts are
there; and like percepts, imagery can be stated in terms of its relation to the physiological organism;
but while percepts are dominantly an expression of an immediate relation between the organism
and its field of objects, imagery represents an adjustment between an organism and an environment
that is not there. In case that the imagery is fused with the other conte nts of the perce pt, it extends
and fills out the field of objects. In so far as it does not enter into the immediate environment, it
presents material for whic h an instinctive form can have little or no use. It may serve it as it does us,
to pick out objects which cannot be at once detected ; but as the objects that enter into the field of
perception answ er to organized habits, and since an instinctive form cannot reconst ruct its
cong enital habits, images can hardly serve the function which they do in man's mind of
reconstructi ng both objects and habits. This latter function is a devel opment of the function of the
image in filling out the object, by putting into that which comes throu gh the dista nce senses-such as
vision and hearing -the conte nt of the contact which actual approach to the object will reveal. Its
primal function in reflection is that of determining what cours e of action shall be pursued, by the

presentation of the results of different courses. It is a functi on that inevitably emphasizes the conte nt
of imagery, as the reaction becom es dependent upon the imaged outcome of the process. And yet
this emphasis presupposes something beyond this distin ction and its function. It implies a definite
location and identification of imagery apart from its fusion with other contents in the object. We have
seen that this takes place in the formation of past and future, and in the extension, through these
dimensions of the immediate environment beyo nd the range of sense perception. However, before
this location can take place, the imagery hangs unoriented; and espec ially as past and future take
on more definiteness, the imagery, which does not at once fall into place, needs a local habitation
and is placed in the mind.
In terms of a behavioristic psycho logy the problem of stating reflection is that of showing how in
immediate cond uct, shifting attentio n, springing from varied impulses, may lead to reorganization of
objects so that conflicts between organized impulses may be overcome. We have just seen that
imagery which goes into the structure of objects, and which represents the adjustment of the
organism to enviro nments which are not there, may serve toward the recon struct ion of the objective
field. It is important to present more fully the part which the social activit y of the individual mediated
throu gh vocal gestur e plays in this process. Social acts of this type proceed co-operatively, and the
gesture s serve to adjust the attitudes of the different individuals within the whole act to each other 's
attitude s and actions. The child's cry directs the attention of the mother toward the location of the
child and the chara cter of his need. The mother's response directs the child toward the mother and
the assista nce he is prepared to accept. The challenging calls of rival animals, and the wooing notes
of birds, serve analogous purposes. These gesture s and the immediate responses to them are
preparations for a mutual activit y that is to take place later. The human individual, throug h his
gesture and his own response to it, finds himself in the role of another. He thus places himself in the
attitude of the individual with whom he is to co-operate. The conduct of little children, which is so
largely directed, can only go on in combination with that of their elders; and this early facility in
playing the roles of others gives them the adjustment necessary for this interre lated activit y. The
prohibitions, the taboos, involve conflicting tendencies which appear in terms of personal
commands. It is these that recur as imagery when the impulse again arises to do the forbidden
thing. Where an animal would only slink back from a forbi dden spot, the child repe ats the p rohibition
in the role of the parent. What simply enters into the object to render it dangerous for the animal
builds up for the child an imaginary scene, since his own socia l attitude summons up that of the
other in his own response. What was part of an unbroken flow becomes now an event which
precedes breaking of the law or compliance with it.
What the assu mption of the different attitudes makes possible is the analysis of the object. In the
role of the child the thing is the object of an immediate want. It is simply desirable. That which
occu pies the attention is this answer to the impulse to seize and devour. In the role of the pare nt the
object is taboo, reserved for other times and people, the taking of which calls out retribution. The
child's capa city for being the other puts both of these characters of the object before him in their
disparateness. The object does not simply lead him on and drive him away, as it does the well-
mannered dog. It is with this material that the child sets out upon his creati ons of imagination: the
moth er relents and removes the taboo, or when the object is eaten the child escapes attentio n, or a
thous and things may happen in the activities of the different characters on the scene so that the
desirable thing is his and its character as taboo, while recognized, fails to bring the dreaded
cons equences. Or the more matter- of-fact child may take and eat and face the consequence of the
whipping as worth the while, thus affecting the union of the c onflicting characters in a hero ic fashion,
but still with the lingering hope that the unexpected may happen that will hide the deed, or change
the law or its enforcement. In a word, the sympathetic assu mption of the attitude of the other brings
into play varying impulses which direct the attention to featur es of the object which are ignored in
the attitude of direct respo nse. And the very divers e attitudes assumed furnish the material for a
reconstructi on of the objective field in which and throug h which the co-operative social act may take
place, giving satisfa ctory expression to all the roles involv ed. It is this analysis and reconstruction
which is rend ered possible by the apparatus of the vocal gestur e, with its r elated orga nic equipment.
It is in this field that the conti nuous flow breaks up in ordered series, in the relation of alternative
steps leading up to some event. Time with its distinguishable moments enters, so to speak, with the
interval s necessary to shift the scene and chan ge the costu mes. One cannot be another and yet
himself exce pt from the standpoint of a time which is composed of entirely independent elements.
It is important to recognize how entire ly social the mechanism of young children's reflective conduct
is. The explanation lies both in the long period of infancy, nece ssitati ng dependency upon the socia l

cond uct of the family group, and in the vocal gestur e, stimulating the child to act toward himself as
others act toward him, and thus puttin g him in the position of facing his problems from the
standpoints, as far as he can assu me them, of all who are involved there in. One shou ld not,
however, assu me that these social attitudes of the child imply the existence in his conduct of the full
personalities of those whose attitudes he is taking. On the contrary, the full personality with which he
finds himself ultimately endow ed and which he finds in others is the combination of the self and the
others. As social objects, the others with whom the child plays are uncertain in their outlines and
shad owy in their structure. What is clear and definite in the child's attitude is the react ion in eithe r
role, that of the self or the other. The child's earliest life is that of socia l activi ties, including this
reflexive stimulation and resp onse, in a field in which neither socia l nor merely physic al objects have
arise n with definiteness. It is a great mista ke to overlook the socia l character of these proc esses, for
in the human animal this social factor carries with it the complication of poss ible self-stimulation as
well. The reactio n of the human animal toward another, in which a gesture plays a part that can
affect the first individual as it does the other, has a value which cannot attach to the direct instinctive
or impulsive responses to objects, whethe r they be other living forms or mere physical thing s.
Such a reaction, even with its self-reflection only implicitly there, must be still more sharply
distin guished from our reactions to physical thing s in terms of our modern scientific attitude. Such a
physica l world did not exist in the earlier and less soph isticated experience of man. It is a product of
modern scientific method. It is not found in the unsophisticated child or in the unsophisticated man,
and yet most psycho logies treat the experience of the child's reactions to the so-called "physic al
objects" about him as if these objects were for him what they are for the adult. There is most
interesting evide nce of this difference in the attitude of primitive man toward his environment. The
primitive man has the mind of the child – indeed, of the youn g child. He approaches his problems in
terms of socia l cond uct-the social conduct in which there is this self-reflection which has just been
the subject of discussion. The child gets his solutions of what from our standpoint are entirely
physica l problems, such as those of transp ortation, movement of things, and the like, through his
socia l reaction to those about him. This is not simply beca use he is dependent, and must look to
those about him for assistanc e during the early period of infancy, but, more important still, because
his primitive process of reflectio n is one of mediation through vocal gestur es of a cooperative social
process. The human individual thinks first of all entirely in social terms. This means, as I have
emphasized above, not that nature and natur al objects are personalized, but that the child's
reacti ons to nature and its objects are social reactio ns, and that his respo nses imply that the actions
of natural objects arc social reactions In other words, in so far as the young child acts reflectively
toward his physical envir onment, he acts as if it were helping or hindering him, and his respo nses
are accompanied with friendliness or anger. It is an attitude of which there are more than vestiges in
our sophistic ated experience. It is perhaps most evide nt in the irritations against the total depravity
of inanimate things, in our affection for familiar objects of constant employment, and in the aestheti c
attitude toward nature which is the source of all nature poetry. The distinction betwe en this attitude
and that of perso nification is that betwee n the primitive cult attitude and the later attitude of the
myth, betwee n the period of the Mana, of mag ic in its primitive form, and the period of the gods. The
esse nce of the reflective process at this stage is that through friendly or hostil e attitudes difficulties
are overco me …. [MS].
4. FRAGM ENTS ON ETHICS[1]
I. It is possi ble to build up an ethic al theory on a social basis, in terms of our socia l theory of the
origin, deve lopment, nature, and structure of the self. Thus, for example, Kant's categorical
imperative may be socia lly stated or formulated or interpreted in these terms, that is, given its social
equivalent.
Man is a ration al being because he is a socia l being. The universality of our judgments, upon which
Kant places so muc h stress, is a universality that arises from the fact that we take the attitude of the
entire community, of all rational beings. We are what we are throu gh our relationship to others.
Inevitab ly, then, our end must be a social end, both from the standpoint of its content (that which
would answer to primitive impulses) and also from the point of view of form. Sociality gives the
universality of ethical judgments and lies back of the popular statement that the voice of all is the

universal voice; that is, everyone who can rationally appreciate the situation agrees. The very form
of our judgment is theref ore social, so that the end, both content and form, is nece ssarily a social
end. Kant approached that universality from the assumption of the ration ality of the individual, and
said that if his ends, or the form of his acts, were universal, then society could arise. He conceived
of the individual first of all as rational and as a condition for society. However, we recognize that not
only the form of the judgment is universal but the content also-that the end itself can be
universalized. Kant said we could only universalize the form. However, we do universa lize the end
itself. If we recognize that we can universalize the end itself, then a socia l order can arise from such
socia l, universal ends.
2. We can agree with Kant that the "ought" does involve universality. As he points out, that is true in
the case of the Golden Rule. Wherever the element of the "ought" comes in, wherever one's
consc ience spea ks, it always takes on this univers al form.
Only a rational being could give universal form to his act. The lower animals simply follow
inclinations; they go after particular ends, but they could not give a universal form to acts. Only a
rational being would be able so to generalize his act and the maxim of his act, and the human being
has such rationality. When he acts in a certai n way he is willing that everyo ne should act in the
same way, under the same conditions. Is not that the statement we generally make in justifying
ourselves? When a person has done something that is questionable, is not the statement that is first
made, "That is what anyone would have done in my place"? Such is the way in which one does
justify his conduct if it is brought into question at all; that it should be a universal law is the justifiable
supp ort that one gives to a questi oned act. This is quite apart from the content of the act, as one can
be sure that what he is doing is what he want s everyone else to do under the same circumstances.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; that is, act toward other people as you want
them to act toward you under the same conditions.
3. In general, when you are taking advantage of other people, the universa lizing of the principle of
the act would take away the very value of the act itself. You want to be able to steal things and yet
keep them as your own property; but if everyon e stole, there would not be any such thing as
property. just generalize the principle of your act and see what would follow with reference to the
very thing you are trying to do. This Kantian test is not a test of feeling but a ration al test that does
meet a very large number of acts which we recognize as moral. It is valuable in its way. We try to
decide whether we are making ourselves exceptions or whether we should be willing to have
everyon e else act as we are doing.
If a man will set up as a maxim for his conduct the princ iple that everybo dy else should be honest
with him while he would be dishonest with everybo dy else, there could not be a factual basis for his
attitude. He is commanding the honesty of other people, and he is in no position to command it if he
is dishonest. The rights one recognizes in others one can demand in others; but we cannot demand
from others what we refuse to respect. It is a pract ical impossibility.
Any constructive act is, however, something that lies outside of the scope of Kant's principle. From
Kant's stand point you assu me that the standard is there; and then if you slip around it yourself while
expecting other people to live up to it, Kant's principle will find you out. But where you have no
standard, it does not help you to decide. Where you have to get a resta tement, a readjustment, you
get a new situation in which to act; the simple generalizing of the princ iple of your act does not help.
It is at that point that Kant's principle breaks down.
What Kant's principle does is to tell you that an act is immoral under certain conditions, but it does
not tell you what is the moral act. Kant's catego rical imperative assu mes that there is just one way of
actin g. If that is the case, then there is only one course that can be universalized; then the respect
for law would be the motive for acting in that fashion. But if you assu me that there are alternative
ways of acting, then you cannot utilize Kant's motive as a means of determining what is right.
4. Both Kant and the Utilitarians wish to univers alize, to make universal that in which morality lies.
The Utilitarian says it must be the greatest good of the greatest number; Kant says that the attitude
of the act must be one which takes on the form of a universal law. I want to point out this common
attitude of these two schools which are so opposed to each other in other ways: they both feel that
an act which is moral must have in some way a universal character. If you state morality in terms of
the result of the act, then you state the results in terms of the whole community; if in the attitude of

the act, it must be in the respect for law, and the attitude must take on the form of a universal law, a
universal rule. Both recog nize that morality involves universality, that the moral act is not simply a
private affair. A thing that is good from a moral standpoint must be a good for everyone under the
same conditions. This demand for univers ality is found in both the Utilitarian and Kantian doctrines.
5. If the categorical imperative is obeyed as Kant wishes, everyone will make a universal law of his
act, and then a combination of such individuals will be one that is harm onious, so that a society
made up out of beings who recognize the moral law would be a moral society. In that way Kant gets
a conte nt in his act; his statement is that there is no content, but by setting the human being up as
an end in himself, and so socie ty as a higher end, he introduces conte nt.
This picture of a kingdom of ends is hardly to be distin guished from Mill's doctrine, since both set up
society as an end. Each of them has to get to some sort of an end that can be univers al. The
Utilitarian reaches that in the general good, the general happiness of the whole community; Kant
finds it in an organization of rational human beings, who apply rationality to the form of their acts.
Neither of them is able to state the end in terms of the object of desire of the individual.
Actua lly, what you have to univers alize is the object toward which desire is directed, that upon which
your attention must be centered if you are going to succee d. You have to universalize not the mere
form of the act but the content of the act.
If you assu me that what you want is just pleasure, you have a particular event, a feeling which you
experience under certain cond itions. But if you desir e the object itself, you desire that which can be
given a univers al form; if you desire such an object, the motive itself can be as moral as the end.
The break which the a ct puts between the motive and the intended end then disappears.
6. There is the question of the relation of endeavor and achievement to will, the questi on as to
whethe r the result is some thing that can have anything to do with the morality of the act. You do
have to bring the end into your intention, into your attitude. You can, at every stage of the act, be
actin g with reference to the end; and you can embody the end in the steps that you are immediately
taking.
That is the difference betwe en meaning well and having the right intention. Of course, you cannot
have the final result in your early steps of the act, but you can at least state that act in terms of the
cond itions which you are meeting.
If you are going to be successful, you have to be interested in an end in terms of the steps which are
nece ssary to carry it out. In that sense the result is present in the act. A person who is taking all the
steps to bring about a result sees the resul t in the steps. It is that which makes one moral or
immoral, and distinguishes betwe en a man who really means to do what he says he is going to do,
and one who merely "means well."
7. All of our impulses are poss ible sources of happiness; and in so far as they get their natural
expression they lead up to happiness. In the moral act there will be pleasure in our satisfactions; but
the end is in the objects, and the motives are in the impulses which are directed toward these
objects. When a person, for example, becom es extremely intere sted in some undertaking, then he
has impulses that are directe d toward certain ends, and such impulses beco me the motives of his
cond uct. We distinguish such impulses from the motive that the Utilitarian recognizes. He
recognizes only one motive: the feeling of pleasure that will arise when the desire is satisfi ed. In
place of that we put the impulse which is directe d toward the end itself and maintain that such
impulses are the motives of moral conduct.
The questio n then beco mes the determination of the sort of ends toward which our action should be
directed. What sort of a standard can we set up? Our ends should, first of all, be ends which are
desirable in themselves, that is, which do lead to the expression and satisfa ction of the impulses.
Now there are some impulses which lead simply to disintegration, which are not desirable in
them selves. There are certain of our impulses which find their expression, for example, in cruel ty.
Taken by themselves they are not desirable because the results which they bring are narrowing,
depressing, and deprive us of social relations. They also lead, so far as others are concerned, to
injury to other individuals.

In Dewey's terms, the moral impulses should be those "which reinforce and expand not only the
motives from which they directly spring but also the other tendencies and attitude s which are
sourc es of happiness. "[2] If a perso n becomes interested in other persons, he finds the interest
which he has does lead to reinforcing that motive and to expanding other motive s. The more we
beco me intere sted in persons the more we beco me intere sted in general in life. The whole situation
within which the individual finds himself takes on new interest. Similarly, to get an intellectual motive
is one of the greate st boons which one may have, because it expands interest so widely. We
recognize such ends as particu larly important.
So, looking at happiness from the point of view of impulses themselves, we can set up a stan dard in
this fash ion: the end should be one which reinforces the motive , one which will reinforce the impulse
and expand other impulses or motives. That would be the standard proposed.
We are free now from the restrictio ns of the Utilitarian and Kantian if we recognize that desire is
directed toward the object instea d of toward pleasure. Both Kant and the Utilitarian are
fundamentally hedonists, assuming that our inclinations are toward our own subjective states – the
pleasure that comes from satisf actio n. If that is the end, then of course our motives are all subjective
affairs. From Kant's standpoint they are bad, and from the Utilitarian's standpoint they are the same
for all actions and so neutral. But on the present view, if the object itself is better, then the motive is
better. The motive can be tested by the end, in terms of whether the end does reinforce the very
impulse itself.
Impu lses will be good to the degree that they reinforce themselves and expand and give expression
to other impulses as well.
8. All the things worth while are share d experiences. Even when a person is by himself, he knows
that the experience he has in nature, in the enjoyment of a book, experiences which we might think
of as purely individual, would be greatly accentuated if they could be shared with others. Even when
a person seems to retire into himself to live among his own ideas, he is living really with the others
who have thoug ht what he is thinking. He is reading books, recal ling the experiences which he has
had, projecting conditions under which he might live. The conte nt is always of a social character. Or
it may pass into those mysti cal experiences in religious lift-communion with God. The conception of
the religious life is itself a social conc eption; it gathers about the idea of the community.
It is only in so far as you can identify your own motive and the actua l end you are pursu ing with the
common good that you reach the moral end and so get moral happiness. As human nature is
esse ntially social in character, moral ends must be also social in their natur e.
9. If we look at the individual from the point of view of his impulses, we can see that those desires
which reinforce themselves, or contin ue on in their expression, and which awaken other impulses,
will be good; wher eas those which do not reinforce themselves lead to undesirable results, and
those which weaken the other motive s are in themselves evil. If we look now toward the end of the
actio n rather than toward the impulse itself, we find that those ends are good which lead to the
realizatio n of the self as a socia l being. Our morality gathers about our socia l conduct. It is as social
beings that we are moral beings. On the one side stands the society which makes the self poss ible,
and on the other side stands the self that makes a highly organized society poss ible. The two
answ er to each other in moral conduct.
In our reflective conduct we are always reconstructing the immediate socie ty to which we belong.
We are taking certai n definite attitudes which involv e relationship with others. In so far as those
relationships are changed, the society itself is changed. We are continually recon struct ing. When it
comes to the problem of recon struct ion there is one essential demand that all of the interests that
are involved should be taken into account. One shou ld act with reference to all of the interests that
are involved: that is what we could call a "categorical imperative."
We are definitely identified with our own interests. One is constitute d out of his own interests; and
when those interests are frustrated, what is called for then is in some sense a sacrifice of this
narrow self. This should lead to the development of a larger self which can be identified with the
interests of others. I think all of us feel that one must be ready to recognize the interests of others
even when they run counter to our own, but that the person who does that does not really sacrifice
himself, but beco mes a larger self.

10. The group advances from old standards toward another standard; and what is important from
the stand point of morality is that t his advance takes place through the individual, throu gh a new type
of individual – one who conceives himself as individuals have not conceived themselves in the past.
The illustrati ons are those of the Prop hets among the Hebrews and the Sophists among the Gree ks.
The point that I want to emphasize is that this new individual appears as the repre sentative of a
different social order. He does not appear simply as a particular individual; he conc eives of himself
as belonging to another social order whic h ought to tak e the place of the old one. He is a member of
a new, a higher, order. Of cours e, there have been evolutionary chan ges that took place without
individual reactio n. But moral changes are those that take place throu gh the actio n of the individual
as such. He beco mes the instru ment, the means, of changing the old into a new order.
What is right arises in the experience of the individual: he comes to change the social order; he is
the instru ment by which custom itself may be changed. The prophet becomes highly important for
this reason, since he represents the sort of consc iousness in which one decides to change the
conc eption of what is right. By asking what is right, we are in that same situation, and we are helping
in this way toward the development of the moral consc iousness of the community. Values come into
conflict with each other in the experiences of the individual; it is his function to give expression to the
different value s and help to formulate more satisf actory standards than have existed.
11. When we reach the question of what is right, I have said that the only test we can set up is
whethe r we have taken into account every interest involved. What is esse ntial is that every interest
in a man's nature which is involved shou ld be considered. He can consi der only the interests which
come into his problem. The scientist has to cons ider all of the facts, but he consi ders only those
facts involve d in the immediate problem. A scientist trying to find out wheth er acqu ired
characteri stics can be inherited does not have to take into account the facts of relativity , but only
those facts which apply to his problem. The mora l problem is one which involv es certain conflicting
interests. All of those interests which are involved in conflict must be considered.
In moral judgments we have to work out a social hypothe sis, and one never can do it simply from his
own point of view. We have to look at it from the point of view of a socia l situat ion. The hypothesis is
one that we pres ent, just as the Prop hets presented the conc eption of a community in which all men
were brothers. Now, if we ask what is the best hypothesis, the only answer we can make is that it
must take into account all of the interests that are involved. Our temp tation is to ignore certain
interests that run contrary to our own interests, and emphasize those with which we have been
identified. You cannot lay down in adva nce fixed rules as to just what should be done. You can find
out what are the values involved in the actual problem and act rationally with reference to them.
That is what we ask, and all we ask, of anyo ne. When we object to a perso n's cond uct, we say that
he has failed to recognize the values, or that in recognizing them he does not act rationally with
reference to them. That is the only method that an ethics can present. Science cann ot possibly tell
what the facts are going to be, but can give a method for approach: recognize all the facts that
belong to the problem, so that the hypothesi s will be a cons istent, rational one. You cann ot tell a
person what must be the form of his act any more than you can tell a scientist what his facts are
going to be. The moral act must take into account all the values involved, and it must be rational-that
is all that can be said.
12. The only rule that an ethics can present is that an individual should rationally deal with all the
values that are found in a spec ific problem. That does not mean that one has to spread before him
all the social values when he approaches a problem. The problem itself defines the values. It is a
speci fic problem and there are certai n intere sts that are definitely involved; the individual should
take into account all of those interests and then make out a plan of action which will ration ally deal
with those interests. That is the only method that ethics can bring to the individual. It is of the
great est importance that one shou ld define what those interests are in the particu lar situation. The
great need is that one should be able to regard them impartially. We feel that persons are apt to
take what we call a selfish attitude with reference to them. I have pointed out that the matter of
selfishness is the setting-up of a narro w self over against a larger self. Our society is built up out of
our social interests, Our social relations go to constitute the self. But when the immediate interests
come in conflict with others we had not recognized, we tend to ignore the others and take into
acco unt only those whic h are immediate. The difficulty is to make ourselves recognize the other and
wider interests, and then to bring them into some sort of rational relationship with the more
immediate ones. There is room for mistakes, but mistakes are not sins.

13. A man has to keep his self-respect, and it may be that he has to fly in the face of the whole
community in preserving this self-respect. But he does it from the point of view of what he consi ders
a higher and better society than that which exists. Both of these are essential to moral conduct: that
there should be a socia l organization and that the individual should maintain himself. The method
for taking into acco unt all of those interests which make up socie ty on the one hand and the
individual on the other is the method of morality.
Endnotes
1.[Cf. "Suggestions toward a Theory of the Philosophical Disciplines," Philosophical Review,
IX (1900), 1 ff.; "The Social Self," Journal of Philosophy, X (1913), 374 ff ; "The Social
Settle ment: Its Basis and Function," University of Chicago Record, XII (1908), 108 ff. "The
Philosophical Basis of Ethics," International Journ al of Ethics, XVIII (1908), 311 ff.,
"Scie ntific Method and the Moral Sciences," ibid., XXXIII (19-23), 229 ff.; "Philanthropy from
the Point of View of Ethics," in Intelligent Philanthropy, ed. by Ellsworth Paris et al. (1930).]
2.[Dew ey and Tufts, Ethics (1st ed.), p. 284.]

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