Abstract

GONCALVES-NETO, José Umbelino  and  LIMA, Aluísio Ferreira de. Uses and meanings of “self” and “identity” in Mind, Self and Society. Rev. Guillermo Ockham [online]. 2017, vol.15, n.1, pp.43-50.  Epub June 16, 2021. ISSN 1794-192X.  https://doi.org/10.21500/22563202.3189.

This article presents an analysis of the concepts of “self ” and “identity”, identifying their uses, meanings in the classic Mind, Self and Society (1934) by the social psychologist George Herbert Mead. The method was based on the appropriation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s thinking about language, how words gain their meanings, and how to deal with conceptual problems. Thus, a systematic survey of all the cases in which Mead employed these concepts in the book was carried out, followed by a description of these concepts and their conceptual network. The analysis allowed to elucidate synonyms, confusions and superposition of meaning between “self ” and “identity” in the author’s text, besides clarifying the relations of these concepts with other concepts of Mead’s theory. The relevance of this analysis lies in the possibility of remedying or preventing conceptual confusion in the use of these concepts in other theories influenced by Mead.

Keywords : George Herbert Mead; self; identity; conceptual analysis; social psychology.

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