For a psychosocial theory: the missing links in G. H. Mead

Abstract

The incursion proposed in this article trail the opposite way of the disciplinary compartmentalization in the scope of science and philosophy, seeking to overcome some analytical commodities. The object of study in question is the psychosocial theory of George Herbert Mead, a North American philosopher and social psychologist who lived between 1863-1931. We start with a state of the art, a methodology of executrix character and descriptive. From the reading and the interpretation of bibliographical survey, from articles written by Mead to classic texts of epistemology, it was possible to establish two inverse but complementary movements in a dual appreciative effort paradoxically centrifugal and centripetal. We put in evidence precepts of historical cadence; we rummaged what was beyond social psychology of Mead, the philosophical background and the interpersonal relations and scientific plan of his time. The interlocution among the biographical considerations of Mead and historical development of social psychology allowed to understand the roots of Meadian thought and its further unfolding.