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Objective meaning: The formation of self in Mead and Sohn-Rethel.
- Source :
- Acta Sociologica (Sage Publications, Ltd.); Feb2019, Vol. 62 Issue 1, p34-46, 13p
- Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- This analysis of the work of George Herbert Mead and Alfred Sohn-Rethel compares their respective accounts of the formation of the self. The analysis proceeds from two important similarities: the effort to understand self-consciousness not as primordial but as the product of social processes, and the view that these processes form a circuit: the self arises from consciousness' return to itself, concluding a movement whereby consciousness is first externalized onto objects and then internalized, taking on the insular shape of self-consciousness. What sets the two accounts apart is the site from whence the self returns: objects. In Mead, the self returns from meaningful objects, and this same (intersubjective) meaning is entangled with the process of self-formation. In contrast, for Sohn-Rethel, the self returns from objects whose meaning is not established intersubjectively but objectively: the self is the unintended consequence of commodity exchange. In Mead, interaction among people affords meaning to objects and thus evokes the self; in Sohn-Rethel, interaction among commodities evokes an objective meaning that renders people as selves. Interpretative sociology should attend to the objectively and unconsciously meaningful forms analyzed by Sohn-Rethel. To illustrate this conclusion, reference is made to a certain experience of the social under neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00016993
- Volume :
- 62
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Acta Sociologica (Sage Publications, Ltd.)
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 134473567
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699317749286