Ex Cathedra Blumer or Ex Libris Mead?
1980; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 45; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2095175
ISSN1939-8271
AutoresClark McPhail, Cynthia Rexroat,
Tópico(s)Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes
ResumoBlumer (1980) hypothesizes we have misrepresented his views and those of Mead on scientific inquiry and social behavior, and that we have erroneously concluded their methodological perspectives diverge. Ironically, Blumer's paper exemplifies two of the fundamental problems we noted in his methodological perspective. First, he fails to specify the criterion in terms of which he makes the judgment of misrepresentation. Second, he fails to bring systematic evidence to bear on the claims of his hypothesis in relation to some criterion for judgment. We proceeded differently. We indicated at the outset of our paper (McPhail and Rexroat, 1979:450, especially fn. 1, fn. 2, and fn. 3) that our criterion for judging convergence or divergence between Mead's and Blumer's methodological perspectives would be their written statements. When we attributed a position to Mead we provided citations to or quotations from Mead's statements documenting our claims. Blumer (1980) makes no less than 28 attributions of position, opinion or thought to Mead, yet offers documentation for less than one third of those attributions.' Instead, Blumer responds as he has in the past to those who offer nonBlumerian interpretations of Mead (e.g., Blumer, 1966; 1967; 1973; 1977: he simply asserts that his interpretation of Mead is the correct one! The availability of Mead's writings and edited lectures permit interested scholars to decide between a version of Mead ex cathedra Blumer or ex libris Mead. In the following sections we examine
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