Freedom and the Limits of Social Behaviourism: A Comparison of Selected Themes from the Works of G. H. Mead and Martin Buber

Abstract

Mead and Buber are compared in terms of the thesis of the social self, the thesis of a similar vision of social amelioration as expressed through Mead's notion of the generalized other and Buber's conception of God, and the possibility of complementary inner and outer dialogues. Through these issues it is seen that the two authors express fundamentally different perspectives on man. Because of its commitment to a positivistic framework, Mead's position is equivocal but basically deterministic and can only inadequately account for the potential freedom of human action. His social behaviourism logically impels him to make the self subservient to the social process, give the generalized other a dominating position, emphasize the `me' over the `I', and articulate a deterministic ethics-despite his intention to present a social psychology in which self and society are of equal importance. Buber's perspective emphasizes the dialogical nature of reality, the `between', the mutuality of all relations including those between man and God, and consequently the freedom and responsibility of human action. Buber's philosophical anthropology encompasses the basic insights of Mead's framework and supersedes it by the inclusion of the concept of reification; further and more basically, Buber's image of man more adequately accounts for the experience of freedom. Finally, as the essay establishes its main thesis it supports a general critique of positivistic sociology.