The Emergence of Radical Pragmatism from Radical Interactionism: Moving Beyond Chicago Pragmatism and Symbolic Interactionism

What the paper says

Abstract While the origination of symbolic interactionism from the Chicago School of Pragmatism is well known, it is less well known that three of this philosophy’s fundamental premises that significantly impact this perspective have escaped critical examination by present-day symbolic interactionists, as well as their predecessors. The first premise of Chicago Pragmatism to go unaddressed is that the organization of multi-individual acts are based on the principle of sociality, which ignores that they are seldom constructed on a level playing field. The second premise of Chicago Pragmatism to fall under the radar is that human events unfold over a contingent, linear causal process, which overlooks evidence that these events can reverse course before a process is completed. The third premise remaining critically unexamined is the belief that “role-taking” solves the problem of the dualism created between the mind and body which neglects that human beings cannot literally “take each other’s roles.” Three new premises derived from “radical pragmatism” that resolves these issues are offered as their replacements. It is concluded that interactionists should not only abandon their allegiance to the philosophy of Chicago Pragmatism and perspective of symbolic interactionism, but also switch their allegiance to the perspective of radical interactionism and the newly emergent philosophy of radical pragmatism, if they want to save interactionism from possible extinction in the 21th century.