Mead's three phases of the act: emotional, aesthetic, and intellectual¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 theoretical), q1 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

In the reconstructed lectures Mead distinguishes three phases in the development of the act. In the emotional phase there is not yet perception of objects; the article reports Mead's view that "emotion is the beginning of the object", since the emotional response holds one to the object. In the aesthetic phase attention turns to the object as a sensuous whole, and in the intellectual phase analysis constructs "an object for activity". Each phase is preparatory for the next: the aesthetic object organizes perception before reflection takes place. The article also reports that the phases can be read as three possible ways of resolving a conflict of action, so a reflective solution is a possibility but not a necessity.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• A situation of inhibition in which the habitual is checked, which the article says involves the development of consciousness

Constraints¶

• The article states there is no necessity that a reflective solution of the conflict emerges; abstraction may instead be clothed in myth or spirit, leading almost directly back to action

Target Learners¶

• graduate students of philosophy and education

Target Learning Objectives¶

• understanding the development of reflective thought from emotional and aesthetic experience

Claims¶

• In Mead's lectures, meanings grow out of social intercourse and the child constructs meanings only in social process [+W]

Related Theories¶

• Mead's theory of the social origin of reflective consciousness

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Biesta, Gert J. J. (1997). George Herbert Mead's Lectures on Philosophy of Education at the University of Chicago (1910-1911). Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED422199