The Contribution of American Pragmatism

Abstract

My purpose in this chapter is to assess and critique material on American pragmatism, in order to identify the relevance of this specific school of thought to theories on internal and external conversation. This will show how pragmatists perceive the individual and how they connect individuals with the social world, and thus provide a foundation from which to address the central question of this book, namely, how does mediation function? I will first discuss James’s concept of the ‘externalisation of the internalised circle’. I will describe the origins of the concept of internal conversation and show how they were developed in Peirce’s theory. I will then consider the social sphere by examining the ‘transition from internal to external conversation’, a transition guided primarily by the work of Dewey and finally, I will consider Mead’s analysis of how ‘internalisation of external conversation’ occurs and his views on social dominance.¹