A NOTE ON SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM “Symbolic Interactionism as a Pragmatic Perspective: The Bias of Emergent Theory,” appearing in the April, 1973 issue of the AS.R., misrepresents the position of pragma- tism, the views of George Herbert Mead, and my own views which Professor Huber has ad- dressed. The readers of the ASR are entitled toa correction of the misrepresentations. The central contentions of Professor Huber are the following. (1) Under the precepts of pragmatism and symbolic interactionism, the act of scientific inquiry is initiated without any theory; thus, the position of the investi- gator is that of the “atheoretical simplicity of ‘a blank mind” (p. 282). (2) Because of this initial absence of theory the symbolic interac- tionist investigator is forced back on his own views and those of his informants; thus bias is introduced and objectivity lost: “In the ab- sence of theory, the social givens of the researcher and the participants serve as a theoretical framework, giving the research a bias which reflects the unstated assumptions of the researcher, the climate of opinion in the discipline, and the distribution of power in the interactive setting” (p. 282). I wish to discuss briefly each of these two contentions. (1) Surely, Professor Huber cannot be serious in asserting that pragmatism and symbolic interactionism treat the act of sci- entific inquiry as beginning with a “blank mind.” Neither Mead nor I ever advanced such ‘an absurd position. Mead’s view on the matter is stated unequivocally in his classical article, “Scientific Method and the Individual Thinker”: mine is given in the article, “The Methodological Position of Symbolic Interac tionism.” As a reading of these articles should show beyond question, both Mead and I see the act of scientific inquiry as beginning with a problem. Any reasonable consideration of what is involved in the experience of the investigator when he perceives, poses and addresses a scientific problem should show how ridiculous it is to characterize this experi- ence as starting with a “blank mind.” Con- fronted with a problem, the investigator must note given empirical happenings that give rise to the problem; he must pay attention to the prevailing generalizations or beliefs being chal- enged by the noted empirical happenings; he must give shape to the problem as it emerges before him; he must identify an area of inquiry implied by the problem; he must form some idea of the kinds of empirical data relevant to clarifying and possibly resolving the problem; and he must sketch out lines of empirical inquiry. To imply that these vigor- ous orienting actions, essential to the detec- tion, posing and addressing of the problem, are the actions of a “blank mind” is to do violence to meaningful language. Obviously, Professor Huber's contention reduces to something else. As I interpret her discussion this “something else” is that the symbolic interactionist approach lacks a “lo- gico-theoretic component” and that this lack is equivalent to an absence of theory. Pro- fessor Huber's reasoning on this point is gratuitous and quaint. She apparently identi- fies the “logico-theoretic component” with the use of Aristotelian logic (p. 278), with the consequence that an approach using a differ- ent type of logic is automatically lacking in theory! Professor Huber fails to see that posing, clarifying and addressing a scientific problem constitute theoretical action in its own right. In the effort to shape the problem for empirical attack, the investigator has to develop premises as to the nature of the empirical world, cut out relevant empirical objects, impute connections between classes of such objects, and form initial conceptions as to the nature of the relationship of these connected classes. To shunt aside this com- plex of activity as not being theoretical is unwarranted The real issue raised by Professor Huber’s charge is not that the symbolic interactionist approach lacks theory but, instead, how the scientific problem is to get its theoretical shape. My impression is that she believes that this shaping must precede empirical observa- tion; in this belief she is definitely in line with the dominant methodological position in our discipline today. My own view is that in 997198 studying human conduct or human group life the theoretical shaping of the problem must be done through an on-going, flexible, shifting examination of the empirical field, itself, inorder to set the problem correctly. Charles Darwin is the appropriate model for this type of scientific procedure. This is no place to rehearse the differences between these two types of study. I merely wish to point out that Professor Huber is not justified in con- tending that under the precepts of pragmatism and symbolic interactionism the act of scienti- fic inquiry begins with a blank mind and is devoid of theory. (2) Professor Huber’s second contention is that scientific theory under the framework of pragmatism or symbolic interactionism is bounded by the views of the investigator and his informants and thus becomes a prey to these views. She holds that (a) the investigator is unable to test his assumptions, (b) there is no way to tell which of the informants has the correct views, and (c) the view that triumphs depends on the relative power position of the given informants or the investigator. I suppose that one could find an instance of symbolic interactionist study that fits what Professor Huber is saying; but if so it would be a caricature of proper procedure. There is no reason why the investigator who follows the symbolic interactionist approach cannot test his assertions and hypotheses about his em- pirical world by a careful, continuous exami- nation of that world; his position is no different from that of Darwin or scores of competent ethnographers. The investigator who is sincere and sensitive to empirical observation is in the same position to find that his given ideas are untenable (and thus “lose the game”) as is the researcher operating with a “prior construction of logically-related propositions” (p.282). I can find no basis for Professor Huber’s peculiar assertion of this point. Similarly, why is it not possible to test the respective validity of informant views when such views conflict with each other? There are various ways of approaching such a problem, the chief of which is to have the informants thresh out their difference through joint confrontation and hence renew collec- tive examination of the empirical area in dispute. In no sense is this problem inevitable or insoluble as Professor Huber seems to imply. Finally, the notion that the respective power position of informants or of the investi- AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW gator determines which views among them emerge as “empirically valid” is not backed up by any evidence submitted by Professor Huber. Any conscientious observer who is aware of what is going on, whatever his philosophical persuasion, would not allow himself to fall into such a trap; and if he is sufficiently intelligent and skilled, he will know what is going on, I must conclude that these three boogeymen that Professor Huber gratuitously sees in symbolic interactionist research are in no sense indigenous to or greater in such research. In my judgment, the real source of social bias (as well as the source of its correction) lies in the procedure by which the scientific problem is constructed. The likelihood of introducing unwitting bias is much less when the problem is developed through a close, flexible and reflective ex- amination of the empirical world than when the problem is formed by using a model not derived through such intimate, empirical ex- amination. A brief comment is due one other ques- tionable line of treatment in Professor Huber’s article. I refer to the theme that the test of truth in pragmatic doctrine is whether the given proposition or hypothesis “works.” This hoary characterization of pragmatism easily lends itself to absurd interpretation. One should not assume that this crude notion means that the pragmatist fails to examine meticulously the empirical world. The op- posite is the case. Herbert Blumer University of California, Berkeley REPLY TO BLUMER: BUT WHO WILL SCRUTINIZE THE ‘SCRUTINIZERS? In considering Professor Blumer’s thought- ful comments, let us begin where he left off, since the final issue needs the fewest words. An earlier ASR article (Huber and Loomis, 1970:309) specifically disclaimed the notion that pragmatism involves only the idea that it is important to see how things work out in practice. I had not thought it necessary to repeat the disclaimer. Apparently I” was wrong, The first issue concerns my reference to the blank mind with which the SI researcherA Note on Symbolic Interactionism Herbert Blumer American Sociological Review, Vol. 38, No. 6. (Dec., 1973), pp. 797-798. Stable URL: hutp:/Minks,jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-1224%28 1973 12%2938%3A6%3C797%3A ANOSI%3E2.0,CO%3B2-R American Sociological Review is currently published by American Sociological Association. 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