GOING ASTRAY WITH A LOGICAL SCHEME
For purposes of clarification it is desirable to point out at the very beginning that the title of the Lewis and Smith book (“American Sociology and Pragmatism: Mead, Chicago Sociology and Symbolic Interaction”) is very much of a misnomer. On the basis of the title one would expect at least a modest coverage of the following significant topics: the distinctive nature of pragmatism as a form of philosophy; the importance of its particular picture of human action, based on functional psychology and reflecting the practical character of American frontier life; the ways in which this philosophical and psychological perspective played into the formation of early American sociology; the ways, in turn, by which early American sociological thought with its reform motif played back on pragmatic philosophy; the manner in which American pragmatism entered into and affected the development of sociological thought and research at the University of Chicago; the place of George Herbert Mead in the formation of that thought and research; and finally the ways in which the social psychological thought of Mead exercized influence on what has come to be called “symbolic interactionism.” But the book is far from presenting such an expected coverage. Instead, Lewis and Smith have picked out a recondite philosophical issue-the scholastic issue of “nominalism” versus “realism”-and used this issue to construct a narrowly conceived picture of pragmatism, Chicago Sociology, and symbolic interactionism. The result is a big void in their account. The nominalism-realism theme which Lewis and Smith use to give direction and substance to their book comes from the issue in scholastic philosophy as to whether “universals” (general items) are real or whether only “particulars” (individual objects) are real; for example, whether “redness” as a universal is real or whether only red objects are real. Philosophically, the position of “realism” is that universals are real while the position of “nominalism” is that only particular objects are real; for the nominalist, a universal (such as redness) is only a word or label that is attached to real individuals. The