ABSTRACT
Social theory has treated agency and interaction in numerous ways. There are three tenets that will be central. The first is that social interaction and emergence are processes. The second tenet of this chapter is that social interaction continually emerges in space-time. The final tenet is that interaction must be approached as a gestalt. From the social act triad emerges reflective human consciousness, mind, self and society. Anthony Giddens used social transaction as a foundation in his structuration social theory. The most instructive aspect of Giddens's work is his explanation of how structure is continually reproduced in the 'specious present'. George Herbert Mead continually used dualisms in his work: self and other, gesture and response, and social world and environment. While these dualisms are an essential element to analysing, evaluating and philosophizing about humanity as social being, they often take on a life of their own and are reified into actual separations.
