ABSTRACT
Symbols are often conceptualised as intersubjective only to the extent that they are shared. Language, it is said, is composed of symbols that we share, and because we share these symbols we are able to communicate. Simplistically, the idea is that each symbol or word stands for a single object, action or phenomenon in the world, and because we share this set of correspondences we can understand each other’s utterances. In this chapter, I want to argue that symbols are intersubjective in a more fundamental sense. Symbols are shared, but what is shared is not a single meaning or correspondence. Specifically, I propose a neo-Meadian theory in which each symbol corresponds to at least two meanings, and these different meanings originate in the different perspectives of social actors interacting around the given phenomenon. Symbols, in this neo-Meadian sense, are intersubjective by virtue of linking together these different perspectives around a phenomenon and enabling different social actors to coordinate their joint activity in relation to the phenomenon. The aim of the present chapter is to develop this position by making the argument that symbols bind together different but complementary perspectives which exist within social interaction.
