BiblioVault - Books about George Herbert Mead

The Cosmopolitan Self

George Herbert Mead and Continental Philosophy

Mitchell Aboulafia

University of Illinois Press, 2001

In this incisive commentary, Mitchell Aboulafia examines the relevance of the American pragmatist philosopher George Herbert Mead to current debates on pluralism, universalism, and the fostering of a democratic temper. Addressing the relationship between Mead's notions of self and society and those of important continental thinkers, The Cosmopolitan Self demonstrates that Mead's ideas not only speak to resolving the tension between universalism and pluralism, they do so in a manner that challenges and advances the positions of these continental theoreticians.

Aboulafia examines how Mead's insights illuminate Hannah Arendt's reading of Immanual Kant's third Critique and Jürgen Habermas's understanding of the relationship among communicative action, universality, and individuation. Teasing out strands of agreement and disagreement among Mead and these theorists on topics such as impartiality and good judgment, Aboulafia develops a conception of universalism that is compatible with contemporary notions of pluralism. He also addresses the serious challenge presented to Mead's approach to pluralism by Emmanuel Levinas, who holds that true pluralism, presupposing an irreducible individualism, is fundamentally irreconcilable with universalism.

The Cosmopolitan Self offers a model of the democratically inclined individual who embodies both a capacity to establish common ground with others and a sensitivity to their uniqueness. This important volume appreciably advances the dialogue between continental thought and classical American philosophy.

[more]

George Herbert Mead on Social Psychology

George Herbert Mead

University of Chicago Press, 1964

One of the most brilliantly original of American pragmatists, George Herbert Mead published surprisingly few major papers and not a single book during his lifetime. Yet his influence on American sociology and social psychology since World War II has been exceedingly strong.

This volume is a revised and enlarged edition of the book formerly published under the title The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead. It contains selections from Mead's posthumous books: Mind, Self, and Society; Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century; The Philosophy of the Act; and The Philosophy of the Present, together with an incisive, newly revised, introductory essay by Anselm Strauss on the importance of Mead for contemporary social psychology.

"Required reading for the social scientist."—Milton L. Barron, Nation

[more]

George Herbert Mead

THE MAKING OF A SOCIAL PRAGMATIST

Gary A. Cook

University of Illinois Press, 1993

This groundbreaking study details the intellectual development of George Herbert Mead as a thinker of great originality and as a practitioner of social reform. Gary Cook traces the genesis of Mead's social psychological and philosophical ideas by analyzing his journal articles and posthumously published writings.

[more]

The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead

Edited by Hans Joas and Daniel R. Huebner

University of Chicago Press, 2016

George Herbert Mead is widely considered one of the most influential American philosophers of the twentieth century, and his work remains vibrant and relevant to many areas of scholarly inquiry today. The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead brings together a range of scholars who provide detailed analyses of Mead’s importance to innovative fields of scholarship, including cognitive science, environmental studies, democratic epistemology, and social ethics, non-teleological historiography, and the history of the natural and social sciences.

Edited by well-respected Mead scholars Hans Joas and Daniel R. Huebner, the volume as a whole makes a coherent statement that places Mead in dialogue with current research, pushing these domains of scholarship forward while also revitalizing the growing literature on an author who has an ongoing and major influence on sociology, psychology, and philosophy.

[more]