Jean-François Côté - Böcker

This illuminating Companion presents a new perspective on George Herbert Mead’s contribution to philosophy and the social sciences. It provides an updated interpretation of Mead’s pragmatism, containing references to contemporary issues in epistemology, theory, and political reformism promoted by Mead in his lifetime.High-profile specialists propose innovative ways of retrospectively assessing Mead’s oeuvre, situating his works in the context of current academic debates and using them to address pressing modern questions. Chapters showcase an original synthesis of the legacy of Mead’s works, examining his writings, his conceptual views and their applications, and his influence on other thinkers. They shed light on his approach to epistemology, cosmology, and social psychology, revealing new aspects of these fields. Featuring an illuminating Foreword by Hans Joas, the Companion establishes novel ways of thinking about his intellectual output and indicates stimulating directions for future research.Examining a wide array of Mead’s remarkable insights and conceptual viewpoints, this Companion is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of political theory, sociology and sociological theory, and social psychology. It is also a beneficial read for social scientists and political reformists interested in Mead’s life, theories, and reputation as a public intellectual.

This book presents the first comprehensive and critical account of Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural sociology. Alexander has proposed a “strong program” in cultural sociology that analyses the cultural pragmatics of social performance, and his hermeneutical approach connects meaningful political action with deeper symbolic structures of social life. His highly original account of the civil sphere, as an institutionalized domain that is shaped by the discourse of liberty and solidarity and that sustains universalizing cultural aspirations provides an illuminating perspective on how democracy functions, and fails to function, in contemporary societies. This book charts the development of Alexander’s thought in all its complexity. Through its critical readings, it also opens up a dialogue with other contemporary approaches in sociology, situating Alexander’s work in relation to others and highlighting alternative views that challenge his ideas. It is an invaluable introduction for anyone who wishes to learn more about the work of one of the most creative sociologists of our time.

This book presents the first comprehensive and critical account of Jeffrey Alexander’s cultural sociology. Alexander has proposed a “strong program” in cultural sociology that analyses the cultural pragmatics of social performance, and his hermeneutical approach connects meaningful political action with deeper symbolic structures of social life. His highly original account of the civil sphere, as an institutionalized domain that is shaped by the discourse of liberty and solidarity and that sustains universalizing cultural aspirations provides an illuminating perspective on how democracy functions, and fails to function, in contemporary societies. This book charts the development of Alexander’s thought in all its complexity. Through its critical readings, it also opens up a dialogue with other contemporary approaches in sociology, situating Alexander’s work in relation to others and highlighting alternative views that challenge his ideas. It is an invaluable introduction for anyone who wishes to learn more about the work of one of the most creative sociologists of our time.

This book offers a new look at Mead's concept of society, in an attempt to reconstruct its significance for sociological theory. Chapter 1 offers a critical genealogical reading of writings, from early articles to the latest books, where Mead articulates his views on social reform, social psychology, and the gradual theorization of self and society. Chapter 2 pays attention to the phylogenetic and ontogenetic processes at work in both the self and society, by comparing Mead's social psychology with Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. Chapter 3 brings together all the elements that are part of the structures of self and society within a topological and dialectical schematization of their respective and mutual relations. Chapter 4 is devoted to the passage of Mead's views from social psychology to sociology, with a critical look at Herbert Blumer's developments in symbolic interactionism as the presumed main legitimate heir of Mead's social psychology. Chapter 5 examines how Mead's general philosophical views fit within the new epistemological context of contemporary society based on communication and debates on postmodernity.