{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/71016"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/71016","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Re-Reading Mead: The Mind-Body Dilemma and Sociology","abstract":"Despite the growing influence of the works of George Herbert Mead on the development of modern sociological theory, sociologists limit their reading of Mead to only a few of his many writings. Not only has this neglect led to a shallow interpretation of Mead, but it has also led to misunderstandings concerning Mead's broader interests and has divorced his work from its historical connection to the discipline of philosophy. Drawing from the whole corpus of Mead's published writings as well as the many unpublished materials in the Mead archives at the University of Chicago, I seek to place Mead's work in just such an historical context. Specifically, I argue that Mead's work must be seen, in part, as an attempt to overcome certain aspects of the mind, and the mind-body problem which have their origins in Cartesian interactionism. I do not claim that Mead was responding specifically to Descartes, but rather to certain problems first raised by Cartesianism which remained unresolved by succeeding philosophers.","abstract_html":"Despite the growing influence of the works of George Herbert Mead on the development of modern sociological theory, sociologists limit their reading of Mead to only a few of his many writings. Not only has this neglect led to a shallow interpretation of Mead, but it has also led to misunderstandings concerning Mead's broader interests and has divorced his work from its historical connection to the discipline of philosophy. Drawing from the whole corpus of Mead's published writings as well as the many unpublished materials in the Mead archives at the University of Chicago, I seek to place Mead's work in just such an historical context. Specifically, I argue that Mead's work must be seen, in part, as an attempt to overcome certain aspects of the mind, and the mind-body problem which have their origins in Cartesian interactionism. I do not claim that Mead was responding specifically to Descartes, but rather to certain problems first raised by Cartesianism which remained unresolved by succeeding philosophers.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Smedley, Charles Vincent"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Sociology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2014,"date_issued":"2014-12-16T05:01:25Z","date_published":"2014-12-16T05:01:25Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:26:04Z","subjects":["Sociology, Theory and Methods"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["(UMI)AAI8701621"],"render_values":[{"text":"(UMI)AAI8701621","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/71016","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Smedley, Charles Vincent"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2014-12-16T05:01:25Z","10000-01-01","1986"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Sociology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Sociology, Theory and Methods"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/71016","(UMI)AAI8701621"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Despite the growing influence of the works of George Herbert Mead on the development of modern sociological theory, sociologists limit their reading of Mead to only a few of his many writings. Not only has this neglect led to a shallow interpretation of Mead, but it has also led to misunderstandings concerning Mead's broader interests and has divorced his work from its historical connection to the discipline of philosophy. Drawing from the whole corpus of Mead's published writings as well as the many unpublished materials in the Mead archives at the University of Chicago, I seek to place Mead's work in just such an historical context. Specifically, I argue that Mead's work must be seen, in part, as an attempt to overcome certain aspects of the mind, and the mind-body problem which have their origins in Cartesian interactionism. I do not claim that Mead was responding specifically to Descartes, but rather to certain problems first raised by Cartesianism which remained unresolved by succeeding philosophers.","Descartes is responsible for the emergence of modern philosophy and his contributions to Western thought are significant. However, Descartes' dualistic philosophy also gave rise to what I call: the problem of mind and body; the problem of knowledge and subjectivity. I present a detailed discussion of these problems and examine Mead's attempts to overcome them.","Similarly, Mead was influenced to no small degree by the works of the German Idealists, primarily Kant and Hegel. Over time, Mead gradually came to reject much of their philosophy. For Mead at least, German Idealism failed to provide an adequate solution to the problem of mind, and it introduced new, but related issues: the creative capacity of mind (Kant); the problem of the individual self (Hegel). Again, I examine both problems in detail and discuss Mead's reactions to them. I conclude with a brief discussion of the importance of these relatively unexplored aspects of Mead's thought for social psychology and sociology.","Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-16T05:01:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 8701621.pdf: 17688667 bytes, checksum: df556a376744ea073128f32e27236dd1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1986","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 71182 Lift date: Forever Reason: Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","U of I Only","390 p.","Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1986."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Re-Reading Mead: The Mind-Body Dilemma and Sociology"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Smedley, Charles Vincent"],"dc:date":["2014-12-16T05:01:25Z","10000-01-01","1986"],"dc:description":["Despite the growing influence of the works of George Herbert Mead on the development of modern sociological theory, sociologists limit their reading of Mead to only a few of his many writings. Not only has this neglect led to a shallow interpretation of Mead, but it has also led to misunderstandings concerning Mead's broader interests and has divorced his work from its historical connection to the discipline of philosophy. Drawing from the whole corpus of Mead's published writings as well as the many unpublished materials in the Mead archives at the University of Chicago, I seek to place Mead's work in just such an historical context. Specifically, I argue that Mead's work must be seen, in part, as an attempt to overcome certain aspects of the mind, and the mind-body problem which have their origins in Cartesian interactionism. I do not claim that Mead was responding specifically to Descartes, but rather to certain problems first raised by Cartesianism which remained unresolved by succeeding philosophers.","Descartes is responsible for the emergence of modern philosophy and his contributions to Western thought are significant. However, Descartes' dualistic philosophy also gave rise to what I call: the problem of mind and body; the problem of knowledge and subjectivity. I present a detailed discussion of these problems and examine Mead's attempts to overcome them.","Similarly, Mead was influenced to no small degree by the works of the German Idealists, primarily Kant and Hegel. Over time, Mead gradually came to reject much of their philosophy. For Mead at least, German Idealism failed to provide an adequate solution to the problem of mind, and it introduced new, but related issues: the creative capacity of mind (Kant); the problem of the individual self (Hegel). Again, I examine both problems in detail and discuss Mead's reactions to them. I conclude with a brief discussion of the importance of these relatively unexplored aspects of Mead's thought for social psychology and sociology.","Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-16T05:01:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 8701621.pdf: 17688667 bytes, checksum: df556a376744ea073128f32e27236dd1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1986","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 71182 Lift date: Forever Reason: Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","Restricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETDs","U of I Only","390 p.","Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1986."],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/71016","(UMI)AAI8701621"],"dc:subject":["Sociology, Theory and Methods"],"dc:title":["Re-Reading Mead: The Mind-Body Dilemma and Sociology"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Sociology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:26:04Z"}