Mead and Merleau-Ponty

Sandra B. Rosenthal is a Professor in the Philosophy Department at Loyola University, New Orleans. Patrick L. Bourgeois is a Professor in the Philosophy Department at Loyola University, New Orleans.

• Acknowledgments Introduction 1. The Structure of Behavior and the Content of Perception: Converging Perspectives 2. "Sensation," Object, and World: The Holistic View 3. Approaches to the Nature of Time 4. Dimensions of the Decentered Self 5. The Life of Language 6. The Pattern of Freedom: The Diversity of Interwoven Threads Notes Bibliography of Works Cited Index

"The authors delineate the distinctive strengths of Mead the pragmatist and Merleau-Ponty the existential phenomenologist and then trace the ways in which they mutually reinforce each other. Through this technique in chapter after chapter they analyze important points in the philosophy of the two thinkers in new and fruitful fashion." — Lewis E. Hahn, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale"This is certainly a provocative interpretation of both philosophers. Part of its interest is the systematic way it locates Mead's pragmatism and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology in the context of the dominant traditions of Western philosophy, showing the similarity of their reactions to the fundamental assumptions of both rationalist and empiricist philosophies."I found myself disagreeing with the authors at several points. But the intensity with which I had to concentrate on those very sections is evidence that this is a book to be taken seriously." — Beth J. Singer, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York