Abstract

This book makes two principal claims: that Mead is misinterpreted by being aligned with Dewey, and that Mead's influence upon sociology has been exaggerated and misinterpreted. The latter claim is argued for on the basis of student reminiscences and citation counts, and seems plausible. The former rests upon a recategorization of Mead and Peirce as "realistic" pragmatists, and of James and Dewey as "nominalistic" ones, and also upon the claim that Dewey's thought was "biologistic" rather than "social." Both of these premises are rather dubious. Lewis and Smith accept Peirce's account of the nature and significance of scholastic realism quite uncritically, and then use the Peircian notion of "the reality of thirdness" as a bridge of Mead's notion of symbol systems. The similarities between Mead and Dewey are downplayed wherever possible--e.g., by interpreting the Meadlike passages in Experience and Nature as unconscious plagiarism from Mead. The tone of the book is suggested by the following passage: "... the problem was a deep-rooted incommensurability between the James-Darwin biologistic philosophy and the social realism of Peirce and Mead. Perhaps it was due to his Hegelian heritage that Dewey had a tolerance for asserting essentially incompatible ideas". Those who see Dewey as offering a plausible synthesis of the biological and the social will find Lewis and Smith's treatment of Dewey cavalier. However, those who see Peirce's discussion of signs as the high point of pragmatism may find their treatment of American philosophy sympathetic.--R.R.