Title: Ethics and interaction
Description: This dissertation investigates the convergence of ethical ideas and social psychology in the work of the American philosopher George Herbert Mead (1863-1931), who spent most of his career at the University of Chicago. Mead's concept of the "social self" has figured centrally in the history of sociological theory, although it has usually been understood apart from the philosophical contexts in which he worked. By situating Mead in relation to his animating ethical concerns, this dissertation contributes to the literature on progressive-era democratic thought and helps to clarify Mead's important place in the history of moral philosophy and the social sciences. Many late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theorists aimed to overcome the individualism of previous generations of philosophers. The notion of the "social" pervaded their work. At the University of Chicago, the philosopher John Dewey's effort to construct a theory of deliberative democracy required a conceptualization of the self as inseparable from a world of other selves and yet still a unique individual.

Mead filled this need through his social psychology. In doing so, he modernized Adam Smith's theory of sympathy, which had drawn renewed interest and criticism in the 1890s. Mead also formulated a democratic theory of social control, in which the cultivation of the social self facilitates the efforts of individuals to continually reconstruct shared ideas about the common good based upon the recognition of diverse interests and voices. By way of his analysis of communication, Mead formulated a social psychology inseparable from ethical life. His work in this area has played a significant role in the genesis of critical social theory. This dissertation focuses most closely on the emergence of Mead's innovative social-psychological ideas in the period before World War I. In addition to examining Mead's philosophical background, it places his theoretical efforts in relation to those of his contemporaries. It also provides analysis of Mead and Dewey's interests in social reform and educational theory. The concluding sections examine the interpretation of Mead's ideas in the decades after World War I.