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    Meadian reflections on the existential ambivalence of human selfhood

    Susen, Simon (2010) Meadian reflections on the existential ambivalence of human selfhood. Studies in Social and Political Thought 17 , pp. 62-81. ISSN 1467-2219.

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    Abstract

    This paper examines the existential ambivalence of human selfhood by drawing upon George Herbert Mead’s distinction between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’. In order to make a case for the centrality of this conceptual distinction, the paper offers a comprehensive account of a variety of different meanings which the notions of the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ are given in Mead’s analysis of the self. The distinction between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ has been extensively discussed in the literature, but neither supporters nor detractors of Mead’s symbolic interactionism have provided a detailed study of its multifaceted significance for the constitution of selfhood. The paper seeks to demonstrate that Mead’s analytical separation between the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ allows us to shed light on the multilayered ambivalence of the human self, that is, on the existential significance of various opposing forces which pervade every ordinary subject’s relation to the world.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): ‘I’, ‘me’, mead, self, selfhood, subjectivity, symbolic interactionism
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Dr Simon Susen
    Date Deposited: 04 Nov 2010 15:18
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 16:49
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/1278

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