A critical and aware return to pragmatism entails a preliminary focus upon the possibility of productive communication and a possible exchange among fields of research often far apart in terms of methods and spheres of application. This difficulty is felt all the more strongly if we refer to the contested intellectual legacy of George H. Mead, one often divided between opposing and conflicting fields of investigation. In this paper, I propose a reinterpretation of his thought that I believe could operate (...) transversally. To do so, I interpret Mead’s idea of human creativity in a more radical way compared with some previous interpretations. This way, it is possible to see the constructive role of the relation between inter-subjective and intra-subjective communication as constitutive moments in an ethical self-construction of human beings. Finally, the peculiarity of human creativity, in all its complexity, shows itself as the starting point for responsible, normatively oriented conduct. Moreover, a new anthropological paradigm, also emerging from Mead’s suggestions, could become a source of inspiration for a renewed pattern of civic life and democratic citizenship. (shrink)

George H. Mead: A Therapy for the Malaise of Modernity? In his recent volume on Mead, Filipe Carreira da Silva proposes an interpretation of the pragmatist’s thought that develops through three fundamental points of reference. According to the author, science, selfhood and democratic politics constitute “the pillars” of a new approach to the problem of modernity; an approach in which the mutual interchange between these moments projects on the theoretical level a reflection of the relational...