The Other Heidegger (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 509 comprehensive and probing; his scholarship is impeccable. He rightly calls attention to the fact that the label "social behaviorism," which has been affixed to Mead's social psychology by Charles Morris, was not Mead's own. Although Mead did indicate that his psychology had evolved into behaviorism, Cook nonetheless shows that Mead retained elements of functionalism and did not subscribe to the stereotypical behaviorism of Watson and his epigoni. Cook's critique of Mead's social psychology--e.g., his discussion of Mead's conception of "taking the attitude or the role of the other" in Chapter 6--is detailed and penetrating, and should stimulate lines of inquiry to reconstruct Mead's social psychology. Chapter 7 treats Mead's forays into social and educational reform in Chicago. Cook has researched Mead's activities extremely well, and provides the reader with an account absent from the secondary literature hht indispensable to any assessment of Mead as an activist social scientist. Chapter 8, in which Cook examines Mead's conceptions of the social self and morality, also engages the reader in reflections on nations, wars, and international peace. Again, Cook researches material authored by Mead in obscure publications andnot easily accessible newspapers. Chapter 9 centers on Whitehead's influence on Mead's later thought, and while it is not central to Cook's project in this book, it illuminates a relatively neglected aspect of Mead's philosophy, and should be useful to students not only of Mead but of Whitehead . The Epilogue is devoted to Mead and the Hutchins controversy, and while it, too, is peripheral to Cook's project, it contains an object lesson in higher education. The unwelcome intrusion by university presidents into the jurisdiction of distinguished departments can mean temporary ruin for the academic reputation of the institution. Chapter 1o, entitled "Mead's Social Pragmatism," contains Cook's summary assessment of Mead's achievement. As Cook, following Arthur Murphy, points out there are two features of pragmatism: polemical and constructive. Whereas the polemical feature is evident in the pragmatists' critique of traditional philosophy, which seeks certaint ), in epistemology and metaphysics, the constructive feature is manifest in the endeavors of pragmatists to articulate comprehensive theories of knowledge, inquiry, morals, and society, with human conduct as their crux. Mead's pragmatism accentuates the constructive, and, as Cook demonstrates, his lasting contribution is in social psychology and social philosophy. Cook, therefore, has written a book that is of immense value to all students of American philosophy and social science. ANDREW J. REcK Tulane University Fred Dallmayr. The Other Heidegger. Contestations: Cornell Studies in Political Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993. Pp. xii + ~32. Cloth, $30.75. With The Other Heidegger Fred Dallmayr has given us a book that is eminently sane, nuanced, and philosophically instructive. The book is well-tempered, which for the musical ear will mean not only that it is well disposed but above all finely tuned. 510 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3~:3 JULY 1994 Dallmayr may well be the only "critic" of Heidegger's politics who has taken the trouble to grapple seriously with his philosophy. Early on in the book Dallmayr focusses on the distinction between "politics" (d/e Politik), concrete decision-making and policy, and the political (das Politische), the paradigmatic framework. "Irrespective of such caveats (to be amplified later), the distinction between two aspects or levels of politics has relevance for Heidegger's life and opus. It is my thesis here that Heidegger's promising contributions in this domain are located on the level of ontology or paradigmatic framework, rather than on that of decision-making or policy. Conversely, his role on the second plane is dismal, to the point of nearly eclipsing the rest of his work" (51). With the expressed reservation that he is not trying to condone Heidegger's politics , Dallmayr undertakes the arduous task of working through Heidegger's writings and seeing how with ever-increasing consistency they strive to step hack out of metaphysics and its political implications. He traces what he calls Heidegger's "inner emigration ," his ongoing turning away from the heroic and anything that smacks of will, to a reticence and growing...