SOURCE: "Mead and Sartre on Man," in The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. LIII, No. 6, March 15, 1956, pp. 205-19.

In the following essay, Ames contrasts Mead's view of man with that of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Mead and Sartre have much in common. Both think of life as process and transition, taking time and moving into a future that requires constant revision of the past, so that nothing is ever settled and anything can be thrown into question. But Mead relies on the life-sciences; Sartre would like to reject them in favor of a supposed higher outlook. The reason is that his nineteenth or seventeenth century notion of science, including psychology, is mechanistic and deterministic. So he feels obliged to get away from science to make room for freedom, whereas for Mead science is the great means of increasing freedom. Sartre almost prefers magic to science, and apparently would if he did...