The Social Mind
Construction of the Idea

In this book, first published in 2000, the authors elaborate on their notion of intellectual interdependency in the development of scientific ideas.

Jaan Valsiner (Author), Rene van der Veer (Author)

9780521580366, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 July 2000

504 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 3.2 cm, 0.91 kg

'There is a lot to be enjoyed and surprised by in this wide-ranging, scholarly tome.' The Psychologist

The Social Mind, first published in 2000, charts the intellectual history of the idea of socially constructed mind through the examination of four key theorists - Lev Vygotsky, George Herbert Mead, James Mark Baldwin, and Pierre Janet. An analysis of the theories of these scholars and the social climate in which they worked will be invaluable to contemporary social scientists. In their analysis of the social construction of mind, the authors elaborate on their notion of intellectual interdependency in the development of scientific ideas and they take a new look at how progress in science is a socially constructed entity. Their well constructed, ambitious volume makes an important and timely contribution to the theory and history of psychology.

General introduction
1. Development of ideas in sciences: intellectual interdependency and its social framework
2. Social suggestion and mind
3. Pierre Janet's world of tensions
4. James Mark Baldwin's theoretical heritage
5. Pragmatism and the social mind: an American context
6. George Herbert Mead's development of the self
7. Striving towards the whole: losing development in the course of history
8. Vygotsky's world of concepts
9. The social person today: continuities and interdependencies
10. General conclusion: social mind in action: socially guided intellectual interdependency in science.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH]