Transcendence

Notions of self-determination have been central to politics for almost two centuries, yet the relationship between the self-determination of individuals and peoples has not been adequately addressed. Nor have these forms of self-determination been adequately allied to cosmopolitanism. Transcendence seeks to rectify this. It offers an original theory of self and society that relates self-determination, of both individuals and peoples, to cosmopolitanism. To this end, the book highlights affinities between existentialism and pragmatism, traditions whose similarities have been insufficiently explored, and it provides comparative studies of figures central to these traditions.

Mitchell Aboulafia is Director of Interdivisional Liberal Arts and Professor of Liberal Arts and Philosophy at The Juilliard School. His most recent book is The Cosmopolitan Self: George Herbert Mead and Continental Philosophy (2001).