G.H. Mead's Contact Theory of Reality: The Manipulatory Phase of the Act in the Constitution of Mundane, Scientific, Aesthetic, and Evaluative Objects*

Mead's identification of ultimate reality with the experience of physical contact is rooted in his studies of animal perception. Many of his writings on the nature of science, aesthetic experience, and values can be viewed profitably as an attempt to generalize his theory of the act from an analysis of action toward mundane objects to include these other classes of perceptual objects.