Drawing particularly on a synthesis of the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce and George Herbert Mead, Wiley argues that the self can be seen as a "trialogue" in which the present self ("I") talks to the future self ("you") about the past self ("me"). A distinctive feature of Wiley's view is that there is a mutually supportive relation between the self and democracy, and he traces this view through American history.

Ultimately, in finding a way to decenter the self without eliminating it, Wiley supplies a much-needed closure to classical pragmatism and gives new direction to neo-pragmatism.

Providing as it does a superior means of interpreting the politics of identity in relation to such issues as class, gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation, this book will stimulate wide interest in sociology, social psychology, literary criticism, intellectual history, American history, semiotics, philosophy, and linguistics.