UTS_L3

• Anthropology


  A relative newcomer to the debate on selfhood, emerged from the imperial ambitions of European states during the 18th and 19th centuries, initially an effort to identify the weaknesses and failings of other cultures so they could be exploited and subjugated, later threw off links with national and religious organisations and began asking "What does it mean to be human?"
• Anthropological approach to selfhood


  • Starts and finishes with the group, sees the self as a socially defined phenomenon created by the impression of the group on the individual and the expression of the individual on the group, humans have a unique relationship with other members of their species both communicatively and socially, exceeds that of every other animal
• Personne


  The social concepts of what it means to be who he is, what it means to live in a particular institution, family, religion, nationality, and how to behave given expectations and influences from others
• Moi


  A person's sense of who he is, his body, and his basic identity, his biological givenness
• Marcel Mauss' concept of self


  • Every self has two faces: personne and moi, personne has to do with social concepts, moi is a person's basic identity
• Marcel Mauss' "Total Social Phenomenon"


  • Every sector in a community or society should cooperate to have a well-balanced living
• Language


  Salient part of culture, has a tremendous effect on our crafting of the self, cultural divide spells out differences in how one regards oneself, intertwined with culture, cannot understand one's culture without accessing its language directly, learning a new language involves learning its alphabet, word arrangement, grammar rules, and the specific society's customs and behavior
• Clifford Geertz's definition of culture


  A system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life
• Clifford Geertz

  • Look for what makes people/cultures different, not the same, it is more effective to analyze human nature by noting the differences between cultures that arise over time and space than to try to form vague notions of universals, culture reveals the link between what man is capable of and how he actually behaves, which in turn helps define human nature, culture is the "accumulated totality" of symbolic patterns that appear in different societies
• Every Self Has two faces:

  Personne and Moi
• Culture is the "ACCUMULATED TOTALITY" of symbolic patterns that appear in different societies.