Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Giambattista Vico
- 3 Phenomenology
- 4 Hermeneutics
- 5 Marxism and language
- 6 Lev Vygotsky
- 7 Meanings and perspectives
- 8 Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 9 Gregory Bateson
- 10 Sociologies – Micro and Macro
- 11 Sources of the self
- 12 Michel Foucault and his challenges
- 13 Discourse analysis
- 14 Ken and Mary Gergen
- 15 Rom Harré
- 16 John Shotter
- 17 Concluding remarks
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Sources of the self
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Giambattista Vico
- 3 Phenomenology
- 4 Hermeneutics
- 5 Marxism and language
- 6 Lev Vygotsky
- 7 Meanings and perspectives
- 8 Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 9 Gregory Bateson
- 10 Sociologies – Micro and Macro
- 11 Sources of the self
- 12 Michel Foucault and his challenges
- 13 Discourse analysis
- 14 Ken and Mary Gergen
- 15 Rom Harré
- 16 John Shotter
- 17 Concluding remarks
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
If it were possible to lay bare and unfold all the presuppositions in what I call my reason or my ideas at each moment, we should always find experiences which have not been made explicit, large-scale contributions from past and present, a whole ‘sedimentary history’ which is not only relevant to the genesis of my thought, but which determines its significance.
(Merleau-Ponty, 1962: 395)… only members of the in-group, having a definite status in the hierarchy and also being aware of it, can use its cultural pattern as a natural and trustworthy scheme of orientation.
(Schutz, 1944: 504)Arriving at an airport in a foreign land makes us aware of two things. The first is an immediate awareness of how much of this ‘new’ everyday life one doesn't understand. Taking a bus trip from the airport into town requires a ticket: where does one get one? Is it at an office or on the bus? If on the bus, from the driver or a conductor? Do you need the correct money, or do they give change? What are these coins, anyway; which is worth what? How do you get the bus to stop where you want to get off? Secondly, and less immediately, these experiences reveal how much ‘we didn't know we knew’ about how these things are done at home: that at home, these things are not a problem at all, but part of our natural and unreflective grasp of our circumstances.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Social ConstructionismSources and Stirrings in Theory and Practice, pp. 221 - 243Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010