Culture Alt Delete. On the misperception of culture in psychology

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2 Culture Alt Delete On the misperception of culture in psychology

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4 Culture Alt Delete On the misperception of culture in psychology PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Open Universiteit Nederland op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. ir. F. Mulder ten overstaan van een door het College voor promoties ingestelde commissie in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 11 november 2005 te Heerlen om uur precies door Theo Verheggen geboren op 2 mei 1972 te Roermond

5 Promotor: Prof. dr. R.W.J.V. van Hezewijk, Open Universiteit Nederland Toegevoegd promotor: Dr. P.P.L.A. Voestermans, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Overige leden beoordelingscommissie: Prof. S.G.M. Meštrović, Texas A&M University Prof. C. Sinha, University of Portsmouth Prof. dr. W.J. van der Dussen, Open Universiteit Nederland Prof. dr. E.J.R. Koper, Open Universiteit Nederland Theo Verheggen, 2005 Productie: Ponsen & Looijen BV, Wageningen Omslag: Annette Bouwels & Sandra Daems, Open Universiteit Nederland Foto omslag: Djayo,

6 Ich wollte ja nichts als das zu leben versuc hen, was von selber aus mir heraus wollte. Warum war das so sehr schwer?

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8 Contents 1. Introduction 5 2. Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture We don t share! Culture Alt Delete Conclusions and implications for a psychological study of culture 159 Summary 173 Samenvatting 177 Acknowledgement 183 Publications 187 Curriculum vitae 191

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10 Chapter 1 Introduction 5

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12 Introduction Fifteen years ago Shweder (in Stigler, Shweder & Herdt, 1990, p. 1) wrote that a discipline is emerging called cultural psychology. It is not general psychology. It is not cross-cultural psychology. It is not psychological anthropology. It is not ethnopsychology. It is cultural psychology. And its time may have arrived, once again. Shweder clarified how the emerging discipline differs from the other branches in psychology, and demonstrated that cultural psychology above all rethinks the relation between culture and mind. It is the study of how psyche and culture, person and context, figure and ground ( ) require each other ( ) and jointly make each other up (ibid.). The object of the present work is to do precisely that, to rethink how culture and psyche relate to one another. Despite at least fifteen years of renewed interest in this relation, no viable epistemological framework has been established that can account for the cultural form of feeling and behavior without giving up the idea that it is only individuals that act and feel. At some point in every social scientific theory of knowledge, culture is attributed agency. The present study is above all a design for a coherent theory that can overcome this problem by clarifying in detail how the social is an experiential affair. In publications that have clear foundational aspirations, Shweder (1990, 2003; Shweder & Sullivan, 1993) points out the direction that cultural psychology should take. The discipline should be particularly sensitive to the fact that the mentalities of people vary across space and time. The author rejects the idea that anywhere in the world, the content of the human mind is essentially the same. According to Shweder, that notion is cherished by cross-cultural psychologists (see Markus & Kitayama, 1992). Such psychic unity is a myth, however. Instead, different local worlds constitute different mentalities. Social scientists therefore have to be aware that people across the globe live in multiple objective worlds; they live in their own particular realities and their psychological functioning has to be understood in its interdependence with their version of reality. For Shweder, then, cultural psychology is best conceived of as a branch of interpretive social science (Greenwood, 1999). Michael Cole (1990; 1996), another grand figure in contemporary cultural psychology, adopts a somewhat different perspective on what the discipline ought to be. For him, culture is first and foremost the context for meaning and action. Culture is defined in terms of artifacts, both material and immaterial (e.g. language, symbols) that were accumulated over time. These artifacts are themselves products of goal-directed behavior of prior generations. At the same 7

13 Chapter 1 Introduction time, they constitute the medium in which people operate, and they both facilitate and constrain people s psychological development. It is in this sense that culture and psyche are intertwined. According to Cole, cultural psychology should be concerned with tool mediated actions as the intersection of cultural context, ontogeny and phylogeny (Verheggen, 1998). Contrary to Shweder, Cole is much more a universalist (Greenwood, 1999) who by means of comparative and developmental studies attempts to enrich the practice of psychology by supplementing standard experimental studies with a theoretically informed applied psychology that is sensitive to the complex historical-cultural locations of psychological processes (Jahoda, 1992, p. 194). With Shweder and Cole, Jerome Bruner is often identified as a third landmark contributor to the establishing of cultural psychology (Hiles, 1996). Bruner (1990, 1996) stresses that the psyche is not merely a tool for processing information, as had become the predominant view in cognitive science since the 1970 s. What psychology, and cultural psychology in particular, needs to understand is how people make sense of their world, how they bestow meaning on everyday affairs. The process to investigate is how people construct their realities in concordance with the symbols and narratives that inhabit their cultures. Moreover, the central question for Bruner is how these realities are intersubjective cultivated through social interaction rather than external or objective (London, 2004). 8 As the opening quote from Shweder reveals, psychology s attention for culture was not entirely new. Rather, many founding fathers of today s academic psychology were explicit students of culture. For most of them, culture pertained to the higher faculties of the human mind that needed as much attention as did the functional studies of memory, stimulus-reaction intervals, Gestalts, and so forth. The higher mental functions included art, literature, science, myth, religion and language. Historians of these early culture theories have addressed in detail how Giambattista Vico, Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Friedrich Herbart, Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal, Wilhelm Wundt, Wilhelm Dilthey, and the cultural-historical school of Alexander Luria, Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev, among others, were recognized as forerunners in today s field of cultural psychology (see Cole, 1996; Fortmann, 1971; Jahoda, 1992; Kempen, 2002). Nevertheless, with the exception of Cole, there is little elaboration today on the classic Völkerpsychological and cultural-historical themes, for instance. Moreover, from 1920 onward, a divide within academic psychology became ever more apparent. Especially in the USA, the cognitive operating of individuals came to dominate psychology s academic agenda at the expense of studying people s functioning in a socio-cultural environment (see chapter 5). The resulting bifurcation into a first psychology (universally applicable and in experiments open to objectification) and a marginal second psychology (that should bring nuance by accounting for local variations in mental functioning) was an unfruitful enterprise altogether, as Greenwood (1999) argues. As such, the task for social

14 Chapter 1 Introduction science toward the end of the previous century to reclaim the social (Greenwood, 1994) was apparent. From roughly 1990 onward, cultural psychological concerns were recognized as important enough to gain an entry on the international academic scene. Adherents and sympathizers stemmed from diverse braches of psychology, including social, educational, discursive, personality and crosscultural psychology, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, linguistics, evolutionary theory and pedagogy. Notwithstanding the founding of a new journal (Culture & Psychology, first issued in March 1995), Hiles proclaimed in 1996 after surveying the different sources of scientific publications, and after a surf on the Internet that cultural psychology was still low profile ( ), hardly seen as mainstream ( ) placed rather at the margins, or seen as an applied topic area. It appears that Hiles conclusion needs little adjustment in A search on the Internet reveals that the number of university courses on cultural psychology is vast nowadays. The number of publications has also grown, of course. At the same time, however, it becomes clear that the topics still vary considerably; from studies in education, along cross-cultural research to issues concerning culture and personality. It appears that there are still as many cultural psychologies as there are practitioners. Moreover, comparative research on cultural diversity abounds, in which differences between people s behavior and cognitions are thematized. But as Shweder (1990) already argued, this crosscultural line of approach is not what cultural psychology is primarily about. Its central question is rather taken up by social constructionism, discursive psychology and Bruner s plea for meaning-construction, among others: How is culture itself a psychological affair? That debate has not been settled yet. As a matter of fact, it is hardly being held on the international scene. Only recently a book was published on the Psychological Foundation of Culture (Schaller & Crandall, 2004), in which the editors argue that psychology is in need for a complementary opposite to the work in cross-cultural psychology (p. 5). The psychological study of culture (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1999) deserves central attention indeed. However, the contributors to the voluminous book do not succeed in bringing psyche and culture together in an epistemologically valid or workable manner (see chapters 5 and 6). It is not intended in the present study to settle for once and for all what every cultural psychologist should investigate. However, strong opinions on how current theories pass by the thing to understand, that is culture, will be expressed. Central in the current work is the epistemological problem how culture and individual are related from a psychological (or for that matter a social scientific) point of view. The study is not so much about high culture in terms of art, literature, symphonies, cities, algebra and other acquisitions of the intellect. Instead, the primary concern touches upon what in everyday life is referred to as That is part of our culture, You know, that is because of their culture, and That company has a competitive culture. It is a concern with the ubiquitous notion in today s public life at least in the Netherlands that could 9

15 Chapter 1 Introduction synonymously be addressed as mentality, habit, tradition, atmosphere, or blood in most instances. In contradistinction to these latter terms, it appears that culture expresses more clearly why people act in a particular (different) way. This study attempts to demonstrate that this is anything but the case. What is the stuff that culture is made of? Where can we locate it? How does it work? What does it do to us? Is our behavior modeled by cultural patterns, norms, values, scenarios, and other programs? Apparently, the latter assumption is what most people seem to adhere to, politicians and social scientists included. The answer presented in the present work is radically different: In the very first and in the very last instance, human beings mutually create and uphold the regularities that they observe and call cultural. These observed regularities have however no causal relation to people s behavior. It is an epistemological error to confuse observations with the operational determinants of conduct. Strictly speaking, what we generally refer to as culture does not exist. And just as little do norms and values exist. We will demonstrate how our noses still come to point in the same direction. About the chapters 10 The gist of the present study consists of five papers that were written between 1996 and Each paper constitutes a separate chapter in this book. The manuscripts are ordered chronologically. Papers that were published as articles chapters 2, 3 and 4 are presented as they appeared in print. Chapter 5 consists of a full text that is currently in review. The prime intention of chapter 6 is to summarize and round up they key ideas in the book. It is not as self-supporting as the preceding texts, since it presupposes their reading. Although conceived of as an article, this fifth paper is in its current form probably too extensive to appear in a journal. It is of course only in retrospect that a surging thought wave can be identified in the consecutive chapters. Especially when manuscripts are intended to be autonomous texts from the outset, to serve different audiences, different editors and reviewers, and different preoccupations of the author(s), the intellectual space between those manuscripts is likely to broaden. Yet to my own surprise, I found more consistency and concord between the earliest and the last work than I had thought of before. For instance, the first two articles focus on downplayed elements in Émile Durkheim s theory of knowledge: re-presentation, action, ritual, the body, and skills. A reevaluation of these notions turns out to be crucial in the epistemological framework for a psychological study of culture that is expounded in the chapters 4, 5 and 6. The central figure in chapter 2 is the French classic sociologist Émile Durkheim. His famous concept of individual and collective representations is reinterpreted against the background of German, Romantic philosophy. Elaborating on the

16 Chapter 1 Introduction work of Stjepan Meštrović, it is argued that Durkheim s individual and collective representations (représentations) express a much more vivid and worldconstituting dynamic than generally believed. They are compared to Arthur Schopenhauer s notion of Vorstellungen. It is demonstrated that both Vorstellungen and représentations share a double connotation that is explicitly applied by Schopenhauer and Durkheim in their respective epistemologies. They are like a mirror-image of reality but at the same time they are constitutive for reality. Resemblances in the arguments of Schopenhauer and Durkheim are striking. According to Meštrović, that should not be too surprising since Schopenhauer s philosophy dominated the intellectual circles that Durkheim belonged to. It is argued that conceiving of individual and collective représentations as active and constitutive notions that pertain to body, psyche and society alike, demands a reevaluation of Durkheim s key concepts. They may be of much more interest and use to contemporary (cultural) psychology than thought so far. Studying Durkheim s work through a Schopenhauerian lens is continued in chapter 3 written in cooperation with Jacques Janssen. This time, the aim is to balance the one-sidedly cognitivist and functionalist reception of Durkheim s social theory. The French scholar explicitly rejected such monistic interpretations. It is argued that his dialectical approach was always aimed at an essentially dualistic perception of man and society. That dualism is expressed, for instance, in Durkheim s concept of the homo duplex, which refers to the two centers of gravity that the human being unites in him/herself: a lower pole that pertains to the embodied individual, and a higher pole that pertains to mind and society. Like many classic philosophers, Durkheim contends that these poles constitute constant tension, but unlike many other philosophers Durkheim argues that the lower pole of this dualistic unity the embodied individual is the stronger and primordial one. The homo duplex is also refracted in Durkheim s symbol theory: symbols that are bound to the embodied human individual are contrasted with symbols that people can choose freely. For Durkheim, the human person the trinity of body, psyche and participation in society is the symbol par excellence. By implication, in rereading Durkheim s theory of religion, the rituals in which the person is (re)constructed shift to the center of attention. These rituals reveal a sharp focus on the experiencing body put into action in rites of passage. The presented reading of Durkheim may invite his students to indulge in a more psychological interpretation of his work. In many respects, it is argued, Durkheim may be called a cultural psychologist avant la lettre. 11 In Chapter 4 co-authored with Cor Baerveldt one of the key problems of cultural psychology is posited as a paradox: While people believe they act on the basis of their own authentic experience, cultural psychologists can observe their behavior to be socially patterned. It is argued that, in order to account for those patterns, cultural psychology should take human experience as its analytical

17 Chapter 1 Introduction starting point. This runs contrary to the tendency within cultural psychology either to neglect human experience by focusing exclusively on discourse, or to consider the structure of this experience to originate in a cultural order already produced. For the first time in the present study, the enactive view of cognition as developed by the Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francesco Varela is brought to the fore. Key notions in their work such as autopoiesis, structural coupling, operational closure and consensual domain are explained in relation to psychological theory. It is argued how the enactive paradigm can overcome the aboutism that is apparent in discursive psychology as well as the already given status of socio-cultural order that is presupposed by social constructionism. In addition, the epistemology contained within the enactive framework is proposed as a more viable one for the psychological study of culture. Chapter 5 co-authored also with Cor Baerveldt contrasts enactivism with the social representation approach. Serge Moscovici developed this latter theory in the 1960s, taking inspiration from Émile Durkheim s notion of collective representations. Moscovici s theory became one of the predominant approaches in social psychology, both in Europe and in the Anglo-Saxon world. Wolfgang Wagner is a current and productive advocate of social representations. Interestingly enough, he developed a version of the theory in which social representations no longer reside in individual minds. Instead, they are conceived of as concerted interactions. In fact, Wagner s epistemological starting points do come very close to the enactive outlook on coordinated actions. It is argued that Wagner s approach is not radical enough, however, because he continues to see concerted interaction as an expression of representations that are already shared by the actors constituting a group. As a consequence, the theory still presupposes representations that are somehow internalized by members of a group. In the enactivist paradigm, however, representation and internalization are impossibilities. Moreover, like most other social theories, Wagner s version holds the idea that social representations are shared. It is argued that the ubiquitous notion of sharedness that is also found in studies on social models, cultural patterns, schemas, scenarios, and so forth is a misapprehension of how orchestrated actions come about. In a cultural psychological account of behavior, there is no space for anything shared ; whether beliefs, conduct, structures or other entities. The term merely obscures a proper understanding of what really constitutes intrinsically social behavior. 12 While dismissing the notions of sharedness and internalization in chapter 5, it is concluded in chapter 6 that also culture fails in giving an adequate account for the styling of people s behavior. A point brought forward in the two preceding chapters is elaborated upon in detail: The enactivist framework grants a special perspective to the observer that cannot be omitted from a social scientific epistemology; that perspective of the observer, who may perceive regularities in the world, should not be confused with the operations that give rise to such perceptions. Phenomenology already touched upon such issues, but the enactive

18 Chapter 1 Introduction approach is much more explicit about the biological and the cognitive operations that intertwine the observer and the observed. An attempt is made to address culture from both the operational and the phenomenological perspective. In order to do so, the term cultural behavior is dissected into its characterizing operations. Inspiration is drawn from developmental psychology, linguistics, ethology and (cultural) primatology. Michael Tomasello s key notions of understanding the intentions of others like me and the ratchet effect in particular are connected to embodied learning and habituation. In addition, evolutionary psychology s account of culture is addressed, as it has an open eye for social selective pressures that in part constitute the (biological) embodiment of modern humans. The point that evolutionary psychology tends to miss, however, is that the actual bringing about of socio-cultural conduct in real life cannot be already coded for in our genes, brains or bodies. Like most other psychologists, evolutionary thinkers overlook the co-constructed character of everyday practices, including cognition. Therefore, if it can be understood from both an operational and a phenomenological viewpoint how learning and habituation are from the outset socially orchestrated skills, accounts in which culture precedes or locks out individual experience can be declared bankrupt. It is suggested that scholars delete the term culture from their analyses, as well as its refractions such as schemas, models, patterns, norms and values. They obscure the processes to understand: Culture is a description made by an observer; it is not a causal force in the operational domains of consensually coordinating organisms. Chapter 7, finally, consists of a brief summary of the overall arguments and conclusions in the present study. Particularly, the epistemological problems associated with culture and its refractions in social theories are reiterated. It is shown how the enactive framework was staged as a viable alternative theory of knowledge, in which these problems can be overcome as the relation between psyche and culture is radically reconsidered. The conclusion is that as an explanatory, outward, causal force, culture does not exist. This common sense understanding of the term, to be found in most social scientific literature, is a delusion that obscures our understanding of how people s behavior becomes socially structured. The enactive epistemology overcomes the difficulties and can in fact constitute a true psychological study of culture. How this approach sheds a very different light on current cultural issues in modern, Western societies is briefly pointed out in two examples: the ongoing discussions in the Netherlands on declining norms and values and on successful naturalization ( inburgeren ). 13

19 Chapter 1 Introduction References 14 Baerveldt, C., & Verheggen, Th. (1999). Towards a psychological study of culture. Epistemological considerations. In W. Mayers, B. Bayer, B. Duarte Esgalhado & E. Schraube (Eds.), Challenges to theoretical psychology (pp ). North York: Captus. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1996). The culture of education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Cole, M. (1990). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline? In J. J. Berman (Ed.), Cross-cultural perspectives. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (pp ). Lincoln: University of Nebraska. Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology. A once and future discipline. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Fortmann, H. (1971). Inleiding tot de cultuurpsychologie. Deel 1 [Introduction to cultural psychology. Volume 1]. Bilthoven: Ambo. Greenwood, J. D. (1994). Realism, identity and emotion. Reclaiming social psychology. London: Sage. Greenwood, J. D. (1999). From Völkerpsychology to cultural psychology. The once and future discipline? Philosophical Psychology, 12 (4), Hiles, D. (1996). Cultural psychology and the centre-ground of psychology. A summary of the paper presented to XXVI International Congress of Psychology, Montreal, Canada, August 16 21, Retrieved from the Internet 18 May Jahoda, G. (1992). Crossroads between culture and mind: Continuities and change in theories of human nature. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Kempen, H. (2002). Naar een universele psychologie van het zelf. Nagelaten geschriften van Harry Kempen, cultuurpsycholoog [Toward a universal psychology of the self; written legacy of Harry Kempen, cultural psychologist]. Nijmegen: Sectie Cultuur- en Godsdienstpsychologie van de Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen. London, S. (2004). Book review: The culture of education by Jerome Bruner. Retrieved from the Internet, 29 September Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1992). The what, why, and how of cultural psychology: A review of Shweder s Thinking through cultures. Psychological Inquiry, 3 (4), Schaller, M., & Crandall, C. S. (Eds.). (2004). The psychological foundations of culture. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Shweder, R. (1990). Cultural psychology what is it? In: J.W. Stigler, R.A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.). Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development. New York: Cambridge University Press, Shweder, R. (2003). Why do men barbeque? Recipies for cultural psychology. London: Harvard University Press.

20 Chapter 1 Introduction Shweder, R.A. & Sullivan, M.A. (1993) Cultural psychology: Who needs it? Annual Review of Psychology, 44, Stigler, J., Shweder, R., & Herdt, G. (Eds.) (1990). Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Verheggen, Th. (1998). De cultuurpsychologie van Michael Cole [Michael Cole s cultural psychology]. Psychologie & Maatschappij, 82,

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22 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered asvorstellungen This article appeared in the American periodical Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 16, Author s abstract Émile Durkheim s famous concept of individual and collective representations is reinterpreted against the background of German, Romantic philosophy. Elaborating on the work of Stjepan Meštrović, it is argued that Durkheim s individual and collective representations (représentations) express a much more vivid and world-constituting dynamic than is generally believed. They are compared to Arthur Schopenhauer s notion of Vorstellungen. It is demonstrated that both Vorstellungen and représentations share a double connotation that is explicitly applied by Schopenhauer and Durkheim in their respective epistemologies. They are like a mirror-image of reality but at the same time they are constitutive for reality. Resemblances in the arguments of Schopenhauer and Durkheim are striking. It is argued that conceiving of individual and collective représentations as active and constitutive notions that pertain to body, psyche and society alike, asks for a reevaluation of Durkheim s key concepts. 17

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24 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Theo Verheggen In an interesting polemic, back in 1907, The Belgian Catholic priest Simon Deploige criticized Émile Durkheim for stealing and carefully concealing the origin of his sociological ideas from the Germans. As a matter of course, Durkheim forcefully denied these allegations, claiming that he mainly owed a debt to the sociological views of Auguste Comte and W. Robertson Smith (Deploige, 1907a, 1907b; Durkheim, 1907; see also Jones, 1994; Meštrović, 1991). Although Deploige s letters might have been too hard on Durkheim, they contain at least a kernel of truth. We have good reasons indeed to assume a strong German influence on Durkheim s thoughts. It is a well known fact that he visited some German universities in the mid-1880s. His visit to Wilhelm Wundt s laboratory in Leipzig is especially important in this respect. Wundt, while almost exclusively known for his pioneering experimental research in psychology, was also the heir of a social psychology founded by the German Jews Moritz Lazarus ( ) and Heymann Steinthal ( ). Their Völkerpsychologie (Folk Psychology) was rooted in their striving to translate essentially Jewish questions into a scientific mold (Kalmar, 1987), and dealt primarily with socio-cultural phenomena such as language, religion, myth, customs, and ethics. 1 Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Protestant Wundt continued their work, focusing on these same subjects. It is inconceivable that Durkheim could have missed the influence of these issues pertaining to Völkerpsychologie while he studied in Leipzig. On the contrary, it seems that they did have their influence, for we can trace them easily in Durkheim s concepts of a collective conscience, religion, morals, and representations. Why, then, would Durkheim revolt so strongly against claims such as those made by Deploige? There is a simple answer: at that time France was tainted with anti-german sentiments and anti-semitism. Openly admitting his German and moreover his Jewish ancestry would have been intellectual suicide for Durkheim. After all, he was at least twice a victim of anti-semitism himself (Lukes, 1972, p. 557; Lehman, 1994, p. 99). Being careful might have been a reason to downplay the debt Durkheim owed to German, and often Jewish, scholars. Still the similarities between Durkheim s theory and German philosophy remain striking. Deploige has a point there. However, although Deploige addresses Durkheim s debt to Lazarus, Steinthal, Wundt and Simmel (amongst others, see Jones, 1994), he does not mention the influence that another German 19

25 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen philosopher seems to have had on Durkheim, namely (the Protestant) Arthur Schopenhauer the precursor of so many other fin de siècle intellectuals (Ellenberger, 1970; Janik & Toulmin, 1973; Magee, 1983; Meštrović, 1988a). Wundt (1907) readily admits to having been influenced by Schopenhauer. We do not know of any evidence that Lazarus and Steinthal knew Schopenhauer s work, but it is likely. Schopenhauer s philosophy (heavily inspired by Buddhism) and Völkerpsychologie (with its Jewish origin) both seek to synthesize Eastern with Western perspectives and both focus on culture, morals, synthesis, tradition and the irrational. Although there is not much direct evidence, Stjepan Meštrović argues convincingly in many articles and books for an affinity of ideas between Schopenhauer and Durkheim. André Lalande, Durkheim s friend and colleague at the Sorbonne, even states that Schopenhauer was one of Durkheim s favorite philosophers (Lalande, 1960). As we hope to show, the transcendental idealism of Schopenhauer proves to be very useful in understanding Durkheim s theory, especially Durkheim s concept of representations as well as closely related issues. To be sure, Henri Saint-Simon, Comte and a host of other French scholars contributed a lot to Durkheim s thought. But we want to argue, contrary to what Lukes (1972, p. 92) claims, that the Germans especially through Schopenhauer played at least an equal, if not more important role. To demonstrate the usefulness of understanding Durkheim in a German idealistic context, we will study Durkheim s concept of représentations through the lens of its German counterpart, the Vorstellung, as well as the Jewish cultural dimension of the collective aspect of représentations / Vorstellungen. The Vorstellung in the German philosophy of the nineteenth century 20 Vorstellung is one of the most common terms in the German philosophy and psychology of the previous century. The word is ubiquitous in the writings of Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Simmel, Herbart, Lazarus, Steinthal, and Wundt, among others. A contemporary use of this nineteenth century term demands a careful approach. This is not only because the scholars just mentioned each gave their individual twist to it, but also because the translation of Vorstellung immediately raises some problems. It is not possible to capture the original German connotation in just one English term. See for instance how, at the end of the nineteenth century, Schopenhauer s Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung was translated as The World as Will and Idea, while in later editions the book was published as The World as Will and Representation. Translating Vorstellung into Idea creates too many ambiguities (Schopenhauer, [1818]1969; Schopenhauer, [1836]1992). Dunkel (1970) consistently translates Vorstellung as presentation in his book on Herbart, but notices on p. 129: Presentation is perhaps the most common English translation for Herbart s term Vorstellung, and for that reason I use it throughout this

26 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen book, despite a certain awkwardness. None of the English possibilities is really good. At the time of Locke, idea was a fairly appropriate rendering, but since his day idea has been limited rather narrowly to concepts, whereas Herbart s term has a much wider range. In modern English to say, I have an idea of red is not the same thing as to say I perceive red or I have a sensation of redness. Herbart s term includes percepts as well as concepts, with his simple presentations being fairly close (though not exactly equivalent) to what we would call simple sense impressions (to which we would not usually refer by idea ). (Original italics). Kitcher (1990:66) writes: In German philosophy of this [Kant s] time, the most general term for a mental state was Vorstellung, which is usually translated as representation. However, Kant does not believe that all Vorstellungen (representations) represent. Although this is not more inconsistent [than] the contemporary claim that atoms can be split, it can be confusing. So I use cognitive state as the generic term. There is an important complication, however. Vorstellung can be used to indicate the contents of cognitive states. It exhibits the same ambiguity as the English terms representation and idea. (Original italics, my emphasis). The same term (Vorstellung) is thus translated in many different ways: representation, presentation, idea, cognitive state and so forth 2 all of which capture only in part the original meaning. Representation is the most frequently used English translation. To understand this original meaning of Vorstellung, we have to take into account the (transcendental) idealistic context in which the term was used so often (Janik & Toulmin, 1973), despite the fact that Kant uses Vorstellung in a slightly different way than Herbart, while for Schopenhauer the term indicates something not quite like Wundt s interpretation. It is beyond the scope of this article to deal with every single philosopher s understanding of Vorstellung. 3 We limit ourselves to those interpretations that bear special significance for our purposes. According to Magee (1983), for Schopenhauer, Vorstellung stands for the content of experience: What is given to us in direct experience are the representations of sense and of thought. Schopenhauer stressed this by adopting the word Vorstellung (which is translated...as representation ) as his standard term for the content of experience a term deliberately chosen by him because it does not smuggle in any hidden material-object or realist presuppositions (Magee, 1983, p Original italics). 21

27 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Schopenhauer himself describes Vorstellung as an exceedingly complicated physiological process in the brain of an animal, the result of which is the consciousness of a picture there. (Translator s introduction in Schopenhauer, [1818]1969, p. ix. Original italics, my emphasis). From his following remark, it becomes clear that for Schopenhauer, Vorstellung is not just about a mere copy of something outside consciousness (a re-presentation): For things are in space and consequently outside us only in so far as we represen them. Therefore these things that we perceive directly in such a manner and not some mere image or copy of them, are themselves also only our representations, and as such exist only in our head (Schopenhauer, [1818]1969; Vol. II, p. 22. Original italics, my emphasis). For Herbart, Vorstellungen are the basic elements of the mind, but also of the drives and the will. For him, just as for Schopenhauer, percepts and concepts belong to the realm of Vorstellungen (Dunkel, 1970). One of the founders of the Völkerpsychologie Steinthal writes, while referring to Lazarus 4 : The difference between conception (Anschauung) and Idea (Vorstellung) must now be carefully noted. The former is an undivided sum-total of many elements, corresponding to the object or occurrence presented to the senses. The thought of it is expressed in language by a plurality of ideas, every one of which corresponds to one single element of the conception; so that the ideas are equal in number to the separate elements which are recognized and distinguished in the conception. Thus, to a single conception corresponds a combination of many separate ideas (In Goldziher, [1877]1967. Original italics). 22 Wundt saw the Vorstellung as a creative synthesis of sensations. He used the term to indicate ideas, perceptions, conceptions and other mental phenomena. R. J. Richards refers to Wundt s representations though in a very general terminology as states and processes within us (in Bringmann & Tweney, 1980). Despite some differences in nuance, these scholars seem to agree that Vorstellung refers to the content of experience; Vorstellungen are units of activity instead of static entities (in this respect they are very different from the British empiricist s ideas. For example, see Danziger on Herbart, in Rieber, 1980); Vorstellungen are made up of atoms of experience, namely, sensations; Vorstellungen form a large domain of experiential content and are not exclusively limited to images, concepts or ideas. All of these are Vorstellungen, as are memories, sensations and perceptions, to name but a few more examples. We want to argue that the original meaning Durkheim gave to his représentations must be understood within this broad nineteenth century, predominantly German context. It does not merely refer to re-presenting or

28 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen copying things in our heads, but can signify every mental activity. The prevalence of the German (idealistic) philosophy in the previous fin de siècle, in particular that of Schopenhauer (Ellenberger, 1970; Meštrović, 1988a, p ; Wundt, 1920, p. 101), Durkheim s study with Wundt in Leipzig during , and Durkheim s style of argument in his Individual and Collective Representations ([1924]1974) 5 serve as solid evidence for our point. In this article, we will use Vorstellung instead of representation / représentations, to reinforce our point and to avoid confusion. Schopenhauer, Durkheim and the previous fin de siècle When we take into account Schopenhauer s popularity in Durkheim s intellectual climate, it is strange that hardly anybody searched for the influence of this German philosopher on Durkheim. Durkheim is still mainly seen as a positivist, a student of Comte, Saint-Simon, Kant and Hegel, and as a father of functionalism (Adorno in Durkheim, [1924]1985; Merton, 1957; Deutscher in Farr & Moscovici, 1984; Parsons, 1937; Zijderveld, 1973, [1966]1974). These are unjust assessments, because the shortcomings of these one-sided interpretations have been documented a long time ago by Alpert ([1939]1993) and more recently by Meštrović (1988a, 1988b, 1992, 1993a) and Janssen (1991). To the best of my knowledge, Meštrović is the first interpreter of Durkheim who supposes a serious relatedness of ideas between Durkheim and Schopenhauer. He shows that Schopenhauer s ideas were ubiquitous in the works of Durkheim s teachers and colleagues. The most important names in this respect are Ribot, Renouvier, Mauss, Bergson, Simmel, Wundt and Freud. According to Mauss, Durkheim s nephew and colleague, Durkheim was the pupil of Wundt and Ribot (in Meštrović, 1992:30). Peristiany makes this same point in his introduction to Durkheim s Sociology and Philosophy ([1924]1974). According to Richards (in Bringmann & Tweney, 1980) Ribot had corresponded with Wundt. Wundt refers extensively to Schopenhauer and Ribot even wrote a book on Schopenhauer s philosophy 6! How could Durkheim ever have missed Schopenhauer s influence? We do not want to argue (and in this we follow Meštrović s lead (1992, 1993a)) that there must have been a direct influence of Schopenhauer on Durkheim s thought. We do want to make the point however, like Meštrović, that there must have been a cultural influence. Durkheim s Individual and Collective Representations, without doubt an essay that draws heavily on Durkheim s experiences in Leipzig, bears (directly or indirectly) the stamp of Schopenhauer s thought. We shall try to make this clear by means of Schopenhauer s On the Will in Nature ([1836]1992). The reason we chose this book, instead of his major work The World as Will and Representation ([1818]1969) is that, according to Schopenhauer himself, in On the Will in Nature I have discussed that fundamental truth of my teaching with greater distinctness than anywhere else, and brought it down to the empirical knowledge of nature...so that I cannot 23

29 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen hope ever to find a more correct and accurate expression of that core of my philosophy than what is there recorded (editor s introduction to Schopenhauer, [1836]1992, p. xv-xvi). Especially Schopenhauer here contends that what On the Will in Nature expresses with greater clarity than anywhere else is the transition from phenomenon to the thing-in-itself (p. xvi). It is this transition that will help us to better understand Durkheim s theory. Schopenhauer s On the Will in Nature ([1836]1992)...everything that exists for knowledge, and hence the whole of this world, is only object in relation to the subject, perception of the perceiver, in a word, representation Schopenhauer ([1818]1969, Vol. I, p. 3)....this world is, on the one side, entirely representation, just as, on the other, it is entirely will Schopenhauer ([1818]1969, Vol. I, p. 4. Original italics). The world as Wille All that Is, is a manifestation or objectification of a metaphysical entity which Schopenhauer calls the will. The will Is, and Is primarily. It is the principle of life and as such it strives for the manifestation of itself. It is that which Kant called the thing-in-itself. The will objectifies itself in two major categories. Each manifestation as such is arbitrary, though. The first objectification is matter. Every body, organic or inorganic, is an a posteriori of the principle of life. Next, the will manifests itself in knowledge (Erkenntnis / Intellekt). This is a pure and arbitrary function of a part of the matter of the physical substratum namely of the brain. Knowledge and, as we will see, consciousness, are accidental products of matter, not vice versa. Matter in its turn is only the manifestation of the will. There can be no matter without a manifestation of will (Schopenhauer, [1836]1992, p. 88). 24 The world as Vorstellung The Vorstellung can only exist at the mercy of knowledge and because knowledge is only a function of the body, the Vorstellung ultimately exists at the mercy of matter. Matter as such, on the other hand, Is only in the Vorstellung. It is the observability of the manifestation of the will. If the intellectual organism (the subject) does not form a Vorstellung of matter (the object), then the matter does not exist, at least not for that organism. 7 Strictly speaking, we cannot say that a non-intellectual being (that is, a being without any form of brain or nerve structure) really perceives. For such unconscious beings (for instance stones or plants) there is in fact no matter, according to Schopenhauer. Frankly, they only exist in the Vorstellung of intellectual subjects. But this is not the same as saying

30 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen that such unconscious entities lack reality. They only miss the secondary manifestation of being. They do partake in the primary being, in the will itself. Here we see Schopenhauer s realistic approach; his starting point is reality, the real being of things. This must not be confused with his transcendental idealistic position in epistemological respect: We can only know Vorstellungen (Magee, 1983). Knowledge, stimuli and motives Just as matter functions as a body of resonance for a tone when a vibration of the air touches upon it, so knowledge is the body of resonance for vibrations (Regungen) of the will. The tone that is thus produced is consciousness. The more sophisticated the knowledge, the better the organism is aware or conscious of the world. Only then it can give account of itself: eventually it is the will that becomes aware of itself through knowledge. 8 Because we can reflect, thanks to our knowledge, on the vibrations of the will (the ultimate locomotor of all movement and therefore of our behavior) and because we can manipulate our movements to a certain extent, we perceive these impulses of the will as motives (Motive). Motives are elaborations of our knowledge for example (re)presenting, thinking, arguing, conceptualizing on causes induced by the will sensations, stimuli and so forth. Except for motives, organisms are subservient to stimuli (Reize). These are external causes again, induced by the will which the organism cannot manipulate. Stimuli are restricted to the domain of the vegetative or autonomous life functions (Schopenhauer, [1836]1992:83-84). 9 Schopenhauer explains the difference between stimuli and motives as follows: The motive can be defined as an external stimulus from whose influence there first results an image [Bild] in the brain, under whose mediation the will carries out the effect proper, an external bodily action (p. 37. Original italics). The stimulus evokes the reaction immediately, because this comes from that part on which the stimulus has acted. The motive, on the other hand, is a stimulus which has to go by a roundabout path through the brain; through the action of the brain an image arises there and this first brings about the ensuing reaction (p. 37. Original italics, my emphasis). The stimulus is thus an immediate, physiological action-reaction process, only dependent on the nature of the cause and on the anatomy of the organism. The motive is a mental entity, a Vorstellung; between action and reaction there is a mental elaboration. 10 The motive is a function of knowledge and therefore predisposes a brain. For Schopenhauer, the demarcation point between conscious and unconscious nature is the same as that between stimuli and motives. 25

31 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Durkheim s Individual and Collective Representations ([1924]1974) [Life] is in the whole, not in the parts. If then, to understand it as it is, it is not necessary to disperse it among the elementary forces of which it is the resultant, why should it be different for the individual mind in relation to the cerebral cells and social facts in relation to individuals? Durkheim ([1924]1974, p. 29). 26 Durkheim s aim in this essay is to show that there is a particular process, a particular fusion that occurs several times throughout nature. The product of this process is always more than the sum of the parts of the substratum. An example will hopefully make things clearer: a living organism is in fact, from a materialistic point of view, nothing but a bundle of atoms. One way or the other though, these atoms are arranged in such a way that we can discriminate an extra quality from the physical constellation, namely life. The living organism is thus more than just a bundle of atoms. It possesses a characteristic of a totally different order (a characteristic sui generis) and although it stems from the material substratum, it cannot be reduced to the latter. Life cannot be located in matter, but transcends matter. Because the sui generis quality is the product of the substratum, the quality is partially dependent on its origin: there is no accidental product without a substratum. At the same time this product is also in a certain way partially independent of its substratum: (minor) changes in the latter (matter) do not necessarily imply changes in the accidental product (life). A dynamic of the same kind occurs in the genesis of psychic processes. These are the result of a particular constellation, association and mutual influence of nervous elements (nerve and brain cells: the substratum). By means of such a chemical synthesis something new arises, a new unity. Again, the psychic processes are partially independent of the substratum. Thoughts, images, concepts etc. can remain in their unique domain, even if the conditions in the brain cells change. In this way Durkheim accounts for the survival of images and memories, even though we do not always have full conscious awareness of them. On the other hand this independence is only relative. If the substratum would vanish, or if major changes would occur in the brain, the psychic entities too would vanish or change, of course. We can apply the same analogy to collective psychic processes, according to Durkheim. Much like individual brain cells together form the substratum for sui generis individual minds, so individual people (individual minds) form the substratum for the collective mind although Durkheim hardly ever uses this term. Instead he talks about a collective conscience 11 : The individuals are the brain cells of the collective mind, as it were. 12 Again, the collective thoughts, ideas, images and so forth are partially independent of their substratum. They exist in a totally unique domain.

32 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Consciousness and the unconscious Before we take a look at the individual and the collective Vorstellungen, we have to clarify the notion of consciousness. For Schopenhauer we can discuss consciousness (and therefore motives, Vorstellungen, mind) only when some kind of knowledge enters nature:...consciousness has its seat in the brain... (Schopenhauer, [1836]1992, p. 39). Beings without a brain or knowledge are therefore unconscious, 13 according to Schopenhauer. Ellenberger (1970) states that Schopenhauer identifies the unconscious with the will. In other words all beings, including intellectual organisms, are partially and primarily unconscious! With this idea Schopenhauer opened the doors for Janet and Freud. Durkheim writes about a conscience when he deals with psychic processes, thoughts, ideas, images and memory; in short, when he discusses sui generis elaborations of stimuli. So far there is an amazing similarity between Schopenhauer and Durkheim. 13 But for Durkheim psychic processes can be unconscious too (just as for Freud)....we do not see all that these [Vorstellungen] [that pass for unconscious] comprehend that there are real and effective elements which are not, consequently, purely physical facts, and which are not, however, obvious to the consciousness. This obscure consciousness is a partial unconsciousness, and we must once again remember that the limits of consciousness are not the limits of all psychic activity. ( ) All that we wish to say is that certain phenomena occur in us which are of a psychic order and which are nevertheless not known by our conscious selves (Durkheim, [1924]1974, p Original italics). In fact, within each one of us a multitude of psychic phenomena occur without our apprehending them (p. 20). On the contrary, for Schopenhauer, psychic or mental processes seem to be at first sight at least conscious by definition. But from a closer and more careful look we learn that he too reserves a place for unconscious processes of the brain. In On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason ([1813]1992) Schopenhauer gives an elaborate account of the genesis of perceptions (Anschauungen). Our senses give us the purely subjective, raw material, the data for our Wahrnehmung (perception in the broadest sense). These sensations (Empfindungen) do not yet contain any quality whatsoever (spaciousness, form, color, number, temperature etc.). Our intellect (the brain) creates perceptions from these raw data by means of the a priori categories of knowledge: space, time and causality. The latter is the exclusive category of that part of knowledge which Schopenhauer calls understanding (Verstand). Understanding creates an objective perception from subjective sensations by assigning a cause to the sensations and by locating them in space. This process is immediate and intuitive. Therefore Schopenhauer calls space, time and 27

33 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen 28 causality the categories of the smaller pure perception (reine Anschauung). The broader empirical perception (empirische Anschauung) is created out of the former by assigning a cause to the sensations that are ultimately responsible for Wahrnehmungen of color, tone, harshness etc. This transition from sensation to cause happens so fast that it cannot be brought into distinct consciousness. The empirical perception is partly unconscious (Bewußtlos) (Schopenhauer, [1818]1969, Vol. II, p ). Likewise the pure perception is not brought into consciousness. Our purpose is to show that Schopenhauer lays the basis for the notion of a mental unconsciousness. This idea has become most popular in the writings of Freud (who indicates extensively that he has been influenced by Schopenhauer (Ellenberger, 1970; Jones, 1981)). Another clear refraction of Schopenhauer s philosophy is Durkheim s statement that Vorstellungen are always partially unconscious (Meštrović, 1984; 1988c). For Schopenhauer, Wahrnehmung (including the notions object, time, space and causality) is an intellectual act, a construction of the brain and not something given in the things themselves. Perceptions (pure and empirical) form the primary class of Vorstellungen. They belong to the domain of understanding. Every organism capable of Wahrnehmung that is, every animalistic creature therefore has understanding (Schopenhauer, [1813]1992, p. 110). What distinguishes humans from animals is the faculty of reason (Vernunft), through which humans are capable to create Vorstellungen from Vorstellungen, abstractions, concepts (Schopenhauer, [1813]1992, p. 146). (Notice how we can retrace this terminology in Durkheim s consciousness of consciousness [in Meštrović, 1988c] and in Wundt s synthesis of syntheses [Haeberlin in Rieber, 1980]). This advanced class of Vorstellungen enables humans to think. Mechanical causes, stimuli and motives are constructions of the same a priori category of knowledge in particular, of understanding namely causality. They differ only gradually from each other. That is why we sometimes conceive of mechanical and vegetative causality as an animate cause (a motive). Therefore it sometimes looks as if a plant moves its leaves consciously towards the light or as if encapsulated water purposely seeks its way out. We thus recognize a quasi or surrogate consciousness in entities that do not have real knowledge (the brainless matter) (Schopenhauer, [1818]1969, Vol. II, p. 281; Schopenhauer, [1836]1992, p. 74). We find a clear echo of this idea in Wundt ([1874]1910). According to him consciousness is a universal possession of living organisms from man down to protozoa A few lines before this he writes: Whether it does not, in actual fact, begin at a still lower level, must remain a matter of speculation only (Wundt, [1874]1910, p ). This also coincides strikingly with Schopenhauer s statement that every animal must to a certain degree have understanding! Schopenhauer continuously points out that mechanical causes, stimuli and motives as such can only exist and be recognized in and through a conscious / intellectual creature. We want to point out that for Schopenhauer the transitions from mechanical causes, stimuli, motives, understanding and reason are always smooth and gradual. In other words he supposes a continuum from

34 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen the unconscious to the conscious. Vorstellungen occupy a wide area of this continuum. Some of them are always unconscious (pure perceptions), some of them are conscious (the actual thought) but most of them move somewhere between both poles. Meštrović (1984) shows that for Durkheim too consciousness is not implied in the notion of Vorstellung, and that Durkheim too supposes a psychic continuum. If Durkheim did not get this idea directly from Schopenhauer, he could well have gotten it from Wundt (see Meštrović, 1985). Individual Vorstellungen Now we can better understand what Durkheim aims at by using Vorstellung, and in particular individual Vorstellung (représentations individuelle). In the essay he uses the term Vorstellung on the one hand, and image, thought, idea, concept and to a certain extent sensation on the other hand mainly as synonyms. What they all have in common is a certain unique status compared to their substratum. The accidental product gains its particular quality as the result of a sui generis elaboration of the sensations that act on the substratum in the first place. In other words, images, ideas, concepts and so forth are mediate reactions on impulses. An individual Vorstellung therefore is a mental elaboration on a certain impulse. Using Schopenhauer s vocabulary, we could say that for Durkheim Vorstellungen are motives, just as they are for Schopenhauer himself. It is in this sense that we must understand the term représentations. The agent endowed with reason does not behave like a thing of which the activity can be reduced to a system of reflexes. He hesitates, feels his way, deliberates, and by that distinguishing mark he is recognized. External stimulation, instead of resulting immediately in movements, is halted in its progress and is subjected to a sui generis elaboration; a more or less long period of time elapses before the expression in movement appears (Durkheim, [1924]1974, p. 3. Original italics, my emphasis). In The Division of Labor in Society ([1893]1933) Durkheim defines the Vorstellung as follows: A [Vorstellung] is not simply a mere image of reality, an inert shadow projected by things upon us, but is a force which raises around itself a turbulence of organic and psychical phenomena (p. 97. My emphasis). 29 Durkheim, Wundt and Schopenhauer agree that a Vorstellung is always an abstraction, an arbitrary fixation of the actual stream of consciousness. That is the reason why it is so difficult, if not impossible, to make a statement about objective reality based on Vorstellungen. This deeper reality namely, changes its appearance along with every single (arbitrary) choice or fixation of a Vorstellung. The situation becomes even more complicated when we take into account that the Vorstellung itself is a part of reality. Yet it is our most powerful

35 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen tool to study the real world, because the Vorstellung is the bridge between the subjective sensations and the objectively knowable world. Though we must always keep in mind the fact that the Vorstellung is but a sign or indicator of the reality to be studied, and the latter always partially escapes our consciousness of it. What is ultimately (re)presented is the world, in the same way as the world is Vorstellung for Schopenhauer. Durkheim transforms what seems to be a pure epistemological issue into an issue for the sociology of knowledge. The actuality of a Vorstellung or of a mental process is betrayed by a mediation: a hesitation, a deliberation or an adjustment of movement (the reaction). Every mental activity, whether conscious or not, is necessarily and immediately accompanied by Vorstellungen. One statement that Durkheim makes in particular reminds one of Schopenhauer s stimulus: Moreover, pure sensation, in so far as it exists, is of all intellectual phenomena the one to which the term epiphenomenon could the most properly be applied. It is clear that it depends very closely [the original French text says: étroitement (strictly, rigorously)] on the disposition of the organs, as long as another mental phenomenon does not intervene and modify it, in which case it ceases to be a pure sensation (Durkheim, [1924]1974, p. 6). 30 If, like in this case, we are dealing with an immediate action-reaction process, we have in fact a phenomenon analogous 15 to Schopenhauer s stimulus. Sometimes Durkheim seems to characterize the pure sensation 16 as the last physical phenomenon, while at other times he characterizes the pure sensation as the first sign of consciousness. It would be absurd to strive to draw a sharp line between the dispositions of the brain tissue on the one hand and the most elementary mental phenomena on the other. The (pure) sensations are located exactly on the border line between the physical and the psychical domains as it were, just like one single dot can at the same time be an element of two crossing lines. What we can say is that with regard to the psychical realm the pure sensations form one extreme and the most complex Vorstellungen form the other. In between them there is a fluent spectrum of more and less complex Vorstellungen. The domain of the Vorstellungen is a flux of ideas and thoughts, like William James stream of consciousness ([1890]1950), an idea that at least dates back to German idealist philosophy as early as Leibniz. Once Vorstellungen exist, they can influence each other. They can attract or repel each other, they can form associations, combine into a new Vorstellung or into complex systems of them (concepts, theories). This is very similar to Freud s free association (Meštrović, 1993a). Individual Vorstellungen can thus lead a life of their own, although they are always partially dependent on the organic substratum. But the more it is being created by dynamic processes among other Vorstellungen, the more such a new Vorstellung will be removed from the organic substratum s influence. (Compare this with Schopenhauer s

36 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen abstract Vorstellungen or concepts that move away from the sense perception). The reverse process is also true: Vorstellungen influence the substratum. In this case it means that Vorstellungen act not only on each other but also on the matter (the body): A representation [Vorstellung] does not appear without affecting the body and mind (Durkheim, [1924]1974, p. 16). In this way we can begin to understand how mental stress affects the body, or how cultural patterns can incarnate in the body (see Bourdieu, 1990). Vorstellungen act upon each other and upon their substratum. They are capable of making changes in both worlds. Because we experience the actions of the Vorstellungen and because our behavior is to a certain degree led by them, Durkheim ascribes to the Vorstellungen a thing-like character. We can experience the limitations in our freedom of movement due to a Vorstellung just as real as the limitations of a concrete wall: collective Vorstellungen can put a pressure on us that we literally feel in our body. But contrary to what Talcott Parsons (1937) writes, Durkheim does not put his real emphasis on control, duty and sanction, but on the notions of force and violence. The French word contrainte which Durkheim uses in this respect, usually translated into the notion of mere constraint, also carries the more sophisticated connotation of the exercising of force (Meštrović, 1992:80). In fact contrainte means the obstruction of the will (Meštrović, 1988c). Vorstellungen intrude consciousness from the outside. In this sense, they behave like things (Meštrović, 1992, p ). But Durkheim warns us not to conceive of Vorstellungen as things-inthemselves, that is, having a single status of being. Vorstellungen are nothing but an endless flux, from which we cannot discriminate one bounded unity. But at the same time Vorstellungen are not nothing: they are real and effective phenomena that possess specific qualities (Durkheim, [1924]1974, p. 15, 22). This idea is perfectly compatible with Schopenhauer s philosophy. For him the Vorstellung is precisely the other side of the thing-in-itself, as we have seen earlier. The Vorstellung can never be a thing-in-itself. According to Durkheim, Vorstellungen exist somewhere outside the brain or matter, just as life is not located in the atoms and just as collective Vorstellungen exist somewhere outside the individual consciousness: again, the accidental product is not inherent in the substratum. Schopenhauer already taught us that the notion of outwardness, objectivity, even of space itself are only constructions of the mind, more specific of understanding. These constructions as such exist only in our heads although they appear to stem from outside. Schopenhauer compares this to a theater in which the mountains create the illusion of outwardness although these props are located in the house (Schopenhauer, [1818]1969, Vol. II, p. 22). Likewise, Durkheim s individual Vorstellungen appear to us to exist outside ourselves, but he too holds that as such they can only be located in a mind. In addition Durkheim merely seems to extend this principle to the realm of a collective mind and collective Vorstellungen. Thus, collective Vorstellungen really exist outside our individual minds, partially independent of them. But even the origins of this extrapolation can be found in Schopenhauer when he deals with 31

37 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen the collective and cultural origins of religion (Meštrović, 1993a, p. 172; Meštrović, 1989b). 32 Collective Vorstellungen A number of individual Vorstellungen can cluster and form collective Vorstellungen which again possess all the sui generis qualities with respect to the substratum (the individual Vorstellungen). The processes involved here are exactly analogous to those just described for individual Vorstellungen. Because Vorstellungen are relatively independent of the substratum, they have a certain flexibility towards changes in the substratum. In the case of collective Vorstellungen, there is thus a relative independence from the individuals and from the social structure. However, this does not imply that the social structure is not an important factor of collective Vorstellungen. Social structure does play an important role. The crucial point is that no simple social element or social act / fact (fait sociale) is capable of changing collective Vorstellungen on its own. Only those changes that effect a sufficient number of social elements will be able to cause shifts in these Vorstellungen. Once they are formed, Vorstellungen can, to a certain degree, move independently from the substratum. The more complex the original number of social elements in the substratum, the more flexible and independent the collective Vorstellungen are with respect to changes in the group or in society. This is how Durkheim accounts for the fact that certain social organs can handle a wide range of diverse functions (for example, business organizations can adapt to economical and political changes). Likewise, different parts of the brain can control many different tasks. It is important to understand that the three natural levels we found matter, the individual psyche, and the collective psyche are always interconnected. The effect of a synthesis on one level, can subsequently become a cause for changes in the different substrata. Also, changes in a certain substratum can have an effect on all higher levels of the continuum. Thus, the body can be affected by individual and by collective Vorstellungen (for instance, blood pressure will rise because of certain exciting thoughts or practices). But theses changes can, in turn, affect the different levels of Vorstellungen (so that, for example, our opinions of health will change). Likewise, individual (as well as collective) Vorstellungen can be influenced by collective (as well as individual) Vorstellungen and by conditions of the body. The different levels form a dynamic whole. This is the gist of what constitutes Mauss description of the total social fact ([1950]1979). It is unlikely that there is any phenomenon at any level that is left untouched by phenomena of a different level. Most phenomena exist because of their interdependence with the other levels. In The Rules of Sociological Method ([1895]1982:34) Durkheim states that social life is entirely made up of representations [Vorstellungen]. Similar statements can be found in Suicide ([1897]1951) and in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life ([1912]1965). Douglas (1967), Parsons (1937) and Lukes (1972, 1982) have criticized Durkheim harshly for this claim but the nature of

38 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen their criticisms shows their misconception of Durkheim s intentions. Meštrović (1985, 1988c) shows that these authors still hold the idea that collective Vorstellungen are Vorstellungen of individuals. Durkheim, on the contrary, stresses time after time that collective Vorstellungen are of a different kind than individual Vorstellungen. One individual can never be the substratum of a collective Vorstellung. He or she has (only) an individual and therefore personally colored, i.e. distorted, interpretation of the collective Vorstellung. The latter exists only in a superindividual flux and is not the property of one single individual. If there is nothing extraordinary in the fact that individual representations, produced by the action and reaction between neural elements, are not inherent in these elements, there is nothing surprising in the fact that collective representations, produced by the action and reaction between individual minds that form the society, do not directly [the original French text says: directement (directly, immediately)] derive from the latter and consequently surpass them (Durkheim, [1924]1974, p My emphasis). For Durkheim the notion society itself is a Vorstellung. There is no society in itself. It only exists in and through individuals (Durkheim, [1912]1965). For an elaborate account of Durkheim s claim see Janssen (1991). In general, for Durkheim society contains nothing more than the individuals (Durkheim, [1924]1974, p. 29). 17 One could again interpret this idea easily in a Schopenhauerian sense. We have seen that individual Vorstellungen are yet another manifestation of the will. Just as the individual s mind they therefore take part in the will. Collective Vorstellungen in this light are the next step in a natural order, namely Vorstellungen from Vorstellungen. (This makes sense because collective Vorstellungen are indeed concepts, according to Durkheim.) These individual and collective phenomena lack sui generis substance, although ultimately they are the accidental product of matter (or substratum). Society is but a Vorstellung from Vorstellungen but at the same time is a natural manifestation of the will. It has therefore a reality of its own but could not exist without its substratum: the individuals or the individual minds. Collective life consists of collective and of individual Vorstellungen. The substratum of the collective Vorstellungen is mental, just as the collective Vorstellungen themselves. Collective life is therefore a completely mental phenomena. This is, in analogous form, a refraction a Herbart s claim that mental life reduces itself entirely to representations [Vorstellungen] (in Meštrović, 1985). 18 To be sure: Individual life in this sense is not entirely representational / mental because here the substratum is physical. Because of its transcendental character and because of the fact that it is the product of many elements, the Vorstellung has a power that exceeds the power of every single element in the substratum. From this the Vorstellung obtains its obligatory or coercive character. In the same sense, the collective 33

39 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Vorstellung is most often more obligatory than the individual counterpart. Again we must stress that obligation or duty is not the most important aspect of the Vorstellung. The point is that the Vorstellung influences the substratum from the outside with relatively great force. Exteriority, thing-ness, constraint and obligation are signs of a Vorstellung, but they are not the all-determining characteristics (Meštrović, 1985). We can recognize (especially collective) Vorstellungen by means of these indicators but they cannot define the former completely. Similarities to Wundt We have already pointed out that during the years , Durkheim studied under Wundt, in Leipzig (Germany). Nearly all that is known about this study, is that Durkheim was impressed by the experimental research in Wundt s psychological laboratory, the institute s initiation of a journal to publish the research results, and Wundt s strategy of gathering co-workers (Farr in Farr & Moscovici, 1984, p. 126). Strangely enough, very few scholars seem to pay attention to the fact that, especially during this time, Wundt lectured (besides logic) on ethics, the German idealistic philosophers, and Völkerpsychologie in general (Sokal in Bringmann & Tweney, 1980; Wundt, 1920). It seems obvious that Durkheim must have taken notice of these aspects of Wundt s teachings too. 19 If we compare Durkheim s ideas with Wundt s psychology, we cannot fail but notice the intriguing similarities. Haeberlin (in Rieber, 1980) summarizes Wundt s position as follows: no psychic phenomena is merely the sum of the component sensational and emotional elements. Invariably it is something new over and above the sum of the parts that enter into the compound. ( ) All psychic phenomena are, therefore, creative products of synthesis: they are, when seen from this point of view, acts of will 20 (p Original italics, my emphasis). 34 The creative synthesis which characterizes the intrinsic nature of all psychic compounds, and of all interconnections of these compounds in the psyche of the individual, is found repeated, according to Wundt, in a strictly analogous way, but on a higher level of evolution in the psychic life of the community or the folk. The reality of the folk soul is involved in the extension of this principle beyond the individual psyche. As the psyche of the individual is built up in the form of a progression of superimposed syntheses, so the folk soul is a synthesis of syntheses: it is something creatively new, not equal to the sum of its elements, that is to say, of the individuals of which it is composed (p.234. My emphasis).

40 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Wundt stresses that Soul (Seele) refers to a real, psychic experience, but in the form of an actuality, not a substance. The reality of the Folk Soul (Volksseele) draws upon the same principle. According to Haeberlin: Now the psychic facts of the overindividual group, as empirical facts, are according to Wundt as real as the psychic life of the individual. Therefore, so argues Wundt, the term soul is equally justifiable and equally applicable in the case of folk psychological phenomena as it is in that of individual psychology. ( ) Therefore, the folk soul as an actuality is a reality (p Original italics). This short passage is chockfull of similarities to Durkheim s theory. Analogous to Wundt, Durkheim argues over and over again for the sui generis reality of the collective consciousness. That this concept is very likely a refraction of Wundt s Folk Soul becomes clear from a remark André Lalande makes. Lalande, who was Durkheim s colleague in the French Philosophical Society, claims that Durkheim used the term conscience collective more as soul (âme) or spirit (esprit) than as the Anglo Saxon consciousness (Meštrović, 1985). The concept of Folk Soul comes very close to Lazarus and Steinthal s Folk Spirit (Volksgeist). For Lazarus and Steinthal the Folk Spirit is a refraction of the bigger Collective Spirit (Gesamtheitsgeist) (Kalmar, 1987). Wundt makes no clear distinctions between Folk Soul, Folk Spirit and even Folk Will (Haeberlin in Rieber, 1980). In addition, Wundt s psychic facts of the overindividual group are extremely similar to Durkheim s faits sociaux, that is empirical and real facts. Also Haeberlin writes: This is the line of thought that induces Wundt to postulate folk psychology as an independent science, with its own particular realm of problems. Its existence is as justified as that of individual psychology. Wundt defines it as the study of the folk soul (p. 235). A remarkably similar argument to establish an independent study of grouppsychological phenomena, is found in the last paragraph of Durkheim s ([1924]1974) essay, but even more clearly in The Rules of Sociological Method: society is not the mere sum of individuals, but the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics ( ) The group thinks, feels and acts entirely differently from the way its members would if they were isolated. If therefore we begin by studying these members separately, we will understand nothing about what is taking place in the group. In a word, there is between psychology and sociology the same break in continuity as there is between biology and the physical and chemical sciences. Consequently, every time a social phenomenon is directly explained by a psychological 35

41 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen phenomenon, we may rest assured that the explanation is false (Durkheim, [1895]1982, p. 129). This casts a very different light on Durkheim s stand in the debate between sociology and psychology. As for Wundt, sociological phenomena exist for Durkheim in a unique, natural domain and they ask for a unique, specific approach. Much like psychology studies the phenomena and facts pertaining to individual (un)consciousness or spirituality, so sociology should, in analogous way, study the facts and phenomena of the collective (un)consciousness or hyperspirituality (Durkheim [1924]1974). Durkheim neither rejects psychology nor sociology. He does not reduce sociology to psychology, nor does he contrary to what Lukes (1972) claims bring psychology down to sociology (Alpert, [1939]1993). Both disciplines study but another aspect of the same natural, social scientific continuum. In this sense they exist next to each other and add to one another. With respect to Wundt, Haeberlin writes: The folk soul is by definition an overindividual synthesis. The psychic phenomena of the folk soul are by definition not contained in the psyche of the individuals as such, but immediate psychic experience is -again by definition- confined to the consciousness of the individual (in Rieber, 1980, p. 236). How many times does Durkheim argue that the collective conscience transcends the individual consciences, but that at the same time it can only exist in and through individuals (Janssen, 1991)? Consequences for the concept of homo duplex 36 Re-reading Durkheim s writings on représentations in the proposed light of this contextual reading of Vorstellung also holds consequences for the interpretation of his concept of homo duplex, or the dualism of human nature. Too often it is thought that Durkheim mainly used this concept to refer to the duality of nature vs. nurture, biology vs. culture or the body vs. the mind. A careful reading especially of his [1914]1960 essay on The Dualism of Human Nature and its Social Conditions shows however, that homo duplex is basically about the opposition between different kinds of Vorstellungen: on the one hand the individual, and on the other hand the collective Vorstellungen. In other words, the duality exists at a mental level, or using Durkheim s own words: These two aspects of our psychic life are, therefore, opposed to each other as are the personal and the impersonal (Durkheim, [1914]1960, p My emphasis).

42 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen It is not without reason therefore, that man feels himself to be double: he actually is double. There are in him two classes of states of consciousness that differ from each other in origin and nature, and in the ends to which they aim (p My emphasis). Durkheim had made a similar claim 21 years earlier, in The Division of Labor in Society: There are in us two consciences ( ) although distinct, these two consciences are linked one to the other, since, in sum, they are only one, having one and the same organic substratum (Durkheim, [1893]1933, p My emphasis). Homo duplex is not in the first place about a duality between psychic phenomena and physiology. One could get such an impression, however, from statements like the one Durkheim (p. 238) makes: On the one hand is our individuality and more particularly, our body in which it is based; on the other is everything in us that expresses something other than ourselves. Durkheim only refers here to the body as the seat and boundary of our individuality, the substratum for our inner life. He does not use body to mean a pure biological pole of homo duplex. Or take Durkheim s (p. 327) remark: Our intelligence, like our activity, presents two different forms: on the one hand, are sensations and sensory tendencies; on the other, conceptual thought and moral activity. It seems that by sensations and sensory tendencies Durkheim refers to physiological functions. But the footnote to this phrase is crucial. Durkheim adds: To sensations, one should add images, but since images are only sensations that survive themselves, it is useless to mention them separately. The same is true for those conglomerations of images and sensations which are called perceptions. 37 Clearly by images, perceptions and in this case also by sensations 21 he is referring to Vorstellungen, that is, to mental phenomena. It is these phenomena

43 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen 38 of different worlds of the individual and the collective conscience that collide and cause the painful human nature Durkheim describes in his [1914]1960 essay. Homo duplex is thus about the wants and needs of the individual as opposed to those of the social group. Still one could argue that individual wants and needs pertain to the body, supposedly like Freud s drives or instincts. Simon (1978) and Meštrović (1993a) on the other hand have pointed out that even for Freud drives are in essence Vorstellungen, mental correspondents to bodily functions, but not biological processes themselves. Likewise Danziger (in Rieber, 1980, p. 98) gives the following quote from Wundt: The course of both general ( ) and individual development shows that drives are the fundamental psychic phenomena from which all mental development originates (my emphasis). Schopenhauer, Wundt, Durkheim and Freud all would agree that drives, but also (other) Vorstellungen, involve mind and body simultaneously. As we have seen earlier, (individual) Vorstellungen form a bridge between the subjective sensations or perceptions and the objective concepts. They are in part dependent on the body; they always involve a bodily substratum. Further, Vorstellungen and the body mutually influence one another. In this sense physiology does play a part in homo duplex, but the latter s tension exists between the different mental realms. In fact, Durkheim s use of homo duplex throughout his writings is somewhat complicated. Meštrović (1989a, 1987) argues that Durkheim poses a duality within a duality, a homo duplex within a homo duplex. The individual is torn between his or her egoistic and his collective, more or less altruistic concerns. But so is society: recall that society consists of collective and individual Vorstellungen. So not only is there a tension between the individual Vorstellungen of the group members (that is, of the individual minds) and the collective Vorstellungen of the group (that is, of the collective conscience), there is also a tension within the individual (and even within society) between the egoistic and social demands, wishes, motives etc. In a simple diagram it would look somewhat like figure 1. This duality within a duality can be stated in even another way: Every level in the diagram is the result of the manifestation of will. Therefore, every level of Vorstellungen is at the same time dualistic: It is Vorstellung and will. Durkheim did not use homo duplex to refer to one single duality. Instead, it is more of a dynamic that occurs in various forms. Sometimes it refers to the tension between the individual needs and the social needs, INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS Individual Vorstellungen Collective Vorstellungen Collective Vorstellungen Individual Vorstellungen Figure 1. Homo duplex within a homo duplex.

44 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen sometimes to the opposition between thoughts of the different origins within one individual, yet in other instances it refers to something like the sacred vs. the profane, the heart vs. the mind, egoism vs. altruism / compassion, justice vs. mercy or similar refractions of homo duplex (see, for example, Meštrović, 1993a). To a western scholar, biased to search for the one unambiguous truth, this may seem odd. We must bear in mind, however, that Durkheim was the son of a German Rabbi. One can trace Jewish philosophy including Talmudic thought and Kabbalistic mysticism throughout all of Durkheim s work. Jewish culture in general focuses on tradition, community, wholeness (Alpert, [1939]1993). Therefore, it is really not so hard to see where an important part of Durkheim s inspiration may have come from: Cultural concern, as promoted in Jewish philosophy, contributed to Durkheim s particular understanding of collectivity and society (Moore, 1986; Schoenfeld, 1994). Although he may have had several reasons for downplaying his religious background (as Durkheim did later in his life) it would be impossible to not always bear the stamp of ones formative years (Meštrović, 1988a). At least not, if we follow the theories of Durkheim s own time. Besides, even when Durkheim claims that he was heavily influenced by the British orientalist Robertson Smith, we must not forget that the latter wrote The Religion of the Semites (1894)! With respect to Durkheim s multi-dimensional use of homo duplex we find a strikingly similar idea in the Kabbalah. Although we do not mean to imply that this idea exactly covers all the different meanings that Durkheim gives to homo duplex, it is worthwhile to give the entire Kabbalistic diagram of the Sefirot (the diagram of Spheres) to illustrate their relatedness (figure 2). The ten interconnected spheres represent various dimensions of reality (see also Scholem, 1974, p. 146). Some spheres are opposites, but notice how many dualities are united in the one System. This system as a whole stands for Totality (or God). This is exactly the same category Durkheim labels as the most important, even sacred in his Elementary Forms of the Religious Life ([1912]1965)! Interestingly enough, according to the Kabbalah the diagram is often also believed to represent the primordial human (homo): Adam Kadmon. The connecting channels are filled with spiritual energy. In the middle of all antagonists there is balance, harmony or synthesis. Again, these concepts are highly important throughout Durkheim s writings. 22 From all this we can reinforce our assumption that for Durkheim homo duplex is a dynamic principle rather than one single tension between something physical and something psychical. In general, however, it always pertains to a duality of Vorstellungen, even if they have their basis in the physical body. Still scholars sometimes tend to call Durkheim a materialist. 39

45 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Figure 2. The diagram of the Sefirot (based on Hoffman, 1981, pp , 204). 40 Durkheim s critics Lukes (1972) sees in Durkheim s theory several ambiguities. He claims that [Durkheim] repeatedly denied reifying or hypostasizing society and wrote that there is nothing in social life that is not in individual consciences; on the other hand, he did use terms such as conscience collective and l ame collective and wrote of that conscious being which is society ( ) a sui generis being with its own special nature, distinct from that of its

46 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen members, and a personality of its own different from individual personalities (p.11. Original italics). We have tried to show that Durkheim did not reify society, but instead claimed that it was a Vorstellung, not a thing-in-itself, or in Wundt s terms an actuality, not a substance. The same is true for the collective conscience. In his essay on Individual and Collective Representations ([1924]1974) Durkheim makes the effort to show that the individual mind is something real and effective without actually having a sui generis substance. Who claims that the individual mind is really a thing? Likewise the collective conscience need not be reified. But it is real and it has its own nature and personality. It is but another phenomenon on the natural continuum. This last point was completely missed by Malinowski (in Lukes, 1972, p ). He sees a collective subject which thinks and creates the religious ideas as something metaphysical. But for Durkheim it is not metaphysical but instead another natural phenomenon, analogous to the individual mind. Malinowski s alternative interpretation is to understand collective Vorstellungen by individual analysis, by psychological interpretation. Ironically it is exactly these techniques that Durkheim thought invalid and illusive for the study of collective phenomena ([1924]1974). According to Malinowski: Durkheim wrote of society as an active being endowed with will, aims and desires. This was either to be interpreted as an entirely metaphysical conception, conveying no scientific meaning, or else it referred to individual experience of a certain sort, in which case it would be perfectly empirical. But the latter interpretation did not yield an objective, non-psychological set of explanations (in Lukes, 1972, p. 523). We previously showed that for Durkheim society is a concept, but as such it can be seen as a manifestation of the will. It therefore actually is endowed with will. It can and does live a life of its own. Although the will might be a metaphysical concept, its manifestations are nothing but natural. The study of these phenomena can be scientific and objective if we see them as Vorstellungen. This means, however, that we have to focus on their superindividual characteristics. To see them as entirely individual experiences completely neglects Durkheim s point. Yet this is what Parsons (1937) does, setting the tone for a still highly influential, but also highly erroneous interpretation of Durkheim. Moscovici (in Farr & Moscovici, 1984, p. 19) finds Durkheim s collective representations too limited. He sees them as an explanatory device, and [they] refer to a general class of ideas and beliefs (science, myth, religion, etc.). For Moscovici, these representations (which he calls social representations, a clear refraction of Durkheim s collective representations, although Moscovici points out that there are some major differences between his concept and Durkheim s) are phenomena which need to be described, and to be explained. Further, 41

47 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Durkheim true to the Aristotelian and Kantian tradition has a rather static conception of these representations somewhat akin to that of the Stoics (p. 18). It should be clear by now that these claims do not apply to Durkheim s intentions. He always did try to unravel, describe and explain collective Vorstellungen, and he clearly emphasized that they were not static concepts but instead dynamic processes. Ironically, Moscovici characterizes his own concept of social representations in a way that Durkheim would find limiting. Moscovici tends to make a distinction between language, culture and social representations (p. 8), while for Durkheim language and culture consists of collective Vorstellungen. Social representations are substitutes for other things or other people (p. 53), whereas for Durkheim this is only one part of the story. Vorstellungen not only substitute or symbolize, but also constitute reality. Social representations are the representations of something or of someone (p. 67), while Durkheim rejects this idea with respect to his collective Vorstellungen. For Moscovici, representations are by no means a bridge between the subject and the object. In general he tends to see collective representations as social phenomena that are imposed on the passive individual mind. In this sense the individual re-thinks and re-presents the social constructs. What Moscovici does not address is the fact that for Durkheim this imposition generates a creative process. As Durkheim puts it, from the collective Vorstellung, the individual mind has only an imperfect, blurred and even partially unconscious interpretation. Moscovici goes on to claim that we distinguish the appearance from the reality of things, but we distinguish them precisely because we can switch from appearance to reality, by means of some notion or image (p. 5, my emphasis). Durkheim argues on the contrary, following Schopenhauer, that the Vorstellung is all we have: reality is our Vorstellung. We do not aim to evaluate Moscovici s concept of social representations here. We merely want to make the reader sensitive to the fact that Moscovici s social representationalism diverges significantly from Durkheim s theory. We therefore must be careful not to uncritically apply the same criticism of social representations to Durkheim s collective Vorstellungen. Implications 42 There is a tendency in the contemporary social studies of meaning to reject the representation as a concept that can account for the communication of meaning. Representations are seen in this respect as meaningful concepts, ready to be exchanged or internalized, much like words. According to Roland Barthes, Pierre Bourdieu, Mary Douglas and Susan Langer a major part of meaning is exchanged through non-verbal, bodily expression, through style or through other nonreflexive smooth signs we communicate, often without even knowing it (Baerveldt, 1993). They argue, and we agree, that the communication of meaning is not something that uses concepts as its exclusive vehicles, in such a way that this concept really represents the original meaning. Quite on the contrary, most

48 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen often meaning is not represented in a symbolic form that we can learn, but it is transferred in an immediate way, through channels that bypass coding in any symbolic form. The meaning of an ecstatic dance, for instance, is not to be found in the movements as if they would symbolize a certain event (as, for example, the dying swan in the famous ballet Swan lake by Tchaikovski), rather the movement itself is the whole meaning, to be understood as it is presented. There is no other way to capture this meaning, except the dance itself. The representation would thus be unable to account for those events in which meaning is expressed immediately. These kinds of objections could be made against Moscovici s theory of social representations (Farr & Moscovici, 1984). We have been trying to show, however, that this understanding of representation is not what Durkheim meant. For him, the representation was not only about mentally representing what happens around us, it was also about presenting, perceiving, and associating, in short, about Vorstellen. His concept of représentations was not tied to copying the world in our head or in our society, because this world had to be constructed mentally in the first place. This too is what Schopenhauer meant by Vorstellen. As for our ecstatic dance, this expression is full of mental phenomena. For example, the dancer could not even move, let alone dance, without mental activity, that is, Vorstellungen. The nonconceptual communication of meaning he or she expresses/presents can well be accounted for by Vorstellungen if we remember that they are not necessarily concepts. We agree with Moscovici (in Farr & Moscovici, 1984, p. 17) that the concept of the Vorstellung in this sense is very general. What is important though, is the fact that Durkheim arranges different kinds of Vorstellungen along a continuum, not only of complexity or abstraction ranging from an individual pure sensation to complex social conceptions but also of (un)consciousness. This idea, which was also basic to the much better received theories of Mead, Freud and Jung, needs to be taken seriously again, for the social theorists of the previous fin de siècle have too often demonstrated a better understanding of our contemporary age than we do ourselves. See for instance how Durkheim s wellfounded prediction of the collapse of the communist system was much more to the point than Marx s visions (Meštrović, 1991). Likewise the persistence of collective Vorstellungen and their association into new accidental products can be extremely useful to understand the still raging, horrific Balkan war (Meštrović et al., 1993b, 1993c; Meštrović, 1994). A refutation of the Vorstellung, mainly based on a flawed translation would be yet another instance of dismissing Durkheim s theory on grounds he never argued for. He was criticized and ultimately rejected for being a positivist or a materialist although he was neither of these. Now he is being dismissed because the current understanding of representations is too limited to account for a major part of human behavior, although Durkheim never limited his concept to mere mirror images of the world. Similarly, Durkheim has been criticized for reifying yet another refraction of the mind-body problem, by means of his concept of homo duplex (see Lukes, 1972). We hope to have made the reader wonder about the accuracy of these 43

49 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen claims, by showing that Durkheim wanted to bridge the mind-body gap, as well as the one between the subject and the object. To do this he used Schopenhauer s tools, the Vorstellungen. He could also draw on his Jewish background, in which the aim always was to synthesize, not to untie. This background, although obvious, has hardly ever been the object of attention. Neglecting it, or maybe even refusing to face it, blocks a true understanding of Durkheim s theory. Yet this is exactly what happened in our century, for sometimes very questionable reasons. We have further tried to show that Durkheim could not have missed the influence of the German idealistic philosophy in his epoch. We have invited the reader to take a look at the striking similarities between Durkheim s, Schopenhauer s and Wundt s theories. Take for instance their stands on perception or on the (un)conscious. We can add their refutation of the value of introspection. To still claim that Durkheim was just a French positivist really does not make sense if we consider these obvious parallels. We must become sensitive to a much broader cultural context. This should at least include Durkheim s Jewish upbringing and the prevalence of the German social sciences in particular Schopenhauer s philosophy, the Jewish origins of Völkerpsychologie, the pessimistic and anti-enlightenment fin de siècle spirit, the turmoil of the French interbellum, and the increasing anti-german as well as anti-semitic sentiments in Durkheim s milieu. Acknowledgements This paper was written during my tenure as a visiting schola r at Texas A&M Universit y. My thanks go out to Texas A&M for giving me the opportunity to work on this paper and to Professor Dudley Poston, head of the Sociology Department, for providing me with all the material I needed. In particula r I wan t to express my gratitude to Professor Stjepan Meštrović for many priceless, thought provoking discussions and for kindly commenting on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank Rabbi Peter Tarlow of the TAMU Hillel Foundation for discussing Kabbalism with me. I am grat eful for the financial support from the Catholic Universit y o f Nijmegen. Special ment ion in this regard, and also with respect to many fr uitful discussions and valuable comments on earlie r drafts of the paper, goes out to the Department of the Psychology of Culture and Religion a t the Catholic University of Nijmegen: Prof. Dr. Jan van der Lans, Dr. Cor Baerveldt, Drs. Marc el Gerardts and last but not least D r. Jacques Janssen without whom the project would not have been possible. 44 Notes 1. Also modern anthropology has Jewish roots. Its main founding father and contemporary of Lazarus and Steinthal, Franz Boas, was a (German) Jew as well (Kalmar, 1987). It is a fact that Durkheim knew Boas work. 2. The reader will notice that translating the French représentations from and into German and English invokes similar difficulties. For example, see Lukes (1972, p. 3). 3. For the interested reader, we refer to Kitcher (1990). She deals with Vorstellung in the writings of Kant, Leibniz, Wolff, Locke and Hume.

50 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen 4. Lazarus, M. ( ). Leben der Seele, II. P Originally published in Revue de Métaphysique e t de Morale, Vol. VI, May Later issued in Sociologie et Philosophie, (1924). 6. Ribot, T. (1874). La Philosophie de Schopenhauer. Paris : Librairie Gerner Bailliere. 7. For properly considered, an objective world without a subject in whose consciousness it is present is something utterly inconceivable (Schopenhauer, [1836]1992, p. 36). 8. Ultimately knowledge is a manifestation of the will. Because of the coincidental characteristics of knowledge, it is capable of reflection. The real genius will eventually understand that the will has taken itself as the object of reflection. In a strict sense this sublime knowing is the rein objektieve Anschauung (pure objective perception) (Schopenhauer, [1836]1992, p ). 9. In the case of stimuli, cause and effect are materially related. In case of motives they are immaterially related (Schopenhauer, [1839]1985, p. 39). (Compare this to Wundt s physical causality vs. psychical causality (see, for example, Blumenthal in Rieber, 1980, p. 123)). 10. Schopenhauer further distinguishes between the intuitive (anschauliche) and the abstract, conceptualized motives. The former deal with actual and present causes, the latter are Vorstellungen that have come loose from the immediate events and environment. Man is distinguished from animals by his capacity to use abstract motives, that is, thought. 11. This term can be translated into English as consciousness, but also as conscience. 12. Alpert ([1939]1993) shows that Durkheim used many different connotations with respect to individual. The individual as an element in the social mind, as we use it here, refers to the isolated, organico-physic individual, the individual qua individual, but considered as he would be were he to live in complete isolation (p. 136, original italics). Of course, no real, socio-cultural imbedded person fits this description. He or she is more accurately referred to as the organico-psychicosocial individual, the real person, the individual as he [or she] really is, as a member of society and as a complete personality, the real being considered as such (p. 36). The former is only an abstraction, the latter the real person. Durkheim makes this distinction between the hypothetical individual(ity) and the real person(ality) too. See, for example, The Elementar y Forms of the Religious Life ([1912]1965) and The Division o f Labor in Society ([1893]1933). When we here refer to individual we mean the individual qua individual. We know that this is an abstraction, but we only use it to help us to make our argument. 13. Notice: Vegetative functions of the human and animal body are unconscious as well. That is because they are not immediately connected to the brain, Schopenhauer writes. 14. For Durkheim consciousness is the apprehension of a given state by a given subject (Durkheim, [1924]1974, p. 20). Schopenhauer defines consciousness as our becoming aware of willing (Schopenhauer, [1836]1992, p. 75). 15. We deliberately say analogous because, in a strict sense, for Schopenhauer there can be no mention of a stimulus when the impulse immediately affects the brain. Autonomous life functions are being characterized by stimuli because they form a part of a nerve system that has no immediate access to the brain. If there is such an immediate connection, than we are dealing with motives, says Schopenhauer. Therefore, strictly speaking, dispositions of the brain cells cannot be called 45

51 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen stimuli, despite the fact that the movement is the immediate result of the body s anatomy. 16. It is interesting to take a look at Wundt s definition of a pure sensation: Simple sensations, in the consideration of which we abstract from the accompanying affective elements, are called pure sensations (Wundt, 1897, p. 37). The concept pure sensation ( ) is the product of a twofold abstraction: (1) from the ideas in which the sensation appears, and (2) from the simple feelings with which it is united. We find that pure sensations, defined in this way, form a number of disparate systems of quality; each of these systems, such as that of sensations of pressure, of tone, of light, is either a homogeneous or a complex continuity from which no transition to any other system can be found (Wundt, 1897, p. 38). 17. In the footnote Durkheim states: At least, individuals are the only active elements. More correctly, society also comprises things. 18. As far as the collective realm is concerned, this remark is without doubt valid. When applied to the individual psychic life, we must be more careful, however. The preconditions for the individual mind will always be an organic substratum. One can argue whether (brain)matter already has to be accounted for as the mind or not. Schopenhauer will answer in the affirmative, Durkheim seems to be somewhat more reserved. 19. As one of few scholars, P. Gisbert addresses in some length Wundt s influence on Durkheim in his article Social Facts and Durkheim s System, Anthropos (1959) 54, Haeberlin writes: To Wundt the will is not a metaphysical concept as it is to Schopenhauer. It is rather a principle that states the fundamental nature of all psychic life, from the simplest to the most complex processes (in Rieber, 1980, p. 229). Apart from this starting point, however, Wundt uses will in a way very similar to Schopenhauer. 21. Note that Durkheim does not write pure sensations. Their status could still be somewhat ambiguous. They could still pertain to something mere physiological, if at all. But Durkheim only writes sensations. Is he very carefully referring to processes that are without doubt Vorstellungen? 22. For example, as Meštrović (1993a) points out: Durkheim, following Schopenhauer, sought to balance both poles of homo duplex. He did not posit that one pole would eventually overthrow the other (as did, for instance, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Rousseau and Nietzsche). References 46 Alpert, H. 1993[1939]. Émile Durkheim and his Sociology. Brookfield: Gregg Revivals. Baerveldt, C Het lege lijf: Een cultuurpsychologische studie naar lichaamsexpressie en lichaamservaring in relatie tot eetstoornissen. Unpublished Master s Dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen. Bourdieu, P The Logic of Practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bringmann, W. G. and R. D. Tweney. (Eds.) Wundt studies. Toronto: C.J. Hofgreve. Deploige, S. 1907a. Le conflict de la morale et de la sociologie. Revue néoscolastique, 14,

52 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Deploige, S. 1907b. Responses aux lettres de M. Durkheim. Revue néoscolastique, 14, Douglas, J The Social Meaning of Suicide. New York: Princeton University Press. Dunkel, H. B Herbart and Herbartianism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Durkheim, E. 1933[1893]. The Division of Labor in Society. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, E. 1982[1895]. The rules of sociological method. Pp in S. Lukes (Ed.), Durkheim: The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, E. 1951[1897]. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, E Lettres au directeur de la Revue néo-scolastique. Revue néo-scolastique, 14, , Durkheim, E. 1965[1912]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, E. 1960[1914]. The dualism of human nature and its social conditions, in K. H. Wolff, Emile Durkheim A Collection of Essays with Translations and Biography. Colombia: Ohio State University Press. Durkheim, E. 1974[1924]. Individual and Collective Representations. Pp in Sociology and Philosophy. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, E. 1985[1924]. Soziologie und Philosophie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Ellenberger, H The Discovery of the Unconscious. New York: Basic Books. Farr, R. and S. Moscovici (Eds.) Social Representations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goldziher, I. 1967[1877]. Mythology among the Hebrews. New York: Cooper Square Publishers. Hoffman, E The Way of Splendor. Jewish Mysticism and Modern Psychology. Boulder: Shambhala. Janik, A. and S. Toulmin Wittgenstein s Vienna. New York: Simon & Schuster. Janssen, J Durkheim als cultuurpsycholoog. Pp in A. Felling and J. Peters (Eds.), Cultuur en Sociale Wetenschappen. Nijmegen: I.T.S. James, W. 1950[1890]. Principles of Psychology. New York: Dover Press. Jones, E The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Vol.I, II & III. New York: Basic Books. Jones, R. A The positive science of ethics in France : German influences on De la division du travail social. Sociological Forum, 9(1), Kalmar, I The Völkerpsychologie of Lazarus and Steinthal and the modern concept of culture. Journal of the History of Ideas, 48, Kitcher, P Kant s Transcendental Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press. Lalande, A Allucation. Pp in Centenaire de la Naissance d Émile 47

53 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen 48 Durkheim. Paris : Annales de l Université de Paris. Lehman, J. M Durkheim and Women. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Lukes, S Émile Durkheim. His Life and Work. New York: Harper and Row. Lukes, S Durkheim: The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method. New York: The Free Press. Magee, B The Philosophy of Schopenhauer. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mauss, M. 1979[1950]. Sociology and Psychology. London: Routledge. Merton, R. K Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe: The Free Press. Meštrović, S. G Durkheim s concept of the unconscious. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 5, Meštrović, S. G Durkheim s renovated rationalism and the idea that collective life is only made of representations. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 6, Meštrović, S. G Durkheim s concept of anomie considered as a total social fact. British Journal of Sociology, 38(4), Meštrović, S. G. 1988a. Émile Durkheim and the Reformation of Sociology. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Meštrović, S. G. 1988b. Durkheim, Schopenhauer and the relationship between goals and means: Reversing the assumptions in the parsonian theory of social action. Sociological Inquiry, 58(2), Meštrović, S. G. 1988c. The social world as will and idea: Schopenhauer s influence upon Durkheim s thought. Sociological Review, 36(4), Meštrović, S. G. 1989a. Schopenhauer s will and idea in Durkheim s methodology. Pp in Glassner, B. and J. D. Moreno. (Eds.). The Qualitative-quantitative Distinction in the Social Sciences. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Meštrović, S. G. 1989b. Reappraising Durkheim s Elementary Forms of the Religious Life in the context of Schopenhauer s philosophy. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 28(3), Meštrović, S. G The Coming Fin de Siècle. London: Routledge. Meštrović, S. G Durkheim and Postmodern Culture. Hawthorne: Aldine de Gruyter. Meštrović, S. G. 1993a. The Barbarian Temperament. London: Routledge. Meštrović, S. G The Balkanization of the West. London: Routledge Meštrović, S. G.., with M. Goreta and S. Letica. 1993b. The Road from Paradise. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. Meštrović, S. G. 1993c. Habits o f the Balkan Heart. College Station: Texas A&M University Press. Moore, D. D David Émile Durkheim and the Jewish response to modernity. Modern Judaism, 6(3), Parsons, T The Structure of Social Action. Glencoe: Free Press. Rieber, R. W. (Ed.) Wilhelm Wundt and the Making of a Scientific Psychology. New York: Plenum Press. Schoenfeld, E Social covenant and social contract: The impact of Judaism of Durkheim s theory. Paper presented to the Society for the Scientific

54 Chapter 2 Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen Study of Religion, Albequerque, New Mexico. Scholem, G Kabbalah. New York: Quadrangle / The New York Times Book Co. Schopenhauer, A. 1992[1813]. On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. La Salle: Open Court. Schopenhauer, A. 1969[1818]. The World as Will and Representation, Vol.I & II. New York: Dover Publications. Schopenhauer, A. 1992[1836]. On the Will in Nature. New York: Berg. Schopenhauer, A. 1985[1839]. On the Freedom of the Will. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Simon, B Mind and Madness in Ancient Greece. The Classical Roots of Modern Psychiatry. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Smith, W. Robertson Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. London: Adam and Charles Black. Wundt, W. M Outlines of Psychology. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Wundt, W. M. 1910[1874]. Principles of Physiological Psychology, Vol. I. New York: Macmillan. Wundt, W. M The Principles of Morality and the Departments of the Moral Life. New York: Macmillan. Wundt, W. M Erlebtes und Erkanntes. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner. Zijderveld, A De Theorie van het Symbolisch Interactionisme. Meppel: Boom. Zijderveld, A. 1974[1966]. Institutionalisering. Een Studie over het Methodologisch Dilemma der Sociale Wetenschappen. Meppel: Boom. 49

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56 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory This article was published in Sociological Theory, journal of the American Sociological Association, Vol. 15 (3), Journal abstract By studying Durkheim through a Schopenhauerian lens, the one-sidedly cognitivist and functionalist reception of his social theory can be balanced. Durkheim explicitly rejected such monistic interpretations. His dialectical approach was always aimed at an essentially dualistic perception of man and society, wherein the lower pole, the individual, is central. In Durkheim s symbol theory, this position leads to two kinds of symbols: symbols that are bound to the human body, here called this and that symbols, and symbols people can choose freely, here called this for that symbols. This twofold symbol theory can already be found in medieval philosophy (e.g. Dante Alighieri) as well as in the work of Paul Ricoeur. For Durkheim the human person is the symbol par excellence. By implication the rituals in which the person is (re)constructed, that is the rites of passage, should be central. The here presented interpretation opens up new perspectives for a more psychological interpretation of Durkheim s sociology. 51

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58 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory Bringing the symbolism of the body back in Jacques Janssen & Theo Verheggen Durkheim s explicit rejection of, in particular, a functionalist approach within sociology often remains unnoticed. In Durkheim s view ([1911]1953, p. 91), society should not be represented as an organized body of vital functions, because it leads to reductionism. The striking point is that in that body lives a soul (p. 93). That soul should be the object to be analyzed. In his introduction to the English translation of Durkheim s Sociology and Philosophy, Peristiany acknowledges Durkheim s rejection of functionalism but he characterizes Durkheim s theory as sociological spiritualism (1953, p. vii). In our view, Durkheim developed the prolegomena for a symbol theory that strikes a balance between the spiritual and the material aspects of man and society. The starting point of this symbol theory is the idea that things around us have a deeper meaning because they are the bearers of collective values. The latter are appended meanings that cannot be reduced to the thing (the bearer) itself, nor to its attributes. To use one of Durkheim s own examples: A flag, as such, is only a piece of cloth from which no emotional meaning can be derived. However, the emotional meaning of the flag can become so dramatic that people are willing to sacrifice their life for it. The flag is the bearer of the notion of collectivity; it represents the soul of society and as such the flag is sacred (Durkheim [1911]1953, p. 87). Durkheim emphasizes that every culture, and by implication every religion, is a totality of things and meanings, of matter and spirit, that only come to live in their combination. Thus, religion has a double nature : [I]t is natural as well as human and material as well as moral ; moral powers are closely akin to material things because they are conceived of in tangible forms ([1912]1995, p. 224). In addition, in discussing the importance of the emblem of the clan, Durkheim even emphasizes the constitutive aspect of the emblem: the emblem is not only a convenient method of clarifying the awareness the society has of itself: it serves to create and is a constitutive element of that awareness (p. 231). Without things there can be no meaning, and communication is impossible. At the same time, things cannot remain without meaning: people interpret the world around them and they accommodate it into a greater whole; as such, from the outset, every religion is at the same time a cosmology (p. 8). 53

59 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory Balancing the reception of Durkheim 54 Steven Lukes (1973, p. 423) pointed out that Durkheim was developing a theory of symbolism, calling it a theory with a markedly modern ring. Durkheim s legacy was preserved via symbolic anthropology (for example, Douglas [1973]) and within symbolic interactionism (Hinkle 1960, p. 279; Stone and Farberman, 1967; Byrne, 1976; Farr, 1978). 1 However, this preservation falls short in at least two important respects. We argue that traditional outlooks are based on a onesidedly cognitivist, and/or a one-sidedly relativist interpretation of Durkheim s symbol theory. As Meštrović (1992) shows, most dominant Durkheim interpretations tend to overemphasize concepts and intentions as being crucial to his work, while underestimating the vital, non-rational, intuitive side of his theory. Collective representations, for example, are often thought to be almost exclusively constructions of the mind of individuals (Farr and Moscovici, 1984, p. 67). To be sure, Durkheim does give cause for such a reading by emphasizing the cognitive meaning of the symbol. The entire Book 2 (pp ) of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life ([1912]1995) is devoted to the cognitive aspect of religion, focusing on names, beliefs, meanings, opinions, notions and words. However, what is forgotten is that, for Durkheim, collective representations essentially find their origin in highly emotional even ecstatic collective gatherings (p ). As such, they are not deliberate constructions. Meštrović (1992) reverses the popular notion that cognitions and conceptions are crucial for Durkheim by claiming, instead, that perceptions, pertaining to immediate experience and intuition, are the more important phenomena. They form the other side of the representation, because they pertain to the heart, not to the mind. In addition, Durkheim not only underlined the emotional aspect of the symbol, he also emphasized the behavioral aspect. People have to act, and rituals are of crucial importance in the formation of social life. The other aspect that has been overstressed is the idea that there is no intrinsic relation between the bearer of a message and the message itself; in other words: anything can mean anything. Essentially, this leads back to a functionalist interpretation: Things are reduced to their symbolic function. A churinga is simply the bearer of the clan emblem; the stone, as such, is irrelevant. According to Lévi-Strauss (1963, p. 60), who advanced this interpretation, Durkheim s totemism must be characterized as a contingent explanation based on arbitrary signs and also as a functionalist theory of totemism (totémisme fonctionaliste as the original French title of chapter 3 reads). In the wake of such a position, a relativist and a cross-cultural approach follow. Relativism is implied in the idea that any arbitrary object may come to symbolize any arbitrary concept (cf. Geertz, 1973); in short: anything goes. To 1 It is remarkable that these authors, who all emphasize Durkheim s significance as a pioneer of symbolic interactionism, do not refer to each other. Apparently, a symbolist outlook on Durkheim is not an ongoing tradition. It has to be discovered over and over again.

60 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory be sure, Durkheim s outlook on culture is relativist in a way. Over and over again, he stresses that the meaning of things is not determined a priori: The sacredness exhibited by the thing is not implicated in the intrinsic properties of the thing: it is added to them (Durkheim, [1912]1995, p. 230; see also Durkheim [1911]1953, p ). But, as we hope to demonstrate, there is clearly a neglected non-relativist element in his sociology, too. In a sense, Durkheim is also cross-culturally oriented. In his view humankind is a product of history whose nature varies geographically and over time (Durkheim in Lehmann, 1993, p. 68). However, Durkheim was at the same time looking for universal aspects and elements of human behavior. The title of his 1912 masterpiece reveals at least a more general outlook: he is searching for elementary forms, not just cultural differences. Lévi-Strauss (1962, p. 138) recognized what he calls le meilleur Durkheim ( the better Durkheim ), the Durkheim who speaks of the formal character of the human mind, not influenced by the particular organization of society. Of course, Lévi-Strauss s better Durkheim resembles Lévi-Strauss, whose approach is based upon the universal characteristics of the human mind. But this approach is explicitly and onesidedly cognitivist, as summarized in Lévi-Strauss famous dictum: animals are good to think (1963, p. 89). Durkheim would have endorsed Tambiah s (1969) extension of Lévi-Strauss s totemistic theory that reads animals are good to prohibit. Our mapping of the world is always normatively and emotionally founded. In Durkheim s terms, any cosmology is a religion. In this process, not just the mind but in fact the whole human body is involved. Mary Douglas (1973) rightly put forward the human body as a natural symbol, but in her view, again, cross-cultural variation is central. She criticizes Lévi-Strauss for his universalistic point of view. In our opinion, it is not Lévi-Strauss s universalistic approach but his limitation to cognitive processes that contradicts Durkheim s symbol theory. We believe that it is possible to offer a reading that has the best of both worlds, so to speak; one that balances the elements dealt with above, for they all are indeed significant in Durkheim s rather complex symbol theory. In this reading, the human body will be attributed the role of the central, constitutive, and universal element for any culture or society. Studying Durkheim through a Schopenhauerian lens Our starting point in balancing the outlook on Durkheim s symbol theory is Meštrović s (1991; 1993) interpretation of Durkheim. In Meštrović s view, Durkheim s thought is a reflection of the fin-de-siècle spirit, ubiquitous in the Middle-European social scientific climate of a century ago. In this climate, Schopenhauer was the most influential philosopher (Simmel, [1907]1986; Ellenberger, 1970). Without discussing Schopenhauer s philosophy in detail (for a discussion of Schopenhauer s influence on Durkheim, see Meštrović 1988, 1989a; Verheggen 1996 [chapter 2 in this volume]), it is important to note that 55

61 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory 56 Schopenhauer proposes a fundamental unity between the principle of living and being the will and its epistemological counterpart the representation. For Schopenhauer, the world is will and representation. In this antagonistic unity, the lower pole is associated with the will, with matter, instincts, the body, emotions, the profane, and nonrationality. The higher pole, the representation, is associated with the mind, reflection, reason, the sacred, and culture in the sense of civilization. A refraction of this antagonistic unity is Durkheim s notion of the dualism of human nature ([1914]1960), or homo duplex a tension-filled truce between the strivings of the individual and the demands of society. According to Meštrović (1991; 1993), the crucial point is that for Schopenhauer and Durkheim the lower pole of this dualism is stronger than the higher pole. At the same time, the fin-de-siècle version of the homo duplex doctrine also holds that both poles are always important: matter and mind, emotion and reason, individual and society, and so forth. Therefore, reason and cognition can never fully overcome the lower instincts and emotions. As such, the fin-de-siècle view is a direct reaction against the influential Enlightenment ideals in which reason was thought to triumph over passion. Meštrović s interpretation sheds new light on Durkheim s starting points and therefore on his whole work. It enables us to counterbalance the common opinion, predominant in the Anglo-American literature, that Durkheim was a strict follower of the Enlightenment ideals, and a scholar true to the tradition of Kant, Hegel, and Comte. Of course, there is a kernel of truth to these views, but there is another equally if not more important center of gravity in Durkheim s thought. This is the anti-enlightenment fin-de-siècle spirit, in line with Schopenhauer s anti-rationality stand. One can deduce several principles from this view that are relevant to our study of Durkheim s symbol theory. As Meštrović has shown convincingly in his 1997 book on Postemotional Society, these insights can also help us better understand our own era. He extrapolates Durkheim s emphasis on emotions to counterbalance popular, postmodern studies of Western culture in which the role of emotions is downplayed or even neglected. Instead, Meštrović contends, in order to give a completer account for our societies, one has to understand how our emotions become manipulated by the media and by politicians. Below, we want to give another twist to this striking use of Durkheim s sociology by focusing on the role of the act, the ritual (in particular the funeral rite) in our own fin-de-siècle. But let us first focus on the role Durkheim attributed to the lower pole of the homo duplex. Durkheim s emphasis on the lower pole The lower pole of humankind s double nature is associated with the principle of living, with the body and with bodily functions. Throughout Durkheim s entire

62 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory magnum opus on the elementary forms of religious life ([1912]1995), these elements are perceptible. Much like Schopenhauer, Durkheim starts out on the notion that life is above all to act for the pleasure of acting ([1911]1953, p. 86). This is a clear refraction of the Schopenhauer s claim that life is a manifestation of the will whose aim it is to live, for the sake of living itself ([1818]1969; [1836]1992). Living (vivre) as such becomes the preamble for both thinkers, without immediately tying to it a cognitive meaning or a practical function. This noncognitivist and nonfunctionalist attitude manifests itself in yet another way, namely in the primacy given to acting over thinking. A profound illustration of this point is Durkheim s emphasis on praxis in religion. The true function of religion is not to make us think, but to make us act and help us live ; what people do is more important than what people think, It is action that dominates religious life ([1912]1995, p. 419, 421). Only when the whole human body is involved in the acting out of a ritual is the creation of symbols and the creation, in fact, of the life world possible. Morals are created in an effervescent atmosphere, on the clouds of ecstasy. In contrast to Weber s approach, Durkheim s theory of religion has been strikingly characterized as a big bang theory (Champion & Hervieu-Léger, 1990, p ). The act brings us to its vehicle the body. Here again, one finds Schopenhauerian elements in Durkheim s 1912 classic. Similarly to Schopenhauer s conceptualizing blood as the primary representation of the will to life, blood is for Durkheim a sacred liquid in itself ( [1912]1995, p. 125, , 307), as already observed by Meštrović (1989b). Although Durkheim stresses in a number of places that things that bear meaning do not posses this meaning intrinsically, he seems to make an exception for the body as the bearer of life itself. Blood, hair, and bodily fat take part as pars pro toto in the sacredness of the body. This focus on the body is not only ubiquitous in The Elementary Forms; it can be found throughout Durkheim s whole oeuvre. For instance, Durkheim claims that the body is the ultimate substratum for society. He argues often that society only exists in and through individuals, which is to say, only by means of collective representations penetrating the individual s conscience (Durkheim, [1885a]1978, p. 97; [1885b]1975, p ; [1887]1975, p. 304; [1893]1984, p. 39, 287, 287n16; [1898]1982, p ; [1900]1960, p. 363; [1906a]1953, p. 55; [1906b]1973, p ; [1912]1995, p. 211, 252, 351; [1914]1960, p. 325; [1955]1983, p. 97). 2 The individual is the cornerstone of society, or culture; at the same time, society adds a new dimension to this substratum. Every society, every culture imprints its own characteristics on the members (i.e., individuals here) that it 57 2 The formula is almost identical each time and reads: La société n existe que dans et par les individus. Strictly speaking, the individual is an abstraction and refers to a human being isolated from culture, which is not really a human being but merely a blank body (Alpert, [1939]1993; Filloux, 1965/66). Only when Durkheim talks about a person does he mean a true human being, that is the encultured body.

63 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory comprises. Collective phenomena, such as traditions, habits, and language are not only interwoven with phenomena at the level of the individual psyche, they are also incarnated in the individual s body. A similar idea has become significant in contemporary culture theory, for example, in the habitus concept (Bourdieu, 1990). Culture shapes the body, and vice versa. The crux of Durkheim s argument is that the socio-culturally embedded body in other words the combination of organism and adherence to culture (referred to by Mauss ([1979]1950) as the total social fact ) constitutes the symbol par excellence: the person. This is the term Durkheim ([1912]1995) uses to define the intersection of body and culture. Durkheim s dialectical style 58 Before developing our argument further, we need to first focus attention on Durkheim s specific style of arguing. Evans-Pritchard (in Hertz, [1906]1960, p. 17) points out that contradictions can always be found in Durkheim s work because he wrote so much; a slip of the pen is inevitable in the long run. We think, rather, that several contradictions are central to Durkheim s way of arguing and indispensable for an understanding of his social theory. For example, with respect to the relationship between individual and society, it is as if Durkheim gives two versions: one for those who underestimate society and one for those who underestimate the individual. Depending on the adversary, the line of reasoning, or at least the emphasis, is altered. Particularly instructive in this connection is his use of the word but (mais). Durkheim is fond of this little word: it appears on nearly every page and often several times. We read that society is an entity in its own right, but only in and through the individuals. Then we are told that society consists of nothing except individuals, but cannot be reduced to them. This is characteristic of Durkheim. Lukes (1973, p. 34) calls his style polemic. Filloux (1965/1966, p 42) points out that the polemics were merely a form of tactics. It appears to us that Durkheim was in the habit of vehemently arguing both cases (hence the polemics) before subsequently reintegrating the two positions into his own framework (the tactics). This can be characterized as a dialectical style; as a constant search for the middle road between two previously constructed extremes. The strength of Durkheim s impressive style, which convinced a great many people, lies in his dialectical brilliance (Alpert, 1973, p. 200). Cleverly and convincingly, Durkheim walks the via media: it is in my nature to present my ideas by the point rather than by the hilt (Durkheim, [1897b]1975, p. 400). However, Durkheim s form of dialectics must be distinguished from, for instance, Hegel s. It is the via media rather than a higherlevel synthesis which Durkheim seems to pursue. The alternative that Durkheim comes up with to explain certain phenomena is not born out of two inferior theses, but rather a different (and, clearly superior for Durkheim, in terms of explanatory power) third option.

64 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory Not unjustifiably, Lukes (1973, p ) devotes a critical paragraph to Durkheim s mode of argument, suggesting that the tricks of classical rhetoric can be found throughout. Lukes (p. 32) seems to have a point in claiming that the explanations [Durkheim] reviewed may not be jointly exhaustive that the rejected explanations may not include all possible candidates except Durkheim s. However, Lukes is wrong to reproach Durkheim for reviewing and rejecting explanations that may not be mutually exclusive (ibid.). This would only be a criterion for Durkheim if the aim of the explanation were to develop a synthesis out of a thesis and an anti-thesis. Durkheim s aim, however, is the middle road, so he need not postulate that individual and society, body and mind, sociology and psychology are mutually exclusive. 3 More important, Durkheim did not postulate that they were mutually exclusive, as can be demonstrated with reference to the dichotomies of the homo duplex concept mentioned above. It is by misaligning his method with, for instance, Hegelian dialectics that people come to misinterpret his work. However controversial Durkheim s style will remain, it proved fruitful with regard to the issue at hand, since his symbol theory is yet another typical example of the dialectical argument. To be sure, when we stress the importance of the lower pole, we do so, like Meštrović (1992, p. 4) for the sake of balance. Any monism, wherein one of the poles is given primacy, is rejected by Durkheim. This is also true for his notion of symbols. Thus he starts from the symbol given as a indivisible, dualistic whole. Durkheim s twofold symbol theory Now we place Durkheim s symbol theory in a different light and try to show the merits of this alternative interpretation. The pivotal insight in Durkheim s symbol theory is to be found in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life and in two articles that render his sociology in a nutshell (Durkheim, [1911]1953; 3 One could argue whether the dichotomy Durkheim considered to be primary to human life, namely the distinction between the sacred and the profane, consists of mutually exclusive poles. One the hand Durkheim, contends that the sacred absolutely excludes the profane; no other dichotomy is that radical ([1912]1995, p. 36). However, it is possible for the profane to become sacred, albeit through a delicate operation that requires precautions and a more or less complex initiation (ibid., p. 38). Thus, the profane become[s] sacred in itself in some measure and to some extent (ibid.). It remains a complicated issue and we agree with Pickering (1984, p. 119) that on this issue dichotomies and paradoxes abound in Durkheim's thought. It is as if for Durkheim, the sacredprofane dichotomy is indeed absolute and radical on a conceptual level it makes it possible for humans to think. On a practical level, in daily life, the sacred-profane dichotomy serves as the point of reference for our mapping and categorization of our world. But the distinctions and dichotomies we thus conceive of are much more ambiguous. Thus, for instance, sometimes the body is profane, but at the same time it contains the sacred blood. We reject therefore Pickering s equation of society, culture, the soul with the sacred per se, and the individual, nature, body as profane (1984, p. 120) Sacredness and profaneness are on a practical level relative values. 59

65 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory 60 [1914]1960). Here we find Durkheim looking for a middle road between two monocausal explanations, or monisms. On is the monism that seeks to explain people s behavior toward certain objects solely in terms of the objects themselves, on a material level (specified by Durkheim as naturism ). Thus, for instance, the explanation for the sacredness of certain objects is sought in their size (mountains) or their impressiveness (thunder and lightning). Durkheim points out that this explanation does not hold: people sometimes look for sacredness in the smallest of things: in ants and worms, in sticks and stones. The other monism looks for explanations on the spiritual level, so that the meaning is all that counts ( animism ). Durkheim rejects that one-sidedness too (Durkheim [1912]1995, p ; [1914]1960). He seeks to develop a symbol theory that steers clear of both extremes. Symbols are combinations of objects and meanings, combinations of inner nature and outward appearance. Both the object and its meaning are important, but the combination is decisive. Symbolic anthropology and symbolic interactionism are right in claiming that, for Durkheim, the idea or the concept becomes anchored in a thing or an organism. At first sight, he stresses the fictional and provisional aspect of the signifier in symbols. People can use several materials to signify all kinds of things. The material itself has no meaning at all, nor does it prescribe the meaning of the symbol. Anything is suited to be sacred. To phrase this another way: the category of the sacred can be attached synthetically to any object, and sacredness is contagious. However, there is an important exception to the rule that any idea can be attached to any object, namely a category of symbols wherein the signifier has a reality of its own. This is precisely the category of symbols with which Durkheim is mainly concerned in The Elementary Forms; it is the category of things pertaining to the human body that becomes constitutive for the cultural practices of a group, including the practice of symbolizing and giving meaning itself. We already pointed out that, for Durkheim, the blood is the pars pro toto for the body and the representative of the body s life force. It seems to be the intrinsic signifier of life and sacredness. Durkheim follows Robertson-Smith s influential lectures on the Religion of the Semites (1894) in stating that blood, hair, bodily fat, and so forth all carry the notion of sacredness (Durkheim, [1912]1995). What is important here is that aspects of the body are intrinsically sacred. Why would the body deserve a specific symbolic status? An answer that forces itself out of the preceding argument is that the body is indispensable and inescapable: one cannot act, one cannot live, without taking into account and dealing with the body. If forced to choose, one s own body is the first and nearest option for symbolizing life : if the blood flows, life flows; if the body vanishes, life vanishes. It is a necessary symbol, as Durkheim seems to claim. In this respect, with regard to the human body, a relativistic view of the construction of symbols does not seem to hold. This notion is also underpinned by the fact that Durkheim regarded the person, that is the encultured individual or encultured body, as the symbol par excellence (Durkheim, [1912]1995, p ).

66 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory But what about other symbols? How can things that have no intrinsic value become important, even sacred, within the framework of a given culture? A psychological explanation based on the individual s expediency is rejected by Durkheim ([1911]1953). A functionalist sociological explanation in terms of the interests of society would then seem to be the obvious alternative. Objects would be seen as valuable and meaningful because of their contribution to the preservation of the community. But Durkheim explicitly rejects this explanation, too. Society is more than a system of organs and functions, it is the focus of an internal moral life (Durkheim [1911]1953, p. 91). 4 Durkheim mirrored Schopenhauer in asserting that life as such has meaning, for its own sake, not just in a functional sense. In that context, the combination of object and attached meaning is to a great extent arbitrary (that is, not determined by any single cause), but once the synthesis has been achieved, it governs even those who originally made it. However, the particular nature of one s own organism still stands out. Therefore, it appears that there are at least two sorts of symbols. A short illustration may clarify this idea. Two kinds of symbols: Dante Alighieri and Paul Ricoeur In his Convivio (II 2 4), Dante Alighieri contends that symbols can be constructed in two different ways, a distinction he took from the scholastic tradition of Thomas Aquinas (Hollander, 1969, p ). He distinguishes between the allegory of poets and the allegory of theologians. In the allegory of poets, the literal meaning is not important. The signifier has no meaning or reality in itself, it just serves to express the signified. So, for instance, when one says that Orpheus tamed the wild beasts by playing his flute, one only wants to express that a wise man can bring cruel people to repent (Dante s example). Orpheus does not exist, he has no flute, and he cannot tame the wild animals, which by the way do not really exist. This poetical allegory is an allegory of this for that (Singleton, 1954, p. 89): as we grasp the deeper meaning (the signified), the signifier disappears. However, Dante s own poem is not just a fantasy. His voyage, he contends, was real. This is an example of what Dante called a theological allegory. Now the signifier is real. If one says that Christ died for our sins, a moral meaning is added to a person s life. But that person is real: He was on earth, He is in heaven, as Dante believed. In this case, the allegory is an allegory of this and that (ibid.) It is interesting to note that the English translation given by Pocock reads: the center of a moral life (Durkheim [1924]1953, p. 91). Pocock added the French text in italics and between brackets: foyer d une vie morale. But the crucial adjective interne has been omitted. The original French phrase is: foyer d une vie morale interne. Mestrovic (1992) notes that the literal meaning of foyer is hearth, as in a fireplace, denoting warmth and energy, not captured by the English translation center.

67 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory By way of Dante s distinction we can illuminate the two sorts of symbols within Durkheim s thought. 5 The poetical allegory is associated with the arbitrary symbol in which any object can represent any idea or concept. But, like Durkheim, we are particularly concerned with that other variant in which the signifier is real. Dante s theological allegory can be associated with the special category of symbols we identified within Durkheim s work: symbols pertaining to the (real) human body. Its intrinsic meaning cannot be denied nor can it be arbitrarily applied to concepts. The sacred qualities attributed to many aspects of the body are inherent and inescapable. Parallel to the homo duplex concept, and in line with Durkheim s form of dialectics, the body is a symbol of this and that; both poles (the object or thing as well as the concept, holiness) are involuntary. One need not go back in time as far as Dante. A modern theory that bears great resemblance to our interpretation of Durkheim s symbol theory is found in Paul Ricoeur s work. Ricoeur distinguishes between the universe of the metaphor, that is the already purified universe of the logos, and the universe of the symbol that hesitates on the dividing line between bios and logos (in Ulin, 1984, p. 109). Let us first clarify what this means. Ulin explains that for Ricoeur bios refers to the undifferentiated force of life which is the foundation of all existence (ibid.). Although this appears to be metaphysical, Ulin writes that it is not as abstract in Ricoeur s application as it might first appear. Ricoeur is trying to show that symbols do not simply arise through human conventions or culture, but, on the contrary, have prelinguistic origins. Through the symbol, he attempts to transcend the familiar dichotomy between nature and culture by rethinking this relationship dialectically. [...] According to Ricoeur, the bios is manifested in psychoanalysis as desire or energy, while in religion it is manifested as the sacred (ibid.). 62 What is important here is Ricoeur s division between a conventional realm to which metaphors belong and a realm that is prior to the control of humanity. Symbols belong partially to the latter. This means that there is something nonconventional and primeval in the symbol, which is rooted in Life, as Ricoeur says. In other words, the [metaphor] is free invention of discourse; the [symbol] is bound to the cosmos (in Ulin, 1984,:p. 10). 6 Clearly, bios can be associated with Schopenhauer s will. This is evident from the linking of bios with nature, psychoanalytic energy, and drives. Inversely, logos can be associated with representation, convention, and so forth. According 5 We are aware of the fact that, technically speaking, allegory and symbol refer to different domains. It is beyond the scope of this article, however, to deal with this distinction in detail. Dante s allegories merely serve as an (in our view helpful) illustration of the two kinds of symbols in Durkheim s theory. 6 Again we wish to add that we merely use Ricoeur s metaphor, on the one hand, and symbol in relation to Durkheim s work on the other, to illustrate the apparent existence of two linguistic domains with different origins. We do not want to contend that metaphor, allegory, and symbol are merely synonyms.

68 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory to Ulin, Ricoeur s symbol theory is an attempt to bridge the distinction between object and subject as well as the distinction between nature and culture. That is completely in line with Durkheim s starting points: In a dialectical sense, the symbol is grounded in both the universe of the will and the universe of the representation. Again, both aspects are crucial; it is the tension between the two that counts. So we find the central idea we distinguished within Durkheim s symbol theory reflected in Ricoeur s thought. Two kinds of ritual: The nature of the funeral rite Durkheim s emphasis on the act is accompanied by the assertion that the construction of symbols is an ever ongoing process. He states that is it is necessary for the group to meet on a regular basis to create and recreate the shared symbols in rituals that is to say, in effervescent activities (Durkheim, [1912]1995). Without continual reassertion of the symbols, they would vanish: people have to speak to preserve their language. The important point is the essential role allocated to the act, rather than to a cognitive process (although the latter is, of course, indispensable): people need to do things in order to affirm and reaffirm cultural arrangements and engagements. It will require no further comment that the role of the expressive body is fundamental in these cultural acts. The effervescent rituals literally pierce one to the very marrow. For Durkheim the constitutive part of symbols is not the idea but rather the act, associated with the body, emotions, instincts in short, with the Schopenhauerian will. In other words, the constitutive part of symbols is associated with the lower pole of the homo duplex concept as used by Durkheim ([1914]1960; [1912]1995). The active nature of the continuous construction and reconstruction of symbols is beautifully demonstrated in the classic Greek semiology of the stoa (Kretzmann, 1967). There the signified, that is the meaning (for example the concept of holiness) to which the signifier (for example blood) refers, is indicated by an incomplete participle, a participium passivum imperfectum. It is called the σηµαινοµενον (sèmainomenon), which means being signified. As distinct from the participium passivum imperfectum the participium passivum perfectum is named sèmainon (σηµαινον). A speaker/reader of contemporary English might mistakenly be inclined to understand each passive participle as a perfect participle, that is a participium passivum perfectum. As a consequence, the signified is interpreted as a completed process. In the sèmainomenon we find an ancient example of the idea that the symbol is a continuous (re)construction. It also implies the notion that culture as a whole is not an end product. Each construction is continually threatened. Each construction has to be reconstructed continually, reenacted time and again. At the end of his study on religion, Durkheim distinguishes among negative, positive, and piacular rites. Negative rites deal with prohibitions that have to be observed in preparation for the central ritual, for instance people 63

69 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory 64 must fast or wash hands before the ritual. In the positive ritual people participate in the soul of the group, for instance by a communion. This central rite is accompanied by joy and enthusiasm. In the third kind of ritual, the funeral, sorrow and mourning are the central emotions. We propose another division that seems more convenient: If we distinguish two kinds of symbols, then we should start from two kinds of rituals as well. There is the ritual that (re)constructs the this for that symbol, and there is the ritual that (re)constructs the this and that symbol. Human beings, although makers of this for that symbols, are this and that symbols themselves. In our view, the primordial construction is the this and that construction of the person that takes place in rites of passage (Van Gennep, [1909]1960) through which the human being is accommodated into a symbolic order: an individual becomes a person, that is, a member of society, an encultured body. Hertz ([1906]1960) was the first to stipulate the importance of the rite of passage in his essay on the collective representation of death. Nowhere is the duality of humankind so apparent as when one of its poles vanishes. Thus, death is not just a physical event, it destroys the social being grafted upon the physical individual (p. 77). While society has done its utmost to preserve the duality of the human being, death terminates all endeavors. It is, as Hertz says, tantamount to a sacrilege (ibid.). In our perception death represents the sacrilege par excellence because in destroying the body it destroys the symbol par excellence. Consequently, society shakes on its foundation and its members tremble in despair. Durkheim underscored the importance of the funeral rite as a rite of passage and the importance of the ideas of Hertz and Van Gennep. That is striking; given that in Durkheim s theory the person is the central symbol, one would expect the rites of passage to be the central rituals. As did Durkheim, we give special attention to the funeral rite as a third kind of ritual. The sacrilege of death requires special reparation, that is, a special rite. Hertz describes the funeral as primarily a ritual of reconstruction. People refuse to accept the inevitability and irrevocability of death. They cry and mourn about the deceased body and, in doing so, about the wounded group. Nowhere else is the effervescence so intense. Durkheim ([1912]1995) and later Canetti (1962) vividly described the funeral rites of the Australian aboriginals, in which people scream and even severely wound each other, intensifying anger and grief. The dead body is central in these rites, as Hertz ([1906]1960, p. 78) says, but he adds that the last word must remain with life. Society recreates itself beyond death. The funeral rite can be described as the painful transformation of a this and that symbol into a this for that symbol. Only when the this and that symbol disappears completely, can the this for that symbol emerge. The living human being thereafter lives on as a memory, referred to by a grave, by a funeral monument, by ashes and bones. In most religions the funeral is only the first stage of a transformation process that is completed by resurrection or reincarnation. In the Christian faith, resurrection of the body is central. Only

70 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory when the body revives and reunites with the soul is the human being perfect again. 7 Since they remain separated until the final judgment, soul and body are imperfect, merely representing a this for that symbol, merely referring to each other. In the Christian faith, reconstruction is completely achieved in the resurrection of the flesh, restoring the this and that symbol on a higher level. Mutatis mutandis, the same process is completed by reincarnation. Although the this and that symbol is transformed into a this for that in the funeral, it is restored to a this and that symbol by resurrection or reincarnation. So we distinguish three kinds rituals based upon the distinction between two kinds of symbols. The funeral rite is special because it represents a combination of two kinds of ritual: a this and that symbol is transformed into a this for that symbol and in most religions the process is completed by a subsequent transformation into a this and that symbol of a higher order. Conclusion and implications A human body is always a body culturally embedded in a context. In that sense we agree with Mary Douglas (1973, p. 11), who observes that natural symbols do not exist: The meaning of the signifier is never predictable from the characteristics of the signifier as such. This does not imply, however, that the signifier is a will-less, unresisting element. On the contrary, we saw that it is an active and constitutive part of the symbol. Its importance becomes dramatically clear when the carrier of the symbol is the human body, preeminently in the case of death. Recall Durkheim s claim that society can only exist in and through individuals. Death, therefore, is the greatest threat to society and requires the most profound reparation. In those religions in which the deceased person is fully restored at a higher level, the terror of death is managed in an ultimate and complete way. In modern, technical societies, as Ariès (1983) puts it, death is denied and tabooed. Funerals are often lonely and pathetic, plastic and impersonal, with nothing left to do (Walter, 1990, p. 281). Durkheim s symbol theory calls attention to the importance of action and emotion as constituting elements of human life. There is no rational alternative for funerals as there is no rational alternative for life. It would be worthwhile to study the quality of the funeral ritual in relation to the quality of social life. In line with Durkheim s social theory, we would expect a substantial correlation. On other words, we see contemporary denial of death and the decline of the funeral rite as symptoms of today s anomic society. We can understand Alpert s (1957/58, p. 662) claim that Durkheim s polemic style of reasoning was bound to give rise to misunderstandings and, more specifically, that it many times led to the unwarranted charge that he 65 7 After resurrection the process of meaning giving is complete, that is perfect and completed ( as a participium perfectum, a sèmainon ).

71 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory 66 [Durkheim] neglected psychology and ignored biology. By contrast, bringing the body back into Durkheimian theory can revive several classic issues. It would require further investigation to deal with them fully; let us summarize two of the main implications that should be studied. First, the centrality of the human body in Durkheim s sociology opens new perspectives for a psychological interpretation of his sociology. Durkheim himself referred to his social theory as socio-psychologie or psychologie collective (Durkheim, 1893, p. 341; [1911]1924, p. 47). According to Stoetzel (1963, p. 59), who refers to Davy, Durkheim even coined the term social psychology. Filloux (1965/1966, p. 46) opts for the designation cultural psychology. Durkheim would have supported the plea of today s cultural psychology for the restoration of the body as the universal carrier of any culture (Kempen, 1996). Durkheim s theory is a prelude to ideas that emerge in modern social psychology, as formulated, for instance, in the so-called Terror Management Theory (Pyszczynski et al., 1997). According to this theory, human intellectual abilities have a survival value in that they enable people to adapt to a constantly changing environment. The same capacity creates a uniquely human problem, that is, the awareness of the unavoidability and inevitability of death. People cannot live in the face of death. They face up to the problem symbolically by developing a cultural worldview that provides self-esteem. Of course this is just a way to incorporate the body in a social theory, but is in line with Durkheim s endeavors. Durkheim and Hertz describe the funeral ritual as the recreating of society. As Hertz ([1906]1960, p. 78) put it: the collective consciousness does not believe in the necessity of death, so it refuses to consider it irrevocably. (...) The last word must remain with life. The Terror Management Theory appears to be a psychological application of Durkheim s sociology. Durkheim can be a perfect totem for this rapprochement between sociology and psychology (Meštrović, 1988, p. 18). Second, by focusing on the body, associated with drives, passions, and the will, and by giving primacy to the act instead of the thought, the concept of the unconscious becomes salient. We saw that, just as Schopenhauer, Durkheim emphasized the lower pole of human existence. Since Schopenhauer identifies the will with the unconscious (Ellenberger, 1970), one may expect Durkheim to have a notion of the unconscious, too. Meštrović (1984) demonstrates that the unconscious is indeed an important issue in Durkheim s work. With respect to its implications for science, Meštrović contends that Durkheim s concept of the unconscious has not been incorporated into sociological theory. This is because positivistic methodology assumes that everything it purports to study can be consciously observed, and that incorporation of the unconscious into research is supposedly unscientific because the unconscious cannot be observed (1988, p. 94). Remarkably, there is a very recent trend within social and cultural psychology that acknowledges the fact that the bulk of people s daily behavior is hardly if at all consciously reflected on (Greenwald & Mahzarin, 1995; Bargh, 1992). After almost a century, unconscious, automatic, and unreflected behavior

72 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory is again becoming the object of scientific investigation. For Durkheim, social science necessarily has to deal with both poles of the homo duplex, since the tension between them is the essence of the human being. The person, the symbol par excellence, is the antagonistic unity of matter and spirit, society and individual. As Durkheim might have said, the person is a this bu that symbol. References Alpert, Harry. [1939]1993. Émile Durkheim and his Sociology. Brookfield: Gregg Revivals. Alpert, Harry. 1957/1958. Émile Durkheim: Enemy of fixed Psychological Elements. The American Journal of Sociology, lxiii, Alpert, Harry Review of Émile Durkheim: His Life and Work by Steven Lukes. Contemporary Sociology, 12, Ariès, Ph The Hou r o f Our Death. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Bargh, John A The Ecology of Automaticity: Toward Establishing the Conditions Needed to Produce Automatic Processing Effects. Special Issue: Views and Varieties of Automaticity. American Journal of Psychology, 105 (2), Bourdieu, Pierre The Logic of Practice. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Byrne, Noel T Émile Durkheim as Symbolic Interactionist. Sociological Symposium, 16, Canetti, Elias Crowds and Power. New York: Viking Press. Champion, F. & D. Hervieu-Léger De l Émotion en Religions : Renouveaux et Traditions. Paris : Centurion. Dante Alighieri The Convivio of Dante Alighieri, translated by Philip H. Wicksteed. London: J. M. Dent and Sons. Douglas, Mary Natural Symbols. Pelican Books. Durkheim, Émile. [1885a]1978. Schaeffle, A., Bau und Leben des sozialen Körpers: Erster Band. In Émile Durkheim on Institutional Analysis, edited by Mark Traugott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Durkheim, Émile. [1885b]1975. La Sociology selon Guplowicz. Pp in Émile Durkheim: Textes, Volume 1, edited by Victor Karady. Paris : Les Editions de Minuit. Durkheim, Émile. [1887]1975. La Science Positive de la Morale en Allemagne. Pp in Émile Durkheim: Textes, Volume 1, edited by Victor Karady. Paris : Les Editions de Minuit. Durkheim, Émile De la Division du Travail Social. Paris: Alcan. Durkheim, Émile. [1893]1984. The Division of Labor in Society, translated by W. D. Halls. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, Émile. [1897b]1975. Lettre a Célestin Bouglé : 6 juillet Pp in Émile Durkheim: Textes, Volume 2, edited by Victor Karady. Paris : Les Editions de Minuit. 67

73 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory 68 Durkheim, Émile. [1898]1982. Letter to the Editor of the American Journal of Sociology. In The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and Its Method, edited by Steven Lukes. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, Émile. [1900]1960. Sociology and its Scientific Field. In Émile Durkheim ( ): A Collection o f Essays, with Translations and a Bibliography, edited by Kurt H. Wolff. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press. Durkheim, Émile. [1906a]1953. The Determination of Moral Facts. In Sociology and Philosophy, translated by D. F. Pockock. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. Durkheim, Émile. [1906b]1973. G. Aslan, La Morale de Guyau. Pp in Steven Lukes Émile Durkheim: His Life and Work. London: Penguin Books. Durkheim, Émile. [1911]1924. Jugements de Valeur et Jugements de Realité. In Sociologie et Philosophie, edited by Celestin Bouglé. Paris: Alcan. Durkheim, Émile. [1911]1953. Value Judgements and Judgements of Reality. In Sociology and Philosophy, translated by D. F. Pockock. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. Durkheim, Émile. [1912]1995. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, translated by Karen E. Fields. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, Émile. [1914]1960. The Dualism of Human Nature and Its Social Conditions. In Émile Durkheim ( ): A Collection of Essays, with Translations and a Bibliography, edited by Kurt H. Wolff. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press. Durkheim, Émile. [1924]1953. Sociology and Philosophy, translated by D.F. Pockock. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. Durkheim, Émile. [1955]1983. Pragmatism and Sociology, translated by J.C. Whitehouse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ellenberger, Henri E The Discovery of the Unconscious. Basic Books. Farr, Robert M On the Varieties of Social Psychology. Social Science Information, 17, Farr, Robert and Serge Moscovici (eds.) Social Representations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Filloux, J. C. 1965/1966. Notes sur Durkheim et la Psychologie. Bulletin de Psychologie, xix, Geertz, Clifford The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books. Greenwald, Anthony G. and Mahzarin R. Banaji Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes, Self-esteem, and Stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102 (1), Hertz, Robert. [1906]1960. Death and the Right Hand. Glencoe: The Free Press. Hinkle, R. Jr Durkheim in American Sociology. In Émile Durkheim ( ): A Collection of Essays, with Translations and a Bibliography, edited by Kurt H. Wolff. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press.

74 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory Hollander, R Allegory in Dante s Commedia. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kempen, Harry J. G Mind as Body Moving in Space: Bringing the Body Back into Self-Psychology. Theory & Psychology, 6 (4), Kretzmann, N History of Semantics. Pp in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. VII, edited by P. Edwards. New York: The Macmillan & The Free Press. Lehmann, Jennifer, M Deconstructing Durkheim: A Post-Post-Structuralist Critique. New York: Routledge. Lévi-Strauss, Claude Le Totémisme Aujourd hui. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France. Lukes, Steven Émile Durkheim: His Life and Work. London: Penguin Books. Mauss, Marcel. [1950]1979. Sociology and Psychology. London: Routledge. Meštrović, Stjepan G Durkheim s Concept of the Unconscious. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 5, Meštrović, Stjepan G Émile Durkheim and the Reformation of Sociology. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Meštrović, Stjepan G. 1989a. Rethinking the Will and Idea of Sociology in the light of Schopenhauer s Philosophy. British Journal of Sociology, 40 (2), Meštrović, Stjepan G. 1989b. Reappraising Durkheim s Elementary Forms of the Religious Life in the Context of Schopenhauer s Philosophy. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 28 (3), Meštrović, Stjepan G The Coming Fin de Siècle. London: Routledge. Meštrović, Stjepan G Durkheim and Postmodern Culture. Hawthorne, New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Meštrović, Stjepan G The Barbarian Temperament. London: Routledge. Meštrović, Stjepan G Postemotional Society. London: Sage. Peristiany, J. G Introduction. Pp. vii xxxii in Émile Durkheim, Sociology and Philosophy, translated by D. F. Pockock. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press. Pickering, W Durkheim s Sociology of Religion: Themes and Theories. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Pyszczynski, T., J. Greenberg, and S. Solomon Why Do We Need What We Need? A Terror Management Perspective on the Roots of Human Social Motivation. Psychological Inquiry, 8 (1), Schopenhauer, Arthur. [1818]1969. The World a s Will and Representation, vols. I and II. New York: Dover Publications. Schopenhauer, Arthur [1836]1992. On the Will in Nature. New York: Berg. Simmel, Georg. [1907]1986. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Singleton, Charles Dante s Comedia: Elements of Structure. London: The John Hopkins University Press. Smith, W. Robertson Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. London: Adam and Charles Black. 69

75 Chapter 3 The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory Stoetzel, J La Psychologie Sociale. Paris : Flammarion. Stone, G. and H. Farberman On the Edge of Rapprochement: Was Durkheim Moving Toward the Perspective of Symbolic Interaction? The Sociological Quarterly, 8, Tambiah, S Animals Are Good to Think and Good to Prohibit. Ethnology, 8, Ulin, Robert C Understanding Cultures: Perspectives in Anthropolog y and Social Theory. Austin: University of Texas Press. Van Gennep, A. [1909]1960. Les Rites de Passage. Étude Systématique des Rites. Paris : Librairie Critique. Verheggen, Theo Durkheim s Représentations Considered as Vorstellungen. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 16, Walter, T Funerals: And How to Improve Them. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 70

76 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture The present article appeared in Culture & Psychology, 5 (2), Journal abstract The key problem of cultural psychology comprises a paradox: While people believe to act on the basis of their own authentic experience, cultural psychologists observe their behavior to be socially patterned. It is argued that, in order to account for those patterns, cultural psychology should take human experience as its analytical starting point. Nevertheless, there is a tendency within cultural psychology to either neglect human experience, by focusing exclusively on discourse, or to consider the structure of this experience to originate in an already produced cultural order. For an alternative approach, we turn to the enactive view of cognition developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Their theory of autonomy can provide the epistemological basis for a cultural psychology that explains how experience can become socially patterned in the first place. Cultural life forms are then considered as consensually coordinated, embodied practices. 71

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78 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture Rethinking the epistemological basis of cultural psychology Cor Baerveldt & Theo Verheggen The key problem of cultural psychology comprises a paradox that looms up when we realize that especially when people believe they are being themselves, or to be acting on the basis of their own authentic experience, we can observe their behavior to be culturally patterned. Take for example a social practice like mothering. In our Western society, we all seem to agree that motherly love and care, and the motherly practice of fostering one s own children is not the result of explicitly acting on the basis of cultural standards or prescripts regarding motherhood, but something which seems to emanate from a mother s experience in a spontaneous way. Countless anthropological and sociological studies, however, demonstrate that mothering is hardly natural at all, because it adopts a cultural form that differs substantially across cultures and through history. It appears that seemingly natural experience is thoroughly intertwined with socio-cultural realities like gender relations, family systems, and local moral universes. Moreover, the belief that one acts on the basis of one s own experience actually contributes to the reproduction of social practices like mothering. Does this mean that a mother is wrong when she beliefs to act in accordance with her own experience? Is it our task as social scientists to refute such claims of authenticity, by revealing human conduct to be in fact culturally ordained? Or should we somehow account for this experiential reality in order to explain the social patterning of human conduct? In our view, cultural psychology should do the latter. What can psychology say about the nature of human experience, so that it becomes intelligible how this experience becomes socially patterned in the first place? We argue that cultural psychology should not search for such patterns outside the realm of experience itself. Neither a pregiven or out there reality, nor culturally constructed scripts or models suffice as a psychological explanation for the social patterning of human conduct. After all, our experience is obviously socially patterned but nevertheless remains to be our own, authentic experience. In the field of cultural psychology there are on the one hand scholars that focus entirely on discourse, thereby disregarding the experience of real, acting persons (e.g. Edwards, 1995, 1997). The majority of cultural psychologists, on the other hand, does acknowledge the role of experience, but it searches for the structuring principles of this experience in an already 73

79 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture produced cultural order, or in already constituted social patterns (Cole, 1995, 1996; Ratner, 1996; Rogoff, 1994). None of these alternatives can truly account for the social patterning of experience. In our view, the problem is that they both start form culture whereas one should start from experience. Therefore, we search for an alternative approach by focusing on the experiential or psychological nature of all that is cultural, instead of pointing out the cultural nature of all that is psychological. Our aim is to provide an epistemological basis for a psychological study of culture, that is thoroughly rooted within our experiential reality. While acknowledging and underlining the dedication of contemporary cultural psychology to study the cultural forms of feeling, thinking, and acting, we search for the experiential basis of those cultural forms. This approach, to which we refer as Enactivism, implies a focus on embodied experience and patterns of embodied knowledge, as we will show. Cultural psychology and the social constructionist thesis 74 The study of culture is essentially the study of man-made, meaningful order. Therefore, according to Shweder (1991), cultural psychology should be the study of intentional worlds. Because intentional worlds and human selves are inextricably bound up, cultural psychology should not be looking for some kind of central processing device, or for universal structures of the mind. Instead it should be interested in personal functioning within particular intentional worlds, and in the interpersonal maintenance of intentional worlds (p. 76). By distancing himself from the idea of a central processing device, Shweder wants to escape from what he calls the prevailing Platonism that has been implicit in psychological science since the cognitive revolution. Thus, cultural psychology is in his opinion the study of the way cultural traditions and social practices regulate, express, and transform the human psyche, resulting less in psychic unity for human kind than in ethnic divergences in mind, self and emotion (p. 73). Nowadays, the anti-cognitivist argument contained in Shweder s line of reasoning is particularly articulated by discursive and social constructionist thinkers (Edwards, 1995, 1997; Gergen, 1985; Harré, 1986; Harré & Gillet, 1994; Potter & Whetherell, 1987; Shotter, 1993). Maybe somewhat premature, some authors even make mention of a second cognitive revolution within psychological and cognitive science (Harré, 1993; Harré & Gillet, 1994). The label discursive turn is used synonymously here, to point out the growing awareness that cognitive mechanisms should not to be searched for within the head of a person, but rather within the discursive or conversational interactions between persons. As Gergen (1985) puts it: The locus of knowledge is no longer taken to be the individual mind but rather to inhere in patterns of social relatedness (p. 471). It is in the everyday practice of speaking that people create both their life world and their own identities. So although the constructionist or discursive approach may itself be very differentiated, a common ground can be found in the

80 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture idea that the reality we have in common, and in which we find ourselves, is neither a world that exists independently from us, nor a socially shared way of representing such a pregiven world, but a world itself brought forth by our ways of communicating and our joint action. As such, our social world can no longer be depicted as a neutral background or context for human behavior. The world we inhabit is manufactured of meaning rather than information (Bruner, 1990). Social constructionism and experience Social constructionism was quite successful in defeating the notion of a pregiven world that can be known insofar as its features can be mapped or mirrored within the human mind. However, we claim that social constructionism s strength is also its weakness: while intending to reject essentialism, it ends up turning down experiential reality as well. The structure of human conduct is not considered to originate from full fledged unfolding experience. Rather, within social constructionism, one recognizes a similar attitude towards experience as within cultural psychology in general. That is, experience is either excluded from the social constructionist framework, or the structure of human behavior and experience is derived from some kind of already produced linguistic or discursive social order which seems to be well-known already. The claim is either that we should restrict ourselves to the study of how people account for their own behavior, or that we should study how what we feel, think, or do is structured, or even constituted within language. With respect to the first claim, it is significant to note that although in recent years a shift of attention has taken place towards the study of the discursive production and maintenance of meaning in everyday social interaction (Billig, 1987, 1991; Edwards, 1997; Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter & Whetherell, 1987), the greater part of social constructionist research is still mainly engaged in the analysis and interpretation of text, instead of asking questions about the psychological and cultural configurations that enable people to speak. As such, social constructionism and discursive psychology tend to limit themselves to what is said about human feeling, thinking, and acting. Stated differently, instead of experience itself, talk about experience is put in the center of attention. Elsewhere (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1997), we referred to this methodological choice as aboutism. The whole focus is shifted from revealing the presumed mechanisms or principles underlying human conduct, to describing the social practice of describing and accounting. Once established explanations, both those of folk theories and those of science, are considered as rhetorical resources from which people can draw in order to account for their own actions or for the actions of others. The second position with regard to experience holds that cultural scripts, scenarios, or other linguistic structures function as a kind of mold for individual action and experience (Fischer, 1991; Harré, 1986; Harré & Gillet, 1994; Heelas, 1981; Hochchild, 1983; Lutz, 1988; Wierzbicka, 1995). However, by assigning a central role to cultural scripts in explaining the social form of feeling, one is in fact begging the question. Even if we suppose that there are socially shared 75

81 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture cultural scripts or models that are capable of structuring individual conduct, the question remains how those cultural models can evoke our emotions and even become a motivating force (Voestermans, 1991). Or as Strauss (1992) puts it: Knowing the dominant ideologies, discourses, and symbols of a society is only the beginningthere remains the hard work of understanding why some of those ideologies, discourses and symbols become more compelling to social actors, while others are only the hollow shell of a morality that may be repeated in official pronouncements but is ignored in private lives (p. 1). In general, any theory that searches for the origins of the structuring of experience outside experience itself, implies the existence of some kind of internalization process. The acquisition of culture is then essentially seen as an in-struction process, that is, it is assumed that the human mind becomes structured by virtue of socio-cultural formations that have their existence outside the realm of our own experience, but that nevertheless become part of our interior world. Hence, an out there reality albeit a constructed reality is brought back into the theory. In our view, this is precisely what happens when social constructionism introduces linguistic models and scripts as explanatory devices. It should be mentioned that especially in the line of Vygotsky a notion of internalization or interiorization was developed that elaborates on the idea of learning as con-struction or co-construction rather than instruction (Valsiner, 1994). Vygotsky (1978, 1986) pictures child development and socialization in the context of social guidance, which he calls a zone of proximal development. What Vygotsky calls interiorization is in fact the process in which the means by which a child learns to coordinate it s actions with regard to others, become the means by which the child learns to coordinate its own intrapsychological processes. So, in Vygotsky s view, child development and socialization move from cultural competence and skills, to the skill of coordinating one s own thinking. Social guidance is no instruction here in the aforementioned sense: the parent does not regulate the child s behavior; the child actively adjusts or coordinates its behavior with respect to the parent. Although Vygotsky uses the word interiorization, his constructivism comes close to the enactive view we want to propose. 76 Focusing on embodied experience When we limit ourselves to the study of the argumentative or narrative structures of already produced texts, we conceal those principles of production that are indiscuté et indiscutable (Bourdieu, 1984). Even the more dynamic versions of constructionist and discursive psychological thought tend to restrict their analysis to the study of meaning insofar as it is already discursively articulated and argumentatively structured. However, as was already argued by authors like Susanne Langer and Mary Douglas, meaning is often articulated in a presentational rather than in a discursive way. Meaning is then expressed by coordinating the body as a whole, rather than by using the body as a discrete sign system (Baerveldt & Voestermans, 1996; Douglas, 1973; Langer, 1951;

82 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture Radley, 1991). This implies the acquisition of embodied skills. In our view, psychologists are only just beginning to understand how training, exercise, stylization, and ritualization shape our expressive register and our modes of embodied understanding. Moreover, as Bourdieu (1984, 1990) made clear, even speech should not be analyzed as a fully discursive phenomenon. The analysis of speech requires the investigation of processes that constitute both the authority or legitimacy of the speaker, and his or her competence to put something into words. Also, linguistic competence is part of a much wider range of social competence. When we consider the implications of this position for psychological research, we are obliged to pay much more attention to the acquisition of various social skills. Social practices like courting, mothering, dining out, attending a party, and having an informal chat all require specific skills of which we are usually not cognizant, as we perform them in an automatic, seemingly natural way. In the enactivist model we propose, these social practices, competences and skills are essentially coordinations of one s actions. Skills and experience imply one another: one learns to coordinate one s experience by coordinating one s behavior with respect to others. We claim that if cultural psychology wants to account for the social structure of human conduct, it should not search for this structure outside the realm of experience. Where then, can we find the epistemological ground for a cultural psychology that does justice to our experiential reality, without a drawback into essentialism? Or stated differently: How can we account for the social or cultural patterning of experience, while at the same time avoiding the paradox we mentioned at the outset? One promising attempt to reformulate the epistemological foundations of science s enterprise can be found in the work of two theoretical biologists: Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Their work is often referred to as autopoietic theory, but we prefer the word enactivism, more recently proposed by Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991) in order to situate their position within contemporary cognitive science. The enactive paradigm Enactivism has a large part of its historical roots within, what could be called biological system theory. The history of this theory was marked by the founding of the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) of Hans Von Foerster in 1957 (Boshouwers, 1996). A central aim of this Biological Computer Laboratory was to study cognition as a feature of complex dynamical systems, by applying principles of self-organization and self-reference. Maturana was one of the first to join Von Foerster s research program. His own experimental work in the neurophysiology of perception (Maturana et al., 1960; Maturana et al., 1968) had led him to the conclusion that the traditional naïve realistic mapping approach to perception stirs some fundamental epistemological problems. For example, although in the case of color perception, invariances can be observed in the relation between the activity of the nervous system and the perception of color, it 77

83 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture turned out to be impossible to predict the activity of the nervous system on the basis of physical stimuli. It ís possible, however, to predict the experience of color on the basis of the activity of the retina (Maturana et al., 1968). Maturana et al. concluded that the activity of the nervous system should be treated as determined by the nervous system itself, while the external world can only be allocated a triggering role for this internally determined activity. Therefore, according to Maturana et al., the neural system should be considered as an operationally closed or internally determined system that can only be characterized with reference to itself. The notions of self-reference and closure constitute the basis of the theory of autopoiesis Maturana later developed with Francisco Varela. This theory is the formal basis of the enactive paradigm. The theory of autopoiesis is both a theory about the organization of living systems, and about cognition. Those two issues merge when it is asked what the necessary organization of a living system is, such that it can act adequately within its behavioral environment. According to Enactivism, cognition can never be separated from the embodiment of a system. This embodiment is simultaneously understood in terms of the physical body of biology and in terms of the lived, experiential and expressive body that was particularly thematized by phenomenology (e.g. in Merleau-Ponty s conceptualization of the corps sujet ). Enactivism considers cognition to be rooted within the kind of experience that comes from having a body (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991, p. 173). Embodiment is a conditio sine qua non for all knowledge, including the complex patterns of cultural knowledge. A theory of culturally patterned knowledge should therefore address both the formal and the experiential aspects of embodiment. Apart from the fact that Enactivism looks upon cognitive systems as selfreferential systems, it can also be considered as a consistent self-referential theory, because it starts and ends with the operations of an observer. Enactivism states that there can be no claim about reality without an observer making this claim. Or as Maturana (1988) put it: Observing is both the ultimate starting point and the most fundamental question in any attempt to understand reality and reason as phenomena of the human domain (p. 27). Thus, Enactivism finally addresses itself by bringing up the question how observing and describing are possible. The fundamental circularity of life it tries to reveal is reflected in the structure of the theory itself. 78 Formal aspects of embodiment: organization and structure Enactivism starts with the general observation that any identification of an entity animate or inanimate implies the recognition that this entity is somehow organized. The notion of organization refers to those properties of a system that allow an observer to distinguish it as a unity from a background. The word properties is placed in quotation marks, because it is in fact the observer who assigns those properties to the system. An organization is therefore the set of relations between components that for an observer specifies a unity as a unity of a certain kind. Those relations comprise the invariant features of the system,

84 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture without which it would cease to be what it is. In other words, it is the organization of a system that for an observer constitutes its identity and that determines the interactions and transformations it may undergo as such a unity (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 77). Within the enactive paradigm, organization is sharply distinguished from structure. The structure of a system is the way in which it is actually embodied. While the relations between components comprise a system s organization, the actual realization of those components and their relations in a given space makes up its structure (ibid.). The distinction between organization and structure has several implications. First, it implies that the same kind of organization can have different structures. For example, both an electronic and a mechanical device can make up the essential feedback system of a thermostat. Another consequence is that the structure of a system can change while its vital organization is preserved. Although, for example, we can exchange a wooden tabletop for one made of glass, or in some cases even remove some of the table legs, the system can be considered a table as long as its defining organization (that is, the relations between its components such as the tabletop and table legs) that for us as observers specify the system as a table, remains unchanged. Likewise, a football team remains a football team, even when all players are replaced by other players, or when the line-up of the team is drastically changed, as long as those players maintain the vital relationships that for an observer specifies their collective as a football team. Heteronomous and autonomous systems Like social constructionism, Enactivism considers description to be constitutive of reality rather than it being a representation of a pregiven world. An act of description is a creative act of an observer who calls the entities she or he describes into being by distinguishing them as unities from their background. In a sense, all description is therefore arbitrary because any identification of an entity depends on the distinctions and features an observer happens to consider as relevant. A very specific situation occurs, however, when an observers intends to describe a living system. A characterization of living systems requires a description that includes autonomy as a central feature of those systems. According to Maturana (in Maturana & Varela, 1980), such a description can never be a characterization in terms of purpose or function, ( ) because those notions are intrinsically referential and cannot be operationally used to characterize any system as an autonomous entity (p. xii). What, then, is the kind of organization that specifies an autonomous system? The crucial insight contained in the theory of autopoiesis is that living systems can only be characterized as autonomous systems with reference to their own organization. Maturana and Varela coined the word autopoiesis in order to account for the type of organization that characterizes living beings. The word is derived from auto (self) and poiesis (creation, production) and conveys the circular organization that is typical for living systems. An autopoietic system is formally defined as a system that specifies itself by continuously 79

85 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture 80 producing its own components and regenerating its own organization (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 79). An autopoietic system constitutes itself as a unity by specifying its own boundaries with an environment. Varela (1979) has made clear that autopoietic systems are in fact a subclass of a more general class of autonomous systems. While autonomous systems in general are systems that maintain their own organization, autopoietic systems are autonomous systems that also produce their own components or their own structure. 1 Autonomous systems can be contrasted with heteronomous systems which only exist as a unity by the distinctive operations of an observer. Heteronomous systems can be characterized in allo-referential terms. For example, an observer can easily describe a table (a heteronomous system) in functional terms, that is, by reference to the way in which it can be used, or in semantical terms, by specifying the correspondences and differences with other objects. A glass plate hanging on four cables from the ceiling, can also serve as a table. However, when we describe an autonomous system solely in terms of its relations with other object or in relation to ourselves, we pass over precisely the features that specify the system as an autonomous system. Those features can only be addressed in terms of the structure and organization of the system itself. The boundaries of an autopoietic system are specified by its own operations: A unity is defined by an operation of distinction; in an autopoietic system its autopoiesis constitutes the operation of distinction that defines it, and its origin is cocircumstantial with the establishment of this operation (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 94). Of course, an observer can nevertheless treat an autonomous system as if it were a heteronomous system, by describing it solely in terms of its relations and interactions with an environment. Such a description is not necessarily wrong. In fact, it is what people do all the time: accounting for their own and other s behavior by assigning some kind of purpose or function to this behavior. Teleonomical and functional explanations of human conduct are unmistakably part of folk psychology and everyday talk. However, Enactivism claims that the notions of purpose and function only belong to the domain of discourse about human conduct (ibid., p. 85). Although they can be used in the mutual orientation of the interlocutors, they cannot be used to explain the operations of an autonomous system. ( ) the notions of purpose and function have no explanatory value in the phenomenological domain which they pretend to illuminate, because they do not refer to processes indeed operating in the generation of any of its phenomena (ibid., p. 86). A living system can only be characterized by reference to its autopoietic organization. Describing an autonomous system in heteronomous terms, is like searching for the features of life by slicing up a living body on the dissection table. 1 Autopoiesis is a specific kind of self-organization that involves self-production. Although in the remainder of this article we use the words autopoiesis and autonomy synonymously, we leave open the question whether the productive aspect of autopoiesis is necessary for an understanding of experience and cognition.

86 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture Autonomous systems as closed systems Because an autonomous system constitutes itself as a unity distinct from its background, Maturana and Varela claim that such a system is organizationally closed (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 127; Varela, 1979, p. 55). It is in fact a homeostatic system that has its own organization as the variable it maintains constant (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 80). Their insistence that autonomous systems should be considered as closed systems has often raised confusion. After all, it can hardly be denied that living involves some kind of metabolism, or exchange of matter and energy with an environment. Neither can it be denied that autonomous systems are responsive to their environment. In recent years, several authors within the social and cognitive sciences have tried to adopt the concept of open self-organizing systems from the physical sciences, in order to get a grip on the developmental dynamics of psychological and social systems (Fogel, 1993; Fogel et al., 1997; Thelen & Smith, 1994). According to the physicist Ilya Prigogine, it is the thermodynamical openness of complex far from equilibrium systems that enables in them processes of self-organization (Prigogine & Stengers, 1984). It is important to notice, however, that a physical theory like that of Prigogine gives a thermodynamical, rather than a semiotic account of complex systems. In other words, it gives an account of the dynamical properties of such systems in terms the exchange of energy, rather than in terms of meaning. Enactivism is essentially a theory of meaning or meaningful action. It claims that autonomous systems are closed in an operational sense, because they operate within a phenomenal domain that is specified by their own organization. Those systems should therefore not be depicted as input/output machines like in the information processing paradigm of traditional cognitivism. The central claim of Enactivism is that exactly because of their operational closure, autonomous systems operate as cognitive systems. This claim asks for a redefinition of cognition as meaning production rather than information processing. Autonomous systems as cognitive systems Once we recognize autonomous systems as systems that can not adequately be described with reference to an environment, we face some serious epistemological consequences when we try to account for their cognitive operations. Any functional or semantic explanation falls short, because it introduces a world outside the system that in fact belongs to the descriptive domain of an observer. An observer can, for example, establish a connection between a description of the internal dynamics of a system and a description of its interactions with an environment. However, such a description is always a description in terms of the meaning the observer assigns to this behavior, and cannot be operationally part of the behavioral dynamics of the system itself. Any notion of an outside world belongs to the descriptive domain of an observer and does not pertain to the closed phenomenal domain of the acting system. Traditional cognitivism looks upon cognitive systems as open systems. According to the cognitivistic paradigm, the central feature of such systems is 81

87 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture 82 that they are capable of receiving informational input from their environment, to process this information according to a set of syntactical rules and finally to produce some kind of behavioral output again. Bruner (1990) states that it is exactly this focus on information processing that has kept cognitive science from achieving its original aim: establishing meaning as the central concept in the study of the mind. Not the human mind, but the computer has become the prototypical example of a cognitive system. Viewed from an enactive perspective, however, a computer is a clear example of a heteronomous system. It has a design instead of a history. The features of a designed or engineered system like a computer are totally specified by the ways in which we can interact with it. By itself, a computer can therefore not operate as a truly cognitive system. The operations of an autonomous system are not externally determined. Therefore, those systems do not have inputs or outputs (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 81; Maturana & Varela, 1984, p. 169). Notions like input and information wrongfully imply that a pre-existing environment can somehow be instructive for the system. This idea is clearly expressed in the formal definition of information that has become prevalent in cognitive science: that of information as a measure of uncertainty, that is, as the number of alternatives that are available to predict the outcome of a given situation (Shannon & Weaver, 1949). In this definition, information is essentially conceived of as a property of an objective, pregiven world. Enactivism, however, claims that the notion of information is valid only in the descriptive domain as an expression of the cognitive uncertainty of the observer, and does not represent any component actually operant (Maturana, 1975, p. 322). The far reaching consequence of this position is that cognition can no longer be depicted as some kind of representation of a pregiven world. To evoke representations as part of an explanation of cognition is to mix-up two nonintersecting phenomenal domains. Alternatively, Enactivism conceives of cognition as all operations of an autonomous system that are effective with respect to the maintenance of its own organization, or its own identity. The criterion of knowledge is not the environment, to which an observer can claim some kind of privileged access, but the autopoietic organization of the system itself. Like Von Glasersfeld (1991) states, the question is not whether a cognitive system adequately maps or mirrors the real world, but whether its actions are viable (p. 16). It is the organization of an autonomous system itself that determines its cognitive domain, that is, the domain of interactions in which it can enter without losing its identity. Its environment can only trigger or select certain patterns of structural change within the system, but cannot bring about the range of possible changes (Winograd & Flores, 1986, p. 43). An observer may attribute cognition to a system that is capable of making operational distinctions with respect to its environment. However, it is actually the system itself that on the basis of its own autonomy enacts a domain of significance with respect to which it can act (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991, p. 156). A cognitive system operates as a producer of meaning rather than as a processor of information. Enactivism considers the operational closure of

88 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture autopoietic systems to be the formal condition of meaning. As a theory of meaning, Enactivism rests on what with an allusion to thermodynamics could be called the law of conservation of identity. The full consequences of this position become clear when we transform a formal claim into a phenomenological one. Autopoietic systems are then considered as systems that live in a world of their own experience. It is because of this experiential closure that they can operate as meaning producers. The emergence of consensual domains The most important conclusion that can be drawn from the argument above is that only autonomous, or, operationally closed systems can be cognitive systems. Autonomous systems are meaning producers, which implies that their operations and structural changes are subordinated to the maintenance of their own identity. As such, they are systems that have experience, or, they are systems operating within a closed phenomenal domain. It may now appear, however, that Enactivism aggravates the paradox with which we started our argument, rather than solving it. After all, the claim regarding the operational closure of meaning producers leads to some obvious questions: How is social interaction possible between closed systems? And how can it be that systems that live in a world of their own experience nonetheless seem to share a certain reality? Enactivism provides an answer to those questions by again introducing a radical change of perspective. It claims that only the interactions between closed, or experiencing systems can be considered as social interactions. Interactions and communication between autonomous systems The assumption regarding the operational closure of cognitive systems has direct consequences for the way we can account for the interactions between cognitive systems. As was argued above, the domain of possible interactions in which an autonomous system can enter is specified by its own organization. From this it can be deduced that in an interaction between autonomous systems the conduct of neither one of the interacting systems can be instructive for the other system. Therefore, this kind of interaction can better be conceived of as a kind of mutual tuning ; a process in which both systems regulate their own conduct with respect to each other, rather than being controlled or regulated by the other system. Elsewhere (Baerveldt & Voestermans, 1996) we referred to this tuning process as co-regulation. The concept of co-regulation was introduced by Fogel (1993) in order to delineate a central feature of what he calls continuous process communication. Co-regulation is defined as the dynamic balancing act by which a smooth social performance is created out of the continuous mutual adjustment of action between partners (p. 19). Because of this ongoing character of co-regulative communication, according to Fogel, it cannot be adequately depicted as a transfer of information from a sender to a receiver, 83

89 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture through some kind of communication channel. In our view, it is important to notice that co-regulation presupposes the operational autonomy of the interacting systems. As long as the interaction lasts, the interacting systems trigger structural changes in each other but cannot coerce each other into a certain course of action. The interaction between autonomous systems can again be characterized in both formal and phenomenological terms. From a formal perspective, it could be stated that each of the interacting systems system is for the other a source of compensable deformations that can be described as meaningful in the context of the coupled behavior (Varela, 1979, p ). The interactions are deformations when they result in structural changes in the participating systems. Those deformations are compensable whenever they remain within the boundaries that are specified by the necessity for each system to maintain its identity. So although the operational closure of each of the structurally coupled systems prohibits any instructive interaction, they can nevertheless have a history of interlocked conduct. From a phenomenological perspective, it can be stated that the communicating systems have no access to each other s experience. Although this may be in defiance of the intuitive idea that communication involves the sharing of experience, on closer inspection it appears that it is exactly this inaccessibility of experience that necessitates the systems to coordinate their conduct with respect to each other. Experience can neither be accessed, nor instructed from the outside. This is of course something long known to teachers and educators: although we may try to explain something to somebody else, we cannot coerce somebody into understanding. Neither can we put the right ideas into somebody s head. Whether understanding is achieved, ultimately depends on the cognitive constitution of the addressee. 84 Social reality as a consensual coordination of action When the interactions between operationally closed systems acquire a recurrent character, Maturana and Varela (1984) speak of structural coupling. Structural coupling is an ongoing mutual co-adaptation (Whitaker, 1997) of autonomous systems, which results in structural changes in each of the interacting systems, while at the same time the organization or identity of those systems is maintained. It can therefore also be defined as a history of interlocked conduct. When the conduct of two or more autonomous systems becomes structurally coupled, an observer can come to the conclusion that they have a shared reality. Maturana and Varela call such a seemingly shared reality a consensual domain (Maturana, 1975, 1978, 1980; Varela, 1979). Of course the word shared is misleading because it passes by the operational and experiential closure of the interacting systems. A consensual domain can therefore better be conceived of as a co-operative domain of interactions (Whitaker, 1997). It now becomes clear that, according to Enactivism, a social interaction can only be an interaction between autonomous systems (Maturana, 1978, 1980; Matura & Varela, 1980). A social interaction requires the autonomous

90 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture contribution of all interacting partners. An interaction with a table or a computer can therefore not be considered a social interaction (although it is a social action just the same, because tables and computers belong to a consensual reality we help to constitute in our interactions with our fellow men). Relations of power or persuasion, on the other hand, are social interactions because they require the autonomous contribution of both those who exercise power and those who undergo it. Likewise, when a mother puts an infant into an upright position, this should be considered a social interaction, because both mother and child autonomously contribute to the course of the interaction (Fogel, 1993). When we put a sack of potatoes into an upright position, this is not a social interaction because the sack of potatoes does not autonomously contribute to the course of the interaction. Although this may seem obvious, it has far reaching consequences for the way in which science should deal with social phenomena. It implies that no social phenomenon can be separated from the experience of those who constitute it. According to Maturana (1980), all social phenomena are constituted by the autonomy of their individual participants: The individual is the center and motor of social phenomena; no society exists beyond the individuals that integrate it, and every society includes all the individuals that constitute it (p. 24). Or, to put it again in more phenomenological terms: each society is constituted by a community of experiencers. Language and the consensual coordination of action Language can be considered as a human consensual domain par excellence. As such, the same principles apply to language as to consensual domains in general. Language is a praxis that originates in the consensually coordinated activities of embodied human agents, rather than in an abstract symbolic or propositional system. According to Maturana (1978, 1980), linguistic behavior emerges when the shared reality that is the product of our own consensual interactions becomes itself consensually coordinated. The basic function of language is not to transfer information, nor to denote independent entities, but to mutually orient the linguistic agents within their cognitive domain (Maturana, 1978, p. 50). As a dynamical system of meaning, language works without any externally determined truth conditions (Winograd & Flores, 1986, p. 63). It is the foremost domain of human meaning, not because it reveals the properties of a pregiven world, but because in our linguistic interactions we continuously regenerate the consensual domains in which we can recognize or acknowledge others. 85 Language and the emergence of objective reality According to Maturana and Varela, linguistic behavior tends to conceal the actions it coordinates. It is within language that objective reality can emerge (Maturana, 1978, 1980; Maturana & Varela, 1984). Reality becomes objective as it is detached from the experience of real embodied persons. Nevertheless,

91 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture objective reality is something that emerges from consensual experience rather than something that precedes this experience. This claim can be clarified by an example. Take a common object, like an apple. A naive realistic position pictures the apple to be an object that has an existence of its own, independent of our perception. However, when we are enumerating the properties of the apple, we are in fact specifying ways in which we can interact with the apple, that is, ways in which we can orient our own behavior towards this apple. Seemingly independent qualities like eatability, tastefulness, and juiciness, but also more abstract features like yellowness and sphericallity, only exist for an organism that has the perceptual and cognitive apparatus to acknowledge them. Apples become part of a consensual domain, or a co-operative domain of interactions, when we learn not only to orient our behavior towards those apples, but also to co-ordinate our orientations with respect to other persons. As such, apples belong to a domain of consensual experience. When a consensual domain is sufficiently complex, parts of it can be used in order to coordinate other parts. We can, for example, consensually specify certain sounds, gestures, or even patterned spots of ink on a smooth surface in order to indicate or coordinate other aspects of our consensual reality. Maturana and Varela call such a domain of second-order coordinations a linguistic domain (Maturana & Varela, 1980, p. 28, 120; 1984, p. 165). Language can therefore be considered as a consensual coordination of a consensual coordination of action. In theory, the possibilities for second- or higher-order coordinations are infinite. Once the apple is established as an object, it can for example be used to indicate youthful beauty or sin. Although through the recursive coordination of action a continuous production of new meanings is possible, those meanings retain their roots within the experience of embodied persons. Lakoff and Johnson claim that all cultural meanings, including the most abstract ones, originate within pre- or nonconceptual bodily experience that is metaphorically extended or transferred to other cognitive domains (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Johnson, 1987). The preconceptual experience of hunger, for example, can be transferred to loneliness, as is expressed in sayings like: I m starving for your love. However, Enactivism stresses that apart from being an embodied affair, reality is also a matter of consensually coordinated experience. As such, it is a product of our own social interactions. Therefore, we live in what Shweder (1991) calls multiple objective worlds. 86 Language and the recognition of others Linguistic interaction is often considered as the prototypical example of human communication. According to Varela (1979), the proper paradigm for our interaction with a heteronomous system is instruction and unsatisfactory results are errors. The appropriate paradigm for our interaction with an autonomous system, on the other hand, is conversation and unsatisfactory results are breaches of understanding. Therefore, conversation is the kind of interaction we have with those systems we recognize as others.

92 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture Because of the operational closure of autonomous systems we can never know the true experience of others. To recognize a person as other is to grant this person her or his own experience about a world we share. Others are those systems we acknowledge as subjects, instead of subjecting them to our knowledge. The recognition or acknowledgment of others can only exist within a domain of second-order coordinations, that is, in a linguistic domain. It is within language that human beings can address themselves to others, while simultaneously being addressed by others. As Shotter (1993) notes, human reality is above all a conversational reality. Finally, it is also and only within a linguistic domain that an observer can emerge. Language enables human beings to relate to their consensually constituted reality as if it were a reality independent of their own conduct. In other words, it enables them to make operational distinctions within the consensual domains they help to constitute. Such second-order distinctions are called descriptions, and a system that makes such distinctions is called an observer (Maturana, 1978, p. 31). Within the enactive paradigm, an observer is therefore formally defined as a cognitive system that operates within the realm of its own descriptions (Whitaker, 1997). Although this may seem a bit cryptical, it is exactly here that Enactivism becomes a truly reflexive theory. After all, it starts and ends with the activities of an observer. A maxim of enactive theory that can be found throughout the work of Maturana and Varela reads: Anything said is said by an observer. There is no true or objective reality beyond the descriptive domain of an observer. However, the existence of an observer necessarily entails the existence of other observers. We can only operate as observers within a consensual domain that is constituted by our conversational interactions with others. Recognizing the autonomy of other human beings is not only a moral, but also an epistemological imperative. Therefore, we ally with Von Foerster s (1979) addendum to the above-mentioned maxim: Everything said is said by an observer to an observer. Or, as Maturana (1978) phrased it: Everything said is said by an observer to another observer, who can be himself or herself (p. 31). Language, consensual experience, and non-discursive forms Since Enactivism aims to provide a reflexive or self-referential theory of cognition, it is not surprising that it assigns a central role to language. Nevertheless, we want to point at two important aspects in which Enactivism differs considerably from the kind of social constructionism that declares all human reality a matter of language. First, although Enactivism concurs with, for example, discursive psychology about the importance of description in the social constitution of reality, it considers description to be rooted within consensually validated forms of life from which it cannot be detached without loosing the ability to understand description or discourse in general as an experiential affair. This is in close agreement with Wittgenstein, who noticed that the river of language always flows through a non-conceptual bedrock of embodied practice (Van der Merwe & Voestermans, 1995; Shotter, 1995). What we want to argue is not so much that there is a mode of expression which precedes language but can 87

93 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture nonetheless be articulated. It is rather that the truthfulness and genuineness of what we say, its virtuallity and verisimilitude, our power of persuasion, our authority and ultimately all meaning that is included within our words, is both judged and determined against a background of largely non-articulated, consensual experience. Like Maturana (1978, p. 50) emphasizes, the denotative use of language always ( ) requires agreement consensus for the specification of the denotant and the denoted. Discursive forms do not suffice as an explanation for the patterning of experience, because those forms themselves call for an explanation in terms of the consensual coordination of experience. A second point of consideration is not explicitly mentioned by Maturana and Varela, but can already be found in the work of Gregory Bateson who had a large influence on the enactive paradigm. Bateson (1972) demonstrated that behavioral patterns that involve second-order coordinations or a consensual coordination of a consensual coordination of actions can also be observed within higher mammals like monkeys, cats, and dogs. Behavioral phenomena like play and threat, for example, require a second order or meta level of communication that coordinates the communication at a lower level. A monkey that playfully bites a congener is somehow able to communicate the message: This is play (ibid., p. 177). Likewise, two dogs that want to communicate that they do not want to fight, perform a ritualized sham fight in order to achieve this multi-layered mode of communication (notice that the connotation not already implies a second-order coordination of behavior). Apparently, a second order coordination of behavior does not necessarily depend on the utilization of a full fledged symbolic system. Again, our argument is not that mammals (or human infants for that matter) already demonstrate some pre-linguistic behavior which is later developed in full linguistic competence, but rather that complex forms of behavioral stylization are possible without the explicit need for a linguistic system. This observation should make us more aware of all kinds of stylized expressive forms that can be found within the realm of human social reality. Our assumption is that style, ritual, and play are as important in understanding the social patterning of human conduct as is language. Concluding remarks 88 We started our argument by observing that cultural psychology contains a paradox with respect to experience. This paradox has been the rationale for the central question we discussed in this paper: How can cultural psychology account for the culturally patterned character of human conduct, while doing justice to the experience of real embodied persons? The enactive view we propose does not only restore experience as an important domain for the social and cognitive sciences, but places experience in the center of those sciences. It is this radical twist that enables Enactivism to solve the paradox. Because it claims that the formal conditions of experience are to be found within the autonomous organization of a cognitive system itself, Enactivism is able to give a non-

94 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture referential, non-relativistic account of meaning. A cognitive agent is considered to be a system that operates within a closed phenomenal domain, that is, within a world of its own experience to which an observer fundamentally has no access. Nevertheless, its operational and experiential closure does not keep such a system from having social interactions. Moreover, the closure of autonomous agents is the precondition for having social interactions, because a social interaction is exactly the mutual tuning of cognitive domains. Social interaction is necessary because cognitive systems have no access to each others experience. We can now rephrase the paradox of experience with respect to its empirical consequences. For it proves to be impossible to give an adequate description of the closed phenomenal domain of a human actor. It is true that meaning is rooted within experience, but we cannot open up the experiential world of a person in order to account for meaning. Therefore, our aim is not to disclose the idiosyncrasies of actual persons, but to study how the experience and actions of different persons are attuned. So, although we take the cognitive and experiential domain of embodied human agents as our analytical starting point, it turns out that our empirical domain can only be the way in which meaning is consensually coordinated and culturally mediated. Thus, psychology becomes the study of consensual domains rather than the investigation of a world of inner experience. This is in line with the recent call within cultural psychology to focus on the dialogical structure of meaning. Hermans and Kempen (Hermans et al., 1992; Hermans & Kempen, 1993) claim that our experience is dialogically structured, because it unfolds as an inner dialogue with imaginary others. However, Enactivism claims that in addition to this, dialogue requires the autonomous contribution of different dialogical partners, and furthermore, a mutual acknowledgment of otherness. There is a fundamental difference between others that are part of our self narratives and others to whom we tell our stories. Being unable to make this distinction with regard to ones own experience is generally not considered as a proof for mental health. It is precisely when we, as psychologists, fail to make these analytical distinctions, that we confine human actors within their own solipsistic universes. Moreover, it is then that we might lose the only criterion to distinguish between reality and delusion. For our sense of reality is first and for all our capability to coordinate our experience and actions with respect to others. References 89 Baerveldt, C., & Verheggen, Th. (1997). Towards a psychological study of culture: Epistemological considerations. Paper presented at the 7 th conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP), Berlin, Germany. Baerveldt, C., & Voestermans, P. (1996). The body as a selfing device: The case of anorexia nervosa. Theory & Psychology, 6, Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York. New York: Ballantine.

95 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture 90 Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and thinking: A rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Billig, M. (1991). Ideology, rhetoric and opinions. London : Sage. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste (trans. Richard Nice). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Cambridge: Polity. Boshouwers, S. (1996). In-formare: De wereld van het kensysteem [In-formare: The world of the cognitive system]. Utrecht: Unpublished doctoral thesis. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cole, M. (1995). Culture and cognitive development: From cross-cultural research to creating systems of cultural mediation. Culture & Psychology, 1, Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Douglas, M. (1973). Natural symbols: Explorations in cosmology. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Edwards, D. (1995). A commentary on discursive and cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 1, Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London: Sage. Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive Psychology. London: Sage. Fischer, A. (1991). Emotion scripts: A study of the social and cognitive facets of emotions. Leiden: DSWO Press. Fogel, A. (1993). Developing through relationships: Origins of communication, self and culture. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Fogel, A., Lyra, M.C.D.P., & Valsiner, J. (Eds.). (1997). Dynamics and indeterminism in developmental and social processes. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Gergen, K. (1985). Social psychology and the wrong revolution. European Journal of Social Psychology, 19, Harré, R. (Ed.). (1986). The social construction of emotions. Oxford: Blackwell. Harré, R. (1993). The second cognitive revolution. American Behavioral Scientist, 36, 5-7. Harré, R., & Gillet, G. (1994). The discursive mind. London: Sage. Heelas, P. (1981). Emotion talk across cultures. In P. Heelas & A. Lock (Eds.), Indigenous psychologies: The anthropology of the self. London: Academic Press. Hermans, H.J.M., & Kempen, H.J.G. (1993). The dialogical self: Meaning as movement. San Diego, CA: Academic press. Hermans, H.J.M., Kempen, H.J.G., & van Loon, R.J.P. (1992). The dialogical self: Beyond individualism and rationalism. American Psychologist, 47, Hochchild, A.R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press. Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of reason and imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

96 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Langer, S.K. (1951). Philosophy in a new key: A study in the symbolism of reason, rite and art. London: Oxford University Press. Lutz, C. (1988). Unnatural emotions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Maturana, H. (1975). The neurophysiology of cognition. In P. Garvin (Ed.), Cognition: A multiple view (pp. 3-24). New York: Spartan Books. Maturana, H. (1978). Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. In G. A. Miller & E. Lenneberg (Eds.), Psychology and biology of language and thought: essays in honor of Eric Lenneberg (pp ). New York: Academic Press. Maturana, H. (1980). Man and society. In F. Benseler, P.M. Hejl, & W.K. Köck (Eds.), Autopoiesis, communication and society: The theory of autopoietic systems in the social sciences (pp ). Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Maturana, H. (1988). Reality: The search for objectivity or the quest for a compelling argument. The Irish Journal of Psychology, 9, Maturana, H., Lettvin, J., McCulloch, S., & Pitts, W. (1960). Anatomy and physiology of vision in the frog. Journal of General Physiology, 43, Maturana, H., Uribe, G., & Frenk, S.G. (1968). A biological theory of relativistic colour coding in the primate retina: A discussion of nervous system closure with reference to certain visual effects. Archiva de Biologia y Medicina Experimentalis, 1, Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living. Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company. Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1984). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston: Shambala. Potter, J., & Whetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Prigogine, Y. & Stengers, I. (1984). Order out of chaos: Man s new dialogue with nature. New York: Bantham. Radley, A. (1991). The body in social psychology. New York: Springer. Ratner, C. (1996). Activity as a key concept for cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 2, Rogoff, B. (1994). Developing understanding of the idea of communities of learners. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 1, Shotter, J. (1993). Conversational realities: Constructing life through language. London: Sage. Shotter, J. (1995). Wittgenstein s world: Beyond the way of theory toward a social poetics. Paper presented at the conference Social construction, culture, and the politics of social identity, New School of Social Research. New York. Shannon, C., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 91

97 Chapter 4 Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture Shweder, R.A. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cultural psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Strauss, C. (1992). Models and motives. In R. D Andrade & C. Strauss (Eds.), Human motives and cultural models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thelen, E., & Smith, L.B. (1994). A dynamic systems approach to the development of cognition and action. Cambridge, Ma: MIT Press. Valsiner, J. (1994). Culture and human development: A co-constructivist perspective. In P. van Geert & L. Moss (Eds.), Annals of theoretical psychology, Vol. X. New York: Plenum. Van der Merwe, W.L., & Voestermans, P.P. (1995). Wittgenstein s legacy and the challenge to psychology. Theory & Psychology, 5, Varela, F. (1979). Principles of biological autonomy. New York: Elsevier North Holland. Varela, F.J., Thompson, F., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Voestermans, P. (1991). Alterity/Identity: A deficient image of culture. In J. Leerssen & R. Corbey (Eds.), Alterity, identity, image: Selves and others in society and scholarship (pp ). Amsterdam: Rodopi. Von Foerster, H. (1979). Cybernetics of cybernetics. In K. Krippendorff (Ed.), Communication and control in society (pp. 5-8). New York: Gordon and Breach. Von Glasersfeld, E. (1991). Knowing without metaphysics: Aspects of the radical constructivist position. In F. Steier (Ed.), Research and reflexivity. London: Sage. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Whitaker, R. (1997). Self-Organization, autopoiesis, and enterprises. Retrieved June, 12, 1997 from the World Wide Web: Wierzbicka, A. (1995). Emotion and facial expression: A semantic perspective. Culture & Psychology, 1, Winograd, T, & Flores, F. (1986). Understanding computers and cognition: A new foundation for design. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. 92

98 Chapter 5 We don t share! The manuscript is currently under review for Culture & Psychology. Author s abstract Wolfgang Wagner is a current and productive advocate of the Social Representation Approach. He developed a version of the theory in which social representations no longer reside in individual minds. Instead, social representations are conceived of a concerted interactions. Wagner s epistemological starting point comes very close to the enactive outlook on coordinated actions. Yet, in our opinion, Wagner is not radical enough in that he continues to see concerted interaction as an expression of representations that are already shared by the actors constituting a group. We argue that the ubiquitous notion of sharedness that is also found in studies on social models, cultural patterns, schemas, scenarios, and so forth is conceptually problematic and reveals a misapprehension of how orchestrated actions come about. Moreover, it obscures a proper understanding of what really constitutes intrinsically social behavior. Enactivism is put to the fore as a more consistent epistemology for a psychology that is intrinsically social. 93

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100 We don t share! Exploring further the theoretical ground for social and cultural psychology. The social representation approach versus an enactivist framework Theo Verheggen & Cor Baerveldt Within the modern social sciences there are numerous attempts to establish, or rather re-establish the interdependency between culture and mind. Some scientists in the fields of cultural, developmental, social and cognitive psychology have stated as their explicit goal to study how psyche and culture ( ) make each other up (Shweder, p.1), to study the dynamics of culture in mind (Cole, 1996, p. 6), or to otherwise investigate the social origins of cognition, emotion and motivation (D Andrade, 1995; Lutz, 1988; Strauss & Quinn, 1997, all in psychological or cognitive anthropology; Goodenow, 1990; Lave, 1988; Rogoff & Lave, 1984; Scribner, 1984, all in developmental and cultural psychology; see also Saito, 1996, p ; or Tomasello, 1999, in evolutionary anthropology). Some of these phrases are meanwhile classic formulations in the field of cultural psychology. At the same time, the issue how to study the human mind in the context of, or rather as part of, the social environment and the problem how mind and culture are mutually constitutive, are as old as the modern social sciences. In the second half of the nineteenth century the German cultural psychologists Lazarus and Steinthal deviced to that end their theory of the Völkerpsychologie (Jahoda, 1992; Smith, 1997, p. 762). Wilhelm Wundt particularly famous as the founder of the first experimental laboratory in psychological science elaborated on the idea of a Völkerpsychologie, arguing that the study of higher psychological functions had to be an integral part of psychology. For Wundt, these higher mental processes, to which for instance language, myths, and ethics belonged, were the cumulative product of social interactions and required an analysis that was sensitive to their historical development in their sociocultural context (Jahoda, p. 138). As such, Wundt s version of Völkerpsychologie was intended as a complement to the physiological psychology of the experimental laboratory (cf. Cole, 1996). Likewise, for Russian social scientists educated within Marxist philosophy, such as Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria, it was virtually unthinkable that psyche and society could be studied as independent entities (see Moscovici, 1995, p ). Such a perspective was also propagated by social scientists like Georg Simmel, Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Émile Durkheim, Adolf Bastian, John 95

101 Chapter 5 We don t share! 96 Dewey, George Herbert Mead, and other founders and ancestors of today s social sciences in the West (Farr, 1996; Smith, 1997, p. 762): Although these scholars focused on different dimensions of human action, their works display an apparent refusal to radically divide the social-scientific estate between studies of the individual organism, the group, society, culture, language et cetera. Nevertheless, as the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century social sciences advanced, the boundaries between these areas of research were drawn ever sharper and on the basis of the distinct concepts, separate social scientific disciplines were founded. In the USA, especially after 1920, the research spectrum included not only anthropology, sociology and psychology, but also the more sophisticated (inter)discipline of social psychology itself even further subdivided into sociological social psychology and psychological social psychology. Whereas the former became increasingly associated with academic sociology, the latter became predominantly a form of behaviorism with a strong emphasis on experimental methodology. Floyd H. Allport (1924) vigorously excluded any notion of the social as an individual-independent reality when he defined the subject matter of this individualized social psychology (cf. Graumann, 1986). According to Ivana Marková, mainstream psychology was basically individualist a statement true in those days, but also still in the present era. As an example she argues how social cognition research assumed culture to be such a general and basic condition common to every member of a society that the relationship between the study of cognition and the study of culture was lost altogether, leaving only the mental processes of the individual as the unit of analysis for psychologists (Marková, 1996, p. 179). To the same effect, quite a number of sociologists thought to have found a decisive argument for radically separating sociology from psychology in Émile Durkheim s alleged claim that sociological facts should not be explained with reference to psychological mechanisms. 1 These histories may be well known and they need no recapitulation here, as they have been described in great detail elsewhere (see Graumann, 1986; Moscovici, 1995, 1998; Farr, 1996; Danziger, 1997; Smith, 1997; Cole, 1996; Jahoda, 1992). What is important here is the awareness within contemporary social and cultural psychology that social scientists need to study the psychological make up of individual people as inextricably bound up with their continuous embeddedness in socially arranged configurations, varying from intimate partnership to driving a car on the proper side of the road. As we stated, there have been scholars and traditions within social psychology, sociology and philosophy that have always had a more open eye for the interdependency of mind and culture. But their influence remained marginal relative to mainstream psychology in the twentieth century. As Smith contends (1997, p. 798): The thought that social psychology, or some discipline concerned with people as the embodiment of historical processes [culture, that is], should underlie both psychology and sociology was alien both to the USSR and the USA. Today, however, scholars do realize that many early precursors of our social sciences were aware of the need to study man as a culturally embedded

102 Chapter 5 We don t share! being, as is reflected in formulas like re-claiming social psychology (Greenwood, 1994), re-storing the cultural dimension (Farr, 1998) or reintegrating the social perspective (Saito, 1996) within contemporary social and (social) cognitive psychology. Drawing on the early socio-cultural scientist In his 1987 article on the theory of social representations, Farr already commenced that enterprise. He demonstrates how this theory which finds its origin predominantly in France, more precisely in the work of Serge Moscovici is closely related to, among others, the sociologies of Durkheim and Tarde, the psychology of Wundt, G.H. Mead s symbolic interactionism and somewhat more recently Berger and Luckmann s social constructionism. It even has ties to ethnomethodology and could be conceived of as an interface between psychology and anthropology (p. 359; see also Deutscher, 1984). From Farr s argument it becomes clear that the social representations approach (SRA) draws its concepts from different sources than most mainstream social psychologies do. Particularly in comparison with traditions in the USA, the SRA chose the more marginal path of the socio-culturally oriented ancestors and founding fathers of today s social science. It is thought, then, to be a less individualistic variant of social psychology. Consequently, Farr contends that in contradistinction to the individualistic turn that social psychology took in the USA after F.H. Allport, the SRA can re-socialize many of [its] key theoretical terms (p. 363; see also Moscovici, 1981). Its central concept moreover appears to be a sort of culmination point of many preceding concepts such as Weltanschauungen, the objects of Wundt s Völkerpsychologie, Durkheim s collective representations, and Thomas and Znaniecki s social values and social attitudes. In that respect, Moscovici s work may indeed bring about the kind of retro-revolution the French social psychologist envisages (Moscovici, 1981). And at the very same time the term social representation encompasses the different aliases under which culture is present in the current laboratory of social cognitive research, such as cultural scripts, plans, narratives and scenarios (Farr, 1987, p. 360). Below, we will argue in detail that all these alternatives are held to refer something that is shared. One of the distinctive properties of a social representation is that it is shared by the members of a group; a cultural script is a pattern or sequence of actions that certain people have in common (share); and so forth. We contend below that the way sharedness has been conceptualized is highly problematic. Before we critically review the ubiquitous notion of shared behavioral repertoires, we need to elaborate on the SRA and its key concepts that are identified, at least by Farr, as a proper spearhead of much contemporary social scientific research. 97

103 Chapter 5 We don t share! The social representation approach 98 The well known term social representation originates in France in the work of sociologist Émile Durkheim. He made the term, or rather its match collective representation, particularly famous. For Durkheim, the concept expressed a necessary inter-relatedness of individual and social spheres of action. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life ([1912]1995) he argued how the (Kantian) categories of reason which enable individuals to think are derived from social phenomena. The notion of totality, for instance, cannot stem from the individual s private experiences since s/he is itself only part of a larger reality that is society. A notion of totality can only originate from experiencing such a larger reality. The concept of totality is but the concept of society in abstract form (p. 443). Likewise, the category of time reflects the rhythm of social life. Durkheim goes on to explain how space, causality etc. parallel social realities. For him, the structure of the mind, or the permanent framework of mental life (p. 441) as he calls it, has a social origin. The content of an individual s mind partially has a social source as well since it consists of both private representations such as a personal belief and their collective counterparts such as a myth. When Moscovici adopted the term, he replaced the preposition collective with social, advancing a typification of representations that would be less static, less descriptive and less obscure than Durkheim s concept. Moscovici associated Durkheim s notion of collective representations with images and opinions; concepts not fluid or flexible enough to understand modern societies with, in the eyes of Moscovici (Farr, 1987, p. 356). Elsewhere, we evaluated Moscovici s social representations in so far as they are a reformation of Durkheim s notion of collective representations (Verheggen, 1996 [chapter 2 in this volume]). It is worthwhile to note here Farr s (1998) suggestion that collective representations are more widespread and less pronounced, relative to social representations: as if the SRA holds the latter belong to the realm of the group, and the former to a more global realm of culture. Such a gradual argument brings little clarity to the discussion, though, and it dismisses too easily the specificity with which Durkheim often did write about collective representations (see for instance his essay on individual and collective representations (1924[1974])). Despite its omnipresence in the literature, there is no standard or clear cut definition of what social representations are, what the fabric is that they are made of, or how they should be conceptualized (e.g. Lahlou, 1996), and there is ongoing discussion about the ontological and epistemological status of social representations (see e.g. Farr, 1998). Moscovici even steadfastly refuses to define the concept (Farr, 1987, p. 355). His major concern does not regard directly the technical-epistemological working out of social representations. In this respect Ivana Marková (1996, p. 181) contends that the SRA is above all a theory of lay knowledge, to be differentiated from other meta-, philosophical, or social scientific theories of knowledge. In her view, the SRA is not concerned with the

104 Chapter 5 We don t share! objectivity of phenomena in the ontological and epistemological sense, nor does it ask whether the world exists independently of our cognition of it. Instead, it studies the contents, formation and change of lay concepts. In this sense the aspirations of SRA are close to that of many present-day versions of discursive psychology that build on ethnomethodological and social constructionist thought (cf. Edwards, 1997; Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter & Wetherell, 1987). But such a stance toward SRA may be too under-ambitious as the theory may to a large extent offer a valuable epistemology for studying the interdependence of culture and mind. The challenge to not only take SRA as a practical framework, but to also explore its power as a social science, was recognized and taken up by Wolfgang Wagner (1996, 1998, 2003; see also Wagner & Mecha, 2003). He studies the epistemological nature of social representations, as well as their ontological status. Wagner presents a variant of the SRA in which the constructionist nature of social representations and knowledge is rather radically extrapolated: There is no world socially before or beyond representing and acting persons, he argues (1996, p.108; 1998, p , p ). People s activities and experiences form the core of this epistemology. While we acknowledge the great potential of Wagner s approach and its advantages over many other theories, it holds at the same time some conceptual problems that need to be overcome. Below, we address both the advantages and the pitfalls of Wagner s SRA, particularly with respect to the notion of sharedness. In subsequently offering an alternative to its major difficulties, we intend to push this constructionist epistemology another step further into the direction of a psychology in which culture is allowed for from the outset. Wagner s epistemology of social representations Wagner (1998) stresses that when accounting for the social or for the social dimension of human behavior, we need to understand how concerted interactions come about. What he presents is in fact a theory of action. This need not be surprising given the fact that already Durkheim, as one of the ancestors of the social representation framework (Farr, 1996), conceptualized action as being prior to thought (Moscovici, 1998, p. 424; Janssen & Verheggen, 1997 [chapter 3 in this volume]). We will start by briefly sketching Wagner s epistemology of social representations. 99 The social is not a property of objects Wagner maintains, in line with Serge Moscovici, that social should not be understood as a property inherent to an object. That claim is in fact remindful of John Locke s ([1689]1975) notion of secondary qualities. Herein, the English empiricist contends that qualities like color and taste are not objectively given in the things we perceive. Rather, their perception depends on our own physiological makeup. Hence they are subjective.

105 Chapter 5 We don t share! From a social scientific point of view it makes no sense to conceive of objects as having any particular attributes independent of human cognizers/actors. Instead, the features of an object, the ranges of possible interactions one can have with it, only exist in so far as they have a meaning for someone. 2 For instance, whether a particular stone is a revered holy object or a piece of construction material depends on the codes, practices and value orientations that the members of a given community adhere to. This may be an example in which a socio-cultural influence appears evident, yet something similar is true for attributes such as the color, shape or function an object has within a given community. These properties are no less socially determined, acknowledged, agreed or otherwise elaborated upon than the prohibition to touch a holy stone. The point to emphasize is that the attributes of an object are always properties assigned by cognizers or actors within a community of actors for whom these features have a particular meaning. One could also reverse the argument: If there are no knowers constructing and assigning meaning, then there are no things to be known. Epistemologically, this implies that the subject matter for psychology ceases to exist where entities become independent of cognition and experience. Questioning whether such somethings (Wagner, 1996, 1998) or brute facts (Searle, 1995) really exist and what their nature is, is irrelevant from a psychological point of view. That is to say, these noumena are not relevant with respect to understanding the production and coordination of behavior. Attractive, sacred, efficient, red et cetera are not features of objects. Social itself, then, is not a feature of an object either. Instead, the term refers to the production process of the features that make up an object. In other words, objectivity itself should be considered to be a social accomplishment (Baerveldt & Voestermans, in press). It is important at this point to note that Wagner identifies the object with the representation: (...) there is not much sense in talking about the social representation of handicap or of persons in a wheelchair, since it is the representation which carries the name and which lends its name to the something in the world which then, i.e. in a social context, appears as an object with a socially meaningful name (1996, p. 109; our emphasis). 100 In ontological terms the representation is the object whose name it bears. (...) from the analytical perspective of the social representation approach, it is the representation which has a specific name and not the object which, beyond the representation, is just a something (ibid., p. 108). From the above, it follows as a matter of course that social is not a feature of a representation. And in his 1998 article Wagner claims:

106 Chapter 5 We don t share! A representation and its object are coexistent as a consequence of people s concerted discourse and conduct and (...) this discourse and conduct realizes the object in the social world (p. 314), and (...) the world of domesticated objects is the local universe of representations (p. 308). With respect to SRA s epistemology, it follows that any object (and therefore any representation), as analytically opposed to somethings or brute facts, is inherently a social object (representation): it necessarily implies elaboration, cognition, recognition, naming, agreement, consensus, discussion, debate, negotiation, and so forth by the members of a particular group. Social objects and their properties, then, are not stable over time and space, and therefore they are not objective in the natural scientific sense. Rather, they are subject to changes in relation to changing discourse and practices. The social is not a property of actors Just as the social is not an objective property of objects, it is not an objective feature of actors either. [The] attribute [ social ] melts together with [an actor s] doing and with the reaction of the object or person interacted with (Wagner, 1996, p.107). This emphasizes an important dimension to the SRA, namely action. As long as objects are not interacted with, talked about, thought of and so forth, they do not exist for actors. That is to say, they do not exist socially, since they have no meaning for anyone. Or to put it differently: Object/representation coincides with what actors do, not with fixed believes, attitudes, cognitions or representations an actor has. Wagner (ibid., p. 110) describes this in terms of constructive events: A constructive event is an event in the course of which a something in the world is named, equipped with attributes and values, and integrated into a socially meaningful world. It becomes a social object only within the group s system of common-sense in the course of the interactions in which actors, pertaining to a group and sharing a common representation with regard to what is relevant in a given context, engage in. These interactions may be bodily or verbal or both and they are expressions of and inseparable from the shared representation. The key point is that the different terms in the constellation of subject object (inter)action representation cannot be addressed or analyzed without reference to one another. The relationship between these artificially singled out terms may be best conceived of by means of a juggle metaphor: the dynamic figure needs to be seen as a whole; trying to get a hold on the separate elements inevitably leads to a destruction of the phenomenon under investigation (Baerveldt, 1999). The object is the representation, constituted in (inter)action by a community of actors (i.e. subjects) (on this point see also Wagner, 2003). 101

107 Chapter 5 We don t share! In a more formal sense one could now argue the following. If there is no object apart from people s activities, and if the object is the representation, then the representation is itself a matter of action. Elsewhere (Verheggen, 1996 [chapter 2 in this volume]) we argued that the English term re-presentation evokes a bias toward a static, fixed, mental, mirror-image like notion people have of something. We then pointed out that early thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer and Émile Durkheim clearly conceived of a representation in terms of a dynamic, creative act. The notions of both presenting and re-presenting were explicitly taken into account in the respective terms Vorstellung and représentation they used (see also Némedi, 1995, p. 46; Schmauss, 1994). In modern psychology and sociology, however, these connotations were generally disqualified (although they persisted to a certain extent within symbolic anthropology; cf. the work of Mary Douglas). From the foregoing it follows that there is no object common to two or more representations (Wagner, 1996, p. 111). For instance, although different people can have a representation of one and the same person fulfilling his job of taxman, one of the observers can think of him as an annoying person whereas the other conceives of that taxman as an ordinary relative stranger merely attending his duty. The object taxman is unequal for different observers; there is no single taxman common to the different representations, but depending on who s perspective we take there is one annoying and one duty performing person. As such, objects are constructed every time a representation is enacted. At this point face a puzzling question: if there are no out there objective entities or representations corresponding to people s cognitions, and independent of their actions, then how is communication and meaning production possible in the first place? After all, people within a community can be observed to communicate rather fluently and behave in similar ways toward everyday things and situations. What, then, is our common ground if any to talk about and orient ourselves to things and others? Wagner (1998, 2003) suggests that the social representation itself is that common ground, as it is enacted during an interaction. Moreover, the social representation is the one thing that the parties to the interaction share. But saying that the actors share something is a very tricky and misleading conceptualization. Why do we think we share? 102 Most theories that study the interdependency of culture, cognition and conduct including the SRA hold that shared beliefs, cognitions, representations, schemas, models, and so forth enable a successful exchange of meaning. For Moscovici, shared social representations offer codes for labeling, classification and social exchange. [T]he shared representations penetrate the scratches of reality to such an extent that we could say: Representations constitute reality (our translation of Moscovici, 1995, p.313, our emphasis; see also Moscovici, 1988, p. 230; Potter & Litton, 1985, p. 82). Marková (1996, p. 185) argues that

108 Chapter 5 We don t share! the theory of social representations is the study of how socially shared knowledge ensnares the individual in existing forms of thinking, prohibiting him or her from free thought and enforcing a particular manner of conceiving of the world, events and objects (our emphasis). Social psychologists Jaspars and Fraser (1984, p. 104) claim that social representations are social because they are shared by many individuals and as such constitute a social reality (our emphasis). And for Wagner an object becomes a social object within the group s system of common sense and in the course of interactions in which actors sharing a representation engage (1998, p. 307, our emphasis). Outside the SRA, the notion of sharedness is deployed to explain the concerted manner in which people behave. For instance, cognitive anthropologist Roy D Andrade (1990, p. 108) refers to cultural models as intersubjectively shared cultural schemas that function to guide action in a wide range of domains (on this point see also Cole, 1996, p. 126; Strauss & Quinn, 1997, p. 158) and in cognitive science Edwin Hutchins (1995) conceives of culturally shared mediating structures, coordinated with the world in which a task takes place, and allowing actors to perform certain tasks. Likewise, Schaller and Crandall (2004) argue in their recent volume on cultural psychology that in order for those more specific things [the authors refer here to beliefs, habits, actions, artifacts, customs, rituals, symbols, meanings, values, and personality traits] to imply culture, they must be shared (p. 8, original emphasis). Mixing connotations Time and again, it is argued that members of a given society behave in a comparable fashion toward objects and situations because they share a set of representations, codes, norms, schemas, values and the like. However, while sharedness is applied here to explain why people act and think in similar ways, it is at the same time also deployed within the same theories as a if not the hallmark of a social phenomenon. In other words, sharedness is then used as the criterion for something to be social. Within the SRA framework, Farr (1998, p. 279) contends that a social representation s inherently social nature is given by its being shared by a number of people. More precisely, he presents what he calls a minimal definition of a social representation: A representation is social if it is, or has been, in two or more minds (ibid., p. 291). This is similar to Lahlou (1996, p. 159) who argues that a social representation is a representation that is shared by a group. A comparable strategy is followed by the cultural anthropologists Strauss and Quinn (1997, p. 49) with respect to their concept of cultural schemas: [A] great many schemas are cultural schemas you share them with people who have had some experiences like yours, but not with everybody. The authors thus contend that a cultural schema is a shared schema. There is a compelling logical objection to defining both the criterion and the explanation for social conduct by one and the same notion. When theories hold that behavior is social because it is shared, while other theories contend that behavior is social when it is shared, sharedness nor any other term in its place does not have any explanatory power: If a given X defines and explains a 103

109 Chapter 5 We don t share! certain Y, then the choice of what that X is becomes arbitrary. That X cannot explain anything with respect to Y with any certainty. The deployment of such an ambiguous term can only lead to a confusion of tongues. The confusion gets only bigger when different connotations are used within one and the same argument. An example of this is Wagner s claim (1998; p. 301, 304) that the social representation exists on the intersection of personal experience and the collectively shared experience of culturally similar others. Is collectively shared a pleonasm, then? Notice also that opposing personal experience to collectively shared experience again suggests that the criterion for a social representation is given by the fact that it is in more than one mind. In either case, the notion of sharedness does not explain much: if the members of a social group all wear the same kind of clothing, do they then share a uniform or even a collective uniform? We are certainly not the first to point out the fuzzy character of the term shared. Lahlou (1996) and already Gordon Allport in the first half of the previous century addressed its indistinctness too. The latter forcefully claimed that we should radically avoid it when describing ideas, norms, and other mental representations (Greenwood, 1994, p. 97). Overcoming sharedness 104 Who would claim that a shared, collective uniform would (a) actually exist and (b) cause us to all wear the same piece of clothing in the same manner? Yet this is the kind of reasoning that is often applied in socio-cultural science. Shared, collective ideas, codes, values and the like are believed to be a motivating force in everyday life. First of all, we must not make the mistake of hypothesizing such a collective representation when all we can observe is a similar kind of behavior. For an observer may all too easily conclude that people then adhere to apparently ready-made codes and patterns (cf. the collective uniform) that are spread within their community. In truth, the shared attribute is a construction or artifact of the observer or of the procedures followed (on this point see also Potter & Litton, 1985, p. 84). Second, asking for the motivating force of norms, values or scripts is begging the question. Even if we say in everyday life that people share representations, schemas, values et cetera, these are best conceived of as symptomatic of behavior rather than being a motive for it. Consider laws or etiquette: The causes or motivation for observable behavioral patterns are not to be found in the lines written down in the law or etiquette book. Merely, these prescriptions and prohibitions articulate routines that are already there, that is, enacted. They make precise what people already did in the first place in order to cope successfully in social life. They explicate how people organize their daily practice of living. To be sure, once written down, the laws can be a source of reference for appropriate conduct in a certain community of people. But as Edwards (1997) has noted, rules and precepts are not causes for action; rather they are rhetorical resources, which are only called upon in order to account for

110 Chapter 5 We don t share! non-routine action. We also agree with Harré and Gillett (1994, p. 117) that people are not forced by rules to act in certain ways, but they act in certain ways so tha their actions can be observed to satisfy a rule. 3 As should by now be clear, shared ideas cannot be the origins of sociocultural behavior, because strictly speaking they do not exist other than in the eyes of an observer. What we instead should understand is how feelings and actions become structured and coordinated in such a way that people appear to share the same repertoire (see also Strauss, 1992, p. 1). Toward consensual coordination From Wagner we learned that representations are not things in the heads of people but that they are actions, constructive events, the elaborating of a social object by the members of a community, and that it is human action [that] demarcates the boundary between the world of somethings and the world of domesticated objects (1996, p. 111; 1998, p. 307). Wagner and Mecha (2003) add that the coming about of social representations as such is hardly ever an unintentional affair; it is rather a result of what group members happen to do. Their actions and unintended doings imply a sensitivity to other activities, meanings and bodies of knowledge within the local life world, for the purpose of behaving and communicating (Moscovici, 1963, p. 251). The function Moscovici (1995) originally attributed to social representations as the tissue by which we create a sensible world, validate new social constructions, anchor foreign events into the meaningful local universe, and by which we communicate at all clearly rings through here. We agree with Wagner that action is the key to understanding the structured and stylized behavior of the members of a community. But we disagree on the point that such actions constitute shared social representations. Moreover, Wagner (1998, p. 307; see also Wagner & Mecha, 2003) stresses that some sort of consensus by means of concerted interaction is the cornerstone of the social construction of the world. It is in a sense remarkable that he so much emphasizes this orchestration of representations/actions, as it opens up a way out of the conceptual trap of sharedness. Concerted (inter)action is paralleled in the notion of consensual coordination of actions that we advanced in earlier work (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1999a [chapter 4 in this volume]; 1999b). In our opinion, it offers a much more viable ground for understanding the social dimension of behavior. 105 The enactivist framework 4 The consensual coordination of actions is a pivotal issue in the work of the Chilean biologists Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana (key publications Maturana, 1970; Varela 1979; Maturana & Varela, 1980), particularly so in the framework referred to as Enactivism (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991). Like Wagner s SRA and like most variants of social constructionism, Enactivism

111 Chapter 5 We don t share! 106 considers description to be constitutive of reality rather than it being a representation of a pre-given world. Within Enactivism, description is a creative act of an observer who calls the entities she or he describes into being by distinguishing them as unities from their background. Although, as we will discuss in a moment, living organisms can be said to actualize themselves by specifying their own boundaries, only an observer can distinguish the organism as a unity distinct from its background. Moreover, only an observer can make a connection between the behaviors of an organism and the domain in which it operates. From the standpoint of an observer, each behavior in which the organism engages appears as an actualization of a niche, a domain of distinctions enacted by what Maturana (1970) calls first order Description (with a capital D). First order Description is description in terms of the organism s interactions with an environment, and since organism and environment can only be simultaneously grasped by an observer, it would be an epistemological error to conceive of Description as an organism s representation of environmental states. All observation is second or higher order description (italics), because it is a specification of the act of Describing. That is, an observer can orient himself toward his Descriptions, and treat them as independent entities. In this recursive manner, s/he can endlessly relate to his own behavior. Such is the case when we observe/describe. In addition, Maturana (ibid., p ) contends, all descriptions are arbitrary because there is no necessary relation between their form and what they denote in the domain of interactions of the organism described. A specific situation occurs when an observer intends to describe a living system. In contradistinction to non-living nature, Maturana and Varela (1980, p. 79) formally define living systems as systems that are capable of continuously producing their own components and regenerating their own organization. In other words, a living system is capable of maintaining itself. Examples range from a singular cell, which actively regenerates its own components and the relations between them including the cell wall that marks the boundary with the cell s medium to complex multicellular organisms capable of regenerating the many specialized cells that constitute them. Consequently, if we want to adequately describe a living system and its operations we must do so in terms of its self-referential character. A living system is not solely constituted in the descriptive act of an observer, then, but constitutes itself as a unity by specifying its own embodiment and its own operational boundaries. Yet another qualification must be made if we want to adequately describe a living system endowed with a (complex) nervous system. Already in his early writings, Maturana contends that the nervous system is operationally closed: All its states, changes and effects occur within the bounds of the nervous system itself. In contrast with the dominant view of the nervous system as a system that picks up and processes information, Maturana insists that strictly speaking the nervous system doesn t have inputs and outputs. Rather, the operations of the brain are determined by its own inner coherence, states of relative activity between its own component neurons, such that sensory stimulation can only

112 Chapter 5 We don t share! modulate, but not instruct neuronal activity in the brain. An observer can treat those states as if they represent external entities or events, but it would be an epistemological mistake to consider those representations to be literal recordings of experience. Only in an act of describing can the states of the nervous system be treated as if they refer to entities in the environment, but the nervous system does not actually operate on the basis of representations. The operational closure of the nervous system implies that organisms operate solely within a phenomenal domain that is specified by their own states. The mechanisms that give rise to experience can be described, but they cannot give us access to that very experience. Another way of saying this is that each living system lives in a unique world, a world given only in its own experiences: living systems are experientially closed systems (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1999a, p. 195 [chapter 4 in this volume]). To treat nervous activity as to represent events and entities to which an observer has experiential access is to mix up the descriptive domain of the observer and the phenomenal domain of the organism, even when this organism happens to be oneself (Maturana, 1970); Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1999a [chapter 4 in this volume]). If we want to keep a clean epistemological accounting (Varela, 1984), no distinction made within the domain of second order description is allowed to enter an account of how an organism actually operates. As a consequence, if we want to describe a living system, especially one endowed with a (complex) nervous system, we must do so in terms of its self-referential character and its experiential closure. Experiential closure implies that one organism cannot immediately transfer its experiences to another, nor itself have direct access to the experiences of others. 5 Consequently, communication is not a matter of data streaming from one living system into another. According to Maturana and Varela, notions like in-put, in-struction, internalization and in-formation wrongfully imply that an environment can somehow be instructive for the system. 6 The enactivist approach claims instead that the notion of information is valid only in the descriptive domain as an expression of the cognitive uncertainty of the observer, and does not represent any component actually operant (Maturana, 1975, p. 322; our emphasis). In this view, communication involves a sequence of perturbations in the embodiment of the communication partners. These perturbations are mutually triggered by the experientially closed systems, as a consequence of their orienting behavior. Metaphorically, one could start thinking about the interaction between two organisms as what happens when one presses two balloons against each other. Although both balloons undergo mutually triggered structural changes, no information is actually passed on from one balloon to the other. From the perspective of either balloon all that happens are non-destructive changes in its own structure. Only an observer who beholds the structural change of both balloons simultaneously can treat the deformations in one balloon as to predict deformations in the other, thus interpreting their interaction as to involve a transfer of information. Information then pertains to the extent to which the observation of one balloon reduces the 107

113 Chapter 5 We don t share! level of uncertainty in predicting the structural changes in the other. Since the notion of information does not refer to anything that is operative in the actual interaction, it becomes clear that the conception of communication as a channeling of information is inadequate too. Rather, from an enactive point of view, communication should be seen as any non-instructive interaction between two or more organisms that mutually orients them within their respective cognitive domains. Any judgment about this situation in terms of information that is supposedly shared by the organisms strictly belongs to the descriptive domain of an observer. 108 Consensual domains SRA builds on the very pervasive intuition that for human conduct to be social in nature it needs to be shared in some sense. As discussed above, the notion of sharedness has different connotations that are often not clearly distinguished. It is apparent, however, that to consider something as socially shared one must extend beyond the meaning of merely having something in common. For example, we all share a common human anatomy, but we don t share this common anatomy socially. As we argued in the foregoing paragraph, the notion of sharedness can not provide us with an adequate criterion for what constitutes a social phenomenon. Rather, it is itself in need of further qualification. Applied to the domain of human ideation, such a qualification is typically sought in two different directions. The first route is taken by those social theorists still committed to the cognitivist project. They claim that for ideas or beliefs to be shared, they must be in more than one mind (e.g. Clark, 1996; D Andrade, 1990; Farr, 1998). The problems with this approach are obvious now. Even when we would consider ideas as to be in minds we have no access to someone s ideas separate from the realm of communication and social interaction. Logically and epistemologically the social is therefore prior to any supposed correspondence in mental content. The other direction is taken by discursive thinkers who have abandoned the cognitivist project altogether, claiming that sharedness is a notion only deployed rhetorically (e.g. Edwards, 1999; Edwards & Potter; 1992; Shotter & Billig, 1998). This approach breaks more radically with the individualistic bias of cognitivism, but leaves unanswered the question how people come to have a world in common in the first place. As we have argued elsewhere (Baerveldt, et. Al., 2001; Baerveldt & Voestermans, in press), discursive theory takes the constitutive power of language for granted, but fails to explain how the world we inhabit socially can be experientially and normatively compelling. The discursive approach lacks an adequate theory of the social and therefore runs the risk of ending up in discursive aboutism (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1999a [chapter 4 in this volume]) rather than being able to qualify discourse as a particular kind of social activity. In an attempt to salvage the SRA approach, Wagner shifts our attention to the concerted interactions that supposedly underlie the social nature of

114 Chapter 5 We don t share! representations. But in doing so, he undermines the very notion of representation as having any explanatory power. Wagner takes an important step away from mentalism by equating representations and their objects in a socially enacted world. In the end, however, he insists that the concerted interactions that transform somethings into meaningful social objects are expressions of the common representations already shared by the actors constituting a group. Again, shared representations seem to be evoked to do explanatory work, but now it becomes unclear whether these representations are the product of concerted interactions, or a necessary condition. As we have argued (see also Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1999a [chapter 4 in this volume], 1999b; Verheggen & Baerveldt, 2001), epistemologically speaking the concept of representation is as much in trouble as that of sharedness. Neither one provides us with an adequate criterion of the social. What, then, are our hopes for an intrinsically social psychology that remains firmly grounded in human experience and human consensual praxis? Consensual action is the spearhead, not shared mental content Enactivism is an explicit attempt to extend the boundaries of cognitive science beyond that of representationalism (Varela et. Al., 1991). As such it allies itself with the earlier phenomenological aspiration to ground human ideational activity in the direct, lived experience of a life world we always already have in common with others. Enactivism has been accused of offering a form of solipsism or a new monadology (Kreppner, 1999). We argue, however, that it is exactly the idea of operational and experiential closure that points a way out of the epistemological pitfall of both sharedness and self-contained individualism. Despite Wagner s contention that social representations should not be conceived of as things in the minds of people (1996, p.111), SRA ultimately remains caught up in some sort of mentalism due to its adherence to shared representations and meanings, thus rendering itself incapable of entirely making the step toward an intrinsically social psychology. Enactivism is able to be more radically social because it provides a criterion for the social that is not derived from individual mental content. According to Enactivism, a social interaction is any noninstructive and non-destructive interaction between operationally closed systems; experience is social, not if it is shared, but if it unfolds in the course of such social interaction. It must be noted that Wagner and Mecha (2003) locate social representations as dynamic units in ( ) an unfolding discourse, which is a formula with a very similar ring. However, as we will argue right below, representation and discourse already belong to the descriptive domain of an observer. Maturana and Varela coined the concept of consensual domains to refer to histories of interlocked, non-instructive conduct between operationally closed systems. The notion of consensual domains implies a radical break with the traditional idea of agreement or consensus as a correspondence in mental content. Instead, in a rather Wittgensteinian fashion, Enactivism considers consensual domains as to exist fully in the social domain, as agreements in action. Wittgenstein (1958) argues that for anything to represent something, it 109

115 Chapter 5 We don t share! has to be embedded in a wider context of social practice, a form of life (see also Van der Merwe & Voestermans, 1995). In addition, Enactivism argues that each representation is a recursive specification of first order consensuality. Representations belong entirely to the descriptive domain of an observer and they serve no other function than the mutual orientation of observers within domains of descriptive practice. Granting representations any real causal power within the consensual domains in which they are distinguished is an inadmissible mystification; but so is any attempt to take descriptive activity for granted without considering its ground in consensual, but not yet reflective practice. It now becomes clear that not the notion of operational and experiential closure, but that of sharedness would ultimately lock up human cognizers in a self-contained mind. Sharedness is the make-shift solution that remains once one attempts to built an intrinsically social psychology from a conception of ideas and beliefs as mental contents. A more consistent approach, epistemologically speaking, is to consider psychological or ideational existence to be grounded in consensual domains. Consensual domains are possible precisely because the communicating or interacting systems have no direct access to each other s experiences. From an enactive point of view, each system has to make sense of the conduct of the other in an ongoing mutual tuning process that offers no guarantees for direct or non-ambiguous understanding. Making sense here is not the decoding of messages sent by the other system, but an interpretative process that is fully determined by the structure of the operationally closed system itself (Maturana, 1970; Maturana & Varela, 1984; see also Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1999b). As such, culturally orchestrated understanding is made possible by consensually and historically acquired bodily dispositions, rather than by pre-established shared representations. Meaning is not shared, it is time and again consensually enacted and reenacted. Conclusions 110 From what is said above it follows that any social interaction is an interaction between experientially closed systems. Secondly, following the principles of Enactivism, a social interaction requires the autonomous contribution of all interacting partners. Another way of saying this is in a more psychological jargon is that in a social interaction, the identity (in terms of Maturana and Varela s work this is the maintenance of the system s own structure and organization) of the parties involved is at stake. After all, an organism s response to perturbations of its system will be such that its organizations and structure will be maintained (Maturana, 1970). No social phenomenon can therefore be separated from the experience of those who constitute it. According to Maturana (1980), all social phenomena are constituted by the individual autonomy of their participants: The individual is the center and motor of social phenomena; no society exists beyond the individuals that integrate it, and every society includes all the individuals that

116 Chapter 5 We don t share! constitute it (p. 24). In this very Durkheimian claim is reflected that each society is constituted by a community of actors/experiencers. Social behavior is always a matter of mutually tuned experiences (actions), not a case of shared and/or imposed models from outside. Any social or cultural psychology should start from these fundamental notions. The attentive reader will have noticed a number of clear similarities between Wagner s SRA and the outsets of the enactivist framework as we presented them here. Most importantly, both theories put an emphasis on action. From Wagner we learned that social representations must be identified with the constructive event. As such, social life is always in the making by constructive events (Wagner, 1996, p. 111). Within Enactivism, the world we inhabit is invested with the meanings we continually enact and reenact. A notion of coordination and orchestration of actions is also present in both frameworks. Yet it is on this point that Enactivism differs from the SRA in an important respect. For the SRA, the emphasis appears to rest on consensus and coordination with respect to the already existing 7 meanings, discourses and practices that constitute the local world: (...) representation and object are ontologically undistinguishable within the constructive event. As paradox as it may sound, there is no object resulting from a constructive event. What is constructed is not an object but once more an evidence for the intrinsic truth of a specific world view in a long series of ongoing equivalent performances (Wagner, 1996, p. 111, original hyphenation, our underlining; see also Moscovici, 1995, p ; Pérez Campos, 1998, p. 336). When asking for the necessity to coordinate actions, the SRA refers to the continuation and validation of the existing world view. It is as if the actors conform to an outside authority holding and intrinsic truth. Within Enactivism, consensual domains first and foremost contribute to the continuation of the parties involved. Both frameworks acknowledge that the social is not a property of things and that, when trying to account for it, it is erroneous to search for our cognitions of the social. SRA as well as Enactivism holds that cognition itself is a social affair, and that the label social refers to the way in which properties are produced. But in contradistinction to the SRA, Enactivism provides an epistemology in which a notion of sharedness is absent because Enactivism radicalizes the role of consensual coordination: It is because the experiences of others are fundamentally inaccessible to us that the mutual tuning of actions (that is, communication) is possible. Wagner (1998; Wagner & Mecha, 2003) comes very close to a conceptualization of consensual domains by contending that it is through discourse and other variants of concerted interaction that people come to calibrate their minds, his analysis reverts into the use of shared representations. Concerted interaction appears to be the mechanism by means of 111

117 Chapter 5 We don t share! which the genesis of shared representations comes about (p. 305). Although recent publications (cf. Wagner & Mecha, 2003) are less clear on the point, Wagner s SRA still appears in need of a concept like internalization to account for the individual acquisition of the shared representations. This, however, is a process left unexplained by the SRA (Wagner, 1998, p ). Moreover, internalization has been troubling philosophers for ages and social scientists for decades: How do people internalize their culture s codes, norms, values, models, beliefs and the like (see also Bertacco, 2003)? And how can they be empowered with a motivating force (Strauss, 1992)? The enactive paradigm does not have to deal with these problems. It rejects notions like in-ternalization, as we have seen above. Such notions pass by the crucial fact that living systems are operationally or experientially closed entities. Likewise, reference to external and/or pre-given codes, norms, values, representations, culture and the like, must be rejected as explanatory constructs for the same reason. None of these concepts should therefore be part of an operational explanation of social behavior. Endnotes This led to a grave misunderstanding of Durkheim as the enemy par excellence of psychology (see on this point Meštrović, 1988; see also chapters 2 and 3). 2. The word object is deliberately put in quotation marks here to emphasize its cognizer-relative status. 3. What is said here for laws and etiquette is equally true for norms and values. Since the dawning of the new millennium, at least in the Netherlands, the media is chockfull of discussion about Dutch norms and values, and those of immigrants. Time and again, the suggestion is that newcomers can and should learn and adhere to the rules of good Dutch citizenship. Let alone the question what such citizenship would be like (and clearly, no one knows really), norms and values are at least implicitly conceived of as collective prescriptions that immigrants can learn as if they stem from a textbook. Being sensitive to the fact that (a) norms and the like are no out there -realities and that (b) no motivation originates from them, fruitless debate and political action could have failed to appear. 4. For the brief presentation of some key ideas of the enactivist framework as we present them here, we gratefully made use of the magnificent Encyclopaedia Autopoietica presented by Dr. Randall Whitaker: 5. Whitaker (2002) makes the same point: The combination of the nervous system s operational closure and the notion of descriptions imposes a character of distance or artificiality to the means by which observers can reflect upon, or interact with each other about, their environment. With regard to individual reflection, this implies that cognitive systems engage only their descriptions hence always at least one step removed from the phenomena they may naively believe to be directly or objectively manifest. As such, engagement with the environment cannot be described as a process of information transfer in the sense that the observer acquires or absorbs information from outside. (Whitaker, 1 Introductory Orientation.htm )

118 Chapter 5 We don t share! 6. As such, also the term interaction we use in this text should formally be placed in quotation marks every time, to indicate that from a recursive point of view it does not connote insides and outsides. The recursive point of view is contrasted with a behavioral point of view. The latter focuses on what would be the environment of a system. The system itself is apprehended as a simple unity. Its internal operations are obscured behind that system s boundary. Perturbations are explained as phenomena framed with regard to the environment. The relationship of the system to these phenomena cannot be explained except in terms of import/export. From a recursive viewpoint, on the other hand, the focus is set within a system itself. Its interactional status with the environment is obscured by the boundary, through which exogenous interactions are discernible only in terms of their perturbatory projections within the system Thus, perturbations within the system cannot be explained in terms of import/export processes to and from the environment, which lies outside the referential matrix specified by this particular point of view. 7. Though not as fixed entities or structures, but as structures that are always in the making, exhibited in a series of constructive events (...) (Wagner, 1996, p. 111). References Allport, F.H. (1924). Social psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Baerveldt, C. (1999). Culture and the consensual coordination of actions. Nijmegen: Unpublished doctoral thesis. Baerveldt, C., & Verheggen, Th. (1999a). Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture: Rethinking the epistemological basis of cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 5 (2), Baerveldt, C., & Verheggen, Th. (1999b). Towards a psychological study of culture: Epistemological considerations. In: W. Maiers, B. Bayer, B. Duarte Esgalhado, R. Jorna, & E. Schraube (Eds.). Challenges to Theoretical Psychology. North York: Captus. Baerveldt, C., & Voestermans, P. (1996). The body as a selfing device: The case of anorexia nervosa. Theory & Psychology, 6, Baerveldt, C., & Voestermans, P. (in press). Culture, emotion and the normative structure of reality. To appear in Theory & Psychology, Baerveldt, C., Verheggen, Th., & Voestermans, P. (2001). Human experience and the enigma of culture: Toward an enactive account of cultural practice. In J. R. Morss, N. Stepenson, & H. van Rappard (Eds.), Theoretical Issues in Psychology (pp ). Boston: Kluwer. Bertacco, M. (2003). The externalization-internalization deadlock in Social Representation Theory and experimental social psychology: A comment on Jaan Valsiner (2003). Papers on Social Representations, 12, [ Clark, H. H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. D Andrade, R.G. (1990). Some propositions about the relationship between culture and human cognition. In: J.W. Stigler, R.A. Shweder, & G. Herdt 113

119 Chapter 5 We don t share! 114 (Eds.). Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development. New York: Cambridge University Press. D Andrade, R.G. (1995) The development of cognitive anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Danziger, K. (1997). Naming the mind: How psychology found its language. London: Sage. Deutscher, I. (1984). Choosing ancestors: Some consequences of the selection from intellectual traditions. In R.M. Farr & S. Moscovici (Eds.), Social representations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Durkheim, E. ([1912]1995). The elementary forms of religious life. New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, E. ([1924]1974). Individual and Collective Representations. In E. Durkheim, Sociology and philosophy. New York: The Free Press. Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London: Sage. Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive psychology. London: Sage Farr, R.M. (1987). Social representations: A French tradition of research. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 17(4), Farr, R.M. (1996). The modern roots of social psychology. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Farr, R.M (1998). From collective to social representations: Aller et retour. Culture & Psychology, 4(3), Fogel, A. (1993). Developing through relationships: Origins of communication, self and culture. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Goodenow, J.J. (1990). The socialization of cognition: what s involved? In J.W. Stigler, R.A. Shweder & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Graumann, C.F. (1986). The individualization of the social and the desocialization of the individual: Floyd H. Allport s contribution to social psychology. In C.F. Graumann and S. Moscovici (Eds.), Changing conceptions of crowd, mind and behavior. New York: Springer, Greenwood, J.D. (1994). Realism, identity and emotion. Reclaiming social psychology. London: Sage. Harré, R., & Gillett, G. (1994). The discursive mind. London: Sage. Harré, R., & Secord, P.F. (1972). The explanation of social behaviour. Oxford: Blackwell. Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jahoda, G. (1992). Crossroads between culture and mind: Continuities and change in theories of human nature. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Janssen, J.A.P.J., & Verheggen, Th. (1997). The double center of gravity in Durkheim s symbol theory: Bringing the body back in. Sociological Theory, 15(3), Jaspars, J.M.F., & Fraser, C. (1984). Attitudes and social representations. In: R.M. Farr & S. Moscovici (Eds.) Social representations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

120 Chapter 5 We don t share! Kreppner, K. (1999). Enactivism and monadology: Where are Baerveldt and Verheggen taking the individual and cultural psychology? Culture & Psychology, 5, Lahlou, S. (1996). The propagation of social representations. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 26, Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics and culture in everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Locke, J. ([1689]1975). An essay concerning human understanding (5 th Ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lutz, C. (1988). Unnatural emotions. Chicago : University of Chicago Press. Marková, I. (1996). Towards an epistemology of social representations. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 26, Maturana, H. (1970). Biology of cognition, Biological Computer Laboratory Research Report BCL 9.0. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois. Maturana, H. (1975). The neuropsychology of cognition. In: P. Garvin (Ed.), Cognition: A multiple view. New York: Spartan. Maturana, H. (1978). Biology of language: The epistemology of reality. In: G.A. Miller, & E. Lenneberg (Eds.), Psychology and biology of language and thought: Essays in honor of Eric Lenneberg. New York: Academic Press. Maturana, H. (1980). Man and society. In: F. Benseler, P.M. Hejl, & W.K. Köck (Eds.), Autopoiesis, communication and society: The theory of autopoietic systems in the social sciences. Frankfurt: Campus. Maturana, H., & Varela, F.J. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition. The realization of the living. Dordrecht: Reidel. Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1984). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston, MA: Shambala. Merwe, W.L. van der, & Voestermans, P.P.L.A. (1995). Wittgenstein s legacy and the challenge to psychology. Theory & Psychology, 5, Meštrović, S.G.M. (1988). Émile Durkheim and the reformation of sociology. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Moscovici, S. (1963). Attitudes and opinions. Annual Review of Psychology, 14, Moscovici, S. (1981) Preface to P. Heelas & A. Lock (Eds.) Indigenous psychologies: The anthropology of the self. London: Academic Press. Moscovici, S. (1988). Notes towards a description of social representations. European Journal of Social Psychology, Moscovici, S. (1995). Geschichte und Aktualität sozialer Repräsentationen. In: U. Flick (Hg.), Psychologie des Sozialen: Repräsentationen in Wissen und Sprache. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rororo. Moscovici, S. (1998). Social consciousness and its history. Culture & Psychology, 4, Némedi, D. (1995). Collective consciousness, morphology, and collective representations: Durkheim s sociology of knowledge, Sociological Perspectives, 38,

121 Chapter 5 We don t share! 116 Pérez Campos, G. (1998). Social representation and the ontology of the social world: Bringing another signification into the dialogue. Culture & Psychology, 4, Potter, J., & Litton, I. (1985). Some problems underlying the theory of social representations. British Journal of Social Psychology, 24, Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Rogoff, B. & Lave, J. (Eds.) (1984). Everyday cognition. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. Saito, A. (1996). Social origins of cognition: Bartlett, evolutionary perspective and embodied mind approach. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 26, Schaller, M., & Crandall, C. S. (Eds.). (2004). The psychological foundations of culture. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schmauss, W. (1994). Durkheim s philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge: Creating an intellectual niche. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Scribner, S. (1984). Studying working intelligence. In B. Rogoff & J. Lave (Eds.). Everyday cognition. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, Searle, J.R. (1995). The construction of social reality. New York: The Free Press. Shotter, J., & Billig, M. (1998). A Bakhtinian psychology: from out of the heads of individuals and into the dialogues between them. In M. Mayerfeld Bell & M. Gardiner (Eds.), Bakhtin and the human sciences (pp ). London: Sage. Shweder, R. (1990). Cultural psychology what is it? In: J.W. Stigler, R.A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.). Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, Smith, R. (1997). The Fontana history of the human sciences. London: Fontana Press. Strauss, C. (1992). Models and motives. In: R. D Andrade, & C. Strauss (Eds.), Human motives and cultural models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strauss, C., & Quinn, N. (1997). A cognitive theory of cultural meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Varela, F.J. (1979). Principles of biological autonomy. New York: Elsevier North Holland. Varela, F. (1984). Two principles of self-organization. In H. Ulrich & G. J. B. Probst (Eds.), Self-organization and management of social systems: Insights, promises, doubts, and questions (pp ). Berlin: Springer- Verlag. Varela, F.J., Thompson, F., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge: MIT Press.

122 Chapter 5 We don t share! Verheggen, Th. (1996). Durkheim s représentations considered as Vorstellungen. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 16, Verheggen, Th., & Baerveldt, C. (2001). From shared representations to consensually coordinated actions: Toward an intrinsically social psychology. In J. R. Morss, N. Stepenson, & H. van Rappard (Eds.), Theoretical Issues in Psychology (pp ). Boston: Kluwer. Wagner, W. (1996). Queries about social representation and construction. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 26 (2), Wagner, W. (1998). Social representations and beyond: Brute facts, symbolic coping and domesticated worlds. Culture & Psychology, 4 (3), Wagner, W. (2003). People in action and social representation: A comment to Jaan Valsiner s (2003) Theory of Enablement. Papers on Social Representations, 12, [ Wagner, W., & Mecha, A. (2003). On discursive construction, representation and institutions: A meta-empirical study. In J. Laszlo & W. Wagner (Eds.), Theories and controversies in societal psychology. Budapest: New Mandate. Whitaker, R. (1997). Self-organization, autopoiesis, and enterprises. Retrieved June 12, 1997 from the World Wide Web: Currently also available via: Whitaker, R (2002). Encyclopaedia Autopoietica. Retrieved December 19, 2002 from the World Wide Web: Wittgenstein, L. (1958). Philosophical investigations (G.E.M. Anscombe, Trans.). (3 rd edition). New Jersey: Prentice Hall. (Original work published 1953). 117

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124 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete The current chapter is the tentative concluding argument in defining a viable epistemology for cultural psychology. Although the manuscript was intended as an article, it has not yet been submitted to a journal. Author s abstract The enactivist framework grants a special perspective to the observer that cannot be left out of a social scientific epistemology. That perspective of the observer, who may perceive regularities in the world, should not be confused with the operations that give rise to such perceptions. An attempt is made to address culture from both the operational and the phenomenological perspective. In order to do so, the term cultural behavior is dissected into its characterizing operations. Inspiration is drawn from Michael Tomasello s key notions of understanding the intentions of others like me and the ratchet effects that are connected to embodied learning and habituation. In addition, evolutionary psychology s account of culture is addressed, as it has an open eye for social selective pressures that in part constitute the (biological) embodiment of modern humans. The point that evolutionary psychology tends to miss, however, is that the actual bringing about of socio-cultural conduct in real life cannot be already coded for in our genes, brains or bodies. Like most other psychologists, evolutionary thinkers overlook the co-constructed character of everyday practices, including cognition. Therefore, if it can be understood from both an operational and a phenomenological viewpoint how learning and habituation are from the outset socially orchestrated skills, accounts in which culture precedes or locks out individual experience can be declared bankrupt. It is suggested that scholars abandon the term culture from their analyses, as well as its refractions such as schemas, models, patterns, norms and values. They obscure the processes to understand: Culture is a description made by an observer; it is not a causal force in the operational domains of consensually coordinating organisms. 119

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126 Culture Alt Delete Theo Verheggen Do people have culture? Not in the sense of arts and science, but in the sense that they actually possess something that structures their behavior, guides their thoughts, colors their feelings and affects their perceptions: Do people have such a thing? The answer is a very simple no. That is to say, there is no entity or property in humans to single out that we could justly identify as culture. Stated in this manner, the remark is trivial. Most likely, no psychologist since Wilhelm Wundt will really hold culture to be an entity added to the human individual. Although, as Jahoda (1992, p. 182) states, some of Wundt s writings were so ambiguous on this point that his contemporaries sometimes came to believe that the author of the voluminous Völkerpsychologie argued for the reality of a supra-individual Volksseele [Folk soul], Wundt clearly stated in 1911 that nobody any longer entertains the notion of a disembodied entity independent of the individual; even Hegel s attempt to rationalize the notion is no longer acceptable (cited in Jahoda, ibid.). A few decades before Wundt, Völkerpsychologen such as Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal had presented their disputable notions of Volksgeist [Folk spirit] and Volksseele, leaving room indeed for an interpretation in terms of an entity that exists independent of the individual lives that it governs. But despite Wundt s later dismissal of such a representation of the facts, notions of culture as a superimposed reality continued to fuel social theory. Anthropologist Alfred Kroeber ([1917]1952), for instance, denoted culture as superorganic and Leslie White s (1959) qualification of culture as extrasomatic at least suggested a sui generis realm of things, events, symbols, beliefs etcetera. Likewise, Durkheimians such as Marcel Mauss, Maurice Halbwachs and Henri Hubert upheld the notion of a conscience collective. Although Émile Durkheim himself, as well as his followers, had insisted that the conscience collective was not independent of the body and mind of individuals (see chapters 2 and 3), it was too often interpreted that way in sociology, anthropology and psychology. Much like Durkheim, psychologist William McDougall (1920) wrote about a mental life which is not the mere sum of the mental lives of its units. And like Durkheim, he used an ambiguous term to refer to it. McDougall chose to speak of a group mind but later came to regret he had ever used the phrase ( ) since it was so liable to misunderstanding (cited in Smith, 1997, p. 759). According to Smith (ibid.), McDougall never had the intention to think of a consciousness other than that of individual minds. Rather, he meant that there are similarities of structure in the individual minds which render them capable of responding in similar fashion 121

127 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete 122 (cited in Allport, 1968). Smith (1997, p. 759) goes on to contend that McDougall and others nevertheless wrote about a common structure that allows for a mentality that transcends the life of any one individual. Although we are not convinced that this is an apt restatement of McDougall s phrase above, it does reflect how most scholars in psychology today continue to approach culture. There appears to be general consensus in the research field of culture and cognition that culture can be conceived of as learned structures. Exemplary for this chain of thought are cultural patterns (Adams & Markus, 2001; 2004), models and schemas (D Andrade, 1995; D Andrade & Strauss, 1992; Holland & Quinn, 1987; Strauss & Quinn, 1997), programs (Geertz, 1973), scripts (Goddard & Wierzbicka, 1997; Wierzbicka, 1994), dialogs (Hermans & Kempen, 1993) or other blueprints for behavior, common to or shared by the individual members of that culture. Carefully avoiding yet another reification of culture this time not as an objective spirit or soul but as social pattern, model and so forth contemporary scholars argue that culture and individual/self constitute each other mutually or even dialectically (Adams & Markus, 2004; Gone, Miller & Rappaport, 1999; Shweder, 1990). Culture is here a dynamic of social forces that somehow model individuals daily behavior (Adams & Markus, 2001). At the same time it is believed that culture, as a flux of social forces, can be represented in artifacts and institutions (Wagner & Mecha, 2003), and assessed or manipulated in experimental settings. It does seem reasonable to conceive of culture as a force. After all, a social demand can be experienced as compelling, violating a public prohibition can evoke an awkward experience in one s tummy, and attending a massive rock concert may arouse a kind of electric feeling one never experiences when alone. The demand, prohibition or effervescence may thus be experienced as if it were an outward force. Another, more problematic assumption underlying the notion of cultural forces is that these powers do something to human behavior. They are believed to structure people s conduct and feelings, and at least partially in spite of the private actions and experiences of individuals. But then, essentially the trivial claim above is refracted and echoed time and again in contemporary social theory: There is something in the lives of human beings that to a large extent structures their behavior. It does not matter whether that something is called a collective spirit, a folk soul, or a social norm, a cultural force, a dynamic unit, a persistently changing cultural pattern, and so on. Although in many social theories static and object-like notions of culture have been traded for dynamic interplays between individual people and their structured surroundings (both material and immaterial), the blueprint operations and effects of culture continue to be conceived of as partially and initially alien to the experiences of individual people. A human being is born into a culture, is exposed to a plethora of already existing social dynamics, and needs to adapt to this social world. The question is how s/he succeeds. Virtually all social theories answer that culture in whatever form it may be thought of at some point acts on the individual: Schemas coerce the individual into behavioral templates, models set parameters to possible

128 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete actions, scripts prescribe proper conduct, etcetera. In our cultural psychological perception, however, it is only individuals that can act. And it is only in individuals experiences that psycho/socio/cultural forces can have any reality. Psychology and culture In chapters 4 and 5 we argued that as long as the structuring principles of human behavior are sought outside or independent of individuals actions and experiences, (cultural) psychology will throw out the baby with the bathwater. No matter how sophisticated the mutual makeup of the individual psyche and cultural forces is thought of in modern science, the age-old dualism of man being grossly torn between biological wants and cultural demands remains intact this way. This is so because culture continues to be a phenomenon that essentially opposes the experiences of individuals to important extents. In addition, the architects of cultural models, scripts, dialogues, patterns and the like fail to tell us what these regularities in flux are really made of. Granted that they are social constructions, what principles account for their continuation in the social sphere? It does not suffice to say that they somehow emerge; culture is not a Phoenix. But neither is it sufficient to say that culture is a force, like gravity is. We cannot observe gravity any better than culture, though we all experience gravity s pull and its power can be quantified from the constant effect that gravity has on physical objects. Moreover, we know that it is our own physical mass that in part constitutes gravity. But gravity is not constituted by our experiences of it. A cultural force, on the other hand if anything is constituted solely by our own experiences, as will be demonstrated below. We therefore cannot just postulate it to be out there. In order to come to grips with this notion, an epistemology is needed that is able to account for culture as an experiential affair. We do applaud the recent counterbalancing in cultural psychological theory, in which the cultural imprinting of the human mind is augmented with perspectives on the psychological make up of culture itself. No longer is identifying the juxtaposition of culture and mind, like a Cartesian pineal gland, cultural psychology s core business. Rather, the realization that culture is itself a psychological phenomenon (Baerveldt & Verheggen, 1997; see also chapter 4), gains ground. In 2004, a voluminous book was published entitled The Psychological Foundations of Culture (Schaller & Crandall [Eds.], 2004). Also, a substantial number of articles has found its way into psychological journals. Wolfgang Wagner s Social Representation Approach, addressed at length in chapter 5, illustrates such a current concern about the psychological nature of culture from the perspective of a highly influential theoretical framework. The fact that the psychological foundation of culture is on the agenda does not bring to a halt speculations that culture is a force exerted from outside, however. This is abundantly clear from most chapters in the aforementioned volume by Schaller and Crandall. The central question throughout the more than a dozen contributions is how culture emerges and becomes transmitted in a population. 123

129 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete While sensitive to the observation that culture and psyche make each other up the much cited phrase by Shweder (1990, p. 24) all authors start from the notion that culture somehow emerges anywhere that there are people (p. 10) and subsequently somehow influences those people s behavior and affections. Time and again, culture and psyche are opposites in a duality whose cultural pole has been downplayed in psychology until recently (p. 338). The contributors see it as their task to counterbalance this trend, focusing instead on the social construction and dissemination of shared representations, meanings, beliefs, norms or stereotypes. As was argued in the foregoing chapters, such inherently dualistic starting points entail profound epistemological difficulties: 1. Culture, cultural forces, models, etc. are easily reified in the literature 1 [chapters 4 and 5]. Reification should of course be avoided at any time. 2. External cultural norms and ideas must somehow be internalized by individual people [chapters 4 and 5]. Suppose that some sort of information would indeed enter the individual body and psyche from outside; still lacking, then, is a good and viable idea about how such internalization would actually take place. 3. It is unclear how extra-experiential cultural values, norms, or codes acquire a motivating force for individual people [chapters 4 and 5]. The cart is easily put before the horse: Instead of assuming that cultural norms, for instance, can themselves motivate people from outside, what needs to be understood is how people come to feel a compellingness with respect to norms. 4. It is all too often assumed that people share a set of collective representations and orientations [chapter 5]. Like internalization, sharedness is an easy common sense notion yet a highly problematic assumption in social science. Moreover: (Discursive and social constructionist) studies often focus on what is said about experiences rather than studying these experiences themselves [chapter 4]. Such aboutism does not offer the proper level of analysis for revealing the presumed operations underlying human conduct. 6. Solipsism seems to be the only alternative left when extraexperiential forces are rejected [chapter 5]. Since a solipsistic position is unwanted altogether, the path of an out-there culture is apparently 1 It is telling that Adams and Markus (2001, 2004) opt for a theory of cultural patterns as a less reifying alternative to theories that conceive of culture as a fixed entity. Apparently, their solution still reifies culture to some extent. Moreover, Adams and Markus still attribute agency to culture (2004, p. 338).

130 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete the more appealing one to follow. We will argue instead that both solipsism and out-there forces can be avoided in thinking about culture in relation to mind. In the remainder of this chapter, it will be argued that an epistemology for a truly cultural psychology is possible without implying a mind-culture dualism, without applying circular reasoning and without reverting back into solipsism (see Kreppner, 1999). Quite on the contrary, the enactivist epistemology advocated here holds that human behavior is necessarily socio-cultural from the outset. Not only in the sense that the behavior is there to be seen and to be acted upon by other experiencing persons, but also in the sense that the observation and acting upon other s behavior is the only way to find out about others experiences. We all live our private experiences Much like Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer and some radical constructivists (e.g. Von Glasersfeld, 1974), enactivism holds that we live in a world that is entirely made up of our own cognitions. Subsequently, enactivism defines the actor s cognitive domain in psychological terms as the range of all possible interactions that a person can have with the objects and organisms around her/him, as well as with the states in its own organism. This implies that there is no world for a person beyond her/his cognitive domain. Our sole reality is the universe of our own experiences: We live in our private experiential reality; and this is true for every cognizing organism. This perspective on self-contained cognition must not be confused with the idea that everything ceases to exist beyond the physical borders of our bodies, for that would be an erroneous suggestion. When we view ourselves as bodies in a physical world, it is clear that we interact with objects and others. We sit in chairs, walk through open doors, talk and play with peers and eat food. There are substances going in and out of our organisms and as physical entities we do exchange energy with our environment. But again, from the perspective on how we know the world, there is no exchange of ideas or information as there is no world beyond our cognitive states. Since we cannot step outside the realm of our own experiences, our experiential domain is not open for in-formation from outside. It cannot be stressed often enough that this not to say that we are physically immune to activities from others or objects. The point is that others have no immediate access to, nor immediate influence on our experiences. But their activities, including their utterances, can initiate changes in our physical system. These changes will in turn affect our initial bodily conditions, especially the states of our nervous system. The precise outcome of these perturbations (Maturana & Varela, 1987) is however a function of the states that our own system is in. Thus although physical, auditive, visual or other stimuli from outside an organism s physical boundaries can affect its operational states, these stimuli cannot 125

131 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete immediately determine the organism s cognitions. 2 The transition from physical affection to a new cognitive state is an operation contained within the (cognizing) system itself. Therefore, in a social setting, there is no information from outside but only organisms upon which the other organisms doings impinge. There is no instruction or transmission but only mutually triggered that is experienced action. One of the main questions to be answered in this chapter is what makes the closed systems, in which states are altered on the basis of perturbations, into systems that can perform concerted interactions; enfolding sequences of interlocked actions, that is. Before dealing with this issue, the enactivist theory of knowledge must be explicated in more detail. Two perspectives If our cognitive/experiential domains are closed, as we think they are, then how can theories be maintained in which there are input-computation-output models, representationalist portraits of the mind, connectionist alternatives, social models and cultural scripts, discursive orders, Stone Age brain modules, and so forth? These theories all adhere to an underlying epistemology in which the mind is either assumed to be a computational center mediating between incoming stimuli and outgoing behavior, or in which a pre-given outside world is presupposed that somehow structures people s experiences. Theories of the first category deny the operational closure of the nervous system; theories of the second category pass by the embedment of social orders in experience. In order to overcome these shortcomings, the enactive framework makes a particular epistemological move. It argues that living systems and behavior must always be addressed from two inexchangeable perspectives. (1) Describing what an organism does and (2) describing what kind of operations take place in an organism are two distinct activities that pertain to different epistemological viewpoints. It is from simultaneously applying these different viewpoints on behavior that the social styling of individual experiences can be accounted for without leaving the realm of individual experience itself. Recall from chapter 4 that the key insight is contained in the notion that the observer her/himself in part constitutes the objects under investigation. When describing a chair, for instance, the observer already distinguishes the chair as a unit separate from a background, as having a certain shape, color, function, and so forth. The object is experientially constituted in the act of The relations between physical activity and cognitive operations are by no means unambiguously unraveled yet. What is clear from neuroscience, however, is that there are no simple and clear cut correspondences between bodily states and mental operations. The organization and structure of the nervous system is such that this system endlessly interacts with its own states: Sensations evoked by the sense-organs and current states in brain activity lead to new states of brain activity dependent on the brain s prior conditions. These new states in turn affect brain activity, and so forth, ultimately leading to what people experience. It is thus no the case that outside affections result in a one-onone representation or idea in peoples minds. See Maturana (1970), Maturana and Varela (1987), Singer (2003).

132 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete describing or observing that is, making distinctions. It must be acknowledged that an observer distinguishes a unity from a background, and that an observer distinguishes features, components, and so on. From now on this will be called the phenomenological perspective: What is described by an observer is by that very act of describing constituted as salient to that observer. Taking into account this constitutive perspective of the observer is particularly important when a particular living system is being observed. Here, an observer may identify the system relative to its environment, and an observer may distinguish the system s operations in terms of adapting, learning, fleeing, thinking, and so forth. But contrary to describing chairs, it does not suffice to point out from a phenomenological point of view the properties, architecture, fabric, and so forth that a living system consists of. One must also acknowledge that living systems are capable of producing and regenerating their own organization and structure; they are autopoietic systems (see chapter 4). As such, a living system specifies itself as an autonomous unity. This typical selfconstituting capacity cannot be described in terms of what an observer happens to find relevant. Instead, what from now on will be called the operational perspective is needed too, in which the system is solely described in terms of the processes operating in the generation of any of its states. As stated in chapter 4, within enactivism the embodiment of a living system is simultaneously understood in terms of the physical body of biology and in terms of the lived, experiential, and expressive body that was particularly thematized by phenomenology. The two perspectives underlying this simultaneous understanding may not be mixed up, for that would be an epistemological mistake. Birds of a feather Describing behavior from a phenomenological perspective is radically different from describing that behavior from an operational perspective. To make this point more clear, consider the following well known example. Suppose someone wants to describe the behavior of a bird in a flock. After some observation, this observer may notice the following regularities that are applicable to the behavior of each individual bird in the flock: 1. A bird avoids collisions with nearby flockmates. 2. It attempts to match its own velocity with nearby flockmates. 3. It tries to stay close to nearby flockmates, resulting in the tendency to move to the center of the flock. 127 The observer may derive mathematical equations for these findings that enable her/him to adequately describe, and perhaps predict, the movements of each individual bird. It would be an obvious error, however, to claim that the birds themselves apply the algorithms found by the observer. Clearly, the birds will not be using human mathematics. But there is more to tell about the example. When

133 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete taking the operational perspective to describe an individual bird s behavior, the observer needs to refer to the processes that constitute the way that bird is embodied. The description may entail how nerve cells react to stimuli of sorts, how this leads to changes in the reactivity of the bird s brain, how this is followed by certain muscle contractions, and so forth. When interpreting these operations, the observer may conclude that these operations all contribute to the maintenance of the individual bird s (physically) embodiment. It will be clear, however, that in this maintainance there is no place for algorithms or rules. These notions pertain to the phenomenological perspective of the observer, and not to the operations in the bird s embodiment. Although one may want to apply both the operational and the phenomenological perspective when describing a bird and its behavior, the claims pertaining to both viewpoints may not be mixed or confused. The bird and flock example will reappear once more in this chapter. It is now time to apply both the operational and the phenomenological perspective to the human condition. Coordination of actions In the following paragraphs we pick up the previous question how operationally closed systems can perform concerted actions. Essentially, this is what enactivism is about. The issue is explicitly addressed from both the operational and the phenomenological point of view. The argument will lay the basis for the psychological analysis of culture that will subsequently be elaborated upon. 128 Making distinctions (operational perspective) Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991) argue that by virtue of having a body with sensory-motor capacities we are continuously making distinctions as we move around. When we alter the position of our head, for instance, or when we focus our eyes on an object, the states of the sensory cells in and around our eyeballs will change immediately. These changes are relevant to us: they make a difference in our future functioning as they affect our possible further actions. Since living bodies are in constant motion (an eyeball, for instance, unstoppably resonates at a very low amplitude to preserve normal sight; a phenomenon known as nystachmus or saccadic movements), the sensory surfaces are subject to an ongoing flux of perturbations. To the extent that these perturbations are relevant for our future actions, they can be referred to as distinctions, or perceptions, or selections out of a background. By no means does this imply that we can or need to consciously control all of our body movements, nor can we influence all the distinctions we make. Most of them in fact do escape our willful control. The important point is that making distinctions is inextricably bound to moving. Put differently: perception is movement. The kind of distinctions we make [what we perceive] is a function of our history of exposure to our environment which shapes the reactivity of our

134 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete sensory-motor and neuronal structures [what we can perceive], while at the same time this way of embodiment [what we can perceive] determines the kinds of stimuli we select from our environment [what we perceive] (Varela, Thompson & Rosch, 1991, p. 156, ; see also Merleau-Ponty, 1963). The nervous system, who s states are not only dependent on changes at the receptor surfaces of our senses but also on changes in the nervous system s states themselves, plays a key part here. As Maturana, Mpodozis and Letelier (1995) put it: [The nervous system] has a plastic structure that changes following the contingencies of the living system while this system maintains its autopoietic organization in a medium. This means that such a living system compensates for structural perturbations by means of keeping constant certain receptor-effector correlations through changing recursively the reactivity of the nervous system (ibid.). From this operational perspective, what is important are the structural changes in the living system s embodiment and the compensations they elicit. Strictly speaking, it makes no difference to the system whether the stimuli stem from elements in its environment or from its internal operations (acid secretion, for instance). In operational terms, there is no inside, outside or environment. These abstractions become only salient when the living system is observed/described as a unity in a medium. Notice that this already is a phenomenological perspective. Structural couplings and coordinated actions (phenomenological perspective) What is stated above has consequences for the way we, observers, must phenomenologically describe a living system in its medium. Recall that what can be distinguished by the living system is determined by that living system s embodiment. At the same time, the living system s embodiment is shaped by its history of perturbations. Perturbations stemming from the environment therefore partly determine how the environment will be perceived by the living system in the future. More precisely, what is environment to the living system depends on the system s embodiment and vice versa. Therefore, when we describe a living system, we need to see both the organism and its environment as co-ontogenies. They constitute one another. In the terms of enactive theory, the organism and its environment are structurally coupled. A structural coupling is a history of recurrent interactions leading to the structural congruence between two (or more) systems [such as an organism and its medium] (Maturana & Varela, 1987, p. 75). In the eyes of an observer, a structural coupling may appear as an organism coordinating its actions in an environment. Yet what actually goes on at the operational level needs to be conceptualized in its own right and may be unknown. Organisms endowed with a (complex) nervous system can generate a more elaborate pallet of possible conduct than systems that merely display (simple) receptor-effector sequences. Neurons mediate between receptor cells 129

135 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete and effector cells and can connect one receptor cell with many effector cells. Hereby, the number of possible states the system can have multiplies. Especially when the nervous system is a complex network of neurons that can also interact with the effects of its own functioning, the number of possible states mediating initial reception and effect increases dramatically. At this point, a new domain of interactions can arise: A nervous system is organized in such a manner that it can recursively interact with its own internal states (Maturana, 1970, p. 25). Thus, the external (initiated at the sensory surfaces) and internal (initiated by the current state of the nervous system itself) perturbations can lead to structural changes (compensations) in the organism that permit the continuation of its organization and operations. A special situation occurs when perturbations stem from another organism endowed with a (complex) nervous system. In this case, both organisms compensate for mutual perturbations, thereby maintaining their respective autopoietic organizations. In the eyes of an observer, the mutual perturbations that thus arise between organisms can acquire a stable, recurrent character. Maturana and Varela then speak of a third-order coupling. In this case, a co-ontogeny of the structurally coupled organisms emerges: [T]he codrifting organisms give rise to a new phenomenological domain (1987, p. 181, original italics) This is the domain from which an observer in whose view only the co-ontogeny of the structurally coupled organisms is recognized may phenomenologically infer that the organisms communicate, share a set of values, adhere to cultural norms, mutually coordinate their actions and so forth. Operationally, however, both systems keep constant certain receptor-effector correlations through changing recursively the reactivity of their nervous system. 130 Living in language (phenomenological perspective) Within the theory of autopoiesis, a course of mutual coordinations is called a consensual domain (Maturana, 1988), or a cooperative domain of interactions (cf. Whitaker, 1997 [2003]). In human communication, the mutual tuning of actions can acquire a recurrent character in which the participants can reflect on their actions; they coordinate their coordinations so to speak. For example, when we talk about an orange with our colleagues, we need to make sure that we all orient ourselves toward that piece of fruit, physically and/or mentally. At the same time, we must make these orientations themselves object of our mutual communication: We coordinate our coordinations with respect to the object we refer to as orange. Essentially, this is what symbols consist of: they express something about a course of action (see Sinha, 2004). They embody relations of second or higher order coordinations of conduct. A word, such as a noun, is a symbol par excellence. Orange specifies the types of relations and orientations that participants in a given linguistic domain can have with such a piece of fruit.

136 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete Moreover, being a symbolic expression, it enables the participants to orient 3 each other s behavior toward the orange and toward one another. It is at this point that Maturana and Varela (1987) identify language as the ongoing coordination of coordinated actions. The interactions/distinctions/descriptions we make in concordance with others become themselves object of our interactions/distinctions/descriptions. Recall that this is where third-order couplings occur, as addressed above. In the view of Maturana and Varela, language is a special case of a more general class of linguistic behavior which is strictly defined as behavior that arises in an ontogenetic structural coupling between organisms and that an observer can describe in semantic terms (1987, p. 209). Language appears when the operations in a linguistic domain result in coordinations of actions about actions that pertain to the linguistic domain itself (ibid.). Describing is a matter of observing, is a matter of linguistically distinguishing unities from a background (see chapter 4). It is in language, then, that these linguistic distinctions themselves become part of the environment in which describing takes place. Thus, Maturana and Varela (1987, p. 211) contend, an observer makes ontogenically generated descriptions of descriptions. It is only in such a reflexive act that those operating in language can come to describe themselves and their circumstances. Therefore, it is only in language that we can recognize ourselves as observers. To put this more sharply: It is only in language that the observer arises. [O]bserving arises with language as a co-ontogeny in descriptions of descriptions (ibid.). The far reaching conclusion from this is that as humans we live in language. The world as we observe it is brought forth by our languaging. In fact, all this is what it is to be human (ibid.). Note that in the remainder of this chapter the term linguistic is applied in a more traditional sense to denote the adjective of language. 4 Technically, this is somewhat different from its exact connotation in autopoietic theory (see Maturana & Varela, 1987). It makes no difference for our purposes, however, to adhere to linguistic as used in most psychological literature. And in doing so, we will certainly avoid confusion. Culture in psychology Now that it has been established from the operational and the phenomenological perspective that human beings live in language and that they have to coordinate We pointed out earlier in the chapter that such an orientation cannot be purely instructive. The effect the orienter will have on the orientee always actively involves the cognitive operations of that orientee (Maturana, 1970, p. 28). 4 Second order coordination need not be spoken language. Meaning-laden rituals or other forms of symbolic bodily expression are second order coordinations just as much.

137 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete their actions in a consensual fashion in order to maintain their autopoiesis, the implications for a psychological study of culture can be addressed. 132 flock together Recall from our flock of birds that it would be an error to use descriptions like rule or algorithm in an operational account of what goes on in the experientially closed bird. Now consider the movement of the flock altogether. To an observer it may appear that the flock itself moves in a certain direction, has a certain shape, and proceeds with a certain speed. It may even appear that the flock has a program or will of its own. Yet we already know that the shape, speed and direction of the group of birds are mere results in the eyes of an observer of the private coordinations that each individual bird carries out. Certainly, these coordinations are not a consequence of instructions that the flock issues. But as stated above, it is also certain that these coordinations are not a result of the very mathematical calculations that the observer of the flock has derived. So in addition to avoiding the error of using phenomenological descriptions in an operational account, one must also be aware not to confuse within the phenomenological perspective the observed regularities with the actual motives to behave in a certain way. Notice that motives also pertains to a phenomenological description. Although it may remain unclear what motivates the bird to maintain a certain distance and speed to its neighboring flockmates, one can be certain that the motivation does not stem from applying human mathematics. Why then, when it comes to culture, are social theorists inclined to confuse the regularities that they observe with the processes that actually motivate people? Why do so many of them assume that an external cultural rule or pattern guides people s actions? Like the flock does not instruct the individual bird, so does culture not instruct individual people. Flock and culture are observations, not motives. And just as the observer may not confuse the algorithms s/he derives with the actual motives of an individual bird, so may s/he not confuse a derived cultural rule or pattern with a person s motives to behave in a certain fashion. Both the individual birds behavior and the individual persons conduct have to be understood in terms of mutual coordinations with other individuals. An important difference between birds and humans may be, however, that at least human beings are able to mutually coordinate their mutual coordinations. This capacity opens up the linguistic and psychological domain, as was argued above. And an utterance or any other meaningful symbol may be said to indeed motivate individuals. But how should this be understood when a phrase, a cultural rule, a social script, or culture and meaning altogether cannot really be extra-individual, shared entities with a motivating power? To find an answer to this intriguing question, we leave enactivism for a while and turn toward two theoretical positions that try to unravel the basic psychological

138 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete skills for producing cultural behavior. (1) Evolutionary psychology attempts to locate these skills in the way contemporary man is physically embodied, particularly in the architecture of the human brain. (2) Scientists such as Michael Tomasello, working at the intersection of developmental psychology, cognitive science, and linguistics focus on crucial cognitive capacities in the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of humans. Their aim is to identify the pivotal cognitive functions that make possible language, social learning and cultural behavior. Evolutionary psychology and Tomasello s framework will be discussed in the following paragraphs. What the theories have in common is that they bring culture back into the heart of psychology. As such, they provide important and insights in thinking about the relation between culture and mind; insights that we will use in the remainder of the chapter. We will, however, also argue that evolutionary psychology still tends to overlook the social production of meaning and language, whereas Tomasello ultimately understands such social production wrongfully in terms of shared intentions and motivations. Evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology (EP) argues that the architecture of modern man s mind consists of a large number of information-processing programs, many of which are functionally specialized for solving different adaptive problems (Cosmides & Tooby, 2000). These programs, or modules, are wired in the brain, so to speak, as a function of heredity and natural selection. Consequently, EP states, modern man has a neural architecture that is well adapted to solve the kind of problems our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to deal with. Memory for patterns, fear, and partner choice strategies are but a few examples of such naturally selected, content-specific modules. Thus, by birth, our mind is not a tabula rasa, programmable for any cause by means of learning. It is rather a network of preestablished circuits that are designed for computing a whole range of adaptive behaviors. What we learn depends in part on these prefab content-specific modules. Although EP explicitly refutes the so-called standard social science model in which all of the specific content of the human mind originally derives from the outside [including the social world] (Cosmides & Tooby, 1997), it does attribute a prominent position to culture. Dual inheritance (Boyd & Richerson, 1985) is a much used phrase to indicate that behavior results from predispositions acquired through both genetic and cultural inheritance. Appealing models have been proposed in both evolutionary biology and psychology that refine the relations between biology and culture. The revival of the century-old Baldwin effect is an interesting example of this (Turney, Whitley & Anderson, 1996; Kull, 2000). Around the turn of the nineteenth century, James M. Baldwin proposed that phenotypic plasticity could account for an indirect inheritance of acquired characteristics in the following manner. (1) The organism s ability to adapt to its environment can bring about characteristics that increase the organism s fitness. An example is the ability to quickly learn 133

139 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete 134 how to avoid a new type of predator (Avital & Jablonka, 2000). (2) Quick learners may come to dominate the population. (3) Over generations, the phenotypic plasticity (learning behavior from relevant experience) will become a trait that is anchored in the genotype of the species (see also Sterelny (2004) for a clear account of the Baldwin effect). The important point is that the Baldwin effect can introduce individual experience and learning as selective pressures. This may refine EP s qualification of the relation between the human genome and its cultural environment. Perhaps a more sophisticated outlook on the origins of our content-specific neural architecture is possible by considering Baldwin effects. Another approach is contained in the notion of epigenesis, as interpreted by for instance Sinha (2004). Epigenesis implies that genetic information cannot be a blue print for phenotype (including behavior). Whereas epigenesis is not unlike other notions that propose interdependence of phenotype and environment (either by means of triggering genetically anchored properties to bloom, or by means of obstructing genetically imprinted characteristics into actualization), it represents that relation in a fundamentally different manner. In epigenesis, the environment actually constitutes the phenotype to some extent. For example, the songs of some species of birds seem to involve imitation and even elaboration of the songs of conspecifics (Marler & Peters, 1982; Maturana & Varela, 1987, p. 194). Their tunes appear to not so much involve selection from amongst pre-established alternatives (Sinha, 2004). In this case, behavior and other appearances are not predetermined by the genotype only, but are themselves a function of environmental information too. Different environments may therefore lead to different phenotypical structures even when the genotype is identical. Moreover, the pallet of possible behaviors becomes limited as the experiential history of an individual unfolds. This is so because more and more of the organism s plasticity is lost as the organism grows older. The interesting point is that epigenesis is susceptible to the co-constructed nature of much actually displayed behavior. This point is particularly relevant in estimating the contribution of phenotype proper in social interactions, that is coconstructed behaviors, joint attentional scenes (see below), consensual domains etcetera. Niche construction (Laland, Odling-Smee & Feldman, 2000; Laland & Odling-Smee, 2000), finally, also describes an interaction between genetically anchored code and an organism s environment. Here, heredity of a particularly structured environment is at stake. For example, newborns are raised in an environment created by their ancestors and that environment is thereby a new source of natural selection pressures in the evolution of the species. The short incubation period of cuckoo offspring would be an example of this. Like the Baldwin effect, niche construction as a model for gene-culture co-evolution does not hypothesize a direct influence of the (cultural) environment on genes. Rather, there is an intermediate level, the constructed niche, that may affect the genotype and thus the phenotype over a couple of generations.

140 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete No consensus on culture Baldwin effects, epigenesis and niche construction theories are sensitive to the fact that organism and environment co-evolve. They also succeed in taking into account how the evolution of man s biological embodiment is co-determined by the fact that humans live and operate as social beings. In this manner, the sociocultural environment itself becomes a selective pressure, partially responsible perhaps for physical and behavioral differences between people. But this is not the full story to understanding culture. King (2000, p. 155), argues with respect to the theory of niche construction that what is missing is a full appreciation for the socially constructed nature of learning and culture among dyads and groups, an appreciation that leads in turn to the view that learning and culture are coconstructed. She goes on to argue that Natural selection pressures are modified not only by individuals transmitting chunks of knowledge, but by far more complex interactive processes that themselves involve systemic feedback ( ). Knowledge resides in social interactions, and as such it is those interactions themselves that alter selection pressures. It will be apparent from the foregoing that these transmitted chunks of knowledge should not be thought of as bits of information or culture leaping around in a population pool. But this is precisely what Laland and Odling-Smee (2000) do by introducing the notion of memes 5 into the model of nice 5 Culture is believed by many (cf. Blackmore, 1999; Dawkins, 1989; Dennet, 1991; Gabora, 1997; Heylighen, 1995), but certainly not all thinkers in the evolutionary arena, to be composed of genelike atoms. Instead of carrying DNA-code, memes are the units in which basic cultural code is packed, transmitted and reproduced. Tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions or ways of building arches are some examples of memes that sociobiologist Richard Dawkins gives. He also coined the term meme (1989, p. 192). The meme concept is subject to a lot of critique, both from inside and outside EP (cf. Rose, 1998). Here we only point out the incommensurability of memes with the enactive epistemology. In chapters 3, 4 and 5 it has repeatedly been stated that the neural tissue of a living organism does not receive information from an outside environment. A meme, however, is believed to do just that: providing information bits from outside the organism. In the strong version of memetics (e.g. Dawkins, 1989), a meme is there only to the benefit of itself, irrespective of the individual host-brain/body. That benefit is to be found in a meme s reproductive success. According to Dawkins, memes leap form brain to brain via processes which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation (p. 192). Sperber (2000) refutes Dawkins idea that imitation can account for memetic reproduction. In his view, meme theory fails to demonstrate that cultural elements are really copied from one another. Rather, most cultural items are re-produced in the sense that they are produced again and again. A chain-letter would fit the description of a meme, but most cultural practices would not. If Sperber is right, and we think he is, the criteria for true replication are not met (The process that generates B must obtain the information tha t makes B simila r to A from A) (ibid). Hence, the ground for true memetics is lost. But even aside from Sperber s critique, the notion of replicating memes entails an objectification of culture as a grand design of memetic bits of information. The individual organism is merely their substratum, the host in and through which selfish memes reproduce. But, EP adds, the memes reproductive success is in part dependent on the contentspecific mechanisms in the brain. The modules of the mind specify what cultural behavioral patterns will be expressed. In other words, humans are selected to use only those elements of cultures 135

141 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete construction. Instead of the full appreciation for the co-constructed nature of learning and culture that King advances, it is as if learning and culture need some stability and a tangibility of sorts. That culture is primarily to be uncovered in the consensual coordinations of actions and in the skills that result from such coordinations, seems to be inconceivable for most evolutionary thinkers. The following epistemological drawback is associated with that confined outlook. Cultural behavior originates between brains, not in them Notwithstanding the sophistication of some of the alternatives introducing intermediate levels between biology and culture, the blueprint for cultural behavior is still primarily locked in the individual s genotype here. Voestermans and Baerveldt (2001) contend that in the framework of EP, the generation of culture is something brought about in and by separate brains (p. 72, our emphasis). But the phenomenological domain to which languaging and other cultural activities pertain only unfolds in the structural couplings of multiple brains, as we demonstrated above. Although having a nervous system is a definite prerequisite for human language and although it cannot be denied that specialized circuits in the brain are indispensable for human language to originate, the actual unfolding of language and conversation cannot be sought for in the operational domain of wires and chemicals, so to speak. Linguistic operations, of which human cultural behavior is a subset, are by definition consensually coordinated affairs as they only arise in structural couplings with others. In EP, the ideational basis of the production and styling of behavior is wrongfully misdirected into specialized devices in the brain s architecture, Voestermans and Baerveldt claim (ibid., p. 75). Such a move is illegitimate, as it implies a spurious causal relation between descriptions that belong to fundamentally different domains. 136 Tomasello s account of cultural learning The other approach we like to put forward is to be found at the intersection of developmental psychology, primatology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and linguistics. Here, the aim is also to uncover the psychological prerequisites for cultural behavior. By means of comparative studies in which human conduct is often contrasted with that of other animals, mainly other primates, the key cognitive skills for producing such cultural behavior are searched for. Scientists in this research area tend to follow the primatologists approach to culture and first of all debunk cultural behavior into its elementary characteristics. Essentially, it is argued, such behavior is: [memes] which happen to fit their evolved psychologies as they have developed in particular circumstances (Slurink, 2002, p. 191). Clearly, then, culture and its memetic building blocks are believed to precede peoples psychologies.

142 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete 1 Socially learned, not biologically inherited where socially refers to the fact that the conduct is learned from others; 2 It can be observed in a number of close individuals, and is not idiosyncratic behavior of an individual; 3 It can be observed to be rather long-lasting in individuals and even over generations, and is not a unique action. What needs to be understood, then, is how such behavior can be acquired nonbiologically, how it appears to spread, and how it can last. Michael Tomasello dealt in great detail with the issues of how cultural behavior is acquired and how it can disseminate in and over populations. His 1999 book on The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition contains a compelling and thrifty theory on the crucial psychological mechanisms (skills) that appear to form the basis for cultural participation. Like the framework of enactivism, Tomasello emphasizes that to be human is most of all to participate in a linguistic universe. Perhaps this capacity is not unique to human beings, but the human skills regarding linguistic participation are far more outstanding than those of any other species we know so far. Essentially, linguistic participation means that every participant needs to position herself/himself with respect to others and other objects. This necessarily implies a coordination of actions; not only to avoid physical collisions or to divide resources, but also to fluently organize more complex and abstract interactions. In a human society, positioning means setting and taking perspectives, drawing and guiding attentions, expressing and understanding intentions, and so forth. Research by Tomasello and others (Tomasello, 1995; Carpenter, Nagell & Tomasello, 1998; see also Rochat, Morgan & Carpenter, 1997) convincingly showed that most little children develop these crucial psychological skills from nine months of age on. Acquisition of cultural behavior: toward intentionality and joint attention The following paragraph briefly presents where the basic skills for acquiring cultural behavior originate according to Tomasello. In the subsequent section it is argued how these skills allow a quick dissemination of cultural practices. 1. Basic mammalian cognitive skills These skills comprise a set of cognitive capacities that humans appear to share with all other primates and many mammals. Among them one can discriminate some sort of memory for space and location, the ability to follow object movements, the capacity to categorize objects on the basis of perceptual similarities, the power to recognize individuals, to follow strategies in outcompeting groupmates, and to cooperate in problem solving (Tomasello, 1999, p ). Tomasello stresses that many mammalian individuals display an actual understanding of what they are doing when they interact with their groupmates in various complex manners. Since these cognitive skills are so 137

143 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete widespread in the animal kingdom, they are most likely genetically anchored in the diverse organisms Understanding third-party relations There is one principle, however, that all primates including man display but other mammals do not. This is the capacity to understand third-party social relations between individuals. To give an example: Primates have knowledge of status differences between third parties. In effect, they can be observed to follow keen strategies in choosing friends or coalition partners. The point is that the individual understands something about a relation to which s/he is not directly a party. Moreover, as Tomasello (1999) contends, primates are able to comprehend categories of third-party relations such as mother-child, couple, dominant-subordinate and the like. The author suggests that such an understanding of third-party social relations is also innate to primates. They are capable of extrapolating this skill to the physical realm, resulting in a comprehension of relational categories between objects. As such, primates can for instance understand pairs of similar objects among a whole number of different entities Understanding others as animate beings like me The distinctive cognitive operations to comprehend third-party relations are particularly important because the understanding of relational categories is a potential evolutionary precursor ( ) for the uniquely human cognitive ability to understand the intentional relations that animate beings have to the external world and the causal relations that inanimate objects and events have with one another (Tomasello, 1999, p.18; italics added). This is quite a quote. It takes the author a complete book to explain it in detail. All we can do here is to present the gist of his idea in a very condensed manner. Following among others Piaget (1954), Tomasello first contends that human infants, similar to all other primates, understand others as animate beings (1999, p. 74). That attitude emerges very early in the infant s life, generally before eight months of age, and is presumably biologically inherited. It enables the individual to discriminate inanimate objects from auto-moving others and probably facilitates eventually an identification with other human beings as creatures like me. In a social situation, then, human infants as well as nonhuman primates understand something of the third-party relations between groupmates (conspecifics). And with respect to the physical world, they understand something of the relational categories between objects. 6 How competition strategies or cooperative conduct can become genetically anchored, may very well be explained by Baldwin effects [see Baldwin (1902); French & Messinger (1994); Sinha (2004); Turney, Whitley & Anderson (1996)].

144 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete 4. Understanding other s as intentional agents Remarkably, there is a crucial difference in the way that human children on the one hand and most non-human primates on the other come to understand these relations. This difference is marked by the emerging of a particular cognitive operation that according to Tomasello so far only humans and some other primates show; human beings from around nine months of age onward. Very strongly defined by Tomasello as the nine-month revolution (1999, p. 61), human children become able to see others as intentional agents. That is, they come to comprehend that there is a why to somebody s particular behavior. Infants begin to understand that there is a mediating mechanism in the center of an antecedent-consequent sequence (p.23). In terms of the conduct of others, such mechanism can be labeled a motive, a goal, or some other sort of intention. What is crucial is that human infants no longer merely see an outward sequence of behavior, but perceive an extra intentional dimension on the part of the actor that mediates the observed behavioral sequence. For example, when a human infant sees her mother open the refrigerator and take out some milk, the child might infer that the mother went to the fridge because she is thirsty. Wanting to get something to drink is thus the mediating intentional force (as Tomasello deploys this term, p. 23) between the antecedent and the consequent state of affairs. According to Tomasello, most other primates are not capable of understanding such intentions. 7 In their cognition, a mother rolling over a stone and eating the insects underneath it, is just moving a stone. Such a non-human primate may eventually learn perhaps by means of trial and error, and conditioning of behavior that there is food to be found underneath rocks, and it may find out by watching others how to move a stone. The animal will have no awareness, however, of its mother s intention or goal (obtaining food in this case) for which rolling over the piece of rock is an effective strategy (p ). Moreover, a human infant can start to align the perceived intentions with its own goals. In this manner it may produce comparable means for comparable ends: When it recognizes more or less similar intentions in self and other, it may quickly follow a similar strategy to fulfill its own needs. 7 This claim is subject to much discussion. According to Byrne (1995, p. 117), for instance, evidence suggests that great apes display behavior from which we may infer that they do understand the intentions and view points of others. De Waal (2001, p ) argues that some scientist, Tomasello among others, take great pains to deny non-human primates imitative capacities as an indication of true cutltural learning whereas imitation often would be the most obvious explanation for the learning that animals display. In a recent paper Tomasello et al. (in press) argue that new evidence indeed suggests that primates understand the intentional actions of other. We find this a fascinating debate, but its outcome does not immediately touch upon the point we aim to put forward: the emergence of understanding the intentional states of others is a key factor for behaving linguistically. Moreover, we consider it very likely that apart from human beings, other animals too live in their own linguistic worlds. And thus, as will become apparent from our arguments below, we find that there is no compelling ground for exclusively reserving the adjective cultural for parts of the human behavioral repertoire, as most social scientists are inclined to do (on this point see also De Waal, 2001). 139

145 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete Analogous to intentions mediating between an individual s actions and their results, human infants come to understand that there are also mediating forces at hand in the physical world. As they mature, little children may for instance start to comprehend that an object falls down because it has a certain weight. Again, most non-human primates may not really understand this mediating principle, even though they can eventually learn to obtain objects by making them fall down in some way. Tomasello (1999, p. 22) hypothesizes that such learning is probably the result of much trial and error. This primate learning process would be contrasted by a perception and a much quicker understanding of the relevant forces and mechanisms that human infant reveal in experimental setting (see Visalberghi & Limongelli, 1994; 1996) Engaging in triadic relations: switching perspectives and joint attention As stated above, human infants identify with other human beings from a very early age on. As soon as they start to recognize that they themselves have intentions around nine months of age they begin to understand other people as intentional beings too. That is, infants understand others analogous to how they understand themselves (Tomasello, 1999, p. 75). Interestingly, human children also start to follow directional gestures from others, start to explicitly draw the attention of others, and begin to show or point objects to other people. For Tomasello, this is only possible because little children recognize others as intentional beings like themselves. They clearly understand that they can draw or otherwise manipulate the attention of others. As such, triadic relations become possible between child, other, and some third entity such as an object. Since the child understands that others have intentions too and that they too can focus attention, it will begin to bring objects into the attentional focus of others. Conversely, the child begins to comprehend that it is an active participant in an interaction in which itself can be the addressee of the attention and intentions of others. It begins to imagine and reflect on how others may perceive the world, including the perception of me (that is, the child itself). From now on it is able to see that other people may have a different perspective on others, objects, events, etcetera. In this manner, the child and the other person can engage in one and the same attentional scene. Their different foci of attention and their subsequent actions become calibrated, so to speak. For Sinha (2004), reference (directedness to an object or situation in the world e.g. the cup and saucer ) and construal (the guiding of that directedness e.g. the cup is on the saucer or the saucer is under the cup ) are the two criteria for fully developed symbolization, in contrast to mere signaling. Reference and construal direct the attention of others with a particular intention on the part of the sender. Thus, the participants in a joint attentional scene are jointly attending to some third thing, and to one another s attention to that third thing (Tomasello, 1999, p. 97). Tomasello holds that these triadic attentional scenes are unique to the human species and some other primates (Tomasello et al., in press), since most other animals lack the capacity to understand that their groupmates have intentions too.

146 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete 6. The motivation to share psychological and emotional states Recently, Tomasello et al. (in press) argued that in order to fully understand collaborative activity yet one more ingredient is required, namely a motivation to share intentional and emotional states (feelings, activities, experiences, and so forth). Below, we will discuss the notion of sharedness as used by the authors, referring to what is said in chapter 5. For now it is important to take notice of the authors notion of shared intentionality. They present research findings that suggest that humans are unique in their communicating for the sake of communicating itself (gossiping for instance). Apart from a social motivation perhaps precisely the social motivation to belong to the group that De Waal (2001) points out there appears to be no use, goal, or drive in such behavior. It may be that primates grooming is a comparable activity, though (Van Hezewijk, 2004). While some non-human primates do appear to be able to understand the goal-directed activity of others, they do not show a motivation to share psychological and emotional states with others. Yet it is in these skills and motivations that the dyadic and triadic engagements emerge that are typical of human cultural behavior, such a informing others, helping others, and mere socializing. 8 In principle, it appears, understanding others as intentional beings and having a motivation to share intentional states comprise the key psychological ingredients required to participate in a human linguistic society. Linguistic behavior itself is an excellent practice for guiding attention. In the words of Tomasello: [L]inguistic reference is a social act in which one person attempts to get another person to focus her attention on something in the world (1999, p. 97, original italics). In his view, as well as in Sinha s (2004), a linguistic symbol is a conventional way for coordinating attention. It expresses a certain perspective on some entity or event. That expression must be understood by all the interacting partners. Therefore, these partners must assume that the others understand the intentions and perspectives embodied in the symbol. And they must assume that others can reproduce that symbol to express similar intentions and perspectives. It will be clear, then, that the producer of the expression must be able to reverse roles with the other participant. S/he will have to imagine how others understand a symbolic expression. Likewise, it may be clear how role reversal will have a profound effect on the variety with which entities and events can be perceived: Understanding that others have different perspectives on a situation, and being able to communicate these differences, dramatically multiplies one s possible Again, whether or not non-human primates help and inform each other is open to discussion. Cooperative problem solving (helping), for instance, was pointed out by Tomasello himself (1999, p. 17 [see above]). A quick search on the Internet further reveals ample studies on cooperative problem solving in animals. What is important for our point, however, is that the cognitive skills and the motivation to understand and share intentional states appear to be prerequisites for cultural behavior, whether displayed by humans or other primates or other living systems at all.

147 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete interactions with the world. Just as water may over different situations have many different affordances as Gibson (1979) uses this term such as a resource for life on earth, a substance to extinguish fire with, a life threatening pool, a relaxing medium, a remedy for thirst and so on; so may role reversal introduce an individual into many new ways for approaching entities and events. How exactly linguistic symbols and language are acquired is beyond the scope of this paper. We refer to Tomasello (1999), Sinha (2004), and Sinha and Jensen de López (2000) for a detailed account on this issue. 142 But we still don t share What is important to repeat from chapter 5 is that the coordination of attention and action in a linguistic act may suggest that the communication partners share a set of fixed symbols, intentions, goals, or other experiences. It must be clear, however, that there are no actually shared entities. When Tomasello et al. (in press) argue that humans share intentional states, they mean that people have psychological states that include within them as content the psychological states of others. These psychological states are held by the authors to be representations. To be more precise, they are held to be dialogic cognitive representations that include the different participants in an activity, their respective intentions, their common goals, and so forth. Epistemologically, this is a problematic claim as it implies some of the ubiquitous errors pointed out before. (1) The shared dialogic representations are supposed to enable linguistic communication and other cultural practices. But as was argued in chapter 5, a representation is itself a linguistic phenomenon. As such, it cannot be held to cause or motivate linguistic acts in the first place without a further explanation of its own linguistic status. (2) Also in chapter 5, it was demonstrated how the notion of sharedness is a misleading one. This critique is still applicable if the notion of sharedness is thought of as a representation that includes the social setting and the perspective of others in it, as Tomasello and his colleagues contend. What exactly is shared then, and what sharing means, remains obscure in their framework. In any case, they do not conceive of sharedness as an observer-dependent qualification. (3) The authors argue that the dialogic cognitive representations are in some way internalized in Vygotskyan fashion. As is apparent from the formulation, it is remains unclear again what internalization is or how it would proceed. Finally (4), the authors speculate about a collective intentionality (see also Searle, 1995) paving the way for people s belief in social institutions such as money, marriage, and government. Recall from chapter 5 that collective intentionality is an oxymoron as is collective uniform. It uncovers a profound misunderstanding of the nature of cultural phenomena. Experiential reality (on motivation) With respect to the motivational dimension to (sharing) intentional and emotional states, Tomasello et al. (in press) speculate that this motivation is innate. This may indeed be possible, although evidence has not yet been found. But even if

148 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete humans are endowed with a motivation to share their psychological and emotional states, this inborn capacity alone will not be sufficient to explain why people are motivated to act or abstain from action in any actually unfolding social situation (structural coupling). This, again, would be a confusion of the operational and the phenomenological perspective. Rather, a psychological account of motivation must be able to explain how a socially coordinated action can become invested with meaning, to such an extent that actions and social institutions such as money and marriage are experienced as real, authentic and normative. The key to understanding this is that in operating in a consensual domain, what is at stake is not so much the truth of one view over another, but rather the authenticity of the personal experience (Baerveldt, 1999). Whereas truth pertains to a reflexive, discursive domain of second order coordinations, authentication pertains to an immediate relation to the life world that includes others but wherein meaning has not yet been reflexively (discursively) attributed. What is at stake in the latter case is the validation of the interacting partner as an autonomous interacting partner. The linguistic coordinations of actions comprising the consensual domain are to a large extent participatory and not so much oppositional, meaning that the other is approached in an invitational sense. Phenomenologically, one may say that the other is invited to share the consensual domain, wherein it is immediately clear that sharing is to be understood as co-constituting the consensual sequence of actions. According to Baerveldt and Voestermans (in press) that invitation is itself already normative, because what is at stake even before discursive reflection and making meaning is the acknowledgement of one s own autonomy as an interacting partner. 9 Understanding how people may come to experience a social institution such as a law or marriage as a reality has to come from understanding that a prediscursive validation of the own autonomy is at stake. The experiential reality of social institutions is thus a consensually coordinated affair in the sense that people s mutual belief in it implies an immediate acknowledgement of their private pre-reflexive experiences, and it implies ultimately the acknowledgement of their own being. That is why these consensual realities are indeed experienced; they are immediately felt. We hypothesize that it is precisely at his point also that the kind of motivation originates that is associated with laws, codes, and promises. These are consensually coordinated experiential realities that have consequences for the way people can behave. Confronting these consequences, breaking a promise for instance, is felt at once. Hence these experiential realities may be perceived to be invested with an outward force People s immediate and participatory relation to their life world is thus given by both the fact that (1) they have an expressive and affective body that is immediately given in experience, and that (2) they are always incorporated in a community of practitioners. We will elaborate on this point in chapter 7.

149 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete The consequence for a psychological study of culture to be drawn here is once more that the sharedness, motivation, reality, and externality associated with cultural behavior, is not representational or innate, but instead consensual. Intentionality revisited Even intentionality, identified by Tomasello (1999; Tomasello et al., in press) as a key factor in understanding the genesis of cultural behavior, has to be understood in terms of the consensual coordination of experiences. Maturana, Mpodozis and Letelier (1995) argue that intentionality is not a feature of the operation of the nervous system. Instead, it is an operation in language. It is a feature of the way an observer behaves (lives) in his or her relational space by means of recursive linguistic operations. But, as intentionality becomes part of the manner of living of the observer, as he or she lives in conversations of intentionality, the structure of the nervous system of the observer changes in a manner contingent to that manner of living, and begins to generate an internal dynamics that gives rise to sensory/effector correlations that entail intentions. Thus, although intentionality requires the nervous system to occur, and even though the structure of that nervous system may contain the partially inherited biological make-up for intentionality to occur at all, intentionality itself does not take place in the nervous system. [It] remains a feature of the relational space in which the observer lives. The same is true for thinking, remembering, learning, desiring, and so forth. Phenomenologically speaking, they are commentaries that an observer makes, expressing relations between an organism s present behavior and the outcomes it may have. Moreover, these outcomes are then perceived to be relevant in the generation of the behavior that brought them about. It is important to understand that linguistic operations such as intentionality (a) take place in domains of recursive, consensual coordinations of actions, (b) affect the way we are embodied which in turn molds our possible future operations, (c) require a nervous system but cannot be reduced to operations in the physicochemical domain. The dissemination of cultural behavior Having established this perspective on intentionality and motivations to share, we can further pursue Tomasello s account of how cultural behavior can spread and last in a community of agents. 144 The ratchet effec t Comprehending mediating forces between antecedent and consequent affairs in the social or physical domain may be only a little step further than comprehending third-party relations, but it has cardinal cognitive consequences. First, understanding why certain states of affairs to which the individual is her/himself not an active participant occur as they do, opens up the way to manipulate that state of affairs. From about nine months of age on, a human child can recognize that different actions or events may lead to the same results

150 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete because the mediating force is elicited in a similar manner. Likewise, it may discover that blocking the mediating force may obstruct the consequent actions. A wide array of behavior may thus be applied to manipulate all sorts of events. Hence the infant can obtain a creative and flexible outlook on its world. Second, the young child can begin to understand why others around act as they do with respect to certain goals. Without itself immediately engaging in a course of actions, the infant may begin to comprehend how certain antecedentconsequent sequences are built up. And this is the case for both social and physical relations. So far, only humans and some primates have displayed a repetition or variant of observed behavior from which we might infer that the individuals attempt to reproduce the behavioral strategies of others (Tomasello, 1999, p. 33; Tomasello et al., in press). Most animals, however, show no understanding of the demonstrator s goals in combination with the strategies to obtain them, let alone that they apply those strategies to meet their own needs. But human children who comprehend that other persons have intentional relations to the world, similar to their own intentional relations to the world, may attempt to take advantage of the ways other individuals have devised for meeting their goals (Tomasello, 1999, p. 78). Tuning in to the why of others conduct understanding their behavioral strategies and choices, comprehending with what intentions tools and other means were designed and thus how they are used presents a tremendous pool of behavioral options to the individual. S/he may for instance adopt, contrast, modify, or reflect on the approved means when facing comparable problems. Tomasello suggests that taking real benefit from the behavioral strategies that others already invented is only possible when the mediating intentions or forces are perceived and understood. Only in this case can the individual tune in to the why s of the action sequences. And only in this case can someone comprehend others as having intentions like her/himself. Human agents can thus take advantage of what others already know and what they are capable of, since they understand that they may act in the same way when their goals are comparable. Subsequently, these agents may creatively improve perceived behavioral strategies, quickly avoid apparent erroneous choices or simply reproduce effective actions. The pivotal point is that understanding the full sequence of intention-strategy-effect enables individuals to learn from others and other situations in a unique manner, even when they are not constitutive parties to the events at hand. Human agents can do more than merely associate causes and effects by trial and error or by coincidence, since they can obtain a deeper understanding of how antecedent and consequent actions are related. This insight, together with creative and manipulative capacities in novel situations, allows for a rich and rapid distribution of knowledge among group members. Effective conduct observed in others can be repeated or adjusted with a clear goal in mind. And understanding why they did it, allows for a much quicker adoption of someone else s strategy than learning by trial and error or conditioning; one good observation could suffice in principle. Moreover, as 145

151 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete Carpenter, Nagell and Tomasello (1998) found, human children that display an understanding of others intentions are inclined to copy the full sequence of observed behavior, even if there are obvious and less complex alternatives for reaching the same goal. Strikingly, other primates are much less inclined to follow non-obvious strategies and instead deploy their own tactics to reach the goal (Nagell, Olguin & Tomasello, 1993; Tomasello et al., 1987). Such findings strongly suggest that intentional understanding can account for a dissemination of practices at rather low noise rates, so to speak. Novices can generate very similar behavior in similar situations. Identification with the goals and means of others allows them to understand what we use strategies, tools, words et cetera for (see Tomasello, 1999, p. 84). In addition, through engaging in linguistic practices, humans can orient the attention of others in a particularly effective and compelling manner: The use of symbols enables them to express very precisely something about their own intentions or about a course of actions without the actual presence of that event. Human live is chockfull of such attentioncoordinating abstractions, made possible by the understanding that others are intentional beings too. The human ability to precisely orient actions and attentions can explain why behavioral repertoires survive over generations and over individuals. One might suggest in Darwinian terms that fit strategies are constantly regenerated trough coordinated actions. 10 Kept alive in this manner, individuals today can benefit from others experiences accumulated over centuries. Tomasello (1999) applies the metaphor of a ratchet to this accumulation process. In human societies, effective actions are maintained while their inventors disappear. At the same time, approved actions/strategies can be readjusted by others to meet different needs. It is as if every time, knowledge is taken a step further, without falling back to previous states. Tool use, language, etiquettes, and science are all practices that accumulated along such ratchet-like development. To be sure, abstract techniques such as writing will have boosted the ratchet effect, for they allow communication in the absence of an embodied teacher. One must bear in mind, however, that even these abstract techniques only exist by the grace of people s capacity to understand intentions, and that learning from a text is still a matter of orienting one s attention (and orienting one s body). Learning and embodiment 146 To be sure, the acquisition and dissemination of cultural practices is imbued with learning. It will have become clear that most forms of human learning are possible because of the capacity to understand intentional others like me. An explicit account of such learning, coherent with the epistemological framework laid out so far, has to address learning as a consensual affair of embodied agents 10 Note that there is no need to objectify this survival of behavioral repertoires in terms of obscure memes.

152 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete while abstaining from representationalism or output-transmission-input metaphors. With these criteria in mind, we will advance from the operational perspective. Learning (operational perspective) Like intentionality, learning is an operation within language. And like intentionality, it can be conceived of as a linguistic operation that by its occurrence may have consequences for the reactivity and the recurrent states of the nervous system. Mining into the core of cognitive operations, Maturana (1970, p. 37) argues that from an operational perspective, learning can be conceived of as a process in which a system changes its state after a given interaction in a manner such that whenever a similar interaction recurs some internally determined concomitant state does not occur. Since the system reenacts the same overt behavior in both instances, a degree of uncertainty is suppressed whereby all recurrent interactions of the same class will be treated differently (as known, that is) from the original interaction. Subsequently, Maturana maintains that modifications of this sort in the reactivity of the nervous system constitute the basis for the unidirectional ordering of experiences in a living system through recognition withou t any storage of representations (our emphasis). Because of the operational closure of a cognizing system (see above), any case of learning must be understood operationally in terms of perturbations in its domain of possible states. Moreover, as Whitaker (2003) writes, if no notion of representation and instruction is used, the issue of learning becomes simplified because it then appears as the continuous ontogenic structural coupling of an organism to its medium through a process which follows a direction determined by the selection exerted on its changes of structure by the implementation of the behavior that it generates through the structure already selected in it by its previous plastic interactions. Accordingly, the significance that an observer may see a posteriori in a given behavior acquired through learning plays no part in the specification of the structure through which it becomes implemented. That is a quite complicated way of saying that linguistic operations are the observation of the co-drifting of structurally coupled systems; that coupling elicits perturbations affecting the reactivity of the nervous system of the respective organisms participating in the structural coupling. This affection may in turn have consequences for the possible recurrent operations to occur in that nervous system in the future, resulting in behavior from which again an observer may conclude that learning, remembering, thinking, and so forth, took place. At the level of the nervous system, however, that system has not learned anything; it only underwent structural changes. The linguistic operation that we refer to as learning does not take place in the nervous system. The content of what a person has learned is therefore not stored or represented or otherwise part of the nervous system. Although we do not know what the precise correspondence is between a linguistic operation and structural changes in the nervous system, it is clear that we should not suppose a one-on-one causal relation. Operational 147

153 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete and phenomenological operations need to be explained in their own right, notwithstanding the fact that the ideational actions imply a biological body capable of generating recurrent operations. 148 Learning (phenomenological perspective) Since knowledge is not to be passed on from one mind to the other, social learning requires an active engagement of the students and the masters. We agree with Ingold who in a reply to an article on chimpanzee and human cultures by Boesch and Tomasello (1998) criticizes information transmission models quite eloquent as Xerox model[s] of behavior, according to which every exemplar of a traditional practice is run off from a master copy installed within the mind of the individual (See also Shanker and King (2002) for an extensive critique of the information-transmission metaphor). With respect to imitative learning Ingold argues that it is the metaphor of transmission that is at fault (..) [The] knowledge of skilled practitioners can no more be handed on than can the brains and bodies in which it is embedded. Instead, the key to imitation lies in the intimate coupling of the movement of one s attention to others with one s own bodily movement in the world. We contend that the key to any other kind of learning lies here too, for learning is a practice, which implies having a body. But what about learning form a book, does that also imply bodily movement and coordination of actions? Most likely, the answer has to be affirmative. Apart from the trivial observation that the mind is embedded in a body, current research in cognitive science, neurology and the philosophy of cognition has revealed that the cerebellum (controlling motor functions) and the frontal cortex (where among others focusing attention and working memory are processed) operate parallel (Seitz, 2003). This suggests close connections between body movement and cognitive operations including memorizing, thinking, learning, and so forth. Moreover, it appears from a number of studies that motion is a key factor in the categorization of objects and in the acquisition of concepts (ibid.). These insights have been made particularly famous by Lakoff and Johnson (1999) and Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991). It was already argued above how in the enactive view of Varela, Thompson and Rosch cognition, perception and movement are inextricably bound: perceiving is moving. Comparably, Lakoff and Johnson (1999, p. 38) argue that it is very likely that the very mechanisms responsible for perception, movements, and object manipulation could be responsible for conceptualization and reasoning. In their view, reason is fundamentally embodied (p. 17). Another intriguing development in this respect is the recent discovery of so-called mirror neurons in the monkey brain (Gallese, 2001). Particular sets of neurons that are activated when a subject executes goal-related movements, such as reaching for an object, discharge also when the subject merely sees another individual making goal-related movements. Perception of movement thus initiates movement in the perceiver. Such networks of neurons are called mirror neurons and they strongly suggest a node between perception and motion. Similar networks have been uncovered in the human brain too. Moreover, current research has revealed that not only

154 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete perceived goal-related motions are mirrored, but also that perceiving emotions leads to action on the side of the observer (Gallese, in press). Finally, many teaching experts claim that learning is significantly more successful when the full body is in motion (just punch in brain gym on the Internet), or conversely that merely thinking of a move can improve the execution of that very movement. We do not know of any scientific research on this latter topic, however. The cited research strongly suggests that learning and movement, and thus the premise of having a body, are intimately tied. Habituation (phenomenological perspective) With respect to the significance of embodiment, one more observation must be made: Through their constant enactment, coordinated sequences of behavior literally become incarnated, as Bourdieu (1977) uses this notion, in the physical body. This can be referred to as training. Indicative of such incarnation is the trouble that people have in losing or acquiring a certain accent after they have reached a particular age. The human body (here the vocal cords) loses its plasticity, partly because the vocal cords have become engraved with well trained routines of speech (Grosjean, 1982, p. 300). The flip side to this story is that cultural practices are particularly recognizable in refined body techniques such as dance, martial arts, and meditation. These routines consist in the laborious exercise of cultivating (shaping, refining) one s repertoires of motion and experience; always within a community of practitioners. The sometimes very rigid character of embodied practices is also apparent from the difficulties that people often have in changing their daily routines. Altering persistently one s way of walking in terms of speed or in terms of the orientation of the upper body is astonishingly difficult; trying to adjust for the long term the strength with which one shakes hands, or changing the default distance one maintains between self and interlocutors: it is all much easier said than done. Only through a considerable time of again physical training one may finally succeed. And as most people will have experienced, this success is negatively correlated with age. Conversely, embodied routines to a degree structure subsequent interactions with others, once the learned sequence of actions is initiated. Exemplary is the guitar player who has practiced a lick so often that only two or three initial finger settings will automatically produce most of the lick, even after years of swearing off the guitar. The memory seems to be in the muscles, rather than in the mind, so to speak. The point is that through training, that is skill acquisition, practices have become consolidated in the organism s embodiment. For the practitioner, learned action sequences become self-evident, like a second nature. S/he grows accustomed to doing things a certain way, which can become automated to such an extent that the action sequences appear to have sunk into subconsciousness (see Bargh & Chartrand, 1999). It is interesting to note how much of our daily behavior consists of routines and skills and that we are hardly aware of enacting. Many were not explicitly instructed. Fluent speech is but one 149

155 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete example. We have clearly forgotten how we once had to practice hard to acquire it. And the same is true for virtually all our other everyday habits. At this moment, not much is understood yet about the operational dynamics that are involved in acquiring skills. This issue appears particularly complex as many body techniques are invested with meaning, though often in a non-discursive manner. As Isadora Duncan replied to her interviewer in the famous one-liner: If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it. It can be assumed, however, at this point that the physical body is affected by languaging and other second-order coordinations of actions. These affections determine to some extent the future possible states (behaviors) that the living system can bring about. But these states do not determine the directions in which conversations, dance, and other second-order coordinations of actions unfold. The psychological reality of culture In this final section, the strategy of Tomasello and his colleagues is followed to break down cultural behavior into its key properties. This is already a large step in demystifying the nature of cultural behavior and phenomena. How intentionality, learning, and obviously social practices can be understood as mutually tuned affairs was demonstrated above. Also, it was argued how consensually coordinated actions are real in the sense that they are immediately experienced. By applying both the operational and the phenomenological perspective on culture and on cultural behavior, we aim to show that these are psychological realities that presuppose having a body but that unfold in linguistic operations. 150 Culture in the eyes of an observer When a novice learns directly from an expert, the role of the latter is to set up the situations that allow novices to grow into it (Ingold in Boesch & Tomasello, 1998). This is especially true for infants that have not yet mastered language or other means of symbolic expression. Growing into it here is a matter of training and fine-tuning until a social skill is sufficiently mastered to fluently move around in a community of practitioners. That is, the novice must continuously readjust its movements, until they have become calibrated with those of the novice s group members. Much like Bourdieu s (1977) habitus concept implies, one must constantly train the body and stylize one s behavior in concordance with others, such that smoothly coordinated interactions can be performed that eventually appear to follow naturally. The same is true for learning new ideas through conversations with others and even through reading a book. Like any other form of training, people must adjust and readjust both the new notions as well as their current behavioral repertoire to become comfortable with the renewed horizon of possible interactions. This training and habituation takes place in consensual domains. Moreover, con-sensus pertains to the fact that

156 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete not only the novice, but to a degree also the experts must adjust and readjust their behavior. It is in the lived, embodied routines that cultural practices can persist, and it is through ratchet-effects that the spreading of cultural practices can be understood. These stabilizing mechanisms ultimately depend on man s quintessential condition to consensually coordinate actions. Thought about it this way, cultural behavior can be debunked as behavior of non-native origin, displayed by and disseminated among close agents, and persistent over generations. This is also what De Waal (2001, p. 28) concludes, while breaking a lance for what he calls cultural primatology. Tomasello (1999, p.52; Tomasello et al., in press) is eager to add that this dissemination must involve an intentional process in which one organism adopts, and is motivated to adopt, the perspective of another on some third entity. For Maturana and Varela (1987), cultural behavior refers to the transgenerational stability of behavioral patterns ontegenically acquired in the communicative dynamics of a social environment (p. 201). Remember that it is only in the eyes of an observer that the conduct of a number of individuals is recognized as similar, and that it is only in the eyes of an observer that a group, group members, stable patterns, and generations are brought forth. Likewise, the adjective cultural can only refer to a kind of observation; not to an actual operational force. Maturana (1989) is quite precise about this kind of observation: A culture is a network of conversations that define a way of living, a way of being oriented in existence in the human domain, and involves a manner of acting, a manner of emotioning, and a manner of growing in acting and emotioning. One grows in a culture by living in it as a particular way of being human in the network of conversations that defines it. Because of that, the members of a culture effortlessly live the network of conversations that constitute it, as a natural and spontaneous background, like the one which is given and in which one finds him/herself by the simple fact of being, independently of the social as well as non-social systems to which one can belong. Culture (operational perspective) To establish, finally, how culture is a psychological affair, consider the following account of mind by Maturana, Mpodozis and Letelier (1995) first: We speak of mind to explain phenomena that the observer distinguishes as taking place in the relational space of the organism: intentions, purposes, concerns ( ) [We] speak of it as if we were referring to an entity that may have location in the brain and may interact with other minds or the body ( ) [It] should be apparent that there is no such thing as the mind in the operation of the nervous system, and that the mind is nothing but an explanatory notion. In these circumstances, the question about mind/body interactions can be reformulated as follows: How do relational phenomena have consequences in the body dynamics? 151

157 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete Since mind and culture belong to the same kind of descriptions, we rephrase this long quote analogously: We speak of culture to explain phenomena that the observer distinguishes as taking place in the relational space of the organism: norms, values, scripts, schemas, models, representations ( ) [We] speak of it as if we were referring to an entity that may have location in interpersonal relations and may interact with other cultures, minds or the body ( ) [It] should be apparent that there is no such thing as culture in interpersonal relations let alone in the operation of the nervous system, and that culture is nothing but an explanatory notion. In these circumstances, the question about culture/mind/body interactions can be reformulated as follows: How do relational phenomena have consequences in the body dynamics? Conclusion (phenomenological perspective) 152 Culture as an independent, shared reality from which powers emerge that structure and motivate individuals behavior simply does not exist. That traditional and persistent view is completely turned upside-down here: the cultural origins and unfolding of behavior are to be found between acting and experiencing embodied organisms. What scientist and laymen usually refer to as culture or cultural are commentaries made by observers instead. Operationally, culture is as absent as is mind (when mind is understood as a single behavior-organizing principle). The consequence for psychology and other sciences is that the observed regularities in behavior must and can be addressed adequately in terms of consensual coordinations of actions. The question put forward by Maturana et al. (1995) is one of the problems par excellence that psychology should be concerned with: How do relational phenomena have consequences in the body dynamics? From a phenomenological perspective, intentionality, language, learning and habituation are processes with which to start the analysis. They should replace concealing references to cultural or for the same reasons social conduct in our theories. Because to be human is to live in a linguistic universe, all human behavior is from the outset socio-cultural. The latter qualification does not explain the processes at hand, however. Unless we understand perfectly well what we mean, we probably better ban such adjectives from our scientific explanations. Moreover, phenomenological descriptions must be complemented, not confused or mixed, with an operational perspective on linguistic coordination and its subsets. This is so because we cannot adequately describe human behavior without the realization that a human being is an autonomous, autopoietic being that must also be described in terms of its own realization as a living languaging organism. To this end, insights from among others biology and

158 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete evolutionary psychology can be relevant, but the epistemological mistake of causally linking operations in the biological body with the unfolding of linguistic operations must be avoided at all times. Culture alt delete We thus propose a radical choice to social science. Either we speak only of cultural behavior when we mean the perceived mutual tuning of behavior of nonnative origin, which is an intrinsic necessity for organisms living in language and which can be observed over generations. In this case, we should be aware that every human practice fits this criterion, which makes every psychology essentially cultural psychology. Alternatively, we delete culture (and social, norm, value, social schema, cultural pattern, social representation, mind, and so forth) from our conceptual toolkit and focus instead on the actual coordination of actions in the dual perspective we presented. In principle, we find both alternatives equally appealing. References Adams, G., & Markus, H.R. (2001). Culture as patterns: An alternative approach to the problem of reification. Culture & Psychology, 7 (3), Adams, G., & Markus, H.R. (2004). Toward a conception of culture suitable for a social psychology of culture. In M. Schaller & C.S. Crandall (Eds.). The psychological foundations of culture. London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Allport, G. W. (1968). The historical background of modern social psychology. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (vol. 1, 2 nd ed.). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Avital, E., & Jablonka, E. (2000). Animal traditions: Behavioural inheritance in evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baerveldt, C. (1999). Culture and the consensual coordination of actions. Ph.D. thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen. Baerveldt, C., & Verheggen, Th. (1997). Towards a psychological study of culture: Epistemological considerations. In W. Maiers, B. Bayer, B. Duarte Esgalhado, R. Jorna & E. Schraube (Eds.), Challenges to theoretical psychology (pp ). North York: Captus. Baerveldt, C., & Voestermans, P. (in press). Culture, emotion and the normative structure of reality. Theory & Psychology, Baldwin, J.M. (1902). Development and evolution. London: Macmillan. Blackmore, S. (1999). The meme machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bargh, J. A., & Chartrand, T. L. (1999). The unbearable automaticity of being. American Psychologist, 54 (7), Boesch, C., & Tomasello, M. (1998). Chimpanzee and human cultures. Current Anthropology, 39 (5),

159 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete 154 Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Byrne, R. (1995). The thinking ape. Evolutionary origins of intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carpenter, M., Nagell, K., & Tomasello, M. (1998). Social cognition, joint attention, and communicative competence from 9 to 15 months of age. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 63 (4, Serial No. 255). Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1997). Evolutionary psychology: A primer. Retrieved form the internet November 22, Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (2000). Evolutionary psychology and the emotions. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of Emotions, 2 nd Edition (pp ). New York: Guilford. D Andrade, R.G. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. D Andrade, R.G. & Strauss, C. (Eds.) (1992). Human motives and cultural models, New York: Cambridge University Press. Dawkins, R. (1989). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dennet, D. C. (1991). Darwin s dangerous idea. Evolution and the meaning of life. New York: Simon & Schuster. French, R.M., & Messinger, A. (1994). Genes, phenes and the Baldwin effect: Learning and evolution in a simulated population. In R. Books & P. Maes (Eds.), Artificial life IV (pp ). Cambridge: MIT Press. Gabora, L. (1997). The origin and evolution of culture and creativity. Journal of Memetics. Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 1. Retrieved from the internet September 15, Gallese, V. (2001). The Shared manifold hypothesis. From mirror neurons to empathy. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8, Gallese, V. (In press). Mirror neurons and intentional attunement: A commentary on David Olds. To appear in Journal of the American Psychoanalyti c Association. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of culture: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books. Gibson, J.J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Glasersfeld, E. Von. (1974). Piaget and the Radical Constructivist epistemology, In C. D. Smock & E. von Glasersfeld (Eds.), Epistemology and education. Athens, GA: Follow Through Publications. Goddard, C., & Wierzbicka, A. (1997). Discourse and culture. In Teun A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as social interaction (pp ). London: Sage Publications.

160 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete Gone, J.P., Miller, P.J., & Rappaport, J. (1999). Conceptual self as normatively oriented : The suitability of past personal narrative for the study of cultural identity. Culture & Psychology, 5 (4), Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with two languages. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hermans, H.J.M., & Kempen, H.J.G. (1993). The dialogical self: Meaning as movement. San Diego: Academic Press. Heylighen, F. (1995). Evolutionary epistemology. Retrieved from the internet, September 14, Hezewijk, R. Van (2004). Lucy aan de OU (with diamonds). Eerste natuur, tweede natuur, artefacten en afstandsonderwijs [Inaugurale rede]. Heerlen: Open Universiteit Nederland. Holland, D. & Quinn, N. (Eds.) (1987). Cultural models in language and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ingold, T. (1998). Comment to C. Boesch & M. Tomasello, Chimpanzee and human cultures. Current Anthropology, 39 (5), Jahoda, G. (1992). Crossroads between culture and mind: Continuitie s and change in theories of human nature. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. King, B. J. (2000). Another frame shift: From cultural transmission to cultural coconstruction. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23 (1), Kreppner, K. (1999). Enactivism and monadology: Where are Baerveldt and Verheggen taking the individual and cultural psychology? Culture & Psychology, 5 (2), Kroeber, A. ([1917]1952). The Superoganic, reprinted in Kroeber, A. (1952). The nature of culture. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press. Kull, K. (2000). Organisms can be proud to have been their own designers. Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 7 (1), Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh. The embodied mind and its challenge s to Western thought. New York: Basic Books. Laland, K. N., & Odling-Smee, F. J. (2000). The evolution of the meme. In R. Aunger (Ed.), Darwinising culture: The status of memetics as a science (pp ). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laland, K. N., Odling-Smee, F. J., & Feldman, M. W. (2000). Niche construction, biological evolution and cultural change. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23 (1), Marler, P., & Peters, S. (1982). Developmental overproduction and selective attrition: New processes in the epigenesis of birdsong. Developmental Psychobiology, 15, Maturana, H. (1970). Biology of cognition, Biological Computer Laboratory Research Report BCL 9.0. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois. Maturana, H. (1988) Ontology of observing: The biological foundations of self consciousness and the physical domain of existence. In R. Donaldson (Ed.), Texts in cybernetic theory: An in-depth exploration of the thought 155

161 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete 156 of Humberto Maturana, William T. Powers, and Ernst von Glasersfeld, Felton CA: American Society for Cybernetics. Maturana, H. (1989). Ontologia del conversar. Persona y Sociedad, III (2), Santiago de Chile, (Citation to this article is based on the English draft translation entitled Ontology of Conversing, by Cristina Magro, as revised by Cristina Magro and Julie Tetel Andresen, and as published on the internet by R. Whitaker, retrieved 27 October 2003.) Maturana, H., Mpodozis, J., & Letelier, J.C. (1995). Brain, language and the origin of human mental functions. Biological Research, 28, pp Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1987). The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston, MA: Shambala. McDougall, W. (1920). The group mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1963). The structure of behavior. Boston: Beacon Press. Nagell, K., Olguin, K., & Tomasello, M. (1993). Processes of social learning in the tool use of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human children (Homo sapiens). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 107, Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books. Rochat, P., Morgan, R., & Carpenter, M. (1997). The perception of social causality in infancy. Cognitive Development, 12, Rose, N. (1998). Controversies in meme theory. Journal of Memetics. Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 2. Retrieved from the internet, September 15, Schaller, M., & Crandall, C. S. (Eds.). (2004). The psychological foundations of culture. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Searle, J. (1995). The construction o f social reality. New York: Free Press. Seitz, J.A. (2003) The bodily basis of thought. Retrieved September 11, 2003 from the World Wide Web: Shanker, S. G., & King, B. J. (2002). The emergence of a new paradigm in ape language research. Behavioral and Brain Science, 25, Shweder, R. (1990). Cultural psychology: What is it? In J. Stigler, R. Shweder & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human development (pp. 1 46). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Slurink, P. (2002). Why some apes became humans. Competition, consciousness & culture. Nijmegen: P.S. Press. Sperber, D. (2000). Why memes won t do. In R. Aunger (Ed.), Darwinising culture: The status of memetics as a science (pp ). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Singer, W. (2003). Wahrnehmen, Erinnern, Vergessen. In S. Iglhaut & T. Spring (Eds.), Science+ Fiction (pp ). Berlin: Jovis Verlag. Sinha, C. (2004). The evolution of language: From signals to symbols to systems. In D. Kimbrough Oller & U. Griebel (Eds.), Evolution of communication systems A comparative approach. Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology. Cambridge: MIT Press.

162 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete Sinha, C., & Jensen de López, K. (2000). Language, culture and the embodiment of spatial cognition. Cognitive Linguistics, 11, Smith, R. (1997). The Fontana history of the human sciences. London: Fontana Press. Sterelny, K. (2004). A review of Evolution and learning: The Baldwin effect reconsidered edited by Bruce Weber and David Depew. Evolution and Development, 6 (4), Strauss, C. (1992). Models and motives. In R. D Andrade & C. Strauss (Eds.), Human motives and cultural models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strauss, C., & Quinn, N. (1997). A cognitive theory of cultural meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tomasello, M. (1995). Joint attention as social cognition. In C. Moore & P. Dunham (Eds.), Joint attention: Its origins and role in development (pp ). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tomasello, M., Carpenter, M., Call, J., Behne, T., & Moll, H. (In press). Understanding and sharing intentions: The origins of cultural cognition. To be published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Tomasello, M., Davis-Dasilva, M., Camak, L., & Bard, K. (1987). Observational learning of tool-use by young chimpanzees. Journal of Human Evolution, 2, Turney, P., Whitley, D., & Anderson, R.W. (1996). Evolution, learning, and instinct: 100 years of the Baldwin effect, Evolutionary Computation, 4 (3), Editorial. Varela, F.J., Thompson, F., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge: MIT Press. Visalberghi, E. & Limongelli, L. (1994). Lack of comprehension of cause-effect relations in tool-using capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 108, Visalberghi, E., & Limongelli, L. (1996). Acting and understanding: Tool use revisited through the minds of capuchin monkeys. In A. E. Russon, K. A. Bard, & S. T. Parker (Eds.), Reaching into thought: The minds of the great apes (pp ). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Voestermans, P., & Baerveldt, C. (2001). Cultural psychology meets evolutionary psychology: Toward a new role for biology in the study of culture and experience. In J. R. Morss, N. Stephenson & H. van Rappard (Eds.), Theoretical Issues in Psychology (pp ). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Waal, F. de. (2001). De aap en de sushimeester. Over cultuur bij dieren [The ape and the sushi master. Cultural reflections of a primatologist]. Amsterdam: Contact. Wagner, W., & Mecha, A. (2003). On discursive construction, representation and institutions: A meta-empirical study. In J. Laszlo & W. Wagner (Eds.), Theories and controversies in societal psychology. Budapest: New Mandate. 157

163 Chapter 6 Culture Alt Delete White, L. (1959). The Concept of Culture. American Anthropologist, 61 (2), p Whitaker, R. (1997[2003]). Self-organization, autopoiesis, and enterprises. Retrieved June 12, 1997 from the World Wide Web: Currently also available via: Whitaker, R (2003). Encyclopaedia Autopoietica. Retrieved October 27, 2003 from the World Wide Web: Wierzbicka, A. (1994). Emotion, language and cultural scripts. In S. Kitayama & H. Markus (Eds.), Emotion and culture (pp ). Washington: American Psychological Association. 158

164 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications for a psychological study of culture 159

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166 Conclusions and implications for a psychological study of culture In the foregoing chapters it was argued how culture is a problematic notion in social science. And so are the many concepts that are assumed to characterize a culture such as cultural models, cultural patterns, social representations, norms, values, and beliefs. They are all susceptible to the following epistemological problems. 1. These notions are easily reified in theory. Even when they are conceived of as a dynamic or as phenomena that are made up in concordance with mind, they are ultimately believed to act upon individuals. 2. It is unclear how cultural phenomena such as those mentioned above acquire a motivating force for individual people. Yet to act upon individuals, there would have to be some sort of force stemming from models, representations, norms, and so on. 3. Eventually, cultural phenomena are believed to be internalized somehow by individual people. Even in theories that assume a farreaching dialogical make up between culture and mind, such as Wagner s Social Representations Approach [chapter 5] or Tomasello s developmental account of culture [chapter 6], internalization is at hand at some instance. 4. It is all too often assumed that people share a set of collective representations and other culturally modeled orientations. But because of the operational closure of living systems [chapters 4, 5, and 6], information cannot be shared. 5. Cultural phenomena are believed to have an effect on the biological operations in an organism, either directly as influences from the socio-cultural environment or indirectly as inherited blueprints for behavior. As long as culture and mind continue to be seen as opposing forces at some point in a social theory, the core of these five problems will be left untouched. Therefore, an epistemology is needed in which the fundamental duality between the individual and the social is absent. It does not suffice to rethink the oppositional relation between culture and mind in a manner as dynamic as possible, as contemporary cultural psychology advances. Neither does it suffice to think of the social form of feeling and behavior as evolutionary wired in human embodiment, as evolutionary psychology does. To be sure, some capacities and tendencies to act socially will be anchored genetically but they cannot account for the actual, rich unfolding of socially structured behavior. 161

167 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications How can the relation between embodiment, cognition and culture be conceived of then without becoming solipsistic, idealistic, or reductionistic? As has been argued throughout this book, enactivism provides an epistemology to that end. It argues how operations in the biological embodiment can lead to relational (that is linguistic) phenomena. Subsequently, the theory addresses how these relational phenomena can have consequences in the body dynamics. The important epistemological point is that the nexus between biological and phenomenological embodiment is not an oppositional one. Rather, operations in the physical embodiment and operations in the relational space of an embodied organism need to be addressed in their own right time and again. As such, culture and mind are descriptions in the relational space. To understand how they have consequences in the physical body of an organism, the perspective needs to be switched to describing the operational states of the physical body particularly important here are the recurrent operations in the nervous system as a consequence of the living system s interactions with other organisms. Conversely, one may observe regularities in these interactions that may be labeled cultural. But this observation is in no sense oppositional, nor is it causally tied to operations in the physical embodiment of an organism. This enactivist perspective is summarized below, where also the gist of the five foregoing chapters is presented. In addition to the theory, two implications for a psychological study of cultural issues in everyday life are sketched. A brief outline of the argument in the present work 162 In the chapters 2 and 3, it was argued that Émile Durkheim s classic concept of représentations was not as rigid, static, and mental as many interpretations of his work want us to believe. Contrary to later readings in which representations are mental mirror-images of the real world (individual representations) or widely shared beliefs (collective representations), Durkheim himself envisioned an active and constitutive function of representations too: They are the stuff that our world, the world that we know, is made of [chapter 2]. Moreover, in concordance with the physical body they constitute what it is to be a human person. The total social fact, for instance that Durkheim conceived of and that his nephew Marcel Mauss made particularly famous is postulated as an interplay of the biological, psychological and social sphere, in which praxis, doing, is more fundamental than thinking [chapter 3]. How this interplay can take place remained largely unclear, but it is obvious from their writings that the expressive body itself is constitutive for representations and vice versa that representations shape the body. Mauss (1973[1935]) demonstrated how apparently biological traits such as walking and talking are to a large extent shaped (styled) by socio-cultural processes. Durkheim (1995[1912]) contended in his seminal work on the origins of religion that the ecstatic body is in fact the birthplace of representations. It is in effervescence a cocktail of overwhelming emotions that can only come about

168 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications in a group of excited individuals acting together that people attribute the origins of such experiences to a source outside their own bodies, as their feelings appear too strong to have originated in their own organism. It is here that the collective representations are born, and it is here that they are given force, compellingness and externality. Whereas Durkheim had claimed in The Rules of Sociological Method (1982[1895]) that coercive force (more precisely constraint ) and externality to the individual human consciousness are the characteristics of a social fact, in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life he argues that religious/social forces are nothing other than objectified feelings (1995[1912], p ). In our opinion, Durkheim was clearly aware, at least in 1912, that social facts and collective representations are grounded in the body, in experiences and actions of people acting together; not in an out there social sphere. Yet even if the notion of representations is stretched to include action repertoires and even if the act of representing itself is identified with constituting the social domain, as is argued in contemporary social representation theory [chapter 5], representation remains a concept that is epistemologically untenable in psychology. This is so because although a social representation may be the result of negotiation and calibration between individuals, this result is still believed to be internalized by these individuals and to be shared among them. Internalization suggests that the social representation can at some point be outside the experiential domain of an individual; sharedness suggests that there is something to share. But as was demonstrated in chapter 4, the operating of the nervous system is such that it does not allow any input-output metaphor to explain the coming about of its different states. Because the nervous system is an operationally closed system, there can be no information from outside entering the organism s interior ; hence internalization is out of the question. The rather biological fact of operational closure has far reaching consequences for the way psychological phenomena should be perceived. Perhaps the most important consequence is that psychological phenomena pertain to a domain of observations: They are not to be located in the brain or other physical tissue, but instead are to be understood as ongoing operations in language. This complex issue was elaborated upon in chapter 6 (see also below). For now, the obvious point to be made is that psychological phenomena cannot be reduced to operations in the nervous system. Less obvious to many social theorists seems the epistemological assertion that psychological phenomena need to be perceived in their own right, and that they may not be mixed with the perception of operations in the body. One cannot speak, then, of representations or any other form of information entering the body, brain or the mind. Hence, conducting empirical research on the brain to uncover what people believe is an unavailing enterprise. In chapters 4 and 6 it was argued in detail that the operational closure of the nervous system implies a particular theory of knowledge. When the brain cannot receive input from outside, where does knowledge originate then supposing that all our knowledge is not already innate (a supposition that is 163

169 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications 164 difficult to maintain given the wide variety in knowledge and behavior throughout the world)? Enactivism completely rethinks the nexus between the biological embodiment of an organism and its cognitive operations. It holds that organisms do not exchange information but instead adjust their respective behaviors to one another. Organisms are involved in a dance, one might say; in a flow of consensually coordinated actions. In this manner, they keep constant their respective identities while their operational states change continually as the dance proceeds [chapter 4]. In the eyes of an observer, the dance may appear as an exchange of information according to which each partner knows what to do and how to respond. This is especially so when the dance can be observed to acquire some stability and pattern. A special condition can occur when the dancing partners are endowed with a nervous system. A nervous system like that of human beings allows for recursive operations, that is operations on the results of the nervous system s own operations. Such recursiveness can also occur with respect to the coordinations in the dance: These coordinations may themselves become coordinated. The intriguing point is thus that second-order coordinations emerge as coordinations of a flux of mutual coordinations. The partners may subsequently start to coordinate their second order coordinations. This, essentially, is where language originates. It is a subset of a larger domain of second-order or linguistic coordinations. Epistemologically, it is only in a linguistic coordination that the dancing partners can recognize the dance, hence the other, hence the self. This recognition is what in the enactive framework is referred to as observing or making distinctions. Essentially, then, it is only in language that the observer emerges [chapter 6]. The domain of second- or higher-order coordinations is the domain where the phenomena belong that we are used to calling psychological. Apart from languaging and observing, also intending, thinking, remembering, believing, and so forth must be understood as taking place in linguistic operations. They are observations of coordinated actions, even when the observer is reflecting on his/her own operations. Consequently, psychological phenomena are by definition linguistic operations that imply mutual coordinations with others. Moreover, observing regularities in linguistic coordinations may lead to the conclusion that instructions, knowledge, or other kinds of information are shared. But that is a misleading perception: People do not share information, they calibrate their mutual actions. Ultimately, then, culture takes place in linguistic operations just as much. It only exists in the phenomenal domain of an observer and may not be attributed any causality in the operationally closed domain of the nervous system. This is not to say that a cultural phenomenon such as a prohibition cannot affect our physical make-up. Worrying ideas can really lead to a destroyed body, an insult may really be felt, and breaking the law on purpose may be accompanied by feelings of unease. They point is that it is never an outward rule, an extra-experiential law, or a pre-existing idea that is affecting the biological body: These phenomena already are consensually coordinated affairs. The force with which a cultural norm may appear to be invested is

170 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications nowhere to be found but in people s experience. The question to be addressed by cultural psychology, then, is how these experiences become mutually tuned between people such that these individuals display similar behavioral (and emotional) repertoires. Moreover, since no one has immediate access to what others feel, cultural psychology is necessarily tied to describing the mutual calibration of actions. As was argued in chapter 6 and at the beginning of this concluding chapter, the notion of culture easily leads to epistemological pitfalls. Following among others developmental psychologists and primatologists, we suggested in chapter 6 to first dissect cultural behavior into the key cognitive capacities necessary for participating in a culture. We then demonstrated how these capacities can be understood as consensually coordinated affairs. In addition, the premise of having an expressive body that needs training to participate in cultural practices was pointed out. Like training a sportive skill in a community of advanced and novel practitioners, the attuning and refining of one s everyday behavioral repertoire including, walking, eating and engaging in conversations also takes place in communities of more and less skilled practitioners. And like the premise of having a body, the communities in which people are incorporated are immediately given. As such, much of the attunement of behavior already occurs before reflexive elaboration [chapter 6]. This is so precisely because people are immersed in concerted interactions with other skilled practitioners from the outset. It is this immediate immersion or incorporation that already sets parameters to one s behavioral (and affective) repertoire: it is already normative, before it is reflected upon, since the autonomy of the interacting partners is at stake. Following what was said in chapter 5, one can argue that this pre-reflexive normativity follows from engaging in intrinsically social interactions. It is important to note at this point that people s daily routines are thus invested with affect and normativity. Changing one s routines, then, is not just a matter of learning different movements or different ideas: changing routines involves a re-attuning of both body and affect. We contended in chapter 6 how habituation sets limits to our malleability: Our expressive and affective bodies are not only the vessels for culture, they are also its dungeons. Finally, we argued how culture is essentially a psychological affair, grounded in experience. As an explanatory, outward, causal force, then, culture does not exist. This common sense understanding of the term is a delusion. And for the very same reasons, the common sense understanding of mind, as a single behaviororganizing entity or principle, is a delusion just a much [chapter 6]. For establishing a cultural psychology, these statements are of course devastating. But the flip side to the story is that when both culture and mind are in fact observed regularities of consensually coordinated behavior, any psychology is cultural psychology from the outset. 165

171 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications Suggestions for the psychological study of cultural issues From the enactive epistemology it follows that one must ascertain oneself time and again that culture cannot be the variable that explains certain behaviors or differences in behavior. Instead, what we refer to as culture is the thing to be understood. This has immediate consequences for how we approach key cultural issues such as norms and values, and naturalization ( inburgeren in Dutch). 1 We will briefly touch upon these issues from our enactive view point as (1) experiential affairs (2) whose coming about and perpetuation is to be understood in terms of consensual coordinations of actions. 166 Norms and values in the Netherlands In October 2003, the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid) issued a voluminous study on norms and values in the Netherlands. The government had requested such a study in November 2002, due to increasing sentiments regarding the decline of traditional norms, polite conduct, and overall morality on the one hand, and increasing feelings of insecurity, loutishness, and egocentricity on the other. Such sentiments were, and continue to be, abundantly expressed in the media by civilians and politicians alike. Although the WRR deliberately refrained from giving exhaustive definitions, it classified a value as creating space, as a wide and abstract indicator of what is good and desirable. Conversely, a norm sets limitations, is concrete and specifies what is incorrect and undesirable (WRR, 2003, pp ). Overall, norms encompass the range between unpleasant and illegal conduct. 2 The WRR subsequently included research to illustrate what the current public opinions are on violence, aggression, fraud, drug use, doing voluntary work, contributing to charity, and a decline of morality in general. After studying such an extensive taxonomy of norms and values, the following salient questions remain: Do we now really understand what norms and values are? Do we know how they come about and are we aware of how conflicting moralities evolve? Can we really identify Dutch, Western, or democratic norms and values? Moreover, can we identify them as motivators for our actual behaviors? Do we understand norms and values to such an extent that we can adjust existing policy or make new policy on the basis of these findings? We believe that this is not the case. Throughout the WRR study, norms and values are treated as pre-existing out-there realities. Citizens are believed to internalize these realities during socialization (WRR, 2003, p. 139). And to newcomers, the prevailing morals must be transmitted as soon as possible (p. 136). As such, the study is prone to our critique of cultural patterns, social representations and indeed norms and values in most social psychological 1 As these are issues that continue to receive much attention in the political and public arena in the Netherlands. 2 Nicely put in Dutch as the range between onprettig en onwettig behavior.

172 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications literature. Of course, the report is not so much a psychological inquiry as it is a socio-political study. Nevertheless, the puzzling questions how to acquire a sense for what is proper conduct, how to merge into a new social life space, how to feel obliged to do this or abstain from doing that are still to be answered. From our perspective, what must be focused on is not a taxonomy of beliefs on a socio-political level. Instead, the question to be addressed is how consensus arises with respect to what is considered proper and what is not? As was argued in chapter 6, the compellingness of a norm or the attraction of a value is immediately experienced. This immediacy must be understood as taking place in a pre-reflexive invitational relationship with others. Compellingness or attraction does not emanate from a social force outside the individual. Instead, force (experience) is immediately given and becomes mutually structured in relating to others. In a reflexive act, this process of structuring may be called consensus or norm. Its operational counterpart is, however, already part and parcel of people s beings. We hypothesize that much, if not most, of our upbringing, socialization, and adjustment to others comes about in such a pre-reflexive manner; in invitational spaces or consensual domains. We further hypothesize that adjusting to others and hence the shaping of private skills and emotions is a matter of training and habituation as pointed out in chapter 6. In that perspective, learning the local morals is above all a practice, not a mere mental operation. Like learning to talk and walk, it involves much trial, error, and tuning before it becomes a skill to be used fluently in concordance with nearby others. It is certainly not easy to study consensual coordinations. Partially this is so because one has no access to the pre-reflexive experiences of others. All that is left to be studied are actions and accounts of actions. One must be careful, however, not to confuse what is said about action and experience with that action and experience itself (cf. aboutism in chapter 4). To gain access to the coordination of actions, then, the researcher would have to become a participant in the consensual domains s/he wants to study. In the case of studying the coming about of a norm for instance, the researcher would have to provide the opportunity for the subjects to invite the researcher to validate their points of view. What is at stake is primarily the acknowledgement of the subject, rather than the defense, justification, or description of what that subject holds to be the truth. Most likely, such oppositional accounts are often not even at hand unless a researcher has asked for them. The important point is that discourse about what is considered proper and what is not may further calibrate people s behavioral and emotional repertoire. The norm, however, was already there. Baerveldt and Van Lankveld (in Baerveldt, 1999) have shown how such an invitational approach can be successful when studying the authenticity of beliefs. 167 Naturalization [Inburgering] It will be evident by now that attempting to formulate and prescribe Dutch norms and routines to foreigners and believing that this leads to successful naturalization, is a meager undertaking. When the objective is that people

173 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications 168 become actual participants in a new society (in communities of skilled practitioners), a beginner s language course and some theory on the history and organization of a country will not suffice. Such an approach overlooks the constitutive experiential dimension of proper conduct that involves practice, making mistakes, the tuning of affect, and consensual participation from both novice and master. From the WRR report it has become evident how difficult it is to clearly formulate the rules that people more or less live by. In fact, the WRR did not even attempt to formulate Dutch morals. Instead, it presented an overview of what communal norms and values are essential for a well-functioning (democratic) society. This strategy is understandable, as Dutch or any other people s morals are difficult to grasp explicitly. We believe that this is so because they do not really exist. That is, they are not part of the experiential repertoire motivating the Dutch in their daily whereabouts. If anything, norms and values are abstractions without any agency. To give a telling example: When asked by an originally Moroccan journalist to formulate one typically Dutch norm, a Dutch politician could only come up with principles that are also formulated in the International Human Rights Amendment 3 (B&W, VARA Television 2002, date of broadcast unknown). The journalist justly replied, in concert with her Turkish colleague also present, that the people in Morocco or Turkey also live by such norms. In addition, she would have a much better example and formulated as a typically Dutch standard that one does not visit one s neighbors at six o clock in the evening, for at that time everyone would be eating potatoes. Notwithstanding the humorous twist, the observation that it is virtually impossible to formulate a typically Dutch or Moroccan, Turkish, Estonian, Bosnian, German, and so forth norm or value is significant. When asked, people merely give ad hoc constructions of desirable conduct, as did the politician. But it is almost certain that that expression has nothing to do with the real motives fuelling daily life. Moreover, the journalist s reply is an excellent example of how an observed regularity may be believed to be a norm to which people adhere. But will anyone really claim that the Dutch have to eat potatoes at six o clock? Examining abstractions that are referred to as norms and values, as for instance immigrants are expected to do, will do very little to the experiential domains of these immigrants. It is like taking a theoretical exam about traffic rules and then being expected to be able to drive a truck. To be sure, learning a little bit of the local language and the organization of public life may enhance communication with the natives. But that is just a start. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, which is an activity. Successful naturalization is not a matter of applying behavioral rules in traffic-like situations in which different groups negotiate their respective needs and wants. It is not a matter of sitting down 3 The same is true for the five central values the Dutch cabinet formulated in a reaction to the WRR report, March 5, 2004: equality before the law; freedom of thought, conscience, opinion and expression; freedom of religion; freedom of peaceful assembly and association; right to liberty and security and the inviolability of the human body.

174 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications behind a desk and listening to what is typical of the community one is about to join. Successful naturalization is a matter of creating new consensual domains with the natives. It involves mutual participation in everyday practice. Immigrants will need to have sufficient time and opportunity to practice the everyday interactions with locals. Moreover, they will have to grow accustomed to the implicit normativity and affects with which such interactions are locally invested. And that is perhaps the hardest part, for it implies changing one s immediate receptivity to the world. How difficult this process is and to what types of communicative failures it may lead, is illustrated by Pinto (2004). His book contains more than seventy real life cases of multicultural misunderstanding and miscommunication. In one of his examples, a girl from Surinam is in trouble with her teacher for reasons she does not understand (p. 84). Whenever he talks to her, she lowers her eyes as a sign of respect. To the Dutch teacher, this behavior communicates that the student is not at all paying attention to what he says. As a result, he becomes furious time and again. To be sure, if both student and teacher would understand the mutual meanings and affects with which their viewing habits are invested, the situation could be less stressful to the participants. We doubt, however, that the affective repertoires that are immediately triggered in the course of interactions are easily altered. This is so because affect is part and parcel of the student s viewing habits. It will not suffice that she is told not to look down, and it will not suffice that she reads in a book that looking into the eyes of a Dutch interlocutor is considered polite. The student will have to try and experience it time and again, to such an extent that she feels comfortable with it. She will have to acquire a sense for the proper time frame for looking into someone s eyes as well. After all, staring or looking too long is considered impolite again, and there are no explicit rules to be taught here. The body techniques including the emotional re-programming that are required may not be expected to follow from instructions (see also chapters 4, 5 and 6). What is at stake from a psychological point of view in this example but also in all other cases in Pinto s book are relations of power and gender, respect, politeness, honor, and so on. All of them are consensually coordinated styles that have become self-evident routines (chapter 6). Expecting them to change easily is an illusion, for people s identity is immediately at stake. Moreover, when the existing styles still serve a vital function, for instance in the neighborhood, family or peer situation, it will be particularly difficult for immigrants to cope with conflicting expectations. A proper understanding of why the student lowered her eyes includes an account of the experience-producing process of this person in her own community of practitioners. It must be acknowledged that the waning of the body s plasticity and the presence of previously incarnated styles set limits to the extent to which new behaviors, beliefs and even emotions can be acquired and mastered. Obligatory language and history courses for elderly immigrants, as proposed by the Dutch government in 2004, appear not very promising in that respect. Moreover, the government s current proposal to take such courses in the immigrants country of origin provides them with even less opportunity to become socially skilled 169

175 Chapter 7 Conclusions and implications practitioners and completely disregards the consensual premise: The creation of consensual domains presupposes the cooperation of the natives. Inburgeren is thus a mutual affair of immigrants and natives. It does not suffice, then, for the natives to sit back and wait. They must allow for perturbations and subsequent adjustments to occur in their own identities as well. References Baerveldt, C. (1999). Culture and the consensual coordination of actions. Ph.D. thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen. Durkheim, E. (1982[1895]). The rules of sociological method. In S. Lukes (Ed.), Durkheim: The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method, p New York: The Free Press. Durkheim, É. (1995[1912]). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, translated by Karen E. Fields. New York: The Free Press. Mauss, M. (1973[1935]). Techniques of the body. Economy and Society, 2, Pinto, D. (2004). De wereld volgens Pinto [The world according to Pinto]. Uithoorn: Karakter. 170

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178 Summary What is the stuff that culture is made of? Where can we locate it? How does it work? What does it do to us? Is our behavior modeled by cultural patterns, norms, values, scenarios, and other programs? Apparently, the latter assumption is what most people seem to adhere to, politicians and social scientists included. The answer presented in the present work is radically different: In the very first and in the very last instance, human beings mutually create and uphold the regularities that they observe and call cultural. These observed regularities have, however, no causal relation to people s behavior. It is an epistemological error to confuse observations with the operational determinants of conduct. Strictly speaking, what we generally refer to as culture does not exist. And just as little do norms and values exist. We will demonstrate how our noses still come to point in the same direction. After introducing the central concern of the present study, and after presenting a brief overview of the academic discipline called cultural psychology in chapter 1, the gist of the current work is presented in five papers. Each paper constitutes a separate chapter in this book. Manuscripts are that were published as articles chapters 2, 3 and 4 are presented as they appeared in print. The central figure in chapter 2 is the French classic sociologist Émile Durkheim. His famous concept of individual and collective representations is reinterpreted against the background of German, Romantic philosophy. Elaborating on the work of Stjepan Meštrović, it is argued that Durkheim s individual and collective representations (représentations) express a much more vivid and world-constituting dynamic than generally believed. They are compared to Arthur Schopenhauer s notion of Vorstellungen. It is demonstrated that both Vorstellungen and représentations share a double connotation that is explicitly applied by Schopenhauer and Durkheim in their respective epistemologies. They are like a mirror-image of reality but at the same time they are constitutive for reality. Resemblances in the arguments of Schopenhauer and Durkheim are striking. According to Meštrović, that should not be too surprising since Schopenhauer s philosophy dominated the intellectual circles that Durkheim belonged to. It is argued that conceiving of individual and collective représentations as active and constitutive notions that pertain to body, psyche and society alike, demands a reevaluation of Durkheim s key concepts. They may be of much more interest and use to contemporary (cultural) psychology than thought so far. Studying Durkheim s work through a Schopenhauerian lens is continued in chapter 3. This time, the aim is to balance the one-sidedly cognitivist and functionalist reception of Durkheim s social theory. The French scholar explicitly rejected such monistic interpretations. It is argued that his dialectical approach was always aimed at an essentially dualistic perception of man and society. That 173

179 Summary 174 dualism is expressed, for instance, in Durkheim s concept of the homo duplex, which refers to the two centers of gravity that the human being unites in him/herself: a lower pole that pertains to the embodied individual, and a higher pole that pertains to mind and society. Like many classic philosophers, Durkheim contends that these poles constitute constant tension, but unlike many other philosophers Durkheim argues that the lower pole of this dualistic unity the embodied individual is the stronger and primordial one. The homo duplex is also refracted in Durkheim s symbol theory: symbols that are bound to the embodied human individual are contrasted with symbols that people can choose freely. For Durkheim, the human person the trinity of body, psyche and participation in society is the symbol par excellence. By implication, in rereading Durkheim s theory of religion, the rituals in which the person is (re)constructed shift to the center of attention. These rituals reveal a sharp focus on the experiencing body put into action in rites of passage. The presented reading of Durkheim may invite his students to indulge in a more psychological interpretation of his work. In many respects, it is argued, Durkheim may be called a cultural psychologist avant la lettre. In Chapter 4, one of the key problems of cultural psychology is posited as a paradox: While people believe they act on the basis of their own authentic experience, cultural psychologists can observe their behavior to be socially patterned. It is argued that, in order to account for those patterns, cultural psychology should take human experience as its analytical starting point. This runs contrary to the tendency within cultural psychology either to neglect human experience by focusing exclusively on discourse, or to consider the structure of this experience to originate in a cultural order already produced. For the first time in the present study, the enactive view of cognition as developed by the Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francesco Varela is brought to the fore. Key notions in their work such as autopoiesis, structural coupling, operational closure and consensual domain are explained in relation to psychological theory. It is argued how the enactive paradigm can overcome the aboutism that is apparent in discursive psychology as well as the already given status of socio-cultural order that is presupposed by social constructionism. In addition, the epistemology contained within the enactive framework is proposed as a more viable one for the psychological study of culture. Chapter 5 contrasts enactivism with the social representation approach. Serge Moscovici developed this latter theory in the 1960s, taking inspiration from Émile Durkheim s notion of collective representations. Moscovici s theory became one of the predominant approaches in social psychology, both in Europe and in the Anglo-Saxon world. Wolfgang Wagner is a current and productive advocate of social representations. Interestingly enough, he developed a version of the theory in which social representations no longer reside in individual minds. Instead, they are conceived of as concerted interactions. In fact, Wagner s epistemological starting points do come very close to the enactive outlook on coordinated actions. It is argued that Wagner s approach is not radical enough, however, because he continues to see concerted interaction as

180 Summary an expression of representations that are already shared by the actors constituting a group. As a consequence, the theory still presupposes representations that are somehow internalized by members of a group. In the enactivist paradigm, however, representation and internalization are impossibilities. Moreover, like most other social theories, Wagner s version holds the idea that social representations are shared. It is argued that the ubiquitous notion of sharedness that is also found in studies on social models, cultural patterns, schemas, scenarios, and so forth is a misapprehension of how orchestrated actions come about. In a cultural psychological account of behavior, there is no space for anything shared ; whether beliefs, conduct, structures or other entities. The term merely obscures a proper understanding of what really constitutes intrinsically social behavior. While dismissing the notions of sharedness and internalization in chapter 5, it is concluded in chapter 6 that also culture fails in giving an adequate account for the styling of people s behavior. A point brought forward in the two preceding chapters is elaborated upon in detail: The enactivist framework grants a special perspective to the observer that cannot be omitted from a social scientific epistemology; that perspective of the observer, who may perceive regularities in the world, should not be confused with the operations that give rise to such perceptions. Phenomenology already touched upon such issues, but the enactive approach is much more explicit about the biological and the cognitive operations that intertwine the observer and the observed. An attempt is made to address culture from both the operational and the phenomenological perspective. In order to do so, the term cultural behavior is dissected into its characterizing operations. Inspiration is drawn from developmental psychology, linguistics, ethology and (cultural) primatology. Michael Tomasello s key notions of understanding the intentions of others like me and the ratchet effect in particular are connected to embodied learning and habituation. In addition, evolutionary psychology s account of culture is addressed, as it has an eye open for social selective pressures that in part constitute the (biological) embodiment of modern humans. The point that evolutionary psychology tends to miss, however, is that the actual bringing about of socio-cultural conduct in real life cannot be already coded for in our genes, brains or bodies. Like most other psychologists, evolutionary thinkers overlook the co-constructed character of everyday practices, including cognition. Therefore, if it can be understood from both an operational and a phenomenological viewpoint how learning and habituation are from the outset socially orchestrated skills, accounts in which culture precedes or locks out individual experience can be declared bankrupt. It is suggested that scholars delete the term culture from their analyses, as well as its refractions such as schemas, models, patterns, norms and values. They obscure the processes to understand: Culture is a description made by an observer; it is not a causal force in the operational domains of consensually coordinating organisms. Chapter 7, finally, consists of a brief summary of the overall arguments and conclusions in the present study. Particularly, the epistemological problems 175

181 Summary associated with culture and its refractions in social theories are reiterated. It is shown how the enactive framework was staged as a viable alternative theory of knowledge, in which these problems can be overcome as the relation between psyche and culture is radically reconsidered. The conclusion is that as an explanatory, outward, causal force, culture does not exist. This common sense understanding of the term, to be found in most social scientific literature, is a delusion that obscures our understanding of how people s behavior becomes socially structured. The enactive epistemology overcomes the difficulties and can in fact constitute a true psychological study of culture. How this approach sheds a very different light on current cultural issues in modern, Western societies is briefly pointed out in two examples: the ongoing discussions in the Netherlands on declining norms and values and on successful naturalization ( inburgeren ). 176

182 Samenvatting Van wat voor soort spul is cultuur gemaakt? Kunnen we cultuur aanwijzen? Hoe werkt cultuur? Wordt ons gedrag gemodelleerd door culturele patronen, normen, waarden, scenario s en andere programma s? Dat is althans wat de meeste mensen veronderstellen, politici en wetenschappers incluis. In het voor u liggende werk wordt een andere positie ingenomen: in allereerste maar ook in allerlaatste instantie creëren en onderhouden mensen zelf, onderling, de regelmatigheden die ze waarnemen en die ze cultureel noemen. Deze waargenomen regelmatigheden hebben echter geen oorzakelijke relatie met de gedragingen van mensen. Het is een kentheoretische misvatting om observaties van gedrag te verwarren met de operationele determinanten van gedrag. Wat we doorgaans aanduiden met cultuur 1 bestaat strikt genomen niet. En vanuit deze zienswijze existeren normen en waarden al evenmin. Hoe onze neuzen desondanks ongeveer dezelfde kant op komen te staan, is onderwerp van deze studie. Hoofdstuk 1 bestaat uit een introductie van de centrale thematiek en een korte positionering van de discipline cultuurpsychologie. Daarna volgen vijf artikelen die de kern vormen van het werk. Gepubliceerde artikelen de hoofdstukken 2, 3 en 4 zijn weergegeven zoals ze zijn verschenen in druk. De Franse socioloog Émile Durkheim staat centraal in hoofdstuk 2. Zijn beroemde notie van individuele en collectieve representaties (représentations) wordt hier bestudeerd in het licht van de Duitse, Romantische filosofie. Voortbouwend op het werk van Stjepan Meštrović wordt betoogd dat de werkelijkheidscheppende rol van individuele en collectieve representaties voor Durkheim veel vitaler en significanter is dan doorgaans wordt aangenomen. Een vergelijking met Arthur Schopenhauers notie van Vorstellungen maakt duidelijk dat zowel de term Vorstellung als représentation een dubbele connotatie heeft. Schopenhauer en Durkheim passen beide die dubbele lading toe in hun kentheorieën. Vorstellungen en représentations zijn mentale spiegelbeelden van de realiteit, maar tegelijk zijn het constituerende elementen van die werkelijkheid. De overeenkomsten in argumentatie van Schopenhauer en Durkheim zijn opvallend. Volgens Meštrović is dat niet verwonderlijk omdat Schopenhauers filosofie alomtegenwoordig was in de intellectuele kringen rond Durkheim. Wanneer individuele en collectieve representaties worden begrepen als actieve, constituerende noties die in gelijke mate betrekking hebben op lichaam, psyche en samenleving, dan houdt dat ook een herwaardering in van andere sleutelbegrippen in Durkheims werk. Zijn theorie kan in dat opzicht van Zoals in: Dat is een deel van onze cultuur, Weet je, dat heeft nou eenmaal te maken met hun cultuur en in dat bedrijf heerst een haantjescultuur. Bij dergelijk gebruik van de term kunnen vaak mentaliteit, gewoonte, traditie, sfeer of bloed/genen toegepast worden als geldig synoniem.

183 Samenvatting 178 meer waarde blijken voor de hedendaagse (cultuur)psychologie dan tot nog toe werd gedacht. Ook in hoofdstuk 3 wordt de theorie van Durkheim bekeken door een Schopenhaueriaanse bril. Dit keer is het doel om de eenzijdige cognitivistische en functionalistische recepties van Durkheims werk te balanceren. De Franse denker zelf verwierp monistische interpretaties en verklaringen van sociologische verschijnselen. Zijn dialectische benadering was er altijd op gericht om de mens en de samenleving in een wezenlijk dualistische visie te presenteren. Dat dualisme is onder meer terug te vinden in zijn idee van de homo duplex. Hiermee worden de twee zwaartepunten uitgedrukt die de mens in zichzelf verenigt. De lagere pool vertegenwoordigt het belichaamde, animale individu. De hogere pool is geassocieerd met de geest, de rede en de samenleving. Zoals veel klassieke filosofen argumenteert Durkheim dat deze twee polen een voortdurende spanning inhouden. Maar anders dan veel filosofen ziet Durkheim de lagere pool van de duale eenheid als de primaire en de sterkste van de twee. De homo duplex-idee weerklinkt in Durkheims symbooltheorie. Hierin is een dualiteit te ontdekken tussen symbolen die onmiddellijk betrekking hebben op belichaamde individuen en symbolen die mensen vrij kunnen kiezen. Voor Durkheim is de persoon de drie-eenheid van lichaam, psyche en deelname in de sociale orde het symbool bij uitstek. Rituelen waarin de persoon ge(re)construeerd wordt, verdienen vanuit deze optiek dan ook een veel prominentere plaats in Durkheims religietheorie, zo wordt betoogd. Het is cruciaal om op te merken dat de ervarende, handelende en belichaamde persoon centraal staat in deze rites de passage. Deze lezing van Durkheims symbooltheorie opent deuren naar een meer psychologische interpretatie van zijn werk. Durkheim kan met recht een cultuurpsycholoog avant la lettre worden genoemd. Een van de kernvragen van de cultuurpsychologie kan als een paradox geformuleerd worden, zo wordt gesteld in hoofdstuk 4: terwijl mensen menen te handelen op grond van hun eigen, authentieke ervaringen kunnen cultuurpsychologen wijzen op de waarneembare sociale patronen in dat handelen. Om die patronen te kunnen begrijpen, dient de cultuurpsychologie de menselijke ervaring als vertrekpunt van haar analyses te nemen. Die bewering staat haaks op de cultuurpsychologische tendens om ofwel de menselijke ervaring te negeren middels een exclusieve aandacht voor discours, ofwel te poneren dat de structuur van ervaringen zijn oorsprong vindt in een culturele orde die voorafgaat aan die ervaringen. Voor het eerst wordt in dit werk het enactive perspectief op cognitie aan de orde gesteld, zoals dat is gepropageerd door de Chileense biologen Humberto Maturana en Francisco Varela. Kernbegrippen in hun werk, zoals autopoiesis, structurele koppeling, operationele geslotenheid en consensusdomeinen worden uitgelegd in relatie tot de psychologie. Beargumenteerd wordt hoe het enactive-paradigma de gevaren van een zogenaamd aboutism van de discursieve psychologie kan vermijden. Evenzo kan enactivism een notie van een reeds vóór de ervaring gegeven sociaal-culturele orde vermijden, zoals het sociaal-constructionisme

184 Samenvatting impliceert. De kenleer die besloten ligt in het raamwerk van enactivism wordt in dit hoofdstuk voorgesteld als een vruchtbaarder alternatief voor de psychologische studie van cultuur. Hoofdstuk 5 contrasteert enactivism met de sociale-representatietheorie. Serge Moscovici ontwikkelde deze laatste in de jaren zestig van de vorige eeuw, waarbij hij expliciet voortborduurde op Durkheims notie van collectieve representaties. Moscovici s theorie werd invloedrijk in de sociale psychologie, zowel in Europa als in de Anglo-Saksische wereld. Wolfgang Wagner propageert een versie van de sociale-representatie-theorie waarin deze representaties niet langer zetelen in de psyche van individuen. In plaats daarvan worden ze beschreven als georkestreerde interacties. Daarmee komt Wagners kentheoretisch vertrekpunt dicht in de buurt van enactivisms focus op onderling gecoordineerde handelingen. Toch is Wagner niet radicaal genoeg, want hij blijft georkestreerde interacties zien als uitdrukking van representaties die reeds gedeeld worden door de actoren in een groep. De theorie vooronderstelt dat representaties daartoe op de een of andere manier geïnternaliseerd worden door de afzonderlijke individuen. Enactivism liet daarentegen al zien dat zowel representaties als internalisering onhoudbare noties zijn. Wagner argumenteert bovendien, net als veel andere sociaal-wetenschappelijke theoretici, dat sociale representaties gedeeld worden. Denken in termen van gedeelde representaties, overtuigingen, ideeën, gedragingen enzovoort behelst echter een misvatting over hoe georkestreerde gedragingen tot stand komen, zo wordt beargumenteerd. De term gedeeld vertroebelt het begrip van wat intrinsiek sociaal gedrag werkelijk constitueert. Werden in het vorige hoofdstuk gedeeldheid en internalisering verworpen, in hoofdstuk 6 is het de beurt aan cultuur. Ook dat begrip verhult een adequaat begrip van de stilering van menselijk gedrag. Een punt dat in eerdere hoofdstukken al een keer ter sprake kwam, wordt nu meer in detail besproken: enactivism verleent aan de waarnemer een speciaal perspectief dat niet genegeerd mag worden in een sociaal-wetenschappelijke kenleer. Het is de waarnemer zelf die regelmatigheden registreert in de wereld. Die waargenomen regelmatigheden mogen echter niet verward worden met de processen (operaties) die feitelijk ten grondslag liggen aan de waarnemingen zelf. Een dergelijk punt werd al door de fenomenologen gemaakt, maar enactivism is explicieter over de biologische en de cognitieve operaties die de waarnemer en het waargenomene vervlechten. In het hoofdstuk wordt een poging ondernomen om cultuur te benaderen vanuit zowel het operationele als het fenomenologische perspectief. Daartoe wordt cultureel gedrag eerst ontleed in de karakteriserende operaties. Leidraad hierbij zijn recente inzichten in de ontwikkelingspsychologie, de linguïstiek, de ethologie en de (culturele) primatologie. In het bijzonder worden Michael Tomasello s sleutelideeën als begrijpen dat anderen intenties hebben als ikzelf en het liereffect in verband gebracht met belichaamd leren en habituatie. Ook wordt gekeken naar de evolutionair-psychologische benadering van cultuur, aangezien deze een open oog heeft voor sociale selectieprocessen die deels de (biologische) belichaming 179

185 Samenvatting van de moderne mens inzichtelijk maken. Wat de evolutionair-psychologen echter over het hoofd dreigen te zien is dat de feitelijke real time-productie en voltrekking van het alledaagse sociaal-cultureel gedrag niet geheel en al voorgecodeerd kan zijn in onze hersenen, genen of anderszins in onze lichamen. Deze evolutionaire denkers gaan voorbij aan de co-constructieve aard van alledaagse handelingen en cognities. Wat begrepen moet worden, vanuit het operationele en vanuit het fenomenologische perspectief is hoe leren en habituatie vanaf het eerste begin sociaal georkestreerde vaardigheden zijn. Dan kunnen verklaringen van gedrag waarin cultuur voorafgaat aan de ervaringen van individuele mensen, of waarin cultuur deze ervaringen geheel en al buiten de deur houdt, failliet verklaard worden. Geopperd wordt om de term cultuur uit de psychologische analyse te verwijderen, en evenzo de afgeleiden termen als schema s, modellen, patronen, normen en waarden. Cultuur is een beschrijving van een waarnemer. Het is geen oorzakelijke kracht buiten of in de handelingsruimten van organismen die gedrag op elkaar afstemmen. Hoofdstuk 7, ten slotte, bestaat uit een korte samenvatting van de centrale argumenten en conclusies in dit werk. In het bijzonder worden de kentheoretische problemen nog een keer herhaald die geassocieerd zijn met cultuur en afgeleide termen. Andermaal wordt betoogd hoe enactivism een vruchtbaar kentheoretisch alternatief biedt, waarin psyche en cultuur radicaal anders gedacht worden. De conclusie luidt dat cultuur als een verklarende, externe, causale kracht niet bestaat. Deze alledaagse opvatting over cultuur, die ook teruggevonden kan worden in de meeste sociaal-wetenschappelijke literatuur, is een zinsbegoocheling die verdoezelt hoe het gedrag van mensen in werkelijkheid gestructureerd raakt. Enactivism vermijdt de moeilijkheden en kan vorm geven aan een werkelijk psychologische studie van cultuur. In twee korte Nederlandse casussen wordt toegelicht hoe dit nieuw licht kan werpen op actuele culturele kwesties in (bijvoorbeeld) moderne, westerse samenlevingen: ten eerste het voortschrijdend normen-en-waarden-debat en ten tweede de discussie over succesvol inburgeren. 180

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188 Acknowledgement The coming about of this dissertation is so much a blend of academic and personal maturation that I find it hard to decide who I should be thankful to in the first place. But this work is directed to an academic audience, I shall therefore begin by addressing my friends and colleagues in university. A great many thanks go out to my promoter René van Hezewijk and my copromoter Paul Voestermans. It is a true and rewarding pleasure to work with you. I deeply admire your capability to combine erudition with a warm and enjoyable personality. You both know how to elegantly translate science into practice and practice into science my outstanding teachers. Thank you Cor Baerveldt; colleague, friend, and rebel with a cause. A big thank you goes out to Jacques Janssen, Harry Kempen ( ), Jan van der Lans ( ) and Marjo van Mierlo at the Radboud University Nijmegen. Together with Paul, you not only paved my way into the academy, you also fed my enthusiasm for doing our kind of science. It is that imprint that I still bear with a certain pride. Stjepan Meštrović needs special mention: I have never met a more passionate and talented intellectual. Studying with you, and with our friends at A&M University (Texas) continues to have a profound impact on my thoughts and feelings. Sharing our love for Émile, Arthur and Hermann the great defenders of the heart was and is an intellectual homecoming. To my wonderful colleagues at the Open Universiteit Nederland: I am sorry to bother you so much during lunch time, trying out one-liners and improvising ideas. I don t think that will change much after this promotion. Thank you for sustaining it all and for creating such an extraordinary atmosphere (culture) at our psychology department. 183 Thanks for listening and above all for distraction dear friends who do not know me so much, but seem to like me anyway: The international summit delegates Khaled, Elke, Guy, Tuula & José-Antonio who taught me how to cross borders. With you, cosmopolitism really is a piece of cake.

189 Acknowledgement Former colleague editors at Psychologie & Maatschappij Jessica, Myra, David, René, Crétien, Catelijne, Ine, Maarten, Jaap, Leon, Ludwien, Cor & also Ruud Who said science is no fun? Co-psycho s Berno, Gijs, Remco, Helen, Marcel & Twan People, I still don t understand how we all got this far. The Flying Lures Ties, Frank, Rob & Mat cause life is Rock n Roll. The Bencers Frits, Jeroen & Eef showing me what making music really is about. Friday Night Soccers Erwin, Harrie, Gerard, Eric, Martijn, Wil, Jeroen, Bas, Koen, Bart & Wim real angels at our holy night frenzy. Former colleagues at the Ministry of SZW, A&O dept Chris, Albert, Paul, Marjan, Irene, Henk, Nardus, Frank, Ton So there was life outside the academy after all Former colleagues at F&L Publishing Don Pascal, Fred, Jan, Bash, Smittie, Peevandebee, Michael, Tonio, Marjon, Paul & Wien making my toughest times bearable, without you knowing it. It was great to be part of the circus. 24-hour party people Suus, Djess, Johan, Barbara, Roy, Hubien, Peter-Jan, Sonja, Roos & Tim Come on guys, don t we ever grow up? A big thanks to my German teacher in high school, Math Cremers, who really doesn t know what he started. 184 And a real great thank you to my bros. Martijn (Tinus), a real friend far away so close, Jim, for climbing mountain after mountain after mountain together. Finally, I want to express my highest esteem to you who made a such big difference: mamma, pap( ), Ilse, Susan, Émile, Arthur, Nick, Hermann & Demian.

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192 Publications Articles in international peer reviewed journals (A) Verheggen, Th. (1996). Durkheim's représentations considered as Vorstellungen. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 16, pp (B) Baerveldt, C., & Verheggen, Th. (1999). Enactivism and the experiential reality of culture: Rethinking the epistemological basis of cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 5, (C) Janssen, J., & Verheggen, Th. (1997). The double center of gravity in Durkheim's symbol theory: Bringing the body back. Sociological Theory, 15 (3), pp Contributions to edited books (D) (E) (F) (G) Baerveldt, C., & Verheggen, Th. (1999). Towards a psychological study of culture. Epistemological considerations. In W. Mayers, B. Bayer, B. Duarte Esgalhado & E. Schraube (Eds.), Challenges to theoretical psychology (pp ). North York: Captus. Verheggen, Th., & Baerveldt, C. (2001). From shared representations to consensually coordinated actions: Toward an intrinsically social psychology. In J. R. Morss, N. Stephenson & H. van Rappard (Eds.), Theoretical issue s in psychology (pp ). Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Baerveldt, C., Verheggen, Th., & Voestermans, P. (2001). Human experience and the enigma of culture: Toward an enactive account of cultural practice. In J. R. Morss, N. Stepenson, & H. van Rappard (Eds.), Theoretical Issues in Psychology (pp ). Boston: Kluwer. Verheggen, Th. (1996). Durkheim's représentations considered as Vorstellungen. Reprint of (A) in The Living Legacy of Marx, Durkheim and Weber. Applications and Analysis of Classical Sociological Theory by Modern Social Scientists, edited by R. Altschuler (1998). New York: Gordian Knot Books. 187

193 Publications Other (H) Verheggen, Th. (1998). De McRoes-belevenis. Psychologie & Maatschappij, 84, (I) Verheggen, Th. (1998). De cultuurpsychologie van Michael Cole. Bespreking van Michael Cole (1996). Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline. Psychologie & Maatschappij, 82, [Book review] (J) Verheggen, Th.(1998). Van anders naar minder: Bespreking van Inge Mans (1998). Zin der Zotheid. Vijf eeuwen cultuurgeschiedenis van zotten, onnozelen en zwakzinnigen. Psychologie & Maatschappij, 85, [Book review] 188

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196 Curriculum Vitae Theo Verheggen was born in Roermond (the Netherlands), on May 2 nd He completed his study Cultural psychology and the psychology of religion at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, in From 1996 to 2000 he worked as AIO [assistant in training] in the same department. Following on this appointment, he worked as a researcher at the Ministry of Social Affairs in The Hague for a year and a half. For almost five years between 1996 and 2002, Theo was editor of the Dutch journal Psychologie & Maatschappij [Psychology & Society]. In 2002 he worked as editor for a Dutch publishing company and in 2003 he returned to university to become assistant professor in psychology at the Open Universiteit Nederland. 191

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