People in different cultures have strikingly different construals of the self, of others, and of the interdependence of the 2. These construals can influence, and in many cases determine, the very nature of individual experience, including cognition, emotion, and motivation. Many Asian cultures have distinct conceptions of individuality that insist on the fundamental relatedness of individuals to each other. The emphasis is on attending to others, fitting in, and harmonious interdependence with them. American culture neither assumes nor values such an overt connectedness among individuals. In contrast, individuals seek to maintain their independence from others by attending to the self and by discovering and expressing their unique inner attributes. As proposed herein, these construals are even more powerful than previously imagined. Theories of the self from both psychology and anthropology are integrated to define in detail the difference between a construal of the self as independent and a construal of the self as interdependent. Each of these divergent construals should have a set of specific consequences for cognition, emotion, and motivation; these consequences are proposed and relevant empirical literature is reviewed. Focusing on differences in self-construals enables apparently inconsistent empirical findings to be reconciled, and raises questions about what have been thought to be culture-free aspects of cognition, emotion, and motivation.

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Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.

Conceptions of the body are central not only to substantive work in medical anthropology, but also to the philosophical underpinnings of the entire discipline of anthropology, where Western assumptions about the mind and body, the individual and society, affect both theoretical viewpoints and research paradigms. These same conceptions also influence ways in which health care is planned and delivered in Western societies. In this article we advocate the deconstruction of received concepts about the body and begin this process by examining three perspectives from which the body may be viewed: (1) as a phenomenally experienced individual body-self; (2) as a social body, a natural symbol for thinking about relationships among nature, society, and culture; and (3) as a body politic, an artifact of social and political control. After discussing ways in which anthropologists, other social scientists, and people from various cultures have conceptualized the body, we propose the study of emotions as an area of inquiry that holds promise for providing a new approach to the subject.

The Mindful Body: A Prolegomenon to Future Work in Medical Anthropology

In the first two volumes of this work, Paul Ricoeur examined the relations between time and narrative in historical writing, fiction, and theories of literature. This final volume, a comprehensive reexamination and synthesis of the ideas developed in volumes 1 and 2, stands as Ricoeur's most complete and satisfying presentation of his own philosophy.

Time and Narrative

The authors argue that attribution patterns reflect implicit theories acquired from induction and socialization and hence differentially distributed across human cultures. In particular, the authors tested the hypothesis that dispositionalism in attribution for behavior reflects a theory of social behavior more widespread in individualist than collectivist cultures

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Culture and Cause: American and Chinese Attributions for Social and Physical Events

The intention of this work is to show that European expansion not only transformed the historical trajectory of non-European societies but also reconstituted the historical accounts of these societies before European intervention. It asserts that anthropology must pay more attention to history.

Europe and the People without History

Preface 1. A category of the human mind: the notion of person the notion of self Marcel Mauss (translated by W.D. Halls) 2. The category of the person: a reading of Mauss's last essay N. J. Allen 3. Categories, concepts or predicaments? Remarks on Mauss's use of philosophical terminology Steven Collins 4. Marcel Mauss and the quest for the person in Greek biography and autobiography A. Momigliano 5. A modified view of our origins: the Christian beginnings of modern individualism Louis Dumont 6. Person and individual: some anthropological reflections J. S. La Fontaine 7. Self: public, provate. Some African representations Godfrey Lienhardt 8. Between the earth and heaven: conceptions of the self in China Mark Elvin 9. Purity and power among the Brahmans of Kashmir Alexis Sanderson 10. Of masks and men Martin Hollis 11. An alternative social history of the self Michael Carrithers 12 The person Charles Taylor Conclusion Steven Lukes Bibliography Index.

The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History

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Ontology is just another word for culture: Motion tabled at the 2008 meeting of the group for debates in anthropological theory, University of Manchester

The question - one strand, a second strand, a third strand, and all strands together the great arc - the great arc, sea shells, between, Europe and the people without history, metamorphic life, the question again beginning to make history - Darwinian demands, the basic sketch, social and technical intelligence, the selective advantage of sociality, an evolutionary ratchet, the invention of history, three tales the anatomy of sociality - intersubjectivity, mind-reading, politeness, pedagogy and aesthetic standards, creativity and repetition with constant variation, speech and stories, putting it back together reading minds and reading life - research programmes, narrative thought, Oedipus Rex, making events, recapitulation the bull and the saint - the philosopher and the story-teller, a short, sharp story, ambiguities, Siddhasagar again, a disagreement, paradigmatic thought again, imagery.

Why Humans Have Cultures: Explaining Anthropology and Social Diversity

Sociocultural anthropology and evolutionary biology have reached the point at which it is possible to give a coherent and synthetic account of the origins of human cultural vanability. From a sociocultural perspective what must be explained is not just the fact of varying cultures and societies, but also the human capacity to create, maintain and alter social forms over time. From a biological perspective we have to ask, what is the selective advantage ofsuch variability? The answer lies in human sociality. Sociality consists in a package of social intellectual capacities-higher order intentionalhty, pedagogy, narrativity, creativity, speech-which made possible an increasing division of labour. But as these capacities grew, they gave rise to distinctively human (rather than Darwinian) history, that is to the forms ofsocial, political, economic and cultural causation which create ever new variations on the theme of social existence.

Why humans have cultures

In a world of continued and expanding empire, does sociocultural anthropology in itself offer grounds for moral and social criticism? One line in anthropological thought leads to cultural relativism and an awareness that a cloud of alternative possibilites surrounds any moral code. However, a second line, based in reflection on fieldwork and on the professional ethics arising with it, does suggest some basic moral aesthetic standards, including trust, mutual forbearance, and acceptance of others' worth. Moreover, a third line, that investigating the sources of social change and cultural metamorphosis, suggests that moral agencycumpatiencydoingandbeingdoneto in the web of social relationsis a basic category of human thought and existence and that moral rhetorical persuasion of agentscumpatients is likewise a constituent of all cultural arrangements. These reflections give sociocultural anthropologists support, based in the moral logic of the discipline itself and in its understanding of the complexity of p...

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Michael Carrithers

Papers

The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History

Ontology is just another word for culture: Motion tabled at the 2008 meeting of the group for debates in anthropological theory, University of Manchester

Why Humans Have Cultures: Explaining Anthropology and Social Diversity

Why humans have cultures

Anthropology as a Moral Science of Possibilities1