文化の超有機體説に對する心理學的考察

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書誌事項

タイトル別名
  • Psychological Reflections on the Superorganic Theory of Culture
  • 文化の超有機体説に対する心理学的考察
  • ブンカ ノ チョウユウキタイセツ ニ タイスル シンリガクテキ コウサツ

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抄録

Kroeber insisted on man's "social" nature-a trait which distinguishes him from animals. Sapir doubted this, and thus the problem of why man is essentially "social" still remains. Here lies a psychological issue, which in recent years has given rise to emphasis on the concepts of symbol and sign. The existence of culture is necessarily connected with the symbolic faculty, as White has ponited out. But White does not explore the final implications of this. When we consider the creative development of culure by Homo sapiens and when we consider the psychological nature of the symbolic faculty, we cannot but admit the creative power of this symbolic faculty. In this faculty of using the symbol we see likewise the faculty of creating the symbol. White regards man as a constant ; culture as an independent variable. We see, however, that men are not really constant because of their unique psychological creative faculty. Enculturation into a given culture depends essentially on the exercise of this faculty. It seems we are obliged at least in principle to admit that the individual may have the power to change culture, although the cultural stream in the long view appears generally so determining that the individual seems powerless. Obviously we cannot neglect the concept of the super-individual nature of culture and deny that we are able to study culture as if it were an independent entity. For example, we must know the structure of any culture before we study the process of enculturation of an individual into that culture. The most important inquiry would seem to lie in the area of the interdependence between the individual and cultural process, especially when investigating a small community culture intensively and minutely. Thus we may conclude that culture is not entirely super-individual.

収録刊行物

  • 民族學研究

    民族學研究 15 (1), 41-51, 1950

    日本文化人類学会

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