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CHAPTER-I

HUMAN BEINGS : CREATORS AND CREATIONS OF

CULTURE Any endeavour to understand culture has a necessary

reference to being human as culture is embedded in unique

features of human existence. The necessity is reinforced by

the fact that relation of humans to the world is also mediated

through culture. Humans have an ambiguous and unique

relationship with natural world as they not only are part of

nature, rather through creative interaction have humanized

the world also. In an important manner of saying they have

created a world of their own, which simultaneously is and is

not part of the natural world as it contains entities which are

not mere natural objects but embody cultural meanings and

significances also. Cultural objects are manifestations of

various dimensions at the same time. As natural objects they

are part of the natural casual nexus, but more than that they

express some purpose for which they are created and

comprise significances which are meaningful in more ways

than one. It is the purpose, meaning and significance that

transforms a natural object into a cultural object.

The nature of cultural objects as embodiments of

multifarious aspects ranging from natural to non-natural

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ones reflect the distinctive feature of human existence

whereby they are part of the natural world much like other

living organisms, but transcend their being as creatures of

nature in certain very important respects. On the one hand

they are creatures among other organisms, having specific

needs and derives. At this level they are not much different

from other organisms. On the other hand there is a crucial

respect in which they differ from other animals. Philosophical

manner to describe this difference is to say that they are

capable of reflection and are aware of their needs, derives,

desires etc. and evaluate themselves in terms of some larger

vision of what their lives are creating. This facilitates them to

transcend their being as mere creatures and organisms. The

distinctive feature of being human is that humans care about

kinds of being that they are. Humans are unique beings in so

far as they form second order desires about their desires, and

aspire to go beyond the immediacy of biological life.

We may say that in humans, creature and creator are

united. As creatures of nature they have biological and

physical needs and as creators they intervene creatively in

the processes of nature in order to make their surroundings

change in accordance with their needs. The changed

11

surroundings give rise to new requirements as well as higher

cravings and deeper seekings which are profoundly different

from mere biological or physical needs. It is to such

interventions that processes of human self-creation can be

traced and it is in such dialectics that origins of culture lie.

Such interventions and interactions imparted new meanings

to the natural objects, events and processes. These meanings

were not part of the natural world out there, and they

informed the surrounding reality with new sense and

significance, thereby facilitating the creation of cultural

objects. This initial and primitive cultural world provided

them with appropriate space to humanize further. This space

not only provided them with opportunities to act in order to

create cultural objects, it also offered favourable

circumstances to reflect on these constituted objects in order

to evaluate them. This evaluation enhanced their freedom to

choose and constitute meanings and significances that

inform cultural objects, thereby making values a constituent

of the human realm. This not only facilitated the expansion of

horizons of human consciousness and self-consciousness,

but also helped pushing the boundaries of cultural realm

from the world of cultural objects to the subtler domains of

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cultural symbols and values. In a manner of speaking

self-aware humans are creations of primitive culture who

were able to develop higher forms of culture. In this way

human self-creation and genesis of culture may be seen as

mutually facilitating processes of the same dialectics. These

dialectical interactions transformed the activities of humans

from mere reactions of creatures of nature to, not only the

actions of creators of meaning, but also to the composers of

values, thereby constituting the cultural realm as we

understand it today.

For delineating the dialectics between human creations

and creation of humans, certain concepts from the history of

ideas provide very important and significant insights.

Kroeber’s concept of culture as super organic; Husserl’s

concept of Lebenswelt; Heidegger’s concepts of Desein as

Being-in-the-world and world as equipment; Wittgensteinian

concepts of forms of life and natural history of mankind

provide insights towards developing a philosophical

framework for understanding the nature of culture and its

origins. Delineation of these concepts helps understanding

humans as creators and creations of culture.

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Cultural realm as super-organic

In studies aimed at comprehending the cultural realm,

word super-organic may or may not be mentioned, but more

often than not, the thought behind this concept forms

backdrop of the studies by informing their basic concepts

and methodological tools. Therefore it would be pertinent to

note and elaborate this important feature of the cultural

realm.

The term super-organic was first used by Lippert and

was developed further by Herbert Spencer. But it was

elaborated in detail by Kroeber who tried to work out

important implications of the concept for the study of

culture.1 According to him understanding culture as

belonging to super-organic realm means that it transcends

organic world and cannot be reduced to organic processes of

the nature. But at the same time he also points out that

understanding culture as being super-organic does not mean

that it is independent of the influences of organic and/or

inorganic reality. It only means that it has necessary linkages

with organic reality, but these connections are not sufficient

to explain cultural realm as it goes beyond them, and is

much more than mere organic or inorganic events and

processes.

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According to this conception of reality phenomena can

be demarcated as belonging to three levels : (a) inorganic, (b)

organic, and (c) super-organic. The inorganic realm is

considered to be the lowest level that includes material and

cosmological phenomena. With emergence of life, a new (i.e.

organic) dimension has been added to the reality. Though

organic realm has its roots in the inorganic domain and is

based on this level, but it cannot be treated as identical with

it as various phenomena of life differentiate it from mere

inorganic domain. Thereafter during the processes of organic

evolution, hominae species emerged and in homo-sapiens the

brain developed significantly. The body also underwent

important changes including the ability to stand erect,

specific formation of hands, focused vision, ability to speak,

etc. Emergence and development of complex cultures was

enabled by these abilities. All these abilities have organic

basis, but culture that developed on these organic

foundations is much more than mere organic phenomena. It

is in this sense that Kroeber described culture as

super-organic. He sought to stress the point that just as

organic phenomena belonged to a higher category as

compared to inorganic phenomena, similarly super-organic

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phenomena belong to a higher category as compared to

organic phenomena. He used the category of super-organic to

stress that cultural phenomena are radically different from

the biological abilities belonging to organic realm.

The conception of culture as super-organic realm is

reinforced by the fact that unlike organic traits it is not of

hereditary nature and cannot be transferred genetically to

next generations. Isolate a few eggs of ants from other eggs

and give them favourable conditions to hatch. The offsprings

from these eggs will not lack anything in comparison to other

ants and will exhibit all the traits associated with ants as

these traits being organic are transferred genetically through

the generations.

Similarly, Kroeber suggests, keep a few new born

children apart from the cultural community and place them

in isolation. Provide them all the physical comforts and

material things, but cut off all types of human interaction

with them. They will grow physically but will not acquire the

traits of higher cultures in which they were born. It means

that humans are born in culture but not with culture. Mere

heredity cannot make these children possess cultural traits

as culture -rather than being organic- is super-organic.

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The above hypothetical experiment suggested by

Kroeber also underscores another important point : that

though creators and carriers of culture are human beings but

in real-life situations culture can only be acquired through

the processes of culturalisation and socialisation, meaning

thereby that individuals are creations of culture.

This categorization of culture as super-organic provides

insights for accepting the multiplicity and heterogeneity of

phenomena and encourages us to look at them as they

actually are. It also enables us to recognize that there are

different and distinct levels of phenomena –each having its

distinct nature. An effort should be made to study them by

appreciating their distinctness and grasping their nature

without reducing them to one another, but recognizing the

necessary linkages at the same time. It also has important

and significant implications for the language used to

comprehend the reality that is peculiarly human. Human

realm and phenomena peculiar to human reality such as

consciousness, self-awareness, reflection and related

phenomena of cultural objects, symbols and constructs,

though have necessary linkages with physical and biological

realms, but they cannot be reduced to organic or inorganic

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reality. Nor can they be understood in categories appropriate

for lower realms as these concepts fail to capture the

richness of phenomena that are peculiarly human and

cultural. Such an approach shows us a path of avoiding the

two extremes : on the one hand it saves us from mere

speculative approach that denies any necessary linkages

between human and material realms; and on the other it

protects us against reducing phenomena peculiarly human to

material phenomena to be studied by the methodology of

natural sciences.

If former has been the orthodoxy of times prior to

renaissance, the latter has been a dominent trend -under the

influence of positivism- in the post-renaissance period.

Cultural realm as Lebenswelt

The critique of positivism from phenomenological

perspective assumes significance for the present study as

positivism sought to reduce all significant issues, including

the discourse about culture, to the domain to be studied by

methods of natural sciences whereas phenomenology

endeavoured to restore the primacy of human experience.

Husserl’s concept of Lebenswelt represents a turning point in

unveiling the relation between natural sciences and cultural

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domains informed by sense and significance constituted by

meaning giving acts of human consciousness. The movement

of thought that he is credited to have initiated endeavours to

undo the negative effects of positivistic prejudices on cultural

and human realms. He launched a radical critique of

post-renaissance philosophy as over-influenced by the

findings of natural sciences. In his philosophy the relation

between natural sciences and human experience underwent

a very important and significant inversion. Whereas

naturalism sought to reify and reduce experience to a

subject-matter to be studied by methods of natural sciences,

Husserl calls for grounding natural sciences in human

life-world of experience. Though elaborate description and

evaluation of this attempt is besides the scope of present

study, but it would be pertinent to note that the insights

generated by it penetrated almost all the disciplines related to

human realm. Such insights are of immense significance to

the study of cultural and human phenomena as they seek to

restore the primacy of human experience which is central to

such studies.

Husserl insists that all truths, including the truths of

cultural as well as natural sciences, are required to be

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grounded anew in the living acts of human consciousness.

This grounding of truth in experience requires a method

capable of describing the manners in which human

consciousness originally constitutes meanings through acts

of perception, imagination and signification. This method has

been termed as phenomenological as it sought to come back

to the origins of knowledge by examining how the world first

appears to human consciousness. The meaning of the world,

he insists, can only be re-understood as phenomena of

consciousness.

Phenomenology purports to be descriptive and

presuppositionless. The goal of being descriptive involves

describing phenomena in an unbiased manner as they

originally appear to the consciousness. The aim of

presuppositionlessness involves scrutinizing theories for their

presuppositions in order to undo the bewitchment of thought

being done by them. It was proposed as a radical beginning

in the sense that it offered post-renaissance ‘modern’

consciousness a means of returning to the roots of

philosophical questioning. It stressed the need to begin

philosophy all over again so as to relearn to see world as it

really is in our original lived-experience. In this way it

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endeavours to make explicit the manner in which world

appears to us in our primordial pre-theoretical experience.

Rather than pre-judging the ways of knowing the world in a

biased manner, phenomenology purports to eliminate all

prejudices by suspending all judgment loaded answerers to

the fundamental issues and to question our

taken-for-granted standpoints.

The most dominant of such standpoints is the natural

standpoint that tends to view everything as nature. It even

seeks to naturalise human consciousness by treating it as

just another thing among natural things. Just like other

things it is analysed into entities –only difference being that

these entities are taken to be mental ones. These entities are

treated as peculiar natural objects causaly related to one

another, and as bound to certain things called bodies.

Cartesianism and introspectionism are instances of such

approaches. Realism and materialism also seek to reduce

consciousness and person to an object referred to as subject.

The natural world is characterized by its externality - being

out there as a given fact in space and time. And experience is

taken to be an external relation between two entities that

exist separately. The subject records the facts about objects

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in a passive manner -resembling the process of photographs

being taken by the camera.

Under the influence of naturalism, cultural disciplines

are treated at par with natural sciences because the natural

standpoint assumes the givenness of world as totality of

objects of possible experience lying out there complete with

the meaning. In other words meaning, sense and significance

are also reified to the status of natural entities –to be found

out there- that are passively received by the object called

subject.

Husserl considers the conception of experience as

something that passively transpires between two ontologically

independent entities –leaving both of them unchanged and

unaffected– to be a result of theoretical bias that needs to be

cured. Once we reject naturalism and suspend our belief in

natural standpoint, we recapture the lived-experience that

goes beyond sciences and all types of theorizing -to the world

as it appears to an unbiased consciousness.

Phenomenology’s main purpose is to remind us that

primordial meaning of objective world is infact its mode of

engaging human consciousness. By the same stroke it also

reminds us that the meaning of our subjective consciousness

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is the mode in which it opens up towards the world. The

natural standpoint reduces the world to an isolated object

and consciousness to a disembodied object called subject.

Thus, human subjectivity is alienated from its creative

interactions in life-world. In this way it ceases to participate

in its own creation through the creation of meanings and

significances. Instead, it becomes mere thing among other

things –a material thing according to materialism and an

ideal thing according to idealism.

Husserl endeavoured to show how two poles of

objectivity and subjectivity -which were sought to be

demarcated as opposite poles under the influence of

positivism and naturalism– are infact ontologically and

internally associated through a primordial relation. The

experiencing subject and the experienced object are not only

united in lived-experience, rather they both get transformed

through the experiencing act of consciousness. It is realised

that consciousness is not object or a thing, and the

fundamental difference between consciousness and natural

objects is recaptured as consciousness is considered to be

always intentional. Husserl took the concept of intentionality

of consciousness as directedness of consciousness from his

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teacher Brenteno and developed it further. He stresses that

by intentionality he understands the peculiarity of experience

to be consciousness of something.2 It would be pertinent to

note here that this something, as noted earlier is not a

natural object lying out there that is reflected unchanged in

the mirror of consciousness. Rather it is an intentional object

that gets constituted through the act of consciousness in the

sense that it is the act of consciousness that imparts

meaning to it. This constituted object of consciousness is

referred to as noema and the meaning giving act of

consciousness is termed noesis. The act of experience is not

mere mirroring, rather it is lived-experience that not only

constitutes the object as noema but transforms the subject

also as ego or ‘I’ is also created through such acts. The world

so constituted is not mere natural or physical world rather it

is Life-world or Lebenswelt.

Lebenswelt is unveiled as a world for consciousness,

since its meaning is constituted not only in and through

consciousness but also for it. Similarly the consciousness is

also disclosed as consciousness of something i.e., the

consciousness of the world. Thus, human mind is unveiled

as an intentional activity that moves towards reality beyond

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itself. In this way shortcomings of traditional extremes of

idealism and materialism are overcome. It resists the

contentions of idealism to move beyond subject-object

dualism by confining meaning to consciousness alone, and

also rejects the efforts of materialism to resolve subject-object

dualism by subordinating consciousness to pre-established

realities of the external world. Both these extremes fail to

capture the intentional relation between consciousness and

the world, which establishes that meaning is neither in the

mind only, nor in the world alone, but in the intentional

relation between the two.

It can be seen that Husserl overcame subject-object

dichotomy by pointing out that noema is the objective pole

and noesis the subjective pole that are internally and

ontologically related to one another in the lived-experience.

Meaning, sense and significance are constituted through the

intentional acts, and the world does not remain natural world

any more and is unveiled as the Life-world or the Lebenswelt

which includes signification and sense also. So, the cultural

objects, symbols and constructs are not mere natural objects

existing out there, rather they are constituted by human

consciousness. Human subject is also created through the

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same stroke of meaning giving act and the cultural realm

gets constituted as Lebenswelt or Life-world.

Being-in-the-world and world as equipment

It has been seen that delineation of essential structure

of meaning throws important and significant light on the

nature and constitution of cultural realm. Previous section

emphasises the need to go beyond subject-object dualism in

order to understand the structure of meaning. Heideggerian

notion of human being as being-in-the-world takes the point

to logical conclusion as it insists that even in theory human

being cannot be distinguished from its existence in the world.

Heidegger’s conception of Dasein (the word he uses for

human being, which literally means being there) resists the

traditional distinction between subject and object as Dasein

and world are considered to be constituting a single

phenomena. He insists that “the compound expression

being-in-the-world indicates in the very way that we have

coined it, that it stands for unitary phenomena”.3 It implies

that human being and the world are not merely juxtaposed to

one another, rather self and the world are basic determinants

of Dasein itself in the unity of structure of the being-in-the-

world. It is not mere spectating consciousness which is basis

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of human being’s originary relation to the world. The

originary relation of Dasein to world is an internal relation of

profound intimacy. It is in the light of this intimacy that

other beings which are there in the world are encountered. It

is in the shade of this light that they reveal themselves when

they come in contact with human beings. Human existence

in the world is not primarily a disinterested and

decontextualised theoretical gaze, rather it is a being that is

profoundly and intimately engagement with other beings and

entities encountered in the world. This intimate engagement

has been termed as concern by Heidegger. It is the kind of

concern which manipulates things and put them to use.

Heidegger argued that human beings’ original encounter with

the world is not of cognitive nature in which they confront

entities as things. Rather they primarily use entities and

their relationship to the world is originally practical in nature

in which entities confronted are revealed as tools or

equipment. It is not the case that humans are first

acquainted with things and then find uses for them, rather

they use entities prior to recongising them as things.

According to him thinghood is a derivative concept which is

derived from the concept of equipment.

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The primacy of encountering entities as equipment is

emphasised and they are considered to be ready-to-hand. In

their practical concerns humans do not notice the thinghood

of entities. They come to notice them as things when

something goes astrey in their practical dealings. The entities

seen as things are termed as present-at-hand by Heidegger.

It does not mean that equipments and things are two kinds

of entities present in the world. Rather same entity appears

differently in different contexts. The hammer with which the

carpenter is hammering is ready-to-hand equipment that he

needs for his practical concern. At that stage the

characteristics that the hummer has as a thing are not of

interest to him and hence they are not noticed. But those

characteristics become noticeable, and the hammer-tool is

revealed as a hammer-thing when equipment or tool

character becomes disturbed some how.

The tool character and the thing character become

understood through different kinds of knowing. To use

Gilbert Ryle’s expression, one is knowing how and the other

is knowing that.4 The first is related to encountering an entity

as equipment and the second as a thing. A thing has

properties whereas an equipment has use(s). A thing has

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causal relationships and a location in space; and equipment

on the other hand is employed in a project and occurs in a

total tool-context. To the being of any equipment there always

belongs a web of equipments and the context. It is in the

arrangement of various equipments and the correlated

context that an individual equipment shows itself.

This embededdness of equipment in totality of the

human context can also be understood through the notion of

empirical a priori put forward by Prof. Daya Krishna.5 Dayaji

points out that a piece of pottery found at some historical site

indicates a whole array of activities of which it formed an

integral part. It presupposes a number of things like the art

of the potter; whether it was shaped on the wheel or was

made independently of it; that it produced something in

which people stored things of necessity; the things to be

stored had to be of such a nature that they could be stored in

it; etc. The design of the pottery would be an indication of the

artistic sensibility of both the maker and for whom it was

made. The design would also indicate how things were

perceived by person who made the pottery as well as by those

who were using them. In case the same type of pottery was

found in different places, it would indicate a demand for it

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and also trade in it. Trade implies that there must have been

a different set of people who must have had means of

transporting the pots, that too in a way that they do not get

broken in the transit, so on and so forth. These

presuppositions imply the notion of empirical a priori,

obtained in the realm of human culture.

Making, Interpreting and Evaluating

The entities confronting human beings appear as things

or tools depending upon the context in which they are

revealed. There is a dynamic relation between ready-to-hand

tools and present-at-hand things. Dialectics of this

relationship gets revealed in delineation of the concept of

manufacturing. Human beings in their creative interaction

with the entities in the world sometimes find that

ready-to-hand equipment is not fulfilling their purpose

completely and decide to make a new tool. Realisation of

such a pursuit requires that entities are seen as

present-at-hand things and appropriate modifications are

made in order to make them ready-to-hand. For example, in

a tribe a person may find that his arrow is not up to the

mark and lacks something. He may decide to make a new

and appropriate arrow. The arrow that he so conceives is

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neither present-at-hand nor ready-to-hand -rather he will

look around for something that can appropriately be

converted and made into an equipment or tool. So, tool or

equipment is not always already present and an act of

making is required to make something from present-at-hand

to ready-to-hand tool. It is these acts of making that assume

unparalleled significance among human activities as origins

of culture lie primarily in such acts.

An analysis of concept of making also reveals an act of

interpretation since act of seeing as is involved in the

apprehension and realization of conceived tool or equipment

-rather we may broaden it to say in the making of any cultural

object. The act of making reveals a dual constitutional make

up : the first one of these i.e. interpreting (or seeing as)

belongs to the realm of meaning, sense and significance;

whereas the second element represents an application of the

former on the manufacturing activity being performed on the

object.

In such acts both making and interpreting appear as

features that are dialectically related to one another since

both call and demand one another. In human realm the

meeting interface between making and interpreting is

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represented and revealed in manufacturing of the cultural

objects. In a manner of speaking it can be said that cultural

object is charged with interpretation and interpreting is

associated with making. In such acts thought and practical

aspects are intertwined in the same act. The pragmatic need

informs interpretation, which in turn informs and guides

making of the cultural object. Thus making and interpreting

have an intrinsic connection and they integrate each other.

The dialectics goes further and once created the

cultural object does not remain a slave of the interpretation

that went into its making because sense and significance are

not fixed for all times to come as the meaning of entity is not

itself an entity in the world. The cultural object once created

is open to various interpretations. No doubt it is informed by

meaning and is seen as meaningful, but the meaning may

change in the course of time. In this way a newer

interpretation may lead to a change of application of the

cultural object, and a tool produced for one purpose may be

adopted for another. In this manner human beings venture

into contra-factual realm. They go beyond the factuality of

the object and see it as contra-object with novel properties,

uses and meanings.

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Evaluation is an integral part of this contra-factual

venture. Cultural objects are not only seen as of use on some

other occasion, but are also evaluated as good or bad in

accordance with whether they are able to perform that

function well or not. The cultural object simultaneously

reveals various aspects ranging from factual to interpretative

and evaluational. Thus making in human realm involves, and

is informed by interpretation and evaluation.

Forms of Life and Natural history of humankind

The fact that cultural objects reveal various dimensions

and cannot be understood completely in terms of any one of

the dimensions that they exhibit is rooted in and is

dialectically related to the fact that human beings also

display various dimensions and cannot be understood in

terms of primacy of any one or more dimensions that are

reveled in human existence. There are crisscross

interrelations, similarities and relations among these

dimensions but they cannot be reduced to one another.

Similar is the case with the phenomena that are

peculiar to human existence -they too cannot be reduced to

one another or to any one of them. Let us approach these

phenomena through the process of confronting a cultural

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object. There are cases in which while looking at a cultural

object, the object does not change but we start seeing it

differentially. We may start seeing a sculpture from mere

statue to an idol of God. In certain circumstances we may

start seeing it as a mass of gold or ivory. These are the cases

where a different aspect of the sculpture dawns on us.

Wittgenstein -whose insights provide significant guidelines to

approach phenomena that are peculiarly human- points out

that “flashing of an aspect on us seems half visual experience

and half thought”.6 It is seeing as and an act of interpretation

is involved in the act –we see things as we interpret them. It

is related to several phenomena of human life, but can

neither be reduced to any of them nor to any natural process,

event or phenomenon.

Similar is the case with hoping, wishing and intending.

They are related to one anther, but are neither reducible to

one another nor to any other phenomenon. They are

“embedded in human life, in all of the situations and

reactions that constitute human life”.7 They are so much a

part and parcel of human form of life that it is difficult to tell

how a human being has to behave so that we could say he

never hopes. It is almost impossible to answer this question.

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Wittgenstein insists that the word “hope” refers to a

phenomenon of human life and is peculiar to it just like “A

smiling mouth smiles on a human face”.8 In emphasising

complex character of distinctive human phenomena and

experiences, he contrasts humans from animals and asks :

“One can imagine an animal angry, frightened, unhappy,

happy, startled, But hopeful? And why not?”9

The answer to this question lies in the fact that hoping

is a manifestation of complicated form of life, involving

complex propositional attitude towards future. It seems that

only a creature who has mastered the use of language can

hope. Similar is the case with intending and wishing –they

too involve envisaging a future state of affairs, which is based

on the use of language.

Thus, the phenomena of seeing as, dawning of an

aspect, hoping, wishing, intending, and interrelated

phenomenon of language use are such phenomena that are

not present in lower animals and cannot be reduced to any

phenomenon outside of human form of life. They belong to

the natural history of humankind and are “as much a part of

our natural history as walking, eating, drinking, playing”,10

etc. They are modes of this complicated form of life. Clarifying

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the concept of form of life, Wittgenstein says, “What has to be

accepted the given is –so one could say– forms of life”.11

What belongs to natural history of humankind and

forms of life, cannot be explained any further and therefore it

needs no justification. He, therefore, observes that, “If I have

exhausted the justification, I have reached the bed rock, and

my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say : this is simply

what I do”.12 He rightly points out that “our mistake is to look

for an explanation where we ought to look at what happens

as proto-phenomena”.13 “The question is not of explaining”,

“But of noting”14 them. They explain and justify other human

activities.

These phenomena do not occur as single isolated

phenomenon, rather they are located in a dense network of

related phenomena that are peculiarly human and form a

sort of web. They acquire all the significance that they have

as a participant in that web. All these phenomena belong to

the natural history of humankind and are modes of this

complicated form of life. It is in these features of human

existence that origins of culture lie.

Origins of Culture

Culture is not an entity or a thing that came into being

through some invention of early hamars. It is rather difficult

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to venture into the domain of when, where and how of the

genesis of culture. But one thing is certain –that culture has

its roots in the common features of human condition,

consciousness and species. Origins of culture lie in the

complex constellation of such features. Most of these features

mutually call one another. Any one of them by itself cannot

play much role in the genesis of culture. Some of these

features may sometimes seem to be present in elementary

forms in lower animals, but in the absence of other

complimentary features, fail to help create culture or build

civilization.

Marx points out the fundamental difference between

humans and animals by insisting that “the animal is

immediately one with its life activity. It does not distinguish

itself from it. It is its life activity,” whereas "man makes his

life activity itself the object of his will and of his

consciousness".15 Humans are capable of reflection means

that they do not merge with their life activity and have a

capacity to reflect from a distance on what they are doing.

They not only are aware of their activities, rather they are

aware of their awareness also. The self-reflexive character of

human awareness means that for them their life activity is an

object of deliberation also.

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Their ability to deliberate on what they are doing makes

their actions fall in a realm different from the deterministic

domain of natural causation. Their activities -unlike the

events taking place in nature- are not caused. Rather they

intervene in the processes of nature with a view to bring

about certain changes. They not only intervene, rather they

are aware of their capacity to intervene also. The self-reflexive

character of human awareness sets their activities apart from

mere happenings and events. Their activities are goal

oriented activities and are informed by purposes and

intentions.

The differentia of human activities from mere

movements is the goal, purpose or intention of the person.

The description of human activities cannot be considered

complete by merely citing what happens, rather they have a

necessary reference to what humans try to bring about. In

envisaging a future state of affairs language plays a crucial

role; it is through language that human beings try to make

sense of their surroundings and formulate their purposes

and goals. So in case of human activities language is used

not only by the onlookers trying to explain or describe actions

-as is the case with natural events– rather it is a pre-requisite

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for the agents to engage in activities themselves. Thus

human activities are ontologically related to language as

human actions are informed by the language.

The fact that humans are language users means their

activities are guided by rules as language is a

rule-constituted and guided phenomenon. Human beings

constitute and follow rules. But rule following is a social

phenomenon, and heir in lies the roots of shared context of

norms, conventions, customs, social symbols, values and

institutions. The context of shared practices forms the basis

for the communication and understanding in human realm.

Human beings have reflexive awareness of their actions

enabling them to be capable of innovations and violations.

They are capable of revising, modifying, changing and

discarding rules and practices. They make choices and take

decisions about their purposes, goals, aims, projects, etc.

and also about rules, norms, values and conventions that

form the backdrop of their activities. This ability to choose

between different alternatives gets echoed in peculiarly

human phenomena such as conflicts, responsibility, anguish,

dread, etc. These phenomena and other phenomena of

human form of life such as hoping, wishing, intending etc.

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give rise to, and in turn are shaped by new capacities,

dispositions, emotions, propensities, etc. All these are

distinct phenomena, but are interrelated through crisscross

relationships –where sometimes they expect, presuppose and

facilitate one another, and at others they conflict and even

contradict each other. This complex whole of related but

dissonant phenomena cannot be understood in terms of a

single master phenomenon. These phenomena do not remain

isolated but inform all aspects of human life. It is in the

complex constellation of such phenomena -rather

proto-phenomena belonging to natural history of humankind,

which are modes of our complicated form of life that origins

of culture lie.

Being human as a creation of culture

Culture is embedded in common features of human

existence and species. But it must be noted that the

relationship is dialectical as humans belong to a species not

only in a natural way but also in a culturally mediated

manner. Therefore whereas human beings are creators of

culture, at the same time being human is also a creation of

culture. As noted, human activities are distinguished by their

linguistic and symbolic character. They are viewed as

40

meaningful and intentional both by the agents as well as the

observers. It is this feature which requires that any adequate

account of human activities must take note of meanings,

goals, purposes and intentions of the persons. But as

Wittgenstein points out “An intention is embedded in its

situation, in human customs and institutions”.16 Human

beings form their intentions within the framework of

customs, norms, conventions, traditions, etc. as they are

involved in various projects within the framework of complex

social institutions and practices. An account of goals,

purposes, motives, intentions, beliefs, values, attitudes,

preferences, self-images, etc. illuminates the specificities that

are unique to each individual. The individual acquires this

uniqueness as a participant in a culture. An individual’s

self-understanding is formed within a set of social relations

and it is in interaction with others in a cultural context that

one learns language and other dimensions of social life. It is

in such interactions that one comes to value one realm or

some dimension of life more than the others. Thus humans

create themselves as persons through their personal choices

made in a shared cultural context. This shared cultural

context itself is rooted in previous human choices embedded

in common features of human existence.

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Thus, it can be said that human beings are both

creators and creations of culture and human history has

been a process of human self-creation dialectically related to

the creation of culture and building of civilization.

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REFERENCES

1. Kroeber, A.L. (1952) The Nature of Culture, Chicago :

University of Chicago Press.

2. Husserl, E. (1960) Cartesian Meditations trans. Dorian

Cairns, The Hague : Martinus Nijhoff, p. 33.

3. Heidegger, M. (1978) Being and Time, trans. John

Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, New

York: Harper and Row, p. 53.

4. Ryle, G. (1986) The Concept of Mind, Harmondsworth :

Penguin, p. 27.

5. Daya Krishna (1997) Prolegomena To Any Future

Historiography of Cultures and Civilizations,

New Delhi : Project of History of Science,

Philosophy and Culture, pp. 96-97.

6. Wittgenstein, L. (2001) Philosophical Investigations,

Oxford : Basil Blackwell, p. 197.

7. _______________ (1980), Remarks on the Philosophy of

Psychology, Vol. II, Oxford : Basil Blackwell,

sec. 16.

8. _______________ (2001), op. cit., sec. 583.

9. ibid., p. 174.

10. ibid., sec., 25.

11. ibid., sec., 226.

12. ibid., sec., 217.

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13. ibid., sec., 654.

14. ibid., sec., 655.

15. Marx, K. (1977) Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts

of 1844, Moscow : Progress Publishers,

pp. 38-39.

16. Wittgenstein, L. (2001) op. cit., sec. 337.