Page 129 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

106 Communication and Evolution of Society

between the structures of the ego and of world-views. In both
dimensions, development apparently leads to a growing decen-
tration of interpretive systems’ and to an ever-clearer categorical
demarcation of the subjectivity of internal nature from the ob-
jectivity of external nature, as well as from the normativity of
social reality and the intersubjectivity of linguistic reality.

It
There are also homologies between the structures of ego identity
and of group identity. The epistemic ego (as the ego in general)
is characterized by those general structures of cognitive, linguistic,
and active ability that every individual ego has in common with
all other egos; the practical ego, however, forms and maintains
itself as individual in performing its actions. It secures the identity
of the person within the epistemic structures of the ego in gen-
eral. It maintains the continuity of life history and the symbolic
boundaries of the personality system through repeatedly actual-
ized self-identifications; and it does so in such a way that it can
locate itself clearly—that is, unmistakably and recognizedly—in
the intersubjective relations of its social life world. Indeed the
identity of the person is in a certain way the result of identifying
achievements of the person himself.1®
In our propositional attitude toward things and events (and
derivatively also toward persons and their utterance )—that is, in
making (or understanding) a statement about them—we under-
take an identification. For that purpose we employ names, char-
acterizations, demonstrative pronouns, and so on. Deictic expres-
sions (and gestures) contain identifying features that suffice in a
given context to single out a particular—indeed the intended—
object from a class of similar objects (e.g., to distinguish thzs
stone, about which I want to assert something, from all other
stones). Spatio-temporal positions are the most abstract features
suitable for identifying any bodies whatever. Persons too can be
identified in a propositional attitude, for example, in connection
with corporeal features such as size, hair and eye color, scars,
fingerprints, and so on.}® But in difficult cases these criminological
characteristics are not sufficient; in extreme cases we are left with