What is ‘Social’?: Undecidability and a Creative Coping Mechanismin the Process of Making Relations with Others

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  • KITAMURA Koji
    Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Okayama University

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  • 「社会的なるもの」とはなにか？：他者との関係づけにおける「決定不可能性」と「創造的対処」
  • シャカイテキナル モノ トワ ナニカ タシャ トノ カンケイズケ ニ オケル ケッテイ フカノウセイ ト ソウゾウテキ タイショ

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Abstract

This paper aims to consider why the sphere of social phenomena is significant in the study of primates, including humans, and what aspects of the phenomena we should focus on in order to understand its significance. Although the process of making relations with others may easily become undecided, it may not be retained. We humans cope with such undecidability by paying attention to the motivation of activity easily shared by participants, or adequate readiness for regulating each other's interaction. This does not mean that the social sphere is independent of other spheres, but these characters are common to the activities of making relations with the natural environment for surviving. The social sphere should be placed in the larger range of phenomena produced by the activities of making relations with the outer world in general. An individual animal tries to decide his act of making relation with an object depending on the meaning of the object, while he tries to identify the meaning depending on his act of making relation with the object. Here, the undecidable circle is formed. The same situation is found in the case of making relations with others. That is to say, one tries to decide his act to the other depending on the other's act while the latter decides his act depending on the former's act, so that the undecidable circle is also formed here. The undecidability in the process of making relations with objects is usually perfectly hidden. However, the other's selection in the process of making relation with the object is always apparent in the social sphere. The other not only makes the undecidability apparent by making a different selection from my own, but also teaches a new way of coping with it by sharing the motivation with him or regulating the process of interaction with him.

Journal

  • Primate Research

    Primate Research 24 (2), 109-120, 2008

    Primate Society of Japan

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