Four levels of self-interpretation: A paradigm for interpretive social philosophy and political criticism

Abstract

If we are to find the criteria for critical analyses of social arrangements and processes not in some abstract universalist framework, but from the guiding ‘self-interpretations’ of the societies in question, as contemporary contextualist and ‘communitarian’ approaches to social philosophy suggest, the vexing question arises as to where these self-interpretations can be found and how to identify them. This article presents a model according to which there are four interdependent as well as partially autonomous spheres or ‘levels’ of socially relevant self-interpretation that have to be taken into equally account in order to provide a solid basis for social and political criticism. Thus, it is from the tensions and inconsistencies between (A) social ideas and doctrines, (B) social institutions and practices, (C) individual beliefs and convictions, and (D) body-practices and habits that social pathologies can be identified and possible solutions can be envisaged.