This paper uses a criticism of “objectivistic” approaches to aging and identity as a vehicle for a phenomenological rethinking of those topics. This phenomenological approach to “identity-in-the-world” as it is experienced in everyday life leads necessarily to a theory of the temporal limits of that experience in the aging process; that is, a theory of identity, properly understood, is already a theory of aging. It is concluded that this approach overcomes the parallel problems of objectivism versus subjectivism and biologism versus sociologism, demanding a rethinking of conceptions of human nature that have predominated in social science.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
EriksonE., Identity, Youth, and Crisis, Norton, New York, 1968.
2.
NatansonM., The Social Dynamics of George Herbert Mead, Public Affairs Press, Washington, D.C., 1956.
3.
SchutzA., Collected Papers, Volume I: The Problem of Social Reality, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1971.
4.
SchutzA. and LuckmannT., The Structures of the Life-World, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois, 1973.
5.
BergerP. and LuckmannT., The Social Construction of Reality, Doubleday, New York, 1966.
6.
MeadG. H., Mind, Self and Society, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1934.
7.
StoneG., Appearance and the Self, StoneG. and FarbermanH., (eds.), Social Psychology Through Symbolic Interactionism, Xerox, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1970.
8.
StraussA., Mirrors and Masks, The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1959.
9.
RoseA., A Current Theoretical Issue in Social Gerontology, NeugartenB., (ed.), Middle Age and Aging, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1968.
10.
LoflandJ., Deviance and Identity, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1969.
11.
KuypersJ. A. and BengtsonV., Competence and Social Breakdown: A Social-Psychological View of Aging, Human Development, 16, 1973.
12.
BengtsonV., The Social Psychology of Aging, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1973.
13.
RosowI., Socialization to Old Age, University of California Press, Berkeley, California, 1974.
14.
GlaserB. and StraussA., Status Passage, Aldine Atherton, Chicago, Illinois, 1971.
15.
ParsonsT., Social Structure and Personality, The Free Press, New York, 1964.
16.
BaldwinA., The Parsonian Theory of Personality, BlackM., (ed.), The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale, Illinois, 1961.
17.
ParsonsT., The Position of Identity in the General Theory of Action, GordonC. and GergenK., (eds.), The Self and Social Interaction, Wiley and Sons, New York, 1968.
18.
CummingsE. and HenryW., Growing Old, Basic Books, New York, 1961.
19.
ParsonsT., Old Age as Consummatory Phase, Gerontologist, 3, pp. 53–54, 1963.
20.
DavisK. and MooreW., Some Principles of Stratification, American Sociological Review, 1945.
21.
RileyM.JohnsonM., and FonerA., Aging and Society, Russell Sage, New York, 1972.
22.
WrongD., The Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology, StoneG. and FarbermanH., (eds.), Social Psychology Through Symbolic Interactionism, Xerox, Waltham, Massachusetts, 1970.
23.
FreudS., New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, Encyclopedia Britannica, Chicago, Illinois, 1952.
24.
EriksonE., Childhood and Society, Norton, New York, 1950.
25.
FreudS., The Ego and the Id, Norton, New York, 1960.
26.
EriksonE., Identity and the Life Cycle, International University, New York, 1959.
27.
FreudS., Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Norton, New York, 1961.
28.
BuhlerC. and MassarikF., (eds.), The Course of Human Life, Springer, New York, 1968.
29.
MarcuseH., Eros and Civilization, Random House, New York, 1955.
30.
BergerP., Identity as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge, CurtisJ. and PetrasJ., eds.), The Sociology of Knowledge, Praeger, New York, 1970.
31.
NatansonM., The Journeying Self, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1970.
32.
HusserlE., Cartesian Meditations, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1970.
33.
Merleu-PontyM., The Phenomenology of Perception, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1962.
34.
LaingR. D., The Divided Self, Penguin, Harmondsworth, England, 1962.
35.
SartreJ. P., Being and Nothingness, Washington Square Press, New York, 1956.
36.
NatansonM., Phenomenology and Social Role, The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, October, 1972.
37.
NatansonM., Phenomenology and Social Role, EdieJ., (ed.), Phenomenology in America, Quadrangle, Chicago, 1967.
38.
ButlerR., Why Survive? Being Old in America, Harper and Row, New York, 1975.
