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Chapter 09: Societal Order, Personhood, And Human Rights (The Anthropology Of Constitutional Justice), Wolfgang Fikentscher

Wolfgang Fikentscher

Inclusive online updates jan10. Next to family and kinship, society is the closest framework and mark of orientation to a “higher mammal” such as the human being (cf. Chapter 7; and I., below). Chapter 9 deals with societal and social ordering of human life and thus represent the “public side” of personhood. This gives rise to a simultaneous discussion of the concept of personhood in anthropology. Johann Wolfgang Goethe once remarked in his drama “Dr. Faustus”: “It’s in their gods that humans paint themselves” (In seinen Göttern malt sich der Mensch). Similarly, Goethe could have said: “In his companionships man …