Definition of Man, from On Symbols and Society Ch. 2

This post is a couple of brief notes from Burke's “Definition of Man,” in Language as Symbolic Action, pages 3-20, an article which is excerpted in Joseph Gusfield's On Symbols and Society, Chapter 2.

A human being is

        the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal

                who is

        inventor of the negative (or moralized by the negative)

        separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making

        goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order)

        and rotten with perfection.

So much of what we know comes through symbols, and the things which we do are also symbolic.

Focus on one thing is neglect of another thing, so the ability to use words and say something implies also not saying something else.

Our symbol-systems result in the creation of technologies that move us away from our natural condition, our state of nature.

The capacity to use symbols combine with the use of the negative. If things can be negative, we want them to be positive and orderly. We like things that are in order more than things that are not. We like to classify.

We also want things to come to their completion. We like things that sum other things up. This also goes along with our desire to classify and have things orderly. We want things in “perfect” order. This principle of perfection is Aristotle’s principle of entelechy.