The definition of culture has long been a source of debate among anthropologists and cross-cultural psychologists ( Jahoda, 1984; Rohner 1984; Segall, 1984); a classic 1952 publication identified over 160 definitions of culture (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1952). Although there is variation in the definitions of culture, many point to the shared nature of culture, its ability to impart adaptive (or once adaptive) knowledge, and its transmission across time and generation (Triandis, Kurowski, & Gelfand, 1994).
Ontological: culture cultivation
Anthropological: culture as a way of life
Aesthetically: culture, art
Hermeneutic: culture production of meaning
QUESTION 1
The Ontological concept is the oldest, as the term 'culture' goes back to words for cultivation, gradually transferred from gardening to self-cultivation of the human mind and of social communities. Ontological commitment is a commitment not to the physically experienced world, but to a world as logically presupposed within what we say do and create, opposite of nature. Everything made by human …show more content…
A 'semiotic' or rather 'hermeneutic' concept of culture as 'signifying practices' of meaning-production is now the most promising definition, making interpretation a key method for cultural research. This concept of culture also facilitates understanding of the previous three interpretations. A link to the ontological concept of culture as human cultivation in opposition to nature is offered if meaning making is regarded as a defining aspect of humanity; anthropological life forms become cultures when interpreted and thus made meaningful; and the art sector of aesthetic culture is a kind of laboratory or experimental field for making meaning, placing interpretation in focus, testing its limits and thus developing it. The hermeneutical concept of culture thus serves as a link between the others, which else tend to