Identity serves as a vehicle for World Religions (WRs), and WRs are indispensable in the study of identity—Identology. The concept “identity” itself has become an overly used deflationary term that has lost some of its connotation, authenticity, or effectiveness. The claim for a persistent identity is slowly becoming scarce or often illusory. This paper explores the meanings and manifestations of the terms “identity” and “identification,” and then reintroduces “sense of identity” as a more evocative construct for the 21 st century, especially in the context of WRs. Sense of Identity is then operationalized into three primary components: 1 ) personal beliefs, 2 ) communal attributes, and 3 ) sociopolitical attitudes, or for the sake of brevity, beliefs, attributes, and attitudes. These three key components furnish a concentric model with beliefs at the core, attributes surrounding that core, and attitudes at the periphery. But this theoretical model is incomplete without a second pivotal structure of concentric circles drawn from different perceptions of Sense of History, with the personal view of history at the core, the communal view of history surrounding that core, and the dominant historiography inhabiting the periphery. These two structures may differ in their configuration from one person or community to another, and from one time to another, but they interact with, shape, and are shaped by, each other. Eventually, the two structures merge into one coherent, sensible, and emancipatory model for any discourse on WRs.
KeywordsIdentityIdentificationSense of IdentityAge of IdentityIdentologyAuthenticityOtheringAltruismAlterity
Allport, G. (1958). The nature of prejudice. New York.
Appiah, K. A. (2005). The ethics of identity. Princeton, NJ.
Barker, S. E. (1959). The political thought of Plato and Aristotle. New York.
Baudrillard, J. (1990). Fatal strategies. New York and London.
Bradley, H. (1996). Fractured identities: Changing patterns of inequality. Cambridge: Mass.
Calhoun, C. (1994). Social theory and the politics of identity. Oxford, and Cambridge: Mass.
Carlander, I. et al. (2013). Constructing family identity close to death. Open Journal of Nursing, 3, 379-388. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojn.2013.35051
Castells, M. (1997/2004). The power of identity. Oxford.
Chaturvedi, V. (1988). The problem of personal identity. Delhi.
Descartes, R. (1960). Discourse on theory and meditations. New York.
Descartes, R. (1998). Meditations and other metaphysical writings ed. by Desmond M. Clark. New York. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605727
Einstein, C. (2013). The ascent of humanity: Civilization and the human sense of self. Berkeley, CA.
Erikson, E. (1963). Childhood and society. New York and London.
Erikson, E. (1964). Man and his symbols. New York.
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity, youth, and crisis. New York.
Erikson, E. (1974). Dimensions of a new identity. New York.
Erikson, E. (1980). Identity and the life cycle. New York and London.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish. New York.
Frankl, V. (1959). Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy. New York.
Freud, S. (1917). Mourning and melancholia. London.
Freud, S. (1950). Totem and taboo. New York.
Freud, S. (1960). The ego and the id. New York and London.
Freud, S. (1965). New introductory lectures on psychoanalysis. New York and London.
Freud, S. (1975). Group psychology and the analysis of the ego. New York and London.
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self identity: Self and society in the modern age. Stanford, CA .
Habermas, J. (1981). Theories of communicative actions, 3 vols. Boston.
Habermas, J. (1987). The philosophical discourse on modernity. Cambridge: Mass.
Hall, E. T. (1959). The silent language. Greenwich, Conn.
Harney, S. (1996). Nationalism and identity. London and Princeton, NJ.
Heideger, M. (1969). On being and identity. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.
Heideger, M. (1996). Being and time. New York: State University of New York Press.
Hoover, K. (2004). The future of identity: Centennial reflections on the legacy of Erik Erikson. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
James, W. (1890/1918). The principles of psychology. 2 vols. New York: Henry Holt and Company. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/11059-000
Jenkins, R. (1996). Social identity. London: Routledge.
Jung, C. (1933). Modern man in search of the soul. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
Jung, C. (1957). The undiscovered self. New York: Penguin Books.
Jung, C. (1964). Man and his symbols. London: Aldus Books Ltd.
Kant, I. (1781 & 1787). The critique of pure reason. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Kant, I. (1953). Fundamental principles of the metaphysic of morals. New York: The Liberal Arts Press.
Kellner, D. (1992). Popular culture and the construction of postmodern identities. In L. Friedman (Ed.), Modernity and identity (pp. 141177). Oxford: Blackwell.
Kung, H. (1979). Freud and the problem of god. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Laing, R. D. (1971). The divided self: An existential study in sanity and madness. New York: Penguin Books.
Locke, J. (1690). An essay concerning human understanding. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University.
Marcuse, H. (1978). One-dimentional man. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
May, R. (1953). Man’s search for himself. New York: Norton.
May, R. (1969). Love and will. New York: Norton.
Norton, A. (1988). Reflections on political identity. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Oppenheim, F. (1981). Political concepts: A reconstruction. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Palese, E. (2013). Ethics without morality, morality without ethics— Politics, identity, responsibility in our contemporary world. Open Journal of Phelosophy, 3, 366-371. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojpp.2013.33055
Parsons, T. (1951). The social system. New York: Free Press.
Penelhum, T. (1955). Hume on personal identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scheler, M. (1970). The nature of sympathy. New York: Archon.
Segady, T., & Shirdwaker, S. (2012). The changing of the gods: Religion, religious transformation and the Indian immigrant experience. Sociology Mind, 2, 428-434. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/sm.2012.24055
Shoemaker, S., & Swinburne, R. (1984). Personal identity. Oxford: Blackwell.
Simon, B. (1978). Mind and madness in ancient Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Singer, M. (1971). Culture: A perceptual approach. In D. Hoopes, Readings in intercultural communication (pp. 6-20). Pittsburgh, PA: Regional Council for International Education.
Taylor, C. (1992/1994). Multiculturalism. NJ: Princeton University Press.
Turner, J. C. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self categorization theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
White, R. (1963). Ego and reality in psychoanalytic theory. Psychological issues 10. Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
Yankalovich, D. A. (1971). Ego and instinct: The psychoanalytic view of human nature. New York: Vantage Books.
Zaretsky, E. (1994). Identity theory, identity politics: Psychoanalysis, Marxism, post structuralism. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Social theory and the politics of identity (pp. 198-215). Oxford: Blackwell.