Development of Personal Identity: Between Realizing and Constructing

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The formation of identity could have occurred in two different ways: (1) The realizing of the data about oneself; (2) The constructing of those qualities which the person would be possessed. The first way has led to the ascribed identity. The second one has led to the achievement identity. The question is how we realize the achievement of identity. The wide-spread model of achievement identity might be remarked as dramatic one. According to it, the contemporary societies are the conglomeration of social groups and, as P. Berger and T. Luckman wrote, typical identities. So the contemporary person living into more than one group needs to form different identities, and its existence is usually described by the model called as «the struggle of identities. I think this approach cannot rate as fruitful because there does not imply the development of personal identity as a whole. It is not accidentally that in the framework of such approach the person is considered as an actor mastering the certain repertory of identities and realizing the policy of identity, as I. Goffman remarked it, in favour of the influence on social surroundings. I argue that it is necessary both to realize the ascribed identity and to construct achievement identities but it is not enough. It has been become importantly to development the realized identity in the processes of numerous contacts. What is more, the achievement identity should create on the basis of the earlier realized identities and include not only outer, or showed but also inner, or internalizing qualities. This paper studies the model called as 'the development of identity'. It attends to the policy of influence on personal identity and to a concept of 'the desired identity'. The larger purpose is to show how the personal identity can be modified and cultivated to developed personality.

Stream: Ethnicity, Difference, Identity

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Irina Mitina is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the Teachers Training University in Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation. Her research interests are in Social and Political Philosophy, Global Studies and Cultural researches. She has published book (“Inequality: social-philosophical analysis”, 2005) as well as almost 80 journal articles, conference papers, book review including the publication in Australia, Greece, Ukraine. She is co-author of three text-books. She has had extensive experience in teaching at the university and undergraduate levels and is undertaking doctoral research into the social philosophy and philosophy of culture. She was a participation of the XXIst World Congress of Philosophy (Istambul, 2003) and a number of International Conferences. She is currently working on a book on social and professional identity.