ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines some key features of personhood. The capacities such synchronous emergence supplies are the building blocks of personhood but do not themselves constitute that personhood. The capacity for both imagination and abstraction gives rise to the search for meaning and the importance of belief. One central argument of social philosophers has been that what distinguishes human beings from other animals is the capacity for imagination. Looking at Basil Bernstein's work suggests ways in which reflexivity might be shaped, so that some capacities might be better developed by some experiences rather than others. The discussion of reflexivity that follows is based on diaries, both published and unpublished, of Scots in the eighteenth century. As an illustration of the value of comparing practices based on systematic sampling, an analysis of parish records in Scotland and England for the eighteenth century indicates an interesting variance in financial performance.
