Introduction

From the time of the Greeks the question ‘what is human society’ has been answered in different ways. One of the most serious concerns the presupposition that everything which is explanatory of human social life can be collected by the probing scrutiny of the observer, where the model of observation at work is that of vision. Hobbes saw social relations and shared ways of life as conceivably arising out of the decisions and projects of individuals who in the beginning are outside society. There have been, and there exist now, actual human societies in which ‘behaviour likely to be punished’ is precisely the behaviour that all who are humane and decent (and courageous) would wish to see done, and seek to encourage. Human beings are self-defining and self-interpreting creatures, whose lives are shaped, and change, in relation to this flow of meaning and self-interpretation.