This book, first published in 1984, examines the politics and philosophy of ordinary men and women, and their ordinary transactions. It analyses the interaction between the individual and the social, both for the roots of everyday behaviour and for the means to change the social fabric. Using an approach that combines Marx, Husserl, Heidegger and Aristotle, Agnes Heller defines categories such as ‘group’, ‘crowd’, ‘community’, and deals with characteristics of everyday life such as repetition, rules, norms, economics, habits, probability, imitation. She also analyses everyday knowledge, and concludes by looking at the place of personality in everyday life.
Part 1. Particularity, Individuality, Society, Species-Essentiality 1. The Abstract Concept of ‘Everyday Life’ 2. The ‘Person’: a Breakdown of the Concept 3. The Person and his World Part 2. The Everyday and the Non-Everyday 4. The Heterogeneity of Everyday Life 5. From the Everyday to the Generic Part 3. The Organizational Framework of Everyday Life 6. Objectivation ‘In Itself’ and ‘For Itself’ 7. Species-Essential Activity ‘In Itself’ 8. The Common Properties of Species-Essential Objectivations ‘In Itself’ 9. The Special Propoerties of Species-Essential Objectivations ‘In Itself’ 10. The General Schemes of Conduct and Knowledge in Everyday Life Part 4. The Roots of the Needs and Objectivations Making for Species-Essentiality ‘For Itself’, as Generated in Everyday Life 11. Everyday Knowledge 12. Everyday Contact 13. The Personality in Everyday Life
Biography
Ágnes Heller