P/S/39. Human subject and social roles

The paper considers the concept of 'human (anthropological) subjects' seeing 'subject / object' division as the division between the internal and the external perspective. A subject cuts himself off from the realm of objects thus turning them into entities that can be manipulated. The author examines various approaches to the concept enlarging on the structuralist and post-structuralist ideas of 'roles', and illustrates them with the example of the manager / worker relationship. The paper contends that social roles (unlike social rules) do not determine the actions of the subject, but act as guidelines for social behaviour.