One of the persistent themes cutting across the varieties of postmodernist philosophical critiques is the perceived necessity of dismantling the "given," the "natural," the narrow range of culturally-imposed hegemonic norms and classes that dominate both our private self-assessments and our public forms of life. To say that these norms and classes are culturally imposed is another way of saying that they are arbitrary, contingent, artificial, and simply the willful construction of those who seek to maintain their power in a given social context. This kind of externally established identification of individuals and groups -- whether in terms of gender, social class, racial or ethnic heritage, genetic composition, mental or physical condition, or any other form of taxonomy -- is disallowed. Unencumbered by any prior identity, each person is free to construct her own. Personal identity is "up to us," as Aristotle says, if it is fair to attribute to Aristotle the claim that our character is equivalent to our personal identity, our substance.

But this is precisely the question we wish to raise. How are we to discern the truth about what it means to be a human being? Is there an enduring, substantial core that is specifically common to human beings -- a "human nature," a "human substance"? The traditional argument has been that there is such a "nature" common to human beings, and further, that this "nature" serves as an epistemic boundary, within which we may safely explore the truth about the human creature. The alternative argument is that there is no substantial core, no "human nature," and that each person is therefore invited to invent (or re-invent) the Self. This is not merely an exercise in epistemic deconstruction, but an abolition of any reliable ontology in the name of epistemic freedom.

During the past half-century, both Alasdair MacIntyre and Kenneth Burke have contributed to the discussion that has taken place within the Anglo-American philosophical tradition which bear on these issues. MacIntyre has focused much of his work on social philosophy and moral theory, while Burke is best known as a social critic and literary theorist. By attending to very different aspects of contemporary western culture, both men have offered rejoinders to one of the stark and troubling consequences of the current philosophical movement to banish the "given:" a widespread surrender to epistemic and moral relativism. Our attempt in this paper is to describe the responses developed by MacIntyre and Burke to this problem, and by means of a specific and compelling historical example, to demonstrate that MacIntyre's emphasis on the character of traditions, and Burke's analysis of symbol systems embedded in social practices, can address the concerns that are provoked by the specter of an unfettered relativism. We will offer brief accounts of MacIntyre's and Burke's works, assess the relevance of their works to the problem of relativism, and suggest that the narrative history of the Oglala Lakota, Nicholas Black Elk, as recorded by John Neihardt, serves as an exemplar of inter-subjective translation of meaning between different traditions and contexts.

While in his early work Alasdair MacIntyre assayed a wide range of issues within social, political and moral philosophy from a broadly Marxist perspective, his more recent and celebrated work -- including After Virtue, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, and Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry -- has taken over methods and insights from Aristotle in developing a particular critique within moral philosophy. MacIntyre has emphasized tradition, narrative and social practice as the fundamental ingredients in the construction of ethically responsible individuals. The phrase "ethically responsible individuals" is grounded in an Aristotelian teleology, whereby an individual is directed to pursue that which is the good for herself, and where that good is understood to be defined as a constant (that is, applicable to all individuals) within a particular context.

These particular contexts, understood in the broadest possible way, are what MacIntyre means by traditions. Traditions mark off domains within which a variety of discourses are contoured by the specific character of the tradition within which they occur; a discourse on art, or religion, or tool-making, that takes place within one tradition will differ in meaningful ways from the corresponding discourse in another tradition. MacIntyre connects discourses firmly to social practices, in that social practices functionally constitute the substance of traditions, and so also of the discourses within a tradition. Individuals, according to MacIntyre, engage in social practices within a tradition in order to seek the goods internal to the practices. These internal goods serve to identify the standards of excellence pursued by the individual who is engaged in the practice. When these standards are realized by the practitioner, then the individual will have achieved the good for herself. By submitting herself to the discipline of the social practice, the individual actualizes this good, which is a good that inures to her as a practitioner. Although various practices that flourish within a given tradition will express a multiplicity of internal goods, the general criterion of excellence is the universal constant that is the emblem, and the telos, of the individual engaged in any practice.

It is precisely by engaging in a practice that, as it were, an individual "gets a life." The story that can be told about someone's life is just that story that can be told about the progress toward her telos, an effort carried out by seeking to acquire the goods internal to practices. This is the narrative structure of a human life, and it is the only kind of structure that MacIntyre will endorse. MacIntyre echoes the contemporary insistence that we must dissolve any reliance on some sort of "metaphysical biology" as a source for unifying the single human life. The essence of a human being is not to be found in a putative "soul" or "mind" or "autonomous self" (this last emerging from the fractious influence of the Enlightenment, for MacIntyre). What it means to be human can be described only by invoking the narrative of an individual's life, inasmuch as that life is shaped by the social practices adhered to, and the standards of excellence achieved, within that lifetime. It is the narrative that unifies a single life -- that gives a human life an identity -- and not some enduring essence resting at the core of our "metaphysical biology."

It is apparent that much of this is consistent with Aristotle's outlook: the emphasis on normative activities that occur within specific communities which in turn share a common set of understandings about what it is to live well. The claim that personal identity is tied to ethical concerns is also Aristotelian. Human beings can only be identified by means of the narratives produced to describe human beings, and these narratives summarize the individual's striving toward her telos by means of achieving the excellence embodied in the social practices sanctioned by a given tradition. Who I am is a question that can only be answered by considering how I have done in realizing the good for me. To be, is to be constantly seeking to achieve the good, which is my proper telos.

But what are we to say about all this, if it turns out that there are many traditions, each of which possesses its own set of social practices, each with its own standards of excellence and internal goods? Can we say that there is one version out of all these discourses that we can call "correct'" or "accurate," or even "more adequate" than all the others? Is there any way to discover what may be the good that cuts across all traditions, all practices, all narratives? Is there any discourse that embraces all other discourses about human identity and the achievement of the good, and arbitrates the discussion? Or are all traditions closed to each other simply because there is no common grounding or transcendent reality available for all traditions to point toward in the midst of their collective discourse? In short -- does MacIntyre's vision of what it means to be human, and to pursue the human good, inevitably result in a necessary turn toward moral and epistemic relativism?

This becomes a particularly serious problem for MacIntyre, since he has previously complained about the fragmentation of moral discourse in the west since the Enlightenment. Is it not the case that the existence of multiple traditions, each possessing a distinctive set of discourses, will produce a similar fragmentation? We may no longer rely on a uniform and universal "metaphysical biology" as an ontological grounding for our self-understanding as human beings, as the tie that binds all human beings together. Unless we can locate something to replace "metaphysical biology," there will be no common ground for us to appeal to, as the basis for any ongoing conversation regarding, say, what constitutes the good of human beings. Can we employ MacIntyre's concept of traditions (including his notions of social practice and the narrative unity of life) as that replacement for "metaphysical biology" in our search for a common ground? It would appear that this will only work if it is the case that there are not multiple and competing traditions, whose language and forms of life are not incommensurate. Unfortunately, there are multiple traditions, and what they say, and what they do, regarding the identity of human beings, and what constitutes the good for them, is likewise multiple, competitive and incommensurate. It would appear that MacIntyre's presentation of traditions will prove to be inadequate to the relativist challenge.

MacIntyre seeks to avoid this problem by describing the relativist (and perspectivist) position as an "heir of the Enlightenment," and by insisting instead that there is a "rationality of traditions" whereby traditions are able to engage in dialogue, as well as mutual critiques. It is possible, says MacIntyre, for us to judge one tradition as better or worse than another tradition, in specific ways and when considering specific practices. What is required is a kind of epistemic spaciousness within the discourses of a given tradition, which would allow the tradition to absorb the critique offered by the different orientation and practices of the contending tradition. The first tradition may then inspect the critique, utilizing the resources provided by its own modes of inquiry, and determine whether there is any value for that tradition in the integration of any or all of the elements of the critique. There do not appear to be any claims here about the truth or falsity of the specific assertion contained within the critique, only a more modest claim about what takes for one tradition to "hear" what another has to say, and to assess what may be of value for the first tradition in what they "hear" in the critique offered by the second tradition.

In order to help transcend the incommesuablility of traditions and attempt to reach beyond the either/or propositions of "metaphysical biology" and "postmodern relativism," we will use Kenneth Burke's "dramaturgical perspective" of rhetorical critique as a frame of reference to view the discourse between Nicholas Black Elk and John Neihardt. Burke asserts that a definition of man as a rational animal is inadequate. For Burke, the "common ground" of humanness does not rest in the individual but in the human's ability to use symbols. Therefore, traditional critiques of human discourse, which focus on the speaker/rhetor, limit understanding. On the other hand, the relativist's experiential focus examines the effects of the discourse on the critic/receiver. It asks the question: What is a discourse/tradition doing to the one involved in it? Rather than focusing on the individual speaker or the experience of the receiver, Kenneth Burke proposes that the locus should be on their interaction, their "symbolic interaction." Like MacIntyre, Burke asserts that it is the narrative that defines what it means to be human. If we are to critique the narrative, to judge between traditions and the differing discourses of traditions, a rhetorical critique that explores the discourse itself must be employed.

Burke proposes the "dramaturgical perspective," which simply assumes that "all the world is a stage." Dramatism could be said to be an attempt bridge the gap between science and the humanities. The human animal is more than the sum of his/her parts. Oedipus and Ahab tell us as much as the laboratory about what humanness is. How the so-called "social sciences" fit in the gap between science and the humanities is the subject of endless debate. Dramatism is offered as a paradigm that bridges the gap. Theater becomes the root metaphor for a "contemporary image of man." One description of this perspective says, "Dramaturgical thinking is not a linear sequential explanation of human behavior based on mechanistic assumptions as most positivistic social science is. Its point of departure is Kenneth Burke's profound assertion that the difference between a thing and a person is that one merely moves whereas the other acts, and therefore the language of mechanism is inapplicable to the study of human selves." The human being is an actor on the stage of history.

Behavior then, is expressed in "dramatistic terms." Man is an actor, and his conduct is the action he performs in the drama of living, in order to achieve what he deems the "good life." The most straight forward definition of dramaturgy is that it is the study of how human beings accomplish meaning in their lives through this process of symbol sharing. What makes man different from other creatures is that he engages in symbol using, "symbolic interaction." Therefore, Burke's definition of man is revealed in this poem: