preferably untouched by anyone else. Time and again, we have been struck by the idea that hoarding is not about the objects themselves but about ownership.
To understand hoarding, we must first ask a simple question. What does it mean to own something? It turns out that the answer to this question is not so simple. Philosophers have debated the nature of ownership as far back as Plato in the fourth century B.C.E. Plato was convinced that owning things was a vice to be avoided. He even argued that private ownership should be banned and that all property should be held in common. Aristotle, his student, held the opposite view: he believed that individual ownership was essential for the development of moral character. However, he thought that ownership should be reserved only for those who knew how to use the possession. In the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas took a middle path and spoke of "stewardship" rather than ownership, whereby people are merely the temporary guardians of God's possessions. In the seventeenth century, John Locke suggested that things should belong only to those who work for them, while a century later David Hume theorized that when we see an object in someone's possession and accept that object as part of that person, we are conveying ownership to the possessorâso ownership is in part defined by social consensus. These philosophers' interest in ownership stemmed from their interest in how society should be structured and economies should be run. It was left to more recent philosophers and social scientists to explore the meaning of ownership from an individual's perspective.
Jean-Paul Sartre insisted that we learn who we are by observing what we own. He argued that ownership of most tangible objects occurs with their acquisition or creation. Actively creating or acquiring the object is key. If something is passively acquired, ownership has to come from mastery over it or intimate knowledge of it. He suggested that ownership extends beyond objects to include intangible things as well. For instance, mastering a skill conveys an ownership of sorts. Also, by knowing something intimately, we come to own it, like a hiker who "knows" every inch of a mountain trail and comes to feel as if he or she "owns" the trail. Reflecting on the meaning of existence, Sartre wrote that "to have" is one of three basic forms of human experience, the other two being "to do" and "to be."
Apart from Sartre, most of the writings about ownership in the twentieth century came from the social and biological sciences. In 1918, psychologist William James described "appropriation" or "acquisitiveness" as an instinct, something that is part of human nature, present at birth and with us throughout life. This instinct contributes to our sense of self. What is "me" fuses with what is "mine," and our "self" consists of what we possess. The use of instincts to explain behavior was in vogue in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but fell out of fashion for several decades, only to revive again in the past few years thanks to increasingly sophisticated neuroscience research.
It is unclear whether the acquisition of possessions is instinctually or culturally driven, or both. What is clear is that notions of ownership vary widely across cultures, and acquisitive tendencies vary widely within cultures. In some early civilizations, possessions were seen as part of an individual's "life spirit" or self. Anthropologists have proposed this as the basic psychological process for ownership, which can be refined by cultural factors. Among the Manusians, an island tribe in Papua New Guinea described by Margaret Mead in 1930, this belief was readily apparent. They held possessions to be sacred and grieved for things lost as they would for lost loved ones. In contrast, the Tasaday of the Philippines, an isolated culture first discovered in the early 1970s, placed little value on possessions, perhaps because they needed few of
To understand hoarding, we must first ask a simple question. What does it mean to own something? It turns out that the answer to this question is not so simple. Philosophers have debated the nature of ownership as far back as Plato in the fourth century B.C.E. Plato was convinced that owning things was a vice to be avoided. He even argued that private ownership should be banned and that all property should be held in common. Aristotle, his student, held the opposite view: he believed that individual ownership was essential for the development of moral character. However, he thought that ownership should be reserved only for those who knew how to use the possession. In the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas took a middle path and spoke of "stewardship" rather than ownership, whereby people are merely the temporary guardians of God's possessions. In the seventeenth century, John Locke suggested that things should belong only to those who work for them, while a century later David Hume theorized that when we see an object in someone's possession and accept that object as part of that person, we are conveying ownership to the possessorâso ownership is in part defined by social consensus. These philosophers' interest in ownership stemmed from their interest in how society should be structured and economies should be run. It was left to more recent philosophers and social scientists to explore the meaning of ownership from an individual's perspective.
Jean-Paul Sartre insisted that we learn who we are by observing what we own. He argued that ownership of most tangible objects occurs with their acquisition or creation. Actively creating or acquiring the object is key. If something is passively acquired, ownership has to come from mastery over it or intimate knowledge of it. He suggested that ownership extends beyond objects to include intangible things as well. For instance, mastering a skill conveys an ownership of sorts. Also, by knowing something intimately, we come to own it, like a hiker who "knows" every inch of a mountain trail and comes to feel as if he or she "owns" the trail. Reflecting on the meaning of existence, Sartre wrote that "to have" is one of three basic forms of human experience, the other two being "to do" and "to be."
Apart from Sartre, most of the writings about ownership in the twentieth century came from the social and biological sciences. In 1918, psychologist William James described "appropriation" or "acquisitiveness" as an instinct, something that is part of human nature, present at birth and with us throughout life. This instinct contributes to our sense of self. What is "me" fuses with what is "mine," and our "self" consists of what we possess. The use of instincts to explain behavior was in vogue in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but fell out of fashion for several decades, only to revive again in the past few years thanks to increasingly sophisticated neuroscience research.
It is unclear whether the acquisition of possessions is instinctually or culturally driven, or both. What is clear is that notions of ownership vary widely across cultures, and acquisitive tendencies vary widely within cultures. In some early civilizations, possessions were seen as part of an individual's "life spirit" or self. Anthropologists have proposed this as the basic psychological process for ownership, which can be refined by cultural factors. Among the Manusians, an island tribe in Papua New Guinea described by Margaret Mead in 1930, this belief was readily apparent. They held possessions to be sacred and grieved for things lost as they would for lost loved ones. In contrast, the Tasaday of the Philippines, an isolated culture first discovered in the early 1970s, placed little value on possessions, perhaps because they needed few of
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