Defining Culture

In their classic study of culture several decades ago, the anthropologists Kroeber and Kluckholn (1963) found 150 qualitatively distinct definitions of this term scattered throughout the scientific literature. Interestingly, they found broad consensus on two points: (1) that culture is a way of life based on some system of shared meanings; and (2) that it is passed on from generation to generation through this very system. We will refer henceforward to this system as the signifying order. For the present purposes, suffice it to say that the signifying order is the aggregate of the signs (words, gestures, visual symbols, etc.), codes (language, art, etc.), and texts (conversations, compositions, etc.) that a social group creates and utilizes in order to carry out its daily life routines and to plan its activities for the future. Each culture, no matter how technologically advanced it may be, traces its origins to an early tribal signifying order. Human culture can thus be defined as a way of life based on a signifying order developed originally in a tribal context that is passed along through the signifying order from one generation to the next.
The signifying order is what the philosopher Karl Popper (1902-1994) called a "World 3" state of knowing. Popper classified human knowing into three states, which he called "Worlds." "World 1" is a state of sensory knowing. This inheres in the sensory, unreflective experiences humans have of physical objects and activities, as governed by neuronal signals—electrical impulses between brain cells— transmitting messages along nerve paths that cause muscles to contract or limbs to move, and sensory systems to respond to perceptual input. "World 2" is a state of subjective knowing. This inheres in the subjective responses humans have to perceptual input. This is the level at which a "sense of Self" endows an individual with the ability to differentiate h/erself from the beings, objects, and events present in the world. "World 3" is a state of communal knmving. This inheres in the systematic form of knowing with which culture equips human beings for coping with daily life and for living together in groups.
The most crucial difference between human knowing and that of all other species can be discerned in World 3 states. There is no evidence to suggest that other species are capable of these states to the extent that humans are, if at all; i.e. it is unlikely that animals are capable of producing and understanding art, language, science, or any other World 3 form of knowing and communicating. Its capacity for and reliance upon World 3 states for daily life make Homo culturalis unique among species.

Source: Analyzing cultures: an introduction and handbook / Marcel Danesi and Paul Perron. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1999.