Abstract

According to the author, the dichotomy between the primordialist and the instrumentalist approach to the problem od ethnicity is similar to the classical philoso_phical dichotomy of rationalism versus empiricism. Kant's solution - differentiating between the form and the content of ideas - might be animating for us in overcoming the dichotomy between primordialism and instrumentalism. In a new model of ethnicity the ethnicity is to be analogically divided into its form, i. e. the inner universal emotional structure of our mind, on one hand, and its contingent content, acquired from outside in the process of socialization a enculturation on the other hand. This model is based on Tajfel's theory of the minimal group and on Lorenz's conception of imprinting