The private sphere is the complement or opposite to the public sphere. The private sphere is a certain sector of societal life in which an individual enjoys a degree of authority, unhampered by interventions from governmental or other institutions. Examples of the private sphere are family and home. Martin Heidegger argues that it is only in the private sphere that one can be one's authentic self.
In public-sphere theory, on the bourgeois model, the private sphere is that domain of one's life in which one works for himself. In that domain, people work, exchange goods, and maintain their families; it is therefore, in that sense, separate from the rest of society.
Famous quotes containing the words private and/or sphere:
“I throw myself on your discretion and shew my confidence in it when I thus venture to write in a private character what seems to contradict my public duty.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)