59. Philosophy and Anthropology: Border-Crossings
and Transformations
Convenors:
Terry Evens, University
of North Carolina
Don Handelman,
The Hebrew University
Ananta Kumar
Giri, Madras Institute of Development Studies
Anthropological
research is rarely reflective about its philosophical presuppositions, though
anthropologists necessarily bring particular philosophical/ontological biases
to their analysis. Anthropologies inspired by Durkheim are profoundly
influenced by Kant; Evans-Pritchard's ideas are stamped with R. G.
Collingwoodís Hegelian philosophy; Gluckman was stimulated by
Whiteheadís process philosophy; and Bourdieu drew inspiration from
Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and others. Yet the fuller implications of shifting
philosophical influences in anthropology are scarcely addressed. We propose that
the implications of these influences call for deep questioning of the
philosophical presuppositions themselves. As a comparative inquiry into the
human condition, anthropology can bring to this questioning a singular
creativity. For instance, consider the current hegemonic tendency in
anthropology (traceable especially to Nietzsche through Foucault) to grasp all
things social solely as matters of power. This tends to result in an
ethnocentric picture of ethics as simply a form of (witting or unwitting) subterfuge,
and it leaves no room to consider the ethical dimension of human existence in
its own right. Yet there are some current philosophical ideas (e.g., Levinas or
Derrida, not to mention non-Western philosophical traditions such as Buddha and
Gandhi) suggesting that this prevailing anthropo-philosophical presumption has
consequential shortcomings. Addressing anthropologies through philosophies,
philosophies through anthropologies, will help open to question present
trajectories through which we tend to move uncritically because we incline to
take them for granted. With a view to creative crossings, our workshop intends
to exploreóhistorically, analytically, and inventivelyó the
borderlands of anthropology and philosophy, and the transformations that await
them both.
Kant and
Anthropology
Ananta
Kumar Giri, Madras Institute of Development Studies
Being and Others
in the World
Lisette
Josephides, Queen’s University Belfast
Rationality and
Alterity
Tania Forte, Ben
Gurion University of the Negev
Twins are
Birds and Men are Whales: At Sea with Melville, Deleuze and the Nuer
T. M. S. Evens,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Phenomenology
of Embodiment and the Practice of Theory
Bruce Kapferer,
University of Bergen
Anthropology
Beyond Anthropocentrism: Asian Re-Readings of Philosophical Anthropology
John Clammer,
Sophia University, Tokyo
Night
Don Handelman,
Hebrew University
Development
as global responsibility : in search of a new meaning
Philip
Quarles van Ufford, Vrije
Universiteit