The Philosophical Roots of Anthropology: Volume 86 (Lecture Notes) - Softcover

Adams, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1575861283 ISBN 13: 9781575861289

Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Inf, 2001

Synopsis

Anthropologists claim to have made mankind aware of its own prehistory and its importance to human self-understanding. Yet, anthropologists seem hardly to have discovered their own discipline's prehistory or to have realized its importance. William Y. Adams attempts to rectify this myopic self-awareness by applying anthropology's own tools on itself and uncovering the discipline's debt to earlier thinkers.

Like most anthropologists, Adams had previously accepted the premise that anthropology's intellectual roots go back no further than the moral philosophy of the Enlightenment, or perhaps at the earliest to the humanism of the Renaissance. In this volume, Adams recognizes that many good ideas were anticipated in antiquity and that these ideas have had a lasting influence on anthropological models in particular. He has chosen five philosophical currents whose influence has been, and is, very widespread, particularly in North American anthropology: progressivism, primitivism, natural law, German idealism, and "Indianology". He argues that the influences of these currents in North American anthropology occur in a unique combination that is not found in the anthropologies of other countries. Without neglecting the anthropologies of other countries, this work serves as the basis for the explanation of the true historical and philosophical underpinnings of anthropology and its goals.

About this title

Book Description

William Adams applies anthropology's own tools to itself in an effort to explain the true historical and philosophical underpinnings of anthropology and its goals.

Synopsis

Few anthropologists have made any attempts to explore their own discipline's prehistory or to have realized its importance. William Adams attempts to rectify this myopic self-awareness by applying anthropology's own tools to itself while uncovering the discipline's debt to earlier thinkers. Adams recognizes that many ideas which were anticipated in antiquity have had a lasting influence on anthropological models in particular. Adams has chosen five philosophical currents whose influences have been, and continue to be, very widespread, particularly in North American anthropology: progressivism, primitivism, natural law, German idealism, and 'Indianology'. This work serves as the basis for the explanation of the true historical and philosophical underpinnings of anthropology and its goals.

Edition details

• Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Inf
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1575861283
• ISBN 13: 9781575861289
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480