Adventures in the Aporetic: Anthropological Alterities

by G. V. Loewen, Gregory V. Loewen

Overview

Life presents us, intimately and immanently, with a series of diverse and puzzling aporia. One event and its interpretation, occurring in the simultaneous context of another and differing event, leads us to reflect on the limits of language in order to adequately negotiate the limits of human experience. The process of perplexity in the face of disjunctive similitudes we may call aporesis. There are many examples of what can henceforth be called aporia_concepts mutually necessary but paradoxical, contradictory expectations of the human condition. The mutual imbrications of nature and culture, the presence of the past in the present, or the contradictions of the modern-self concept are all fundamental examples of aporetic structures. This book attempts, through a series of interpretive discussions, to confront a number of well-known perplexities in their structural form of disjunctive moments, of interpretive contexts of 'this is' and 'this is not.'

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761831051
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	03/14/2005
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.26(w) x 8.46(h) x 0.96(d)

About the Author

G.V. Loewen is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northwest Missouri State University and author of Hermeneutical Apprenticeships (University Press of America, 2003). Dr. Loewen holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of British Columbia. This is his third book.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction: Aporia, Aporetic, Aporesis Chapter 2 Two Interpretations: The Irresponsibility Thesis and its Understanding of Nature; The Interpretive Turn in Archaeology Chapter 3 Three Fragments from Fragwurdigheit: Nietzsche and the Hermeneutics of Posthumous Birth; The Concept of Culture from Nietzsche to Sapir; On Race and Sex in an Extra-Moral Sense Chapter 4 Four Authors of the Aporesis: Foucault's Archaeology of Knowledge; Goody's Anthropological Other; Dumont's Economic Man; Peart's Poetics in the Light of Gadamer Chapter 5 Conclusion: Epilogoi Chapter 6 Notes Chapter 7 References