On Anthropological Knowledge Three Essays
On Anthropological Knowledge Three Essays by Dan Sperber, published by Cambridge University Press on June 30, 1985, is a thought-provoking exploration of anthropology through three interconnected essays. This edition, consisting of 120 pages, delves into the understanding of other cultures and the insights that can be gained about humanity from such studies. Sperber examines the intricacies of how anthropology is both written and interpreted, setting the stage for a deeper discussion on cultural understanding.
Readers will find a critical analysis of cultural relativism in the second essay, where Sperber presents a rationalist perspective supported by anthropological and psychological arguments, drawing from his fieldwork in Ethiopia. The third essay critiques the work of Lévi-Strauss, linking the discussions from the previous essays to evaluate his contributions to the study of cultural variation. This edition invites readers to engage with fundamental questions in social science and anthropology, offering a nuanced perspective on cultural dynamics and human behavior.
Official synopsis Publisher
What can be understood of other cultures? And what can we learn about people in general from the study of other cultures? In the three closely related essays that constitute this book and which have already created considerable controversy in their original French versions, and been rewritten and expanded for this edition, Dan Sperber discusses these fundamental issues of anthropology. In the first essay he analyses the way in which anthropology is written and read. In the second, he offers a novel rationalist alternative to cultural relativism, based on both anthropological and psychological arguments, and illustrated by his own fieldwork in Ethiopia. The third essay provides an assessment of the work of Lévi-Strauss, in which the arguments of the previous two essays are linked with an incisive critique of Lévi-Strauss’ contribution to the study of cultural variation.
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