Anthropology as Ethics Nondualism and the Conduct of Sacrifice [Paperback]

Anthropology as Ethicsis concerned with rethinking anthropology by rethinking the nature of reality. It develops the ontological implications of a defining thesis of the Manchester School: that all social orders exhibit basically conflicting underlying principles. Drawing especially on Continental social thought, including Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Dumont, Bourdieu and others, and on pre-modern sources such as the Hebrew bible, the Nuer, the Dinka, and the Azande, the book mounts a radical study of the ontology of self and other in relation to dualism and nondualism. It demonstrates how the self-other dichotomy disguises fundamental ambiguity or nondualism, thus obscuring the essentially ethical, dilemmatic, and sacrificial nature of all social life. It also proposes a reason other than dualist, nihilist, and instrumental, one in which logic is seen as both inimical to and continuous with value. Without embracing absolutism, the book makes ambiguity and paradox the foundation of an ethical response to the pervasive anti-foundationalism of much postmodern thought.

Acknowledgments
Organization and Key Usages

Introduction:Nondualism, Ontology, and Anthropology

PART I: THE ETHNOGRAPHIC SELF: THE SOCIO-POLITICAL PATHOLOGY OF MODERNITY

Chapter 1.Anthropology and the Synthetic a Priori: Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty
Chapter 2.Blind Faith and the Binding of Isaacthe Akedah
Chapter 3.Excursus I: Sacrifice as Human Existence
Chapter 4.Counter-Sacrifice and Instrumental Reasonthe Holocaust
Chapter 5.Bourdieus Anti-dualism and Generalized Materialism
Chapter 6.Habermass Anti-dualism and Communicative Rationality

PART II: THE ETHNOGRAPHIC OTHER: THE ETHICAL OPENNESS OF ARCHAIC UNDERSTANDING

Chapter 7.Technological Efficacy, Mythic Rationality, and Non-contradiction
Chapter 8.Epistemic Efficacy, Mythic RlÓ$