Romanticism and holism in the anthropology of the West (revisiting Bergson’s paradox)

Abstract

The anthropology of the West, as a project of comparative knowledge of the multifarious human experience, depends on a positive disposition towards difference and holism, both as an empirical focus and as a method -in opposition to the scientific style inherited from the Enlightenment and its naturalistic and individualistic bases. This outward movement of anthropology obeys another, subordinate yet essential, ideological dimension of Western cosmology, here described as Romanticism. The paradox implied by a quest for a distant difference and the oblique awareness of the internal cultivation of difference is the key for a critical analysis of contemporary 'postmodern' anthropological tendencies.

The vitality of vitalism in contemporary anthropology: Longing for an ever green tree of life

“…These trends result from an intellectual (and sensorial) effort to react anthropologically to different cultures on their own terms as a kind of epiphany. I have objected to this "extraterritoriality": the drive towards important and laudable insights is just as deeply Western as former interpretations and models (Duarte, 2015), and can be found in the romantic and vitalist roots of human sciences. Were it not for claims of respect for autonomous, self-affirmative, intrinsic, life's values, we would have remained as deaf to otherness, as other cultures and other periods of our own history have been.…”

“…However, we must begin by remembering that the inner workings of anthropological thought depend entirely on an understanding of the inner workings of culture, where anthropology originally blossomed and where it continues to thrive (cf. Duarte, 2015). This should be considered a challenge and not an impediment.…”

“…Some commentators also stress the series of romantic writers and philosophers (Naturphilosophen) evoked in his texts, as H€ olderlin, Kleist, Bu¨chner, on one hand, and F. Schlegel, G. Fechner and J. von Uexku¨ll, on the other (cf. Duarte, 2015).…”

O Valor Dos Valores: Louis Dumont Na Antropologia Contemporânea

“…Os valores da "natureza" e da "vida", inextricáveis por um lado dos desenvolvimentos da racionalização científica herdeira do iluminismo, vêm servindo de diferentes maneiras para expressar a permanência da dimensão holista, românti-ca -também na filosofia contemporânea (cf. Duarte, 2015b) 2 Revisões mais gerais podem ser encontradas em Galey, 1982Galey, , 1984Galey, , 1991Berthoud & Busino, 1984;Duarte 1986aDuarte , 2015aParkin, 1994Parkin, , 2003Toffin, 1999;Stolcke, 2001;Leirner, 2003;Strenski, 2014; entre muitas outras. passageira, os valores são vistos como construídos dentro da própria estrutura" (Robbins, 2004: 11).…”