Title: Introduction : Consciousness in anthropology
Abstract:Western social thought is built upon the Cartesian notion of self consciousness
(as expressed in the cogito) as the distinguishing characteristic of humanity; it
is impossible to imagine what our inte...Western social thought is built upon the Cartesian notion of self consciousness
(as expressed in the cogito) as the distinguishing characteristic of humanity; it
is impossible to imagine what our intellectual traditions might have been like if
they had not proceeded from this premise. This makes all the more remarkable
the fact that social anthropology, the most questioning of social science
disciplines, has taken consciousness largely for granted, neglecting-even,
perhaps, denying-its significance and relevance. Anthropologists have
apparently been content to assume that it is there, somewhere, and to regard
its explanation as somehow beyond our reach. If we have tied ourselves up in
knots of philosophical angst about the difficulties of understanding other
cultures, we have largely dismissed as ‘not our business’ the more fundamental
problem of understanding other minds. The great modernistic paradigms
provided anthropologists with justifications for this disinterest, and supplied
their own broad brush explanations which located consciousness in the
structures of historical materialism, or of the mind and human cognition, or of
culture, or of society. British social anthropology, of course, developed
predominantly under the influence of the last of these positions, and so its
practitioners became used to identifying the consciousness of any individual
with the structural logic of that individual’s social circumstances. If I am a
Nuer, then I must think like a Nuer. Anthropologists thereby provided themelves
with a simple means of defining away the problematic of consciousness, Theirtask was to provide a plausible interpretation of what the Nuer does, If social
structure could not provide the answer, ‘culture’ could always be called in aid.
In other than pathological or deviant cases, we simply assumed that people
had similar kinds of consciousness if they could be depicted as ‘sharing’ culture
or as being located within common social structures. Consciousness was simply
not a problem, and the relationship of consciousness to either culture or social
structure barely figured on the theoretical agenda.Read More
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-12-16
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 18
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