Anthropology As Ethics: Non-dualism and the Conduct of Sacrifice

Cutting directly across social science and the humanities, Anthropology as Ethics presents an intensive project in philosophical anthropology, which rethinks anthropology by rethinking ontology. It develops the ontological implications of the defining thesis of the Manchester School of Social Anthropology: that all social order necessarily betrays conflicting underlying principles. Drawing especially on Continental philosophy, such as the work of Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Derrida, Bourdieu, Habermas, and Foucault, and pre-modern thought, such as that of the Nuer, the Dinka, the Azande, and the Hebrew bible, the book mounts a radical study of the ontology of self and other in relation to dualism, on the one hand, and non-dualism, on the other. At heart the book is a plea for a new kind of reason, one that bears on value.