Anthropology and philosophy have long been intellectual companions; the borders between the two disciplines have always been permeable. For example, anthropologies inspired by Durkheim are ultimately indebted to Kant; Evans-Pritchard’s ideas are stamped with R. G. Collingwood’s Hegelian philosophy; Gluckman was stimulated by Whitehead’s process philosophy; and Bourdieu drew inspiration from Wittgenstein and Pascal, amongst others. Yet the fuller history and implications of philosophical influences in anthropology are largely unaddressed.

In this volume, the contributors address the shifting effect philosophy has on anthropology. They investigate the impact of the philosophical presuppositions of anthropology, as well as the presuppositions themselves, using a comparative-cultural point of view – ethnography. Furthermore, by considering anthropologies in conjunction with philosophies, and philosophies with anthropologies, the volume helps illuminate the present trajectories of thought in postcolonialist, non-ethnocentric and creative directions that were previously ignored by the contemporary social sciences. As a cross-disciplinary study, the volume questions both the rigidity of intellectual and disciplinary boundaries and attempts to evade it by encouraging many different voices and perspectives to create a thought-provoking dialogue.

The original essays in ‘Philosophy and Anthropology: Border Crossings and Transformations’ discuss the three-fold division within the anthropological engagement with philosophy, the sources and history of philosophical anthropology, and its current applications and links with other contemporary intellectual movements. This volume seeks to engage with real social and humanitarian issues of the current age and create an innovative discipline: philosophical anthropology.

Ananta Kumar Giri has taught in various universities in India, the USA, Denmark and Germany, and has written numerous books on social movements, cultural change, criticism, culture and society, and ethics in management and development. Giri is currently an associate professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India.

John Clammer is currently a professor of sociology in the Institute of Sustainability and Peace at the United Nations University, Tokyo, Japan. His work ranges from economics, anthropology and ethnicity to identity and development, and focuses on the relationships between Western social theory, the realities of the Asian societies and the links between culture and development.

Key Issues in Modern Sociology

Notes on Contributors; Introduction: Philosophy and Anthropology in Dialogues and Conversations – John Clammer and Ananta Kumar Giri; PART I: NURTURING THE FIELD: TOWARDS MUTUAL FECUNDATION AND TRANSFORMATION OF PHILOSOPHY AND ANTHROPOLOGY; Chapter 1 The Project of Philosophical Anthropology – John Clammer; Chapter 2: The Self-Preservation of Man: Remarks on the Relation between Modernity and Philosophical Anthropology – Kasper Lysemose; Chapter 3: Whither Modernity? Hybridization, Postoccidentalism, Postdevelopment and Transmodernity – Ivan Marquez; Chapter 4: Philosophical Anthropology and Philosophy in Anthropology – Vaclav Brezina; Chapter 5: The Engagement of Philosophy and Anthropology in the Interpretive Turn and Beyond: Towards an Anthropology of the Contemporary – Heike Kampf; Chapter 6: Mediation through Cognitive Dynamics: Philosophical Anthropology and the Conflicts of Our Time – Piet Strydom; Chapter 7: Philosophy as Anthropocentrism: Language, Life and ‘Aporia’ – Prasenjit Biswas; PART II: SOURCES OF PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY; Chapter 8: Kant and Anthropology – Ananta Kumar Giri; Chapter 9: Dilthey’s Theory of Knowledge and Its Potential for Anthropological Theory – Daniel Šuber; Chapter 10: Malinowski and Philosophy – Peter Skalnik; Chapter 11: Ground, Self, Sign: The Semiotic Theories of Charles Sanders Peirce and Their Applications in Social Anthropology – Lars Kjaerholm; Chapter 12: Ricoeur’s Challenge for a Twenty-First Century Anthropology – Betsy Taylor; Chapter 13: Clifford Geertz: The Philosophical Transformation of Anthropology – Gernot Saalmann; Chapter 14: Bakhtin’s Heritage in Anthropology: Alterity and Dialogue – Marcin Brocki; Chapter 15: The Philosophy of Slavoj Žižek and Anthropology: The Current Situation and Possible Futures – Lars Kjaerholm; Chapter 16: Border Crossings between Anthropology and Buddhist Philosophy – Susantha Goonatilake; PART III: PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AT WORK; Chapter 17: ‘Anthropology of Philosophy’ in Africa: The Ethnography of Critical Discourse and Intellectual Practice – Kai Kresse; Chapter 18: Albinos Do Not Die: Belief, Philosophy and Anthropology – Joao de Pina-Cabral; Chapter 19: Anthropology, Development and the Myth of Culture – Robert Feleppa; Chapter 20: Notions of Friendship in Philosophical and Anthropological Thought – Heidrun Friese; Afterword The Return of Philosophical Anthropology – Fred Dallmayr