Anthropology and the Western Tradition: Toward an Authentic Anthropology

This book presents an interpretation of anthropology, its intellectual and social foundations, its structure and meaning. The author has focused on the question of why it is considered necessary and valid to study other peoples in order to understand ourselves and the nature of humankind. He suggests that this question may be answered by investigating the epistemes and paradigms--understood loosely as the prevailing cultural structures of meaning--of the Western tradition. This requires the analysis of symbols that embody and signify the nature of humankind and human self that provide the foundation for relating ourselves to other peoples. It is the hope of the author that such an analysis may shed some light on the strengths as well as the weaknesses of anthropology.