an analysis of contemporary anthropologies and their ethical and political implications / a sketch for a multi-anthropological methodology.

I’ve noticed that much of the disagreement and struggle within the fields of science and politics can be traced back to differing believes in what constitutes the essence of humanity.  When for instance a particular economic theory assumes that a decline in the level of taxation will lead to an increase GNP and thereby a larger revenue, it implicitly relies upon a belief in a certain anthropology.  I’ve personally come to believe that the nature of humans is neither something static and ahistorical nor something about which we can ever acquire knowledge with a status differing from that of a mere faith.  In other words, I think anthropology should be regarded as entangled in the metaphysical foundations for knowledge, which are of paramount importance, but principally a matter of faith or confession, since no one in the last instance can claim to have unreserved insight in them. Though close to the edge of nihilism, I do not think all scientific efforts are completely redundant. Since this is the best we can do, or at least the best I can come to think of, we must stop asking to the true essence or nature of phenomena, but instead formulate the questions in a manner which reflects our uncertainty: “If we choose to regard this as the truth, what are we then able to understand?”. In this perspective academic work is to be judged by how well the supplied frames of explanation enables humans to navigate in life. This encourages to interdisciplinary academic approaches, but does not necessarily imply a rejection of the conclusions of research which does not share the belief in this approach.  Never the less, scientific practice becomes an extremely political business in this light.

I would like to investigate the anthropologies which serve as foundations for different meta-theories and discuss their ethical and socio-political implications. How do they shape possibilities of acting and understanding and how do they render certain types of arguments natural or untrustworthy? I’m especially – but not solely - interested in the naturalized and generally unchallenged foundational believes buried beneath the conclusions of respectively economic theory and natural science.  I’m also puzzled by the historical marriage between the conceptions of economy and the hard sciences. Furthermore I wish to reflect upon the possibilities of a non-totalizing, multi-anthropological approach to the social sciences. What happens if we neither take it for granted that all humans necessarily are human in the same sense, nor that the way in which they are doesn’t change? In other words, how can we engage in social sciences if we operate with numerous conceptions of humanity, hence an ambiguous perception of the social? And how are we to understand the notion of a good society in this light?