Sumários
The conundrums, continued
12 Fevereiro 2025, 16:00 • Manuel João Ramos
The notion of "category" in Anthropology and its logico-philosophical foundations. Boole, Cantor, Gödel - numbers, groups and paradoxes. Bertrand Russel's critical review of Aristotelian logics and metaphysics, and why it's important for a new grounding of anthropological thought. The language-mind debate: universality and substance. Categories of thought or categories of language. Bibliography: J. Barrow, The Book of Nothing. W. Folley, Anthropological Linguistics B. Russel, History of Western Philosophy E. Benveniste, Catégories de langue, catégories de pensée Reading for next class: W. Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreams, illusion and other realities
The conundrums of cognition
6 Fevereiro 2025, 16:00 • Manuel João Ramos
Problematisation of accepted anthropological concepts. From Plato to the doctrine of Chalcedon: the archaeology of the n otions of dualism in Western thought. Counter-examples from non-Chalcedonic Churches. Mind - Language - Culture The notion of "category" in Anthropology and its logico-philosophical foundations. A criticism of the Aristotelian groundings of anthropological categorisations. The language-mind debate. Where do symbols stand? A lost possibility: non-rousseauian anthropology in the 18th century: de Sade, Lametrie, Montesquieu, Kant. Bibliography: Reading for next class: - B. Russel, History of Western Philosophy - E. Benveniste, Catégories de langue, catégories de pensée
Presentation
5 Fevereiro 2025, 16:00 • Manuel João Ramos
Presentation of the course's programme, bibliography and system of evaluation. Introductory discussion of contemporary issues on symbolism and cognition. The need for an interdisciplinary approach (anthropology vis a vis the neurosciences) and the relevance of a revisited ethnography (Tim Ingold in the Debated Mind, and Maurice Bloch's connectivist views on cultural cognition). The problems of the Western-centric semantic (and rhetoric) conditioning of anthropological discourses. The limitations of a materialist approach to cognition. Example: António Damásio's Self comes to Mind: Constructing the conscious brain John Searle's critical review of Damasio's Self comes to mind Reading for next class: