Anthropology and Enlightenment
I have often been led to reflect on the relevance of James's blend of humanism and Marxism for the future of anthropology. He once wrote: “The distinctive feature of our age is that mankind as a whole is on the way to becoming fully conscious of itself.” (Grimshaw 1992) When I speak of anthropology today, I refer not to an academic institution but to a human teleology in that sense. This requires us to improve our self-knowledge as individuals and as a species, especially the relationship between the two. Such a relationship is mediated by a bewildering variety of associations and identities that have been the prime focus of social science so far. What interests me, and I believe the vast bulk of humanity,
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This project has its origin in the Enlightenment's attempt to build democracy on a foundation of systematic knowledge of human nature, on what all human beings have in common, regardless of the arbitrary social inequalities under which most people labour. This project culminated in Kant's late work during the 1780s and 1990s, when he invented the term “anthropology” in its modern sense (Kant 1977). Kant saw that the world was moving towards war between coalitions of nation-states; yet he posed the question of how humanity might construct a “perpetual peace” beyond the boundaries of states, based on principles that we all share (1795). This “cosmopolitan” society of world citizens was a necessary bridge to the exercise of human reason at the species level. Kant held that the last and most difficult task facing humanity was the administration of justice worldwide. In the meantime anthropology must explore the cognitive, aesthetic and ethical universals on which such an idea of human unity might be founded. The categorical imperative to be good (“do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) provided a moral link between individuals and this emergent inclusive order. In order to grasp this intellectually, Kant had to