Description
Book SynopsisThe discipline of anthropology is, at its best, characterized by turbulence, self-examination, and inventiveness. This volume assembles a set of conceptual tools - "modern equipment" - to assess how intellectual work is conducted and how it might change. It offers a discussion of how one might best think about anthropos.
Trade Review"This is an immensely stimulating, riveting work: erudite but highly accessible, wideranging in its curiosity and readings, but coherent. A remarkably mature performance that synthesizes many strands of Rabinow's thought over his career, it speaks articulately to the discontents and predicaments of the present."
—George Marcus, Rice University, author of Ethnography through Thick and Thin"A tour de force. Rabinow's book is pathbreaking. It is quite original (and I don't use that word lightly) and promises to bring fundamental changes not only in anthropology in particular but in the human sciences more generally. The writing sparkles with wit, erudition borne with grace, phrases sparingly but uncommonly turned, and, above all, clarity never compromised."
—E. Valentine Daniel, Columbia University, author of Charred LullabiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgment ix Introduction Ethos, Logos, and Pathos 1 Hetero-Logoi 4 Equipment 6 Modern Equipment 11 Chapter 1: Midst Anthropology's Problems 13 Labor, Life, Language 14 Inquiry: From Reconstruction to Problematization 15 Cultural Goods 20 Restraint 28 Chapter 2: Method 31 Cultural Singularity 32 Ideal Types 36 Intelligibility 37 Chapter 3: Object 44 Problematization 44 Dispositif: Apparatus 49 Anthropology of the Actual 55 Chapter 4: Mode 57 Modern Historicity 58 Nominalism: Duchamp 61 Deductions: Klee 68 Chapter 5: Form 76 Contemporary Chronicles 77 Philia: Writing Logos, Writing Ethos 79 Formative: Wissensarbeitsforschung 83 Chapter 6: Discontents and Consolations 91 Discontents 92 Science as a Vocation: Truth versus Meaning 96 1917-1989: Enlightenment Betrayed 102 Consolations 105 Chapter 7: Demons and Durcharbeiten 107 Malaise in Motion 108 Demons and Durcharbeiten 119 Conclusion From Progress to Motion 122 Pascal: Enterprises 123 Infinity 128 Exemplary Cases 130 Progress or Motion? 133 Notes 137 Bibliography 149 Index of Selected Names 153 Index of Concepts 155
