Description
Book SynopsisIn this book, D. Z. Zhong establishes a methodological principle for cross-cultural research, called anthropological fideism. While anthropologists take for granted that natives don''t really believe the unintelligible or inexplicable things they say, and what they say should express a deeper social meaning, Zhong contends that if we have a translation manual that can interpret a foreign language, and if natives are asserting honestly, then what natives say still express natives'' belief, no matter how absurd it seems. His anthropological fideism entails that in fact we can, and indeed we should, happily live with others'' differences while taking them literal.
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Acknowledgement Chapter 3 The Abuse of Anti-Fidelity and its Use for Anthropology: Consciousness of Inquiry; Wasn't Captain Cook Lono God to Hawaiians?; Divine Manifestation of God and God; Symbolic Death and the Limit of Interpretation; Weren't Tully River Blacks "Ignorant" Chapter 4 Farewell, Symbolic Interpretation!: Consciousness of Inquiry; Reading Durkheim Literally; Confusing the Epistemological with the Theoretical; In What Sense Non-Social Thoughts Don't Express Social Reality?; The Dogma of Representationalism; Types of Chapter 5 Evans-Pritchard and the Problem of One and Many: Introducing the Problem; The Paradox in the Relation between a Mode of God and God; An Analogy Based on Folk Ontology; Critique on Horton's Analogy with Scientific Explanation; Interpretations in N Chapter 6 Anthropological-Fidelistic Beginning of Magic: Consciousness of Inquiry; Theories of Magic: Frazer/Lévi-Bruhl versus Malinowski/Wittgenstein; Three Comments on Functionalism; A Thought Experiment of Magic; Anthropological-Fidelistic Explanation of M Chapter 7 Fundamental Problems about Anthropological Fideism: The Logic of Anthropological Fideism; Exotic Beliefs or Metaphors?; Comparison and Pragmatic Theory of Metaphor; Ten Theses of the Prototype Theory of Metaphor; Davidson's Principle of Charity as t Chapter 8 Appendix 1: A Minimal Intentionalist Account of Meaning Chapter 9 Appendix 2: One Way to Take Functionalism Seriously: The Foundation of Inquiry into Society Chapter 10 Appendix 3: The Magical Power of Words Anthropological-Fidelistic Explanation of Spell Chapter 11 Bibliography Chapter 12 About the Author Chapter 13 Index
