The task of having to be : tradition, place and human finitude in dialogue with Japan / by Ricardo Santos Alexandre.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Santos Alexandre, Ricardo, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Anthropology--Philosophy.

Anthropology.

Japan--Social life and customs--1945-.

Japan.

Japan--Rural conditions--1945-.

Japan--Civilization--1945-.

Physical Description:

xv, 165 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Bloomsbury, 2025

Summary:

At the heart of the anthropological project lies a need to tackle the conundrum of the human condition. And yet, the conundrum persists. Actually, the reflection over the conditions and possibilities of their own existence constitutes the greatest of human abilities, as well as the most ineffable of their limits. Anthropology seldom addresses this. When it does, it does not allow it to have a significant import in its reflections. The Task of Having to Be: Tradition, Place and Human Finitude in Dialogue with Japan does not try to solve the conundrum. Rather, it sheds some light over the reasons why it belongs to its nature to remain unsolved. Taking as a starting point a Japanese rural community and some elements of Japanese culture, the author reflects dialogically on several issues: the nature of tradition, the essence of places, the limitations of anthropological discourse on subjectivity and the self, and the connection between religion and human finitude. Cross-cutting these reflections is a concern with what precedes individual subjectivity; i.e, what grounds ontologically what we are and can be. To glimpse the conundrum that the human is entails, first and foremost, the realisation that there is always something in what we are that precedes the individuals and subjects we yearn to be.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

1666980366

9781666980363

OCLC:

1520326138

Publisher Number:

90103395727

CIPO000306243