“This is a compelling and thought-provoking piece of work. It offers an excellent account and application of Levinas’ work to anthropology, demonstrating the relevance of his philosophical writings to the discipline. The book is clearly written and will be of interest and relevance within the social sciences and in relation to other disciplines.” • Andrew Irving, University of Manchester

Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical work on ‘the Other’ offers a challenge to the discipline of anthropology that claims knowledge of the human. For Levinas, the ‘secrecy’ of subjectivity – a fundamental facet of the human condition – demands an ethics of ignorance and not-knowing; the mystery of otherness is only to be approached through ‘inspiration’. Can anthropology meet a Levinasian challenge if it would define itself as a science as well as a humanistic documentation of social life? This book endeavours to take Levinasian and anthropological precepts equally seriously and offers a radical conclusion.

Series: Volume 47, Methodology & History in Anthropology

Subject: Theory and Methodology Anthropology (General)

Area:

BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; PHI046000 PHILOSOPHY/Individual Philosophers; PHI010000 PHILOSOPHY/Movements/Humanism