Ecology, Meaning, & Religion
Roy A. Rappaport  
Ecology, Meaning, & Religion Image Cover
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Publisher:North Atlantic Books
Genre:Nonfiction
Pages:272
ASIN:093819027X
ISBN:9780938190271
Dewey:304.2
Format:Paperback
Release:1993-02-03
Dimensions:0.72 x 8.96 x 6.05 in
Date Added:2009-11-27
Price:$14.95
Summary: "Two enterprises have proceeded in anthropology since ts earliest days. One, objective in its aspirations and inspired by biological disciplines, seeks explanation and is concerned to discover laws and causes. The other, subjective in its orientation and influenced by philosophy, linguistics, and the humatities, attempts interpretation and seeks to elucidate meanings. I take any raditcal separation of the two to be misguided, for the relationship between tem, with all of its difficulty, ambiguity, and tension, is a reflection of, or metaphor for, the condition of a species that lives in terms of meanings in a physical world devoid of intrinsic meaning but subject to causal law. The concept of adaptatioon when applied to human society must take account of meaning as well as cause, and of the complex dynamic of their relationship." -from the book.