Theory-Making, Transference, and Anthropology: on D. Z. Phillips’ Rejection of Nonfoundationalist Theorizing
The article argues that the motivations for Phillips' construal of all theory-making as necessarily foundationalist go beyond the epistemological debate about foundationalism vs. nonfoundationalism and that his construal is rooted in the anthropological assumption that the subjectivity of human...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
1995
|
| In: |
Horizons
Year: 1995, Volume: 22, Issue: 1, Pages: 29-48 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The article argues that the motivations for Phillips' construal of all theory-making as necessarily foundationalist go beyond the epistemological debate about foundationalism vs. nonfoundationalism and that his construal is rooted in the anthropological assumption that the subjectivity of human persons is inevitably violated by analyses in terms of objective categories that are not derived from the self-understanding of the subjects under study. The article uses the distinction between etics and emics in linguistics and cultural anthropology and a psychoanalytic understanding of the inevitability of transference and countertransference in order to argue that an appreciation of human finitude and contingency should lead Phillips and others to anthropological views in which the inevitability of theory, transference, and the experience of the otherness of oneself and others is construed as not only inevitable but as pleasurable, i.e., as part of the goodness of created human nature. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2050-8557 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Horizons
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0360966900028929 |
