Outside All Reason

Magic, Sorcery and Epistemology in Anthropology

Bibliographic Data

ID19005602
AuthorsB Kapferer (0000-0003-4696-0413, corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume46
Issue3
Pages1-30
Publication date2002-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Analysis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0155-977X • E-ISSN: 1558-5727
PublisherBerghahn Books (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.3167/015597702782409310
OpenAlexW2412470945
LanguageEN
Citations received49
References cited51

Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are at the epistemological centre of anthropology. They embed matters at the heart of the definition of modern anthropology, and the critical issues that they raise are of enduring significance for the discipline. But the questions these phenomena highlight expand beyond mere disciplinary or scholastic interest. They point to matters of deep existential concern in a general quest for an understanding of the human forces engaged in the human construction of lived realities. Anthropology in the embracing Kantian sense is involved. The phenomena that are deemed to be magic and sorcery (including all that which such scholars as Durkheim (1915) and Mauss (1972) would include under the label ‘profane’) project towards the far shores of human possibility and potentiality. The human profundities to which they might lead are already there in the imagery and metaphors of thinkers, both abstract and concretely pragmatic, worldwide. Within European traditions the world of the magician and the sorcerer is routinely evoked to explore the continuing crisis that is faced by humankind, more recently, for example, in the works of Dante, Goethe and Nietzsche right through to the most contemporary philosophers and social commentators. The essays in these pages contend with some of the overarching existential issues towards which a concern with the magical must extend

Discipline · Epistemology · Existentialism · Human science · MAGIC (telescope) · Philosophical anthropology · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access