The idea of imagination as an indispensable condition assumed by a humanist corresponds to the idea of narrative competence as one of the conditions for the anthropological ordering of reality. The epistemological model rooted in philology, philosophy, history and cultural anthropology is constituted by the procedures of perceiving and imagining things that cannot be directly observed but also by the procedures of producing a relatively coherent image of the world. It is meaningful that Andrzej Mencwel, the author of the idea of anthropological imagination, refers to the same long-existent indicators that form the literary image of the world. Although the two areas of cognitive activity have different aims and functions, they seem to be linked by a set of projects called the anthropology of literature. If we regard the anthropology of literature as a collection of individual projects that open the possibility for the emergence of a distinct branch of knowledge in the future, we need to assume that both function and understanding of the 'anthropological imagination' can vary with respect to every single project.
Wydana w roku 1877 klasyczna praca Lewisa Henry’ego Morgana Społeczeństwo pierwotne podejmowała problem rekonstrukcji dziejów ludzkości zgodnie z wyznacznikami nauki XVIII i XIX w. Lektura tego tekstu z perspektywy ponad stu lat pozwala na zadanie kilku ważnych pytań dotyczących filozoficznych i metodologicznych uwarunkowań postawionych przez Morgana tez. Jego dzieło, silnie wtopione w kontekst ówczesnego myślenia naukowego, okazało się jedną z najbardziej popularnych prac antropologicznych swojego czasu. Jednocześnie stało się źródłem kulturowych wyobrażeń, które do dzisiejszego dnia matrycują sposoby postrzegania wielokulturowości współczesnego świata przez człowieka Zachodu.
EN
Released in 1877 classical work by Lewis Henry Morgan Ancient Society took on the problem of reconstructing human history according to the benchmarks of XVIII and XIX century science. Reading of this work from a perspective of over a hundred years allows posing a few important questions, regarding philosophical and methodological determinants of Morgan’s theses. His work, strongly embedded in the context of scientific thought of that time, proved to be one of the most popular anthropological works of its era. At the same time it became a source of cultural ideas, which to this day provide the matrix of perception of contemporary multicultural world by a Western Man.
Collection of fundamental questions that accompanied Lévi-Strauss during his writing of “ethnographic memories,” a character of doubts and a size of disappointment place his anthropological prose on the side of existential anthropocentricism. During his travels around the world, and especially while visiting “tristes tropiques”, he could see the same invariants that influenced the shape of his “family Europe.” However, if anyone today is willing to get rid of, at least for a moment, existential boringness and discouragement – a trace of past epoch – and devote oneself to the joy of searching, in the work of Lévi-Strauss, for inspiration and motivation to carry on the process of getting familiar with oneself through the Other, they have every right to do so. If the satisfaction coming from gradual familiarization, reading and interpretation can be shared, if a conversation is able to create a possibility to better understanding and agreement, it is definitely worth making use of that opportunity. This “Laboratory of Culture” issue gives you this chance.
PL
Katalog pytań zasadniczych, jakie towarzyszyły Claude’owi Lévi-Straussowi podczas spisywania „wspomnień etnograficznych”, charakter wątpliwości i rozmiary rozczarowania sytuują jego prozę antropologiczną po stronie antropocentryzmu egzystencjalnego. Podróżując po świecie w poszukiwaniu materiałów etnograficznych, a zwłaszcza odwiedzając „smutne tropiki”, dostrzegał w nich te same inwarianty, które kształtowały jego „rodzinną Europę”. Jeżeli jednak dzisiaj ktokolwiek ma ochotę porzucić na moment przynajmniej egzystencjalną nudę i zniechęcenie – ślad niedawno minionej epoki – i oddać się radości poszukiwania w dziele Lévi-Straussa inspiracji i motywacji do dalszego poznawania siebie za pośrednictwem Innego – ma do tego pełne prawo. Jeśli satysfakcja, płynąca z etapowego poznawania, czytania i interpretacji może być dzielona, jeśli spotkanie w rozmowie może stwarzać szansę na lepsze zrozumienie i porozumienie, warto taką okazję wykorzystać. Ten numer „Laboratorium kultury” taką możliwość daje.
Evolutionism unintentionally laid foundations of the industrial ethos, sanctioned the idea of competition and a new type of social hierarchy, gave pragmatism an alibi, and at the same time shook the foundations of individualism. At present it has become a transparent paradigm – we pay no attention to it, or even deny it, while accepting many of its distinctive determinants. Today, evolution is, as it may seem, not only a proven process of gradual transformations in the natural and social life, but also a fundamental epistemological metaphor, whose sense cannot be attained fully, but whose heuristic power still influences us. The ambiguity of this influence is reflected in the ambivalent attitude to Charles Darwin, who became, on the one hand, an icon of evolutionism, and on the other hand a victim of its methodological attractiveness.
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