An Anthropology of the Enlightenment: Moral Social Relations Then and Today

How can we rethink the terms of Enlightenment anthropology in a manner and an idiom appropriate to the contemporary era? The essays collated here argue for anthropology's use in acknowledging, exploring and interpreting divergence and ideological conflict over human meaning. The volume is structured around some of the key themes that the Enlightenment fostered, including human nature, time, Earth and the cosmos, beauty, order, harmony and design, morals, and the query of whether wealthy nations make for healthy publics. It focuses in particular on how 'moral sentiment' offered a guiding idea in Enlightenment thought. The idea of 'moral sentiment' is central to the essays' grappling with the ethical anxieties of contemporary anthropology. The essays therefore trace historical connections and fissures, and focus in particular on Adam Smith's attempts toward an understanding of what would later be called 'modernity' - where the realism that allows us to understand individual experience appears at odds with the realism which takes on larger scale social processes of enculturation or globalization. With an afterword from Marilyn Strathern, this volume makes a strong addition to the ASA conference proceedings.