The advent of heroic anthropology in the history of ideas

Albert Doja (1)

1 Université de Lille

In this article the advent of Lévi-Strauss's structural anthropology is described as a reaction against the predominantly phenomenological bias of French philosophy in the post-war years as well as against the old humanism of existentialism which seemed parochial both in its confinement to a specific tradition of western philosophy and in its lack of interest in scientific approach. Nevertheless, the paradigm of structural anthropology cannot be equated with the field of structuralism, which became a very contestable form of intellectual fashion. The reception of Lévi-Strauss's theory in the English-speaking world carried on both the same enthusiasm and the same distortions and simplifications, to the extent that in the course of anti-structural criticism, the main thrust of the epistemological approach of Lévi-Strauss seems to have been lost, to the collective detriment of social sciences and anthropology.

Mots clés: Lévi-Strauss; history of anthropology; anthropological theory

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Albert Doja. The advent of heroic anthropology in the history of ideas. Journal of the History of Ideas, 2005, 66 (4), pp.633-650. ⟨10.1353/jhi.2005.0054⟩. ⟨halshs-00405957⟩