Concepts and Persons

Michael Lambek

Published by University of Toronto Press 2021

Concepts and Persons

Michael Lambek

https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487539597

Overview
Contents

About this book

Documenting Michael Lambek’s Tanner Lecture, Concepts and Persons is an accessible and engaging reflection on ethical life and thought.

Author / Editor information

Lambek Michael :

Michael Lambek is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He held a Canada Research Chair in the Anthropology of Ethical Life from 2006 to 2020 and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2000.

Reviews

Andrew Shryock, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan:

"Lambek is at home in the odd spaces between anthropology and philosophy, where concepts are personified and people are conceptualized. The metapersons that flourish there – demons, ghosts, gods, and ancestors – are far more than works of the imagination. They are evidence of how humans solve existential problems and why we make such fascinating, invaluable mistakes along the way. Lambek's reflections, and the commentaries that follow, offer a remarkable glimpse of what anthropology and philosophy, artfully combined, can accomplish."

Philippe Descola, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, Collège de France :

"With his characteristic perceptiveness and broad learning, Michael Lambek explores the building of moral dilemma, the dynamism of ambiguity, and the embodiment of concepts into persons as well as the transformation of persons into concepts. In tight conversation with a trio of insightful commentators, he provides a remarkably original contribution to the age-old philosophical question of how best to conduct one’s life."

Sandra Laugier, Professor of Philosophy, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne:

"Michael Lambek has long been recognized in anthropology for his groundbreaking work on ordinary ethics, which has helped shape current directions in the field. But in the essay, exchanges, and encounters gathered in Concepts and Persons, his thinking obtains a new and powerful philosophical dimension. By reinterpreting ‘the difficulty of philosophy,’ Lambek challenges us to reconsider, in new terms, what it is to live a life."

Marilyn Strathern, Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge:

"Michael Lambek’s multifaceted inquiry condenses a wide field of learning into a question about the company people keep: a personal encounter and the conceptual problems it generates create a beautifully polished point of reflection. Light refracted through this prism is scattered and returned through three scintillating commentaries."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Foreword Elizabeth Anderson Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface and Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Concepts and Persons: The Tanner Lecture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
COMMENTARIES
Another Description: Serious Games Sherry B. Ortner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
On Games: A Response to Sherry B. Ortner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
Brief Encounter Jonathan Lear Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
Premature Interpretation and the Difficulty of Anthropology: A Response to Jonathan Lear Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
Concepts and Values, Anthropology and Judgment Joel Robbins Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
Mistakes of Grammar and Anthropological Judgment: A Response to Joel Robbins Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
Concluding Remarks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	127
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
Commentators Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151

Language: English
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Audience: College/higher education;Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 176
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 1
- Other: 1 b&w illustration
Keywords: anthropology; philosophy; Tanner Lectures; The Tanner Lectures; human condition; interest; behaviour; aspiration; ethnography

eBook

Published: November 1, 2021
ISBN: 9781487539597