This week's column is the first in a projected series of exchanges on the subject of Generative Anthropology . Our purpose is to clarify the fundamental ideas involved, so your feedback will be particularly valuable. In order to contextualize our remarks, and to get our conversation going, let me summarize the main points of generative anthropology before addressing some more specific questions.
Generative anthropology is committed to a foundational and unified conception of the human.
When we observe the humanities today, it indeed seems remarkable that in an area of knowledge devoted to a particular subject, in this case the human, there should be so little dialogue about what exactly that means. The fact that we can think, and more specifically, speak together on this issue suggests that preceding all division within humanity itself there must be some underlying unity that gives us the capacity to engage in conversation with one another. This is in fact where we propose to begin, that is, with language. This is in fact the form our hypothesis will take. The threshold of the human must begin with the threshold of language because it is only in language that the question of being human could arise.