Professional paper

René Girard’s Fundamental Anthropology

Antun Pavešković ; Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute for the History of Croatian Literature, Theater and Music, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

As a social science cultural anthropology shares the problems of all preparadigmatic sciences. Cultural anthropology
textbooks primarily aim to overcome the traditional division to natural and social sciences, and they see anthropology as
an ideal space for uniting the two. However, this aspiration does not remove doubts about the subject and methods of
cultural anthropology. René Girard, a French-American theoretician, tried to solve the aporias of the science about man
by deliberating on the origin of man and his culture. For that purpose, he created so-called fundamental anthropology,
whose basic theoretic idea is the mimeticity of a human being resulting by violence. By repressing the true nature of the
so-called founding murder, and by its ritualization, a man defers his violence and creates culture. Girard's inspiring
theory, though widely accepted, is still not completely recognized among professional anthropologists. However, all prerequisites
for that have been created, and this short review endeavors to provide evidence for that.

Keywords

anthropology; science; culture; mimetic; violence; ritual; religion

Hrčak ID:

200353

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/200353

Publication date:

6.10.2017.

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