• The very general question: How is one to know ("logos") people ("anthropos")
  • Ibn khaldun
  • Montaigne
  • (Descartes)
  • Boas
• The anthropological response (from Tylor and Morgan onward)
  • through comparison
• The problem: what are we going to compare:
  • US/THEM
• THEM/THEM/THEM/...(& US AS THEM)
  • What have we learned that achieves Boas' program and has now revealed a host of problems with this program
• and now, a century later : and what are the frontiers we now need to explore
• comparing processes of production to reveal general possibilities, constraints and, perhaps, limits