The Metaphysics Of Apes Negotiating The Animalhuman Boundary Raymond Corbey by Raymond Corbey 9780521545334, 9780521836838, 0521545331, 0521836832 instant download after payment.

The Metaphysics of Apes, first published in 2005, traces the discovery
and interpretation of the human-like great apes and the ape-like
earliest ancestors of present-day humans. It shows how, from the days of
Linnaeus to recent research, the sacred and taboo-ridden animal-human
boundary was time and again challenged and adjusted. The unique dignity
of humans, a central idea and value in the West, was, and to some extent
still is, centrally on the minds of taxonomists, ethnologists,
primatologists, and archaeologists. It has guided their research to a
considerable extent. The basic presupposition was that humans are not
entirely part of nature but, as symbolizing minds and as moral persons,
transcend nature. This book was the first to offer an anthropological
analysis of the burgeoning anthropological disciplines in terms of their
own cultural taboos and philosophical preconceptions.