1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910860863403321

Autore

Skafish Peter

Titolo

Rough Metaphysics : The Speculative Thought and Mediumship of Jane Roberts

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Toronto : , : University of Minnesota Press, , 2023

©2023

ISBN

1-4529-6905-1

1-4529-6904-3

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (394 pages)

Classificazione

SOC002010PHI013000

Disciplina

133.9092

Soggetti

PHILOSOPHY / Metaphysics

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social

Psychics - United States - Psychology

Imagination (Philosophy)

Metaphysics

Channeling (Spiritualism) - Philosophy

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Ontological redistribution. Idea construction ; An experience in concepts ; Distributions and transformations ; Translating thought -- Alternatives of metaphysics. The system of aspects ; The high intellect : thought in variation.

Sommario/riassunto

"A powerful case for why anthropology should study outsiders of thought and their speculative ideas What sort of thinking is needed to study anomalies in thought? In this trenchantly argued and beautifully written book, anthropologist Peter Skafish explores this provocative question by examining the writings of the medium and "rough metaphysician" Jane Roberts (1929-1984). Through a close interpretation of her own published texts as well as those she understood herself to have dictated for her cohort of channeled personalities-including one, named "Seth," who would inspire the New Age movement, Skafish shows her intuitive and dreamlike work to be a



source of rigorously inventive ideas about science, ontology, translation, and pluralism. Arguing that Roberts's writings contain philosophies ahead of their time, he also asks: How might our understanding of speculative thinking change if we consider the way untrained writers, occult visionaries, and their counterparts in other cultural traditions undertake it? What can outsider thinkers teach us about the limitations of even our most critical intellectual habits?Rough Metaphysics is at once an ethnography of the books of a strange and yet remarkable writer, a commentary on the unlikely philosophy contained in them, and a call for a new way of doing (and undoing) philosophy through anthropology, and vice versa. In guiding the reader through Roberts's often hallucinatory "world of concepts," Skafish also develops a series of original interpretations of thinkers-from William James to Claude Levi-Strauss to Paul Feyerabend-who have been vital to anthropologists and their fellow travelers. Seductively written and surprising in its turns of thought, Rough Metaphysics is a feast for anyone who wants to learn how to think something new, especially about thought"--

"Examining the writings of the medium and "rough metaphysician" Jane Roberts (1929-1984), Skafish questions what outsider thinkers teach us about the limitations of even our most critical intellectual habits. Seductively written and surprising in its turns of thought, Rough Metaphysics calls for a new way of doing (and undoing) philosophy through anthropology, and vice versa"--