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The essays contained in Beyond the Juxtaposition of Nature and Culture represent an attempt by scholars from Canada, Germany, and Mexico to come to grips with the innovative work of the American philosopher and anthropologist Lawrence Krader who has proposed nothing less than a new theory of nature, according to which there are at least three different orders—the material-biotic, the quantum, and the human—which differ from one another according to their different configurations of space-time, and which cannot be reduced the one to the others. Each author takes up Krader’s theory in relation to its impact on their own discipline: sociology, anthropology, the study of myth, the theory of labor and value, economics, linguistics, and aesthetics. The question of how nature and culture can be integrated within a theoretical framework which links them in difference and nexus and allows each their non-reductive space leads each of the contributors to move in their thinking beyond the old dualisms of materialism and idealism, fact and value, nature and culture.

This posthumously published work by Lawrence Krader surveys the study of myths from ancient times (in classical Greece and Rome, Egypt, Babylon, Akkad, Sumer, China), in the Biblical traditions, of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, and from Northeastern and Central Asia. It also covers the various approaches to the study of myth in Europe in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and the Romantic movement in the late eighteenth and early to mid-nineteenth century; it discusses evolutionist, structuralist, hermeneutic, and linguistic approaches. The book covers on the one hand the treatment of myth from the inside, that is from the experience of those committed to the myth, and on the other the perspective of those ethnologists, philosophers and other students of myth who are outsiders. Krader takes up the theme of esoteric and exoteric myths as he rejects some of the assumptions and approaches to the study of myth from the past while singling out others for approval and inclusion in his general theory of myth. The book includes a discussion of myth in science and in infinitesimal mathematics. It also considers the relationship between myth and ideology in the twentieth century in relation to politics and power. It both incorporates and broadens Krader’s theory of nature as a manifold consisting of different orders of space-time which he developed in his magnum opus Noetics: The Science of Thinking and Knowing.

Lawrence Krader (1919-1998) was an American philosopher and anthropologist. His extensive writings addressed a wide range of subjects in the fields of history, ethnology, philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, and political economy. Much of his work remained unpublished at the time of his death. This book contains excerpts from Krader’s unpublished manuscripts held at McMaster University. These include writings on the peoples of Central and Northeast Asia, the persona in Western thought, the beginnings of capitalism in Central Europe, myth and ideology, noetics and the theory of nature, linguistics and semantics, as well as assessments of Marx’s theory of value, considerations of the Russian Revolution and a critical view of Leninism. The book also provides readers with a biographical overview of Krader’s intellectual development and his involvement with leading intellectuals – including Meyer Schapiro, Karl Korsch, Isaiah Berlin, Karl August Wittfogel, Roman Jakobson, Alfred Tarski, Morris R. Cohen, and Rudolf Carnap – in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s.This book will appeal to anyone interested in Lawrence Krader’s life, work, influence, and legacy.

Dive into the pioneering work of Lawrence Krader (1919–1998), the trailblazing American ethnologist and philosopher, who challenged conventional linguistics with unparalleled fervor. This edited volume unveils Krader’s unpublished manuscripts and essays in linguistics and semantics, where he critiques innate language theories, universal grammar, and biolinguistics championed by Chomsky and others. Krader’s comparative exploration of human language and animal communication illuminates the intricacies of the human use of symbols and intentionality. He highlights the uniqueness of speech by contrasting the dynamic duality of social interactions with mechanistic computerized languages and artificial intelligence. Finally, Krader presents captivating etymological and semantic interpretations of famed works by Shakespeare and Goethe that emphasize the creativity and inventive nature of the human mind in meaning-making.This volume will appeal to all those interested in Lawrence Krader’s life and work, as well as researchers and students working on linguistics and semantics.

Dieser Sammelband ist aus einer Ringvorlesung hervorgegangen, die unter dem gleichen Titel im Wintersemester 2007/08 am Institut für Kulturwissenschaften der Universität Leipzig stattfand. Da diese Vorlesungsreihe sowohl aus einem bes- deren Anlass ins Leben gerufen als auch in einer besonderen Form verwirklicht wurde, sollen nun einige Worte dazu am Anfang dieses Buches stehen. Die Vorlesungsreihe entstand anlässlich einer einschneidenden Kürzungsm- nahme der Universität Leipzig: Im Wintersemester 2007/08 war die Stelle für Äst- tik am Institut für Kulturwissenschaften in Leipzig mit der Pensionierung von Prof. Dr. Uta Kösser endgültig gestrichen worden. Und dies ohne jede inhaltliche - gründung. Ausschließlich pragmatische Hochschulpolitik war es, die hier von nun an den Studierenden das Studium eines Teils ihrer gewählten Studienrichtung - möglich machte. Um dieses „Ende der Ästhetik“ in Leipzig nicht einfach unk- mentiert hinzunehmen und außerdem die Ästhetik und ihre Vielfalt noch ein letztes Mal in Leipzig zu präsentieren, wurde daraufhin von Studierenden der Plan gefasst, eine Ringvorlesung zu organisieren. Die Vorlesung sollte einerseits viele der m- lichen Perspektiven innerhalb der Ästhetik aufzeigen und damit den Studierenden nochmals sozusagen in geballter Form die Möglichkeit geben, sich in dieser Dis- plin zu orientieren und sich mit unterschiedlichen Positionen der Ästhetik ause- anderzusetzen. Andererseits sollte damit der große Verlust, den diese Streichung und Wegrationalisierung tatsächlich bedeutet, herausgestellt und kritisiert w- den.