No question seems more intensely bound up with the search for the ultimate meaning and significance of existence than the question of man. In the rush of daily life people are inclined to by-pass the question — until illness or accident befalls them or the suffering of others becomes inescapable fact. It is not without reason that the question of man, of who he is, arises in situations where, i...

PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY VOL. 154, NO. 1, MARCH 2010 1 Read 25 April 2008, as part of the symposium “Cultural Subjects and Objects: The Legacy of Franz Boas and Its Futures in Anthropology, Academe, and Human Rights.” Much of this essay will appear as a chapter in the author’s Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture (Duke University Press). The Cult of Franz Boa...