Philosophical Anthropology, Crying Song of Tamils and the anthropological sensory montage
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Abstract
The guiding inspiration of this article is to explore the attraction in the distant relationship between anthropology and philosophy. How do anthropological models of inquiry contribute to philosophical questions? This study hypothesized that the ethnographic work is vital for addressing the problem of "the myth of the given" in the formulation of human beings. Thus, the article explores an essential question through ethnographic study that arose in anthropological experience among the Tamils in Malaysia. The deep immersion in fieldwork introduced the author into aluvuhira pattu, the crying song, a particular form of expression of how Tamils live in the world and how they perceive the sense of being. One discovery made by the author was the tension between anthropological experience and the philosophical argument. There is no linear tradition in philosophy, and it is not about a canonical tradition. The route to understanding our era's human condition is to take multiple trajectories, which shape a new phase of being within the realm of grounded practice
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