At the Bounds of Anthropology and Philosophy

Anthropologists regularly dismiss the question « Who am I ? », a key one for many philosophers, as being too « particular » and prefer, instead, the notion of « personhood », which they try to construe out of material drawn from their fieldwork. As a question, « Who am I ? » has its own momentum that can move beyond any answer and, therefore, beyond the bounds of anthropology. An Ethiopian Christian scholar (and expert in esoteric practices) reached the point of bringing under question his own questioning of the essential nature of dreams and their origins. Thus losing the immediate certitude of having a hold on the world, his remarks on the question « Who am I ? » have a twofold interest as a by-product of this questioning and as statements about the dreaming, which is ordinarily excluded from the state of being awake. From one rebound to the next, this philosopher’s thoughts, while presenting his world-view, lead from his current preoccupations to his original experience of dreams and to the identity that he correlatively constructed without ever finding a resting place however. He thus presents us with the paradox of rooting philosophy in dreaming.