On the Concepts of Time, Space and Causality among the Araucanians, or: Why Should We Remember Juan Benigar?

Abstract

Juan (Ivan, Janez) Benigar, antropolog/etnolog, filolog, teozof, filozof in »politični aktivist«, je med letoma 1922 in 1925 napisal tri razprave, ki veljajo za jedro Benigarjevega etnološkega dela: o času, prostoru in vzročnosti med Aravkanci. Z njimi se je zelo približal Lévi-Straussovemu konceptu »divje misli«, a mu dispozitiv vednosti (epistemološki okvir) časa ni omogočal izostrene teoretske formulacije. Članek med drugim skuša predstaviti prevečkrat zanemarjen politični angažma Juana Benigarja in postaviti raziskave o njem onstran nacionalnega diskurza. Sklepna teza članka je, da si je treba Benigarja zapomniti predvsem kot človeka (ontološko) in kot kritičnega (angažiranega) intelektualca (teoretsko oziroma profesionalno).

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Juan Benigar, an anthropologist/ethnologist, philologist, theosophist, philosopher and “political activist” wrote three essays: on time, space and causality among the Araucanians between the years 1922 and 1925. In his essays Benigar approached Levi-Strauss’s concept of the “savage mind”. It was the dispositif (apparatus) of knowledge of his time (the epistemological framework) that prevented him to conceptualise it. The article tries also to stress the somehow forgotten “political engagement” of Juan Benigar and to conceptualise this scientist beyond national discourse. The final horizon of this article is that we should remember Benigar as a human being (ontologically speaking) and as a critical (socially engaged) intellectual (theoretically and professionally speaking).