Classical moral paradigms and the meaning of kinship: A philosophical examination

Abstract

My aim in this essay is to explore the cul? tural meaning of kinship. I shall argue that kinship can be more adequately understood as a mode of commonality having crucial affini? ties to both friendship and political partner? ship than as a kind of socially recognized biological connection. From this former vantage point kinship appears governed less by a solidary norm, than by what I shall term an "exemplarist" norm which imbues all three forms of commonality. In a subsequent essay I shall try to explain the dual root of the conventional Durkheimian and anthro? pological view of normative solidarism. This root is ultimately Socratic philosophical re? volt against Athenian political culture and the subsequent Epicurean and Stoic percep? tion of the fundamentally adaptive character of human association to the limitations of human agency. I believe the emergence of the philosophical project led to the dissocia? tion within theoretical discourse of the house? hold from wider kin formations and other modes of commonality resulting, in turn, in a "familiocentric" bias in kinship study. But before pursuing questions of origins, it is necessary to explicate further the nature of the orthodox position regarding kin norms and relations in anthropology. While I hope