Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“This is the hypothetical scene on which human language originated and on which human language continues to be used. The scene of representation is that place in which a hypothesized generative set of circumstances produced the event of originary signification. Generative anthropology proposes that human beings are best understood not as grammatical subjects of propositional truth alone, afloat in a metaphysical universe of context-free falsifiable claims, but rather as anthropological entities acting in a historically identifiable scenic context, aware of each other and aware of central objects of desire and resentment and aware of the signs they are using. For generative anthropology, human culture is one, and culture is scenic. (4) Why “minimal” anthropology, as we frequently hear the adjective repeated–whence the obsession with minimal thinking? The originary hypothesis describes in minimal terms the set of circumstances (again, the event) that generated human beings from our animal ancestry as those which led to the abortive gesture of appropriation which came to be remembered as the first human sign. Its pursuit of minimality reflects its adherence to the scientific principle that “mysteries should not be multiplied beyond necessity” (OL 1). If the human is one, it is now as it was then.”

— Eric Gans, Three Affirmations of the Being of God Suggested by the Anthropological Idea of God · Fall 2007 · Anthropoetics