Naraindas Harish
a CSSS, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University , New Delhi , India.
Anthropol Med. 2017 Dec;24(3):276-300. doi: 10.1080/13648470.2017.1389167.
This paper suggests that what is usually called a cultural misunderstanding of biomedical disease categories may be construed as a biomedical and anthropological misunderstanding of cultural categories. This is premised on the fact that anthropology often functions as an intimate double and handmaiden of biomedicine, in so far as it refuses to countenance the possibility of theurgic aetiologies in the realm of what is called 'mental illness'. Such a refusal displaces native explanations of divine or demonic agency to human agency. This is best elucidated by examining the unexamined religious beliefs of Anglo-European anthropology, which appears to be the terra firma of its emic explanatory categories. The paper attempts to demonstrate this by proposing that while native explanations are akin to the sacraments, anthropological explanations are akin to sacramentals (holy water, the cross, the scapular, verbal blessings). While the sacraments, like divine agency, operate ex opere operato, the sacramentals are dependent on the disposition of the recipient and on the good offices of the church, as they operate ex opere operantis ecclesiae (from the work of the working church), as well as ex opere operantis (from the work of the working one). If the sacraments are efficacious as it is work done by Christ alone, and akin to work done by the possessing agent, sacramentals are efficacious as they are also dependent on human agency. In other words, anthropological explanations are, at best, 'sacramental' as they replace emic theurgic explanations by etic ones, where human agency in the form of the priest, the institution of the church, and the lay person who is the recipient of divine dispensation, also have a role to play; or, as is often the case, the only role to play.
本文认为，通常所谓的对生物医学疾病类别的文化误解，或许可被理解为生物医学与人类学对文化类别的误解。这一观点的前提是，人类学常常充当生物医学的亲密伙伴和助手，因为它拒绝承认在所谓的“精神疾病”领域存在神术病因的可能性。这种拒绝将关于神圣或恶魔作用的本土解释转移到了人类作用上。通过审视盎格鲁 - 欧洲人类学未经审视的宗教信仰，这一点能得到最好的阐释，而这种宗教信仰似乎是其主位解释范畴的坚实基础。本文试图通过提出以下观点来证明这一点：本土解释类似于圣礼，而人类学解释类似于圣事用品（圣水、十字架、圣衣、口头祝福）。圣礼如同神圣作用一样，凭圣事本身生效，而圣事用品则依赖于接受者的性情以及教会的善举，因为它们凭教会行事生效（源自工作着的教会的工作），也凭行事者生效（源自行事者的工作）。如果说圣礼因其是仅由基督完成的工作而有效，类似于附身主体所做的工作，那么圣事用品之所以有效，也是因为它们同样依赖于人类作用。换句话说，人类学解释充其量是“圣事性的”，因为它们用客位解释取代了主位神术解释，在这种解释中，以牧师、教会机构以及接受神恩的平信徒形式存在的人类作用也发挥着作用；或者，情况往往是，发挥着唯一的作用。
