Antropologia punktów : rozważania przy tekstach Ryszarda Kapuścińskiego

Abstract

The anthropology of points. Deliberations on texts by Ryszard Kapuściński outlines a research perspective of an anthropology of points. A point is a notion orientating in an epistemological, and not subject way. By means of this key-word, one can read cultural spaces, but also “rewrite” the motives constituting texts by Kapuściński. Cultural experience and literature stand here in a mutual link so it is a research way which follows not only the question on how experience is expressed in literature, but, basically speaking, allows for thinking about what a cultural experience demanding a literary description and reportage diagnosis is. The arrangements on how the point is filled in the space of Maths, Physics or Humanities make it possible to take out the notion contours and thought style organized in a point way. However, it is only a combination of a theoretical interpretation with a textual description by Ryszard Kapuściński that allows for an exemplification of the way man’s experiences picture in the culture. A combination of thoughts with texts by Ryszard Kapuściński allows for asking the question on what point thinking is, and why it is important for man’s experience. The anthropology of point concentrates mind on the point, measures a distance from one point to another, marks special, orientating and extreme points, records density of point placement, regularity and irregularity of points, finds the points of fastening in observation and recognized figures of thoughts and man’s activities. At the same time, it provokes the questions on how to conduct a point description which matches the point matter of experience. Anthropology is an entrance into the insight of things, and, thus, it has to direct at what an already-outlined etymology of punctum indicates - something that moves one thoroughly, pierce and hurt, and has a bitter taste. The point becomes a stigma, a sign and takes on a concrete figure carved on the body. It is a bundle of relations, something that pierces one thoroughly. It is a culmination, a destination of an anthropologist journey to the ends of the world, a turn towards the other and itself, a beginning and an end, the alpha and omega. It constitutes an axis mundi, presents itself in stations, borderline pole, unimportant and stable places which give support and de-orientate, is in the places of coincidence and junction of the things, is in the immobilized and dynamic. The research optics placed in the point opens a space around man - according to a treaty of geometry and picture which make the point a perfect potential. It is sudden. The picture, though, closes because a line is already the end, a clear outline of things, whereas it just the point that opens the world. The point is a place in which life pulses. It opens itself to other points, creates networks of references and is active. It opens the world - including the orders of nature, social life and metaphysical existence. The anthropology of points explores this dynamics and allows for an interpretation of the human space via an epistemologically derived notion of point. The extraction of an anthropology of points takes place in several areas. The first of them covers the spaces of thinking around the point, which is well-examined both in the mathematical and natural sciences, in the functional usage of thinking about the point, and in the humanities. Outlined spaces of science and social organization allow for an indication of the affinity of thoughts organized by means of a point, but also allow for an establishment of point parameters and environment. The next space that underwent interpretation is a textual space in Kapuściński which serves the field of exemplification. The second field is the praxis sphere, which is an exploration of man’s experiences in culture. Esseistic considerations make use of a point exemplum derived by Kapuściński during his journey and outlined via the word and picture. An orientation determined by an epistemologically- derived point leads to an interpretation of the following thematic motives placed in notes by Kapuściński: intimity, submission to strangeness, distance, cultural body, silence, place, closeness to the rhythm, suspected whole, micrology charm and apocalypsis.