Every year, leading social anthropologists meet to debate a motion at the heart of current theoretical developments in their subject. This volume includes the first six of these debates, spanning the period from 1988 to 1993. Each debate has four principal speakers: one to propose the motion, another to oppose it, and two seconders. The first debate addresses the disciplinary character of social anthropology - can it be regarded as a science, and if so, is it able to establish general propositions about human culture and social life? The second examines the concept of society; in the third debate the spotlight is turned on the role of culture in people's perception of their environments; while the fourth debate focuses on the place of language in the formation of culture. The fifth takes up the question of how we view the past in relation to the present; and finally, in the sixth debate, the concern is with the cross-cultural applicability of the concept of aesthetics. With its debate format, this collection addresses issues that are at the top of the theoretical agenda, and which register the pulse of contemporary thinking in social anthropology.