Beyond Nature and Culture

Philippe Descola

（日本語解説版：一部の欧文文字が文字化けしています）

Radcliffe-Brown Lecture in Social Anthropology, 2005 (Proceedings of the British Academy 139, pp.137-155, 2006)

1

An anthropological textbook recently published in Cambridge states that ‘hardly anyone in social anthropology today claims to be a follower of Radcliffe-Brown’1. It would be hypocritical for a French anthropologist with a structuralist inclination to challenge this kind of opinion, seemingly quite common in the very country of birth of the great scholar whose name this lecture is honouring. On the other hand, the present circumstance affords me perhaps the only appropriate opportunity for confessing that there is at least an aspect of Radcliffe-Brown’s work which I found quite stimulating, although it lead me astray for a while. Radcliffe-Brown’s sociological theory of totemism inspired me some years ago when I was trying to make sense of the peculiar treatment of animals by Amazonian Indians: although actively hunted for food, or feared as predators, animals are nevertheless considered as persons with whom humans can, indeed should, interact according to social rules.

ケンブリッジで最近出版された人類学の教科書には、「今日の社会人類学でラドクリフ＝ブラウンの信奉者 だと主張する者はほとんどいない」と書かれている1。構造主義に傾倒するフランスの人類学者が、このような意見に異議を唱えるのは偽善的であろう。この意 見は、本講演でその名を称える偉大な学者の生まれた国ではごく普通のことのようだ。その一方で、ラドクリフ＝ブラウンの仕事には、しばらくの間私を迷わせ たものの、少なくとも私が非常に刺激的だと感じた側面があることを告白するには、この状況がおそらく唯一の適切な機会を与えてくれるだろう。ラドクリフ＝ ブラウンのトーテミズムの社会学的理論に触発されたのは、数年前、アマゾンのインディアンの動物に対する特異な扱いを理解しようとしていたときだった。

1 A. Barnard, History and Theory in Anthropology (Cambridge, CUP, 2000), p.73.

2 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society; essays and addresses (London, Cohen & West, 1952), p. 130.

3 Ph. Descola, ‘Societies of nature and the nature of society’, in A. Kuper (ed.) Conceptualizing Society (London, Routledge, 1992), pp. 107-126, and ‘Constructing natures: Symbolic ecology and social practice’, in Ph. Descola and G. P?lsson (eds.), Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives (London, Routledge, 1996), pp. 82-102.

4 For instance, T. Ingold, The Perception of the Environment. Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill (London, Routledge, 2000) and E. Viveiros de Castro, ‘Os pronomes cosmol?gicos e o perspectivismo amer?ndio’, Mana 2 (2) (1996), pp. 115-144.

5 C. L?vi-Strauss, La pens?e sauvage (Paris, Plon, 1962), pp. 154-155, my translation.

6 True, some non-human species also ascribe properties (at least relational and behavioural features) to humans and other non-humans; but before they can be included in a general theory of ontologies, a lot of ground remains to be covered.

7 I am very grateful to Tim Ingold and Peter Marshall for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of the lecture and for their suggestions of stylistic amendments.

8 E. Husserl, Erste Philosophie (1923-1924) II, Theorie der ph?nomenologischen Reduktion (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1959), pp. 61-64.

9 P. Bloom, Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human (New York, Basic Books, 2004).

10 E. Viveiros de Castro, ‘Os pronomes cosmol?gicos’, p. 117.

11 J. von Uexku?ll, Streifzu?ge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen ? Bedeutungslehre (Hamburg, Rowohlt Verlag, 1956).

12 E. Viveiros de Castro, 'Os pronomes cosmol?gicos', p. 117 (my translation).

13 Ibid., p. 122.

14 W. B. Spencer et F. J. Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Australia (London, Macmillan & Co, 1899), p. 202.

15 C. G. von Brandenstein, Names and Substance of the Australian Subsection System (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 54.

16 C. G. von Brandenstein, ‘Aboriginal Ecological Order in the South-West of Australia - Meanings and Examples’, Oceania XLVII (3) (1977), pp. 170-186.

17 M. Granet, La pens?e chinoise (Paris, Albin Michel, 1968 (1934)), p. 297.

18 A point which Viveiros de Castro was the first to make, ‘Os pronomes cosmol?gicos’, p. 129.

19 B. Latour, Nous n’avons jamais ?t? modernes. Essai d’anthropologie sym?trique (Paris, La D?couverte, 1991).

20 K. Århem, ‘The Cosmic Food Web: human-nature relatedness in the Northwest Amazon’, in Ph. Descola and G. P?lsson (eds.), Nature and Society, pp. 185-204.

21 A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, ‘On social structure’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 70 (1940), pp. 1-12, republished in Structure and Function, p. 190.

22 M. Merleau-Ponty, L’Oeil et l’Esprit (Paris, Gallimard, 1964), p. 13.