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)

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The standard model available at the time for conceptualising relationships between humans and natural kinds was the L?vi-Straussian theory of totemism, that is, the idea that discontinuities between species function as a mental model for organising social segmentation among humans. However, that was patently not the case in Amazonia where the differences between humans and nonhumans are thought to be of degree, not of nature, thus echoing Radcliffe-Brown’s depiction of totemism, in which, to quote his words, ‘the natural order enters into and becomes part of the social order’2. According to him, such a conflation is possible because the relations that the Australian Aborigines establish with natural objects and phenomena are similar to those that they establish between themselves, both sets of relations being predicated on their social structures. Here, then, was a straightforward idea that seemed to account quite well for the type of phenomena encountered in Amazonia. But since sociological totemism is not very common there, and is always found combined with forms of individual relationship with animals treated as persons, I constructed a conceptual hybrid, retaining L?vi-Strauss’ theory of totemism for cases like Australia, and using Radcliffe- Brown’s theory of totemism to qualify what was in fact a non-totemic relation with natural kinds, which I christened, not very imaginatively, ‘animism’. If, according to L?vi-Strauss, totemism uses discontinuities between natural kinds in order to map social relations between humans, my Radcliffe-Brownian hypothesis was that animism uses the elementary categories shaping social practice to map relations between humans and natural objects3.

つまり、種間の不連続性が、人間の社会的分節を組織するためのメンタル・モデルとして機能するという考 え方である。ラドクリフ＝ブラウンのトーテミズムの描写は、彼の言葉を引用すれば「自然の秩序が社会秩序に入り込み、その一部となる」というものである 2。彼によれば、このような混同が可能なのは、オーストラリアのアボリジニが自然の物体や現象と築いている関係が、彼ら自身の間に築いている関係と似てい るからであり、どちらの関係も彼らの社会構造を前提としているからである。つまり、アマゾンで遭遇する現象は、この単純な考え方で十分に説明できるのであ る。しかし、そこでは社会学的トーテミズムはあまり一般的ではなく、常に、個人として扱われる動物との個人的関係の形態と組み合わされて発見されるため、 私は概念的なハイブリッドを構築した。オーストラリアのような事例では、レヴィ＝ストロースのトーテミズム理論を維持し、ラドクリフ＝ブラウンのトーテミ ズム理論を使って、実際には非トーテミズム的な自然種との関係を修飾した。レヴィ＝ストロースによれば、トーテミズムが人間同士の社会的関係を図式化する ために自然種間の不連続性を利用するのだとすれば、私のラドクリフ＝ブラウン的仮説は、アニミズムが人間と自然物との関係を図式化するために、社会的実践 を形成する初歩的カテゴリーを利用するというものであった3。

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.