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)
15
As ontologies, animism and totemism evidence contrasting formal features. In animic systems, the continuity of relations between humans and nonhumans that is allowed by their common interiority overrides the discontinuity introduced by their physical difference. This explains the relational nature of animic cosmologies and the fact that the identities of human and non-human persons are defined by the positions they occupy in relation to one another. By contrast, Australian totemism is a symmetrical structure characterized by a twofold identity internal to each class of beings ? ontological identity of the human and non-human components of the class by virtue of their sharing elements of interiority and physicality, and identity of the relations between them, whether of origin, affiliation, similarity or inherence to the class. Totemism thus places on an equal footing interdependent terms and relations, a motive for puzzlement among anthropologists, and the reason why they have interpreted the phenomenon by favouring either the identity of terms ? in the case of Frazer and Levy-Bruhl, for instance ? or the homology of relations, as Boas or L?vi-Strauss did.
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.
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