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Beyond Nature and Culture, by Philippe Descola
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Philippe Descola has become one of the most important anthropologists working today, and Beyond Nature and Culture has been a major influence in European intellectual life since its French publication in 2005. Here, finally, it is brought to English-language readers. At its heart is a question central to both anthropology and philosophy: what is the relationship between nature and culture?
Culture—as a collective human making, of art, language, and so forth—is often seen as essentially different from nature, which is portrayed as a collective of the nonhuman world, of plants, animals, geology, and natural forces. Descola shows this essential difference to be, however, not only a specifically Western notion, but also a very recent one. Drawing on ethnographic examples from around the world and theoretical understandings from cognitive science, structural analysis, and phenomenology, he formulates a sophisticated new framework, the “four ontologies”— animism, totemism, naturalism, and analogism—to account for all the ways we relate ourselves to nature. By thinking beyond nature and culture as a simple dichotomy, Descola offers nothing short of a fundamental reformulation by which anthropologists and philosophers can see the world afresh.
- Sales Rank: #383432 in Books
- Published on: 2014-10-22
- Released on: 2013-06-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.30" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 488 pages
Review
“At the heart of the book is a compelling and original account of where the nature-culture binary has come from, where it might go—and what we might imagine in its place.”
(Des Fitzgerald Somatosphere)
“Descola’s challenging new worldview should be of special interest to a wide range of scientific and academic disciplines from anthropology to zoology. . . . Highly recommended.”
(L. E. Sponsel Choice)
“Few books have the merit to counter the established way of thinking by reformulating great questions on a new basis. . . . it is nevertheless what Descola’s book achieves. . . . an important book which will be received passionately.” (Le Monde, on the French edition)
“This is without doubt the most important book coming from French anthropology since Claude L�vi-Strauss’s Anthropologie Structurale. This time, however, the contested notion of structure is put to use to deeply modify the limits of anthropology itself, since it is the very notion of nature that is being shifted from an indisputable resource to a highly local and historical topic of inquiry. Philippe Descola’s ample and classic prose—remarkably captured by the translator Janet Lloyd—manages to revisit simultaneously all the major concepts of the discipline while reinterpreting a bewildering amount of ethnographic knowledge. At the time of the Anthropocene, it is crucial that this masterpiece be read by all those who are looking for a successor to nature and to culture.” (Bruno Latour, author of An Inquiry into Modes of Existence)
“Thanks to its richness and its broad scope, this book gives to anthropological reflection a new starting point and will become the compulsory reference for all our debates in the years to come.” (Claude L�vi-Strauss, on the French edition)
About the Author
Philippe Descola holds the chair of anthropology and heads the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Sociale at the Coll�ge de France. He also teaches at the �cole des hautes �tudes en sciences sociales. Among his previous books to appear in English are In the Society of Nature and The Spears of Twilight. Janet Lloyd has translated more than seventy books from the French by authors such as Jean-Pierre Vernant, Marcel Detienne, and Philippe Descola. Marshall Sahlins is the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. A member of the British Academy, he is the author of many books, including Culture and Practical Reason, How “Natives” Think, Islands of History, Apologies to Thucydides, and What Kinship Is—And Is Not, all published by the University of Chicago Press.
Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
After anthropocentrism, what?
By Boria Sax
A consensus seems to be emerging among people in many fields from ecology to philosophy that dominance of anthropocentrism in Western culture is approaching an end, but remarkably few people have seriously tried to envision what this change would entail. Some people expect to continue essentially as before, perhaps with a few reforms. Others speak of the change very dramatically, while giving almost no specifics, a bit as people used to imagine the Communist utopia. Still others are panicked by the prospect and describe it entirely in terms of negatives, for example a decline in human rights. All of these approaches impress me as not only lazy but unnecessary. Certainly, we cannot predict what society will be like after the decline of anthropocentrism in any detail, but disciplines such as anthropology, history and folklore give us sufficient tools to at least envisage, in fairly clear terms, some of the possibilities. Descola in Beyond Nature and Culture has, so far as I can tell, done more than anybody else in exploring models for what life after anthropocentrism would be like. According to him, anthropocentrism, found only in the modern Occident, is only one of four basic ontologies, with which people have tried to understand the world. The others are animism (indigenous cultures of Africa and most of the Americas), totemism (Australian aborigines), and analogism (China, the Renaissance in the West, plus enclaves among indigenous peoples in Mexico, West-Central Africa, and Siberia). These other three ontologies have also survived in enclaves within Western culture, and we may expect one or more of them to increase in prominence over the decades and centuries to come.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Review of Beyond Nature and Culture
By Trevor Neal
When I first bought, 'Beyond Nature and Culture,' I thought the purpose of this book was to transform the western worldview. Mr. Descola does do that to a certain extent. However, his main intent is to offer a challenge to the anthropology discipline, and how it portrays the other.
Written for an academic audience, and influenced by the structural theories of Levi Strauss, 'Beyond Nature and Culture,' decries the dichotomizing tendencies of portraying the other that is characteristic of traditional anthropology, takes issue with some of the relativistic tendencies that are currently in vogue, and at the same time pokes at the anthropocentric biases of naturalism, the foundation influencing the anthropology discipline. Obviously, he has a lot on his plate and his challenge is to synthesize these themes. In a broad ethnological sweep of the worlds cultures, Descola seeks to achieve this lofty goal by revising anthropological notions on how humans schematize their experience in different ways; concentrating on the structural differences between the worldviews of animism, totemism, analogism, and naturalism.
Although Mr. Descola does allow for local differences, he attempts to classify the world's cultural belief systems into these four types of worldview, with animism and naturalism at the opposite sides of the spectrum and totemism and analogism falling in between these two polar opposite ways of viewing the world.
Traditionally, much of the world tended to hold animist, analogist, and totemistic worldviews. It was only with the rise of naturalism that the occident was provided with a unique perspective for viewing the world. The occident had for the most part held an analogist worldview before naturalism.
Every culture is ethnocentric to a certain extent. However, naturalism provides for a peculiar form of ethnocentrism, for it is the occidental west that is really the exotic other, and this is Mr. Descola's first point, the rest of the worlds cultures follow consistent patterns. Therefore, who are we to judge how other cultures view the world?
Summarizing these patterns of relating, animist worldviews believe that spirit is immanent in all things. Therefore all things are treated as subjects, along the lines of the I and Thou existentialist philosophy of Martin Buber. According to the animist perspective everything should be honored as having some form of interiority, intent, and subjective consciousness. Indeed, animist belief systems hold the view that animals see themselves as fellow humans, as brothers and sisters who give their bodies as gifts for humans to consume. Thus, although animists allow for physical differences between the flora and fauna of the world, there is no difference in spirit.
The naturalist perspective in contrast inverts this perspective, holding that at the most basic fundamental level everything is guided by the same natural laws and is constituted of the same physical and chemical elements, yet only humans have the gift of subjectivism, interiority, and intent. Naturalism does allow for higher order animals to display some intent, but humans are at the apex of consciousness in naturalism and again it is these anthropocentric tendencies within naturalism that Descola takes issue with; demonstrating that this anthropocentric bias has clouded anthropolgy's views of other cultures through theories of cultural change such as cultural evolutionism, for example.
I admit I did not follow Descolas logic on totemism and analogism as much as his perspectives on animism, however I will still attempt to summarize. The aborigines of Australia are given as the classic example of Totemism. Members of a Totemic group have physical and spiritual connections to one another, i.e. Kinship, etc. This is why certain animals are considered the group emblem, and why there may be taboos against eating that particular animal. For instance, members of the eel clan may not be able to eat that eel. Mr. Descola's point is that in totemic systems difference is segmented across totemic lines. Members of the bear clan and the eel clan do not share external ties. The ties are internal to each totemic group. Members of each group perceive members of another group as an objective other, whereas internally members of the same group are treated as sharing a similar subjectivity.
Analogism gives rise to the hierarchical modes of perceiving the world that is intrinsic to naturalism. Most of the world's contemporary major religions can be placed within the analogy category of relating to the world. For instance, the chain of being of Christianity, and the yin and yang of Taoism are examples of a way of relating to the world that demonstrates analogical thought. Alchemy, the idea of the four humours that guided traditional western medicine, and the notion that the microcosm is a manifestation of the macrocosm are also examples of analogical thought. In analogical thought everything is made up of similar physical and spiritual elements that is constituted differently according to the particular mode of being that that particular entity expresses. Grossly oversimplifying, an example would be a turtle manifesting more yang properties and a fish manifesting more yin properties. Mr. Descola's point is that in analogical thought there is gradual discontinuity and progressive differentiation of the world's entities.
Out of the necessity of summary I have oversimplified and been somewhat reductionistic with the thoughts of Descola. Readers should also keep in mind that they are reading Descola through my lens and any of their evaluation of Descola should begin after they have read his book, and not based merely on my comments. However, in his book Descola has consistently decried the reductionistic tendencies of traditional anthropology, and if there is a critique of him it is here. Admittedly, it is difficult to give this sermon since I have more or less done the same thing with his book. However, reducing all of the ways in which the world's cultures express their beliefs into four categories does not really progress much on the dichotomizing tendencies of naturalism that Mr. Descola has condemned. For the sake of generality, any systemic perspective is going to display reductionistic tendencies. Cultures are merely models of being, believing, and acting. Within any culture there is a plurality of perspectives. In a study of culture all we can expect to achieve is demonstrate that there is a modal way of being in relationship with the world while honoring the differences that exist within that system. The same must be said with any attempt to categorize the world's diverse cultures. Still, despite their imperfections models have their use as long as we keep in mind that the model expresses tendencies and not stereotypes.
Mr. Descola does weave his initial themes together and provides the reader with a model for the many ways of relating to and viewing the world. However along the way he may sacrifice the deconstructionist trends of relativism. Still, in spite of the critiques, this book is a must read for anyone interested in worldviews.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Fascinating New Framework
By A'eorryn
Through structural analysis and ethnographic examples, Descola offers a well thought-out method of apprehending the various perspectives held by diverse collectives of peoples across the globe regarding the form and function of the relationship between nature and culture. Moving beyond the West's assumption of a universal dualist understanding to provide this new approach, this book should be regarded as an invaluable and essential contribution to the field of anthropology.
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