Skip to main content

Anthropology as a method for ontology

Roy Wagner has that anthropology is philosophy with people inside. In a similar vein, Viveiros de Castro talks about compared ontography and Latour wished to provide an inventory of the modes of existence (AIME, conclusion of part 2) for the purpose of compared anthropology and diplomatic negotiations. In my couse on Latour’s AIME we were discussing what was the best way to capture his ontology-anthropology amphibious approach. (Entitling the book An Investigation into Modes of Existence – An anthropology of the moderns” already gives an idea of the juggling he believes to be required to his endeavour.) I guess his take (together with Descola and Viveiros and maybe, to some extent, with Lévi-Strauss when he talks about the importance of native philosophy towards the end of his life) is that anthropology informs ontology. The thoughts and manners of other collectives make us look for ways to carve up the world so that we can make sense of their beliefs in a way that do justice to them instead of creating obnoxious conflicts. This is why naturalism (in Descola’s sense) is called into question and we are forced to re-examine the assumption that what is natural is not multiple – that there is only one nature, mirrored by us or not, accessible to us or not. On the other hand, it is a kind of naturalism (in the sense of naturalizing metaphysics) as it makes use of an empirical science becoming therefore informed by experience. The question then arises as to whether it is a genuine naturalized method in metaphysics – in the sense of making their judgments a posteriori.

Perhaps relevant to this question is that such a Latourian strategy is also somehow akin to the method of truth in metaphysics that was more insinuated than championed by Davidson (see the homonymous paper in his collected papers, vol 2). Davidson's idea was that one should maximize truths. In fact, he saw close connections between truth and interpretation and was concerned with radical situations as described by Quine (with no common language, no etymological similarities etc). But his was a method of using our home ontology (our descriptive metaphysics) to make the most of the languages of other collectives. His making the most was thought in terms of charity and for him other languages were crucially privileged in the act of interpretation because beliefs were conceived as structurally predicative. It was important, for Davidson, that there is no interpretation if there are beliefs that are outside our conceptual scheme for there could be no other. Now, Latour's method is indeed one of maximizing truth but only to the extent that relativity is true. For him, our home conceptual scheme maybe can find no other, but maybe it is only the tip of a large iceberg (where we place our conceptions of nature, of existence - and its modes -, of subjectivity, of our non-human collectives etc.). It is in the larger iceberg beyond the tip that the method of anthropology works in our ontology. It is revisionary metaphysics, indeed, but yet it is done through describing other people's metaphysics. Then again, are the judgments of such a metaphysics a posteriori?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hunky, Gunky and Junky - all Funky Metaphysics

Been reading Bohn's recent papers on the possibility of junky worlds (and therefore of hunky worlds as hunky worlds are those that are gunky and junky - quite funky, as I said in the other post). He cites Whitehead (process philosophy tends to go hunky) but also Leibniz in his company - he wouldn't take up gunk as he believed in monads but would accept junky worlds (where everything that exists is a part of something). Bohn quotes Leibniz in On Nature Itself «For, although there are atoms of substance, namely monads, which lack parts, there are no atoms of bulk, that is, atoms of the least possible extension, nor are there any ultimate elements, since a continuum cannot be composed out of points. In just the same way, there is nothing greatest in bulk nor infinite in extension, even if there is always something bigger than anything else, though there is a being greatest in the intensity of its perfection, that is, a being infinite in power.» And New Essays: ... for there is nev

Talk on ultrametaphysics

 This is the text of my seminar on ultrametaphysics on Friday here in Albuquerque. An attempt at a history of ultrametaphysics in five chapters Hilan Bensusan I begin with some of the words in the title. First, ‘ultrametaphysics’, then ‘history’ and ‘chapters’. ‘Ultrametaphysics’, which I discovered that in my mouth could sound like ‘ autre metaphysics’, intends to address what comes after metaphysics assuming that metaphysics is an endeavor – or an epoch, or a project, or an activity – that reaches an end, perhaps because it is consolidated, perhaps because it has reached its own limits, perhaps because it is accomplished, perhaps because it is misconceived. In this sense, other names could apply, first of all, ‘meta-metaphysics’ – that alludes to metaphysics coming after physics, the books of Aristotle that came after Physics , or the task that follows the attention to φύσις, or still what can be reached only if the nature of things is considered. ‘Meta-m

Memory assemblages

My talk here at Burque last winter I want to start by thanking you all and acknowledging the department of philosophy, the University of New Mexico and this land, as a visitor coming from the south of the border and from the land of many Macroje peoples who themselves live in a way that is constantly informed by memory, immortality and their ancestors, I strive to learn more about the Tiwas, the Sandia peoples and other indigenous communities of the area. I keep finding myself trying to find their marks around – and they seem quite well hidden. For reasons to do with this very talk, I welcome the gesture of directing our thoughts to the land where we are; both as an indication of our situated character and as an archive of the past which carries a proliferation of promises for the future. In this talk, I will try to elaborate and recommend the idea of memory assemblage, a central notion in my current project around specters and addition. I begin by saying that I