Book Reviews

Perspectives from Gene Anderson’s Bookshelf

Beyond Nature and Culture

Philippe Descola. Translated by Janet Lloyd. 2013. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Xxii +463 pp. $35.00 (paperback),
$65.00 (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-22621-236-4 (paperback), 978-0-22614-445-0 (hardcover).

Reviewed by Eugene N. Anderson

Reviewer address: Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Received: April 8, 2015 Volume: 6(1):208-211

Published: December 19, 2015 © 2015 Society of Ethnobiology

Recently, anthropologists have been concerned with is the latest stage in our field’s history of paying
the “ontological turn,” a recent term for an old serious attention to what “the natives” say, as
tendency in the field. Anthropologists have always opposed to writing it off as mere myth or error.
looked at local worldviews, cosmologies, philoso- Indigenous and traditional people are at least as good
phies, and knowledge systems. Recently, a deeper and at thinking as anyone else, and ignoring their philoso-
more philosophical concern for such things has led to phy is as foolish as ignoring their now-famed
wider use of the term ontology, which is the field of knowledge of plants and animals. Some of the
philosophy concerned with what is, what is not, and conclusions reached in traditional societies may seem
what might be. Closely related fields include episte- strange, but some philosophers in the European
mology—the study of what we can and can’t know, tradition have rather different ideas too, after all. It is
and how we know it—and phenomenology, the study the underlying perceptions and basic principles that
of what we think we know: what “phenomena” we matter, and they are what Descola studies. (By
see in the world and how we come to see those contrast, postmodernism appears in its full racist and
particular things rather than other things. neocolonialist light; postmodernists rarely had any
Anthropologists have taken Indigenous ontolo- interest in finding out what the locals thought; they
gies seriously since the days of Lewis Henry Morgan. were interested only in elite French or German
The first book to refer explicitly to traditional and thinkers.)
Indigenous peoples as philosophers was Paul Radin’s The ontological turn is, I believe, the first
book Primitive Man as Philosopher (1927—and please worldwide anthropological movement to begin in the
note those first two words were not pejorative or “global south.” It has emerged from South America:
sexist when he wrote). He had discovered with the from South American researchers like Gerardo
Winnebago that Indigenous people have perfectly Reichel-Dolmatoff, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro,
sophisticated and elaborated systems of philosophy Mario Blaser, Eduardo Kohn (and from a related
and religion, and he was one of the first to pay these tradition Arturo Escobar), and “global north”
full respect as worthy of serious study. He was researchers who have spent their careers studying
followed by A. Irving Hallowell (1955), who put South American Indigenous peoples.
serious study of traditional worldviews on the map, Philippe Descola, a Lévi-Strauss student and
getting psychological and cognitive anthropologists leading French ethnographer, is in the latter category.
interested in the whole agenda and starting a whole His book is a major study of traditional ontologies.
generation of work on Canadian First Nations For him, “Anthropology that seeks to be consequen-
(Hallowell’s specialty). Hallowell was one of the first tial has no choice but to gain an understanding of the
to use the term “ontology” for this field (Hallowell logic of this work of composition [of culture and its
1960). There followed a great deal of research in this shared schemas], by lending an ear to the themes and
area, but it failed to catch on as mainstream anthro- harmonies that stand out from the great hum of the
pology. world and concentrating on emerging orders whose
It has finally done so. Unlike postmodernism and regularity is detectable behind the proliferation of
other recent fads, ontology is probably here to stay. It different customs” (p. 111).

Ethnobiology Letters. 2015. 6(1):208-211. DOI: 10.14237/ebl.6.1.2015.481. 208

 Book Reviews
Perspectives from Gene Anderson’s Bookshelf

In it, he classifies ontologies according to a Lévi- systems, language, culture, songs, dances, and all. They
Straussian type of structural matrix. He sets up a two- also help humans, often as predators or prey or
by-two table setting interiority (soul, essence, spirit, helpers in the hunt. They have various relationships of
mind) against physicality (body, physical stuff) and their own. “The swallow-tailed kite is the father of
shared against nonshared. For him, animism involves edible insects: the shaman pays regular visits to its
humans sharing their interiority with other lifeforms wife to ask her to allow her children—who are
but not their physicality. Animals and plants are regarded as the shaman’s brothers—to accompany
people, with souls and minds similar to ours, and with him so that humans can feed on them” (p. 353). To
their own societies and shamans. It is widespread understand this, you have to know that the swallow-
among hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists, and tailed kite is a particularly conspicuous feeder on those
characterizes the views of the Achuar and their same insects, and this recapitulates the family relation-
neighbors, whom Descola studied in the Upper ship of hunter and prey. Humans, similarly, can shape-
Amazon region. shift, at least if they have shamanic power. It is never
Totemism, found mostly in Australia but some- easy to tell whether a bear/human is usually a bear
what in Native North America, is the view that we shaman or usually a bear.
humans share both physicality—or some of it—and Totemism is more complex. Humans share some
interiority with many other lives (and even with rocks physical and spiritual traits, essences, or attributes with
and landscapes). Analogism holds that humans differ nonhumans, but the relationship is complex. An
both physically and spiritually from other lives, but Australian Aboriginal man may have a Dreaming from
that there are countless interpenetrating essences, his father’s clan, another from his mother’s, another
flows, or qualities that link us all into a vast web. from his birth spot, another from life encounters, and
Examples are found in traditional China and among so on; or he may have several Dreamings from each
the Nahuatl of Mexico. Finally, naturism is the view of these sources. Totemism usually involves essences
that we are all subject to the same physical laws and manifested from Dreamtime beings, in original times,
made out of the same stuff, but that humans are so that shape-shifting is less common today (though it
sharply separated from nature by having a totally may occur, and also the original times of the Dream-
different interiority: soul for Descartes, language for ings are still going on now, in something like a parallel
Chomsky and others, consciousness for some modern universe).
philosophers (who apparently cannot tell whether Analogism is most familiar from premodern
their dog is asleep or awake). European cosmology and from traditional Chinese
These are complemented by six modes of thought. Humans are separate from natural kinds, and
transaction: exchange, predation, gift, production, groups of humans from each other. But in Europe,
protection, and transmission (see table, p. 334). spiritual connections, astrological influences, the
Theoretically, we could thus have 24 combinations, qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry) of Galenic medicine, and
but Descola says many of these (unspecified) do not other subtle links wove the universe into one vast
exist in the real world. He also discusses different order. In China, flows of qi, the force fields mistrans-
modes of interaction. lated “elements” in western literature, and other
Most of the book consists of discussion of the spiritual connections link everything in highly com-
four basic ontologies, with many examples. Descola is plex ways. Analogistic thinking shows itself in
widely read and a careful scholar. Naturally, his “transmigration of souls, reincarnation, metempsycho-
knowledge is fullest when it comes to the Upper sis, and, above all, possession” (Descola, p. 213) and
Amazon, but he is quite aware of ontologies from also in macrocosm/microcosm parallels, so typical of
Mongolia and Siberia to Mexico and Canada. China. “Analogical collectives are thus alone in having
veritable pantheons, not because they are polytheist (a
Animists are the people so familiar in anthropo-
more or less meaningless term), but because…the
logical accounts, who tell us that trees are people,
organization of their little world of deities extends that
rocks are people, and even the wind and the sky are
of the world of humans with no break in continui-
people who can be humanoid or at least act socially as
ty” (p. 275).
humans. Animals often have spaces to which they can
repair to shed their animal skins, appear as human or Naturalistic ontologies seem limited to the
humanoid, and act like humans, with leadership modern technological world. They are our familiar
Cartesian views.
Ethnobiology Letters. 2015. 6(1):208-211. DOI: 10.14237/ebl.6.1.2015.481. 209
 Book Reviews
Perspectives from Gene Anderson’s Bookshelf

It will not have escaped the anthropological to manage well with that, but his knowledge of
reader that these types sort with socioeconomic totemism would have been improved by knowledge of
formations: animism and totemism with hunter- Australian Aboriginal song, dance, and visual art.
gatherer and horticultural societies, analogism with Much of their ontology is carried in those media. For
traditional agrarian civilizations, naturalism with instance, he has missed the all-important role of
modern industrial civilization. Descola is aware of this “country”—mythologized, inhabited landscape—as
linkage but avoids speculating on it, let alone conclud- the great integrating and unifying theme in Aboriginal
ing it shows any economic determinism. A partial thought. He has also missed the all-important role of
exception is noting a link between hunting and the Power (or words that translate so) and respect among
animistic view; hunters with simple weaponry animistic peoples, and the ways that Power flows link
personalize their game. (I note this among my hunting everything together—a trait he seems to consider
friends even in our “naturalistic” world.) diagnostic of analogism. He has missed the value of
All this is impressive and exciting, but a hardened art in understanding Chinese thought, also; knowledge
veteran of anthropological debate must raise a few of Chinese literature and painting (elite or folk) would
flags. First, Descola seems to believe, genuinely, that have led him to see Chinese thought as more unified
these four are completely separate and watertight than he allows. More specific criticisms are few, but
categories. For instance, when modern Euro- his discussion of the origins of European landscape
Americans pick up Chinese medicine, shamanistic art is out of date (p. 57). His knowledge of China is
practice, or yoga: “This does not mean…that they derived largely from Marcel Granet’s classic accounts
have become animist, analogical, or totemic, for the from the early 20th century. If one must consult one
institutions that provide the framework for their old source, Granet is the one to use; he was amazingly
existence and the automatic behavior patterns balanced, judicious, and perceptive for his time. But
acquired over the passing of time are sufficiently using later sources would have shown Descola how
inhibiting to prevent such episodic slippage...from… much early Chinese thought is informed by animism
endowing them with an ontological grid that is and even by an early-day sort of naturalism.
completely distinct…” (p. 233). I cannot agree. I see All the above leads me to think that Descola has
the four types of ontology as Weberian ideal types— done a masterful job of discussing and synthesizing
useful for thinking, but hard to turn into iron boxes. ontologies, and of bringing ontology (worldview,
For one example, the Chinese certainly and the cosmology…) back into the anthropological main-
Nahuatl probably were shamanistic well into their stream, but I do not see this as the final word (nor is it
civilized centuries, and changed slowly from animism claimed to be). We will have to refine classifications of
to analogism. Then they had to change from analo- ontologies, and see how these modes of thought
gism to naturalism as modernization hit. This change from one to the other over time and space,
produced countless “hybrid” or mixed forms, as I how they interact, how they can blend. There will be
know from spending years in Chinese communities much more to say about ontologies and types thereof.
during key transitional times. Similarly, my Maya One idle question for summer musing is: which
friends in Mexico preserve large amounts of animism one is closest to modern scientific knowledge? I
while adopting both Mexican and premodern submit that it is totemism. We know we are consub-
European analogism and, much more recently, stantial with plants and animals—as the naturalist
naturalism. I cannot fit their ontology into a box. And ontology points out. But the great fallacy of natural-
of course Europe transitioned from analogism to ism is its separation of humans (souls! minds!) from
naturalism, with accompanying fireworks. Even “brute beasts” that are “mere machines.” We now
earlier, much of Europe transitioned from animism to know that animals think as well as feel, and that
analogism, and we have some literary monuments to “instinct” is not the automatic pilot we used to believe
this, especially in Celtic and Finnish traditions. it was. Even plants communicate with each other (by
Also, Descola, like many French thinkers, is a chemicals excreted by their roots and leaves; Trewavas
solid rationalist. He gives little place to emotion or 2014) and of course they cleverly lure their pollinators
feeling. This leads him to ignore aesthetics and in with carefully chosen cocktails of volatile oils.
aesthetic sources. His profound knowledge of There is a gradual decline in similarity to us, not a
animism (from his South American work) allows him sudden watershed. “Language,” more or less by

Ethnobiology Letters. 2015. 6(1):208-211. DOI: 10.14237/ebl.6.1.2015.481. 210

 Book Reviews
Perspectives from Gene Anderson’s Bookshelf

definition, is strictly human, but then the song of the everything, and this book is overwhelming enough as
Bell’s vireo is specific to the Bell’s vireo, and the it is.
particular cocktail of volatiles that tomatoes use to All in all, this is a very long, detailed, densely
lure moth pollinators is specific to the tomato. What written book, and much of the real excitement lies in
matters is that we all get the message out. Totemism the ways Descola works out the ontologies and
wins. I may not be a kangaroo (Descola quotes supplies excellently detailed examples. This is an
Baldwin Spencer’s deathless line from an early important book that deserves careful reading.
consultant who was one) but I share basic brain and
other functions with kangaroos. References Cited
Descola closes with a final page—only one—on Hallowell, A. I. 1955. Culture and Experience. University
how all this might inform our troubled time. One of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
might wish he had speculated more. The other three
Hallowell, A. I. 1960. Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and
types of ontology all allow humans to live in harmony
World-View. In Culture in History: Essays in Honor of
with nature (to use a cliché) in ways that we seem Paul Radin, edited by Stanley Diamond, pp. 19-52.
unable to do within a naturalist framework. Specula-
Columbia University Press, New York.
tion on whether we can, and how to refine our
ontologies to allow us to preserve the world ecosys- Radin, P. 1927. Primitive Man as Philosopher. D. Apple-
tem is in order. I submit that such refining would ton and Company, New York.
have to take fuller account of emotions, feelings, Trewavas, A. 2014. Plant Behaviour and Intelligence.
aesthetics, and broad patterns and linkages than does Oxford University Press, Oxford.
the book under review, but no one book can do

Ethnobiology Letters. 2015. 6(1):208-211. DOI: 10.14237/ebl.6.1.2015.481. 211