Philippe Descola
French anthropologist who compared ontologies in Amazonian societies beyond nature-culture dualism.
Most quoted
"Perspectivism is the idea that different beings perceive the world from their own unique point of view, but that these perspectives are mutually intelligible."
— from Par-delà nature et culture, 2005
"The human condition is not defined by a universal essence, but by the diversity of ways in which humans relate to their environment and to other beings."
— from L'écologie des autres, 2013
"The Amazonian forest is not just a collection of trees and animals; it is a complex web of relations between different kinds of beings."
— from La Nature domestique, 1986
All quotes by Philippe Descola (103)
The West's dualism has blinded us to the multiplicity of human experiences.
Anthropologists must listen to the ontologies of others without imposing our own.
Humor in anthropology? It's finding kinship with a jaguar spirit.
The soul of ethnography is in the unexpected encounters with other worlds.
Politics of knowledge demands we decolonize our categories of thought.
In the forest, I learned that wisdom comes from silence, not from words.
Analogism sees the world as a chain of resemblances; we could learn from that interconnectedness.
My fieldwork was a confrontation with the limits of my own culture.
Naturalism is just one ontology among many; why privilege it?
The profound lesson of Achuar life: harmony with spirits is daily politics.
Anthropology's art is to translate the untranslatable without betrayal.
Life is a series of ontological shifts; embrace them.
Witty remark: If nature and culture are twins, Western thought is the evil stepmother separating them.
From my letters home: The jungle whispers secrets that books never tell.
In animism, every being has agency; that's a politics of equality we lack.
Professional insight: Ethnography requires humility before the other's worldview.
The meaning of existence? It's in the relations we forge across species.
Totemism isn't primitive; it's a sophisticated ecology of signs.
Comeback to critics: Your naturalism is my ethnocentrism.
Key passage: The human is not the measure of all things, but one perspective among many.
Contemporaries of Philippe Descola
Other Anthropologys born within 50 years of Philippe Descola (1949).