Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
Brazilian anthropologist who developed perspectivism to understand indigenous views of humanity and animals.
Most quoted
"Perspectivism is the idea that the world is composed of multiple perspectives, each valid in its own terms."
— from From the Enemy's Point of View, 1998
"The problem is not how to understand the other, but how to understand ourselves through the other."
— from Métaphysiques cannibales: L'anthropologie post-structurale, 2009
"Perspectivism is not about seeing things from different angles, but about seeing different things."
— from Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism, 1998
All quotes by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (100)
The task of anthropology is to make the familiar strange, and the strange familiar.
The world is not a stage, but a network of relations.
To think like an Amazonian is to think with the body, not just the mind.
The 'nature' of things is always a cultural construct.
Anthropology is a form of intellectual cannibalism.
The world is not a given, but a project.
To understand the other is to become other.
The 'human' is a site of constant negotiation and transformation.
Anthropology is a way of making philosophy concrete.
The world is not a container, but a process.
Perspectivism is not about seeing things from different angles, but about seeing different things.
The 'other' is not an object of study, but a source of conceptual innovation.
Anthropology is a discipline of conceptual creation.
The world is not a given, but a challenge.
To decolonize is to de-universalize.
The 'human' is a relational effect, not an essential property.
Anthropology is a form of intellectual warfare against common sense.
The world is not a collection of individuals, but a collection of relations.
Perspectivism is a way of making the world more complex, not simpler.
The 'other' is not an object of representation, but a subject of transformation.
Contemporaries of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
Other Anthropologys born within 50 years of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (1951).