Perspectivism

Cet ouvrage invite à une lecture critique de la philosophie de Gilles Deleuze en reconstituant le système perspectiviste qui le sous-tend. La thèse qui est défendue est qu'on ne peut comprendre le « perspectivisme » deleuzien qu'au regard de sa théorie de la « structure Autrui », c'est-à-dire de son analyse des interactions avec l'autre. C'est le cas des premiers écrits de Deleuze, marqués par l'influence de Sartre et de Ferdinand Alquié, jusqu'à des textes plus tardifs, coécrits avec Félix Guattari. Chaque fois, l'autre est défini comme « l'expression d'un monde possible », c'est-à-dire comme celui qui perçoit ce que je ne perçois pas moi-même. C'est ce qui justifie une redéfinition d'autrui en termes de « disjonction de perspectives » ou de « perspective alternative ». Afin d'évaluer l'intérêt d'une telle redéfinition, l'auteur présente d'abord le système perspectiviste deleuzien à partir de la théorie de la « structure Autrui » qui le sous-tend. Puis il évalue les apports théoriques de ce modèle-que ce soit par rapport à un certain nombre de références canoniques ou en discutant les principaux commentateurs du corpus deleuzien, dans le champ francophone et anglosaxon. Enfin, il articule la théorie deleuzienne aux différentes approches contemporaines qui se revendiquent de la notion de « perspectivisme » pour en indiquer à la fois les points de contact et d'incompatibilité.

For over half a century, throughout attempts to unify the standard model with general relativity, scientists have confronted the "problem of inconsistent models," which occurs when scientific models, regarded as perspectives on physical systems, make contradictory claims about things in the world. Perspectival realists have proposed to solve to this problem by showing that while scientific models are inherently perspectival, they can make true claims about one reality, relative to the perspectives they offer. Critics of this position have pointed out that this would leave us with no way to discern between benign inconsistencies between models and genuine contradictions that demand resolution; these critics, however, have also failed to find a way to do this. This paper offers a criterion for making this distinction, by way of a formal analysis of perspective and its role in scientific models and theories, without sacrificing the key insights provided by perspectival realism.

Radom se usmjerava pažnja na ulogu i važnost pluriperspektivizma u misli G. W. F. Hegela. U tu se svrhu iščitava alegorija o istinitom kao bakantskom zanosu, a koja se nalazi u njegovom temeljnom djelu Fenomenologija duha. Također, u tekstu se ukazuje na važnost pluriperspektivizma, odnosno naznačuju i razrađuju se njegove bitne karakteristike da: s jedne strane, omogućuje i potiče na čim neisključiviji i obuhvatniji pristup zbiljnosti, dok, s druge strane, omogućuje i potiče rast i razvoj perspektive, tj. povećanje istinitosti istine.

This article proposes the phytogram, an image made by using the internal chemistry of plants in conjunction with photographic emulsion. First, a theoretical framework is set out, drawing inspiration from structural/materialist film theory, biosemiotics and perspectivism. The notion of plant sensations/perceptions is questioned, developing the real possibility of human–plant communication. Subsequently, a summary of the materials and methods involved in making phytograms is included in order to show how an inter-dependency of technological and natural elements can lead to evocative results and spontaneous animation. Instead of bringing inert matter to life, the image moves by itself. This practice can bring people together, sharing knowledge about their environment while enjoying the cohesion of a wider community and history of people and plants. Making such an extended community visible is significant with regard to a heightened awareness of the natural environment. Instead of preaching ecological propriety and austere behaviour, phytography offers a positive and fulfilling engagement with our living environment.

Here, I follow one of the more exciting and under-explored consequences of grounding media as metaphor - the (not so) sudden compatibility of media ecology with the claim that fictional objects are real. This paper explores what ontological repercussions can be brought to bear on McLuhan's long-evolving media concept in light of some contemporary continental theories concerning the reality-fiction divide. While McLuhan's message has resonated with many since the publication of Understanding Media (1964), some recent criticism has challenged this tradition by suggesting that McLuhan's concept of 'media as metaphor' rests on a pluralistic ontology of media forms. In my view, the creative interplay between figure and ground that marks mediums as sites of causal events blurs without effacing the distinction between actuality and possibility and suggests that the constant extension and remediation of media forms that emerge from consciousness plays an active role in perceptual awareness of objective reality. I argue that this alternative approach to media ontology rehabilitates Aristotle's formal cause by extending the concept to include a form of poiesis. McLuhan's media, therefore, signal that media forms achieve a fictional status through an inexhaustible process of mediation as interpretation. It is in this sense that I read McLuhan as a thinker of the new and a philosopher of fiction.

Against rationalist assumptions on human nature, Gulliver’s Travels... offers a trip through human passions to reveal how far are humans from being rational creatures as it has been philosophically assumed. The set of passions embodied by characters-symbols are shown in action through different perspectives, assuming rational appearances and outcomes. All this leads us to question whether reason is capable of describing and ultimately amending passions, without becoming or discovering itself as the most powerful of them at once, but not being ultimately more than “a slave of passions” or a passion itself.

Статья посвящена одержимости и жертвоприношениям в афрогенных традициях, главным образом в пало монте и сантерии. В ней также уделено внимание обрядам и феноменологии вуду и креольского спиритизма. Жертвоприношения и практики
одержимости (инкорпорации духа) рассматриваются в контексте реципрокной субъективации людей и духов, что позволяет обнаружить общую для обоих направлений сакральной деятельности логику обмена. Как жертвоприношения, так и се-
ансы одержимости взаимно одаривают и усиливают духов и участников культа. Бытие людей связывается с развитием духов мертвых и регламентируется через практики одержимости, обустройство ритуальных ассамбляжей и их усиление
субстанциями жертвенных животных. Интерпретируя одержимость через понятия телесности (воплощенности), становления, интенсивности и ассамбляжа, автор обрисовывает постструктуралистские рубежи афрогенной сакральности, намечая пути сближения с концепциями перспективизма и проблемные места на этих путях.

The article tackles the spiritual possession and sacrifices in Afrogenic traditions, mainly in Palo Monte and Santeria. It also examines the rites and phenomenology of Voodoo and the Creole spiritualism. I consider possession practices (the incorporation of the spirit) and sacrifices in the context of the reciprocal subjectivity of people and spirits in order to locate the sacred logic of exchange unifying both types of activity. Sacrifices and possession rituals bestow and empower spirits and worshipers mutually. The existence of people is associated with the development of spirits of the dead and regulated through the possession practice, the arrangement of ritual assemblies and their strengthening with the substances of sacrificial animals. By interpreting the logic of possession through the notions of embodiment, becoming, intension, and assemblage, I outline the post-structural frontiers of the Afrogenic sacredness and draft the ways of convergence with concepts of perspectivism and some problems related to these approaches.

As this book is now out of print, I have included the full text here, in the series of 32 pdf files. Only the file for Chapter VII actually shows, when "view" this book by clicking on the title.  However, if you click on the words "31 files" (in very small type, located just above the word "Share"), then you will see a list of the other 31 files, which can each be downloaded by clicking on the relevant title in the pull-down  menu.

This book is a revised and extended version of the author's doctoral dissertation at Oxford University (1987). It is the first volume of a projected four-volume work. A word-searchable version of the original typescript files submitted to the publisher (which therefore does not show the published page numbers) can be found on the author's website, by clicking on the link shown below.

essay-poem / performative text presented as part of the conference #FOMO at ICA in London, may 31st, 2015 (with accompanying audiovisual media)....sci-fi reflections on club cosmologies, mutations, trans-formation, speciation, ontological speculation, multinatural perspectivism, machinic enslavement, and altered states ---2nd instalment of the sci-fi corporate realism project "MOUNTGROVE"

Natural Theology has traditionally been defined as that part of philosophy which explores that which man can know about God (his existence, divine nature, etc.) from nature, via his divinely bestowed faculty of reason; and, this, unaided by any divinely inspired written revelation. Defining Natural Theology this way seems to give value to the study of philosophy and encourages the use of philosophy in theology. Since the early 1900s, however, many Christian theologians have begun describing Natural Theology as the attempt to prove the truth of the Christian Religion, or worse, as the attempt to replace revealed truths with human ideas. These theologians often go on to claim that the only way that Natural Theology could be valuable, is if we first assume the truth of Christianity. In other words, the universe does not point to the existence of God, unless we first assume a religious position in which some God exists. Though this approach is, in Christian apologetics, often associated with Cornelius Van Til’s Presuppositionalism; it is also known, to philosophers, as Perspectivalism. Other well-known theologians who seem to have adopted this approach to Natural Theology, include Alister McGrath, Fergus Kerr, and Wolfhart Pannenberg. In their opinion, Natural Theology has no other use than to provide Christians, if it does even this, with some form of existential certitude concerning the truth of Christianity. Natural Theology most certainly does not prove Theism, let alone the truth of the Christian Religion.
In this paper, I will begin with a short exposition of the positions of the contemporary theologians mentioned above. I will then attempt to refute these claims through (1) an historical exposition of the traditional approach to Natural Theology, and (2) a philosophical argument demonstrating the self-defeating nature of these claims.

This paper assesses whether the thing-in-itself as illustrated by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason is refuted by Nietzsche’s critique of it. I hope to do this by first reconstructing the case for the thing-in-itself as put forward in the Critique before reconstructing Nietzsche’s contrary stance from the various texts where he published arguments against it. Upon presenting both cases, I will assess whether Kant’s thing-in-itself stands up to Nietzsche’s scrutiny. Kant insisted that the thing-in-itself is a necessary consequence of his work in the Transcendental Aesthetic, which implies that our understanding is limited by our constitution so that we can only perceive things as they appear to us and never the thing as it exists considered independent of us. Nietzsche viewed the thing-in-itself as self-contradictory and marshalled a perspectival attack against it, drawing arguments from various sources and employing various tactics over the course of his career to expose it as unworthy of being taken seriously any longer. The main contention I will be defending is that Nietzsche could not refute the thing-in-itself because all of his arguments against it are based on a misinterpretation of the thing-in-itself. Kant himself clarified his position on how best to interpret the thing-in-itself later in the Critique. The main purpose of the closing chapters of this paper will be to account for that position and show that because of this misinterpretation, Nietzsche’s case against the thing-in-itself fails.

English Summary:


This remarkable book is the fruit of 30 years of investigations of two archaeologists, husband and wife, Maria Magdalena and Andrzej Antczak, on the pre-Hispanic archaeology of the majestic Los Roques Archipelago, Venezuela. The uniqueness of the Los Roques Archipelago within the panorama of insular pre-colonial archaeology in the Americas centers on the discovery of more than 400 human clay figurines on one small island, Dos Mosquises, along with elaborate primary ritual contexts and the remains of a gargantuan queen conch (lobatus gigas) exploitation enterprise. This book is the winner of two of the highest scientific publication awards in Venezuela (2006 & 2009).


Resumen en Español:


Desde el título de este volumen de indiscutible valor, la palabra “prometidas” aplica oportunamente a nuestro maravilloso archipiélago venezolano de Los Roques la alegoría bíblica que coloca al final de un exigente camino hermosas tierras, donde corren ríos de leche y miel. Hacia estas islas con abundantes recursos marinos, entre los cuales destaca el gran caracol marino llamado ‘botuto’, se dirigían las canoas indígenas durante al menos cuatro siglos antes de la conquista europea. Las campañas de explotación de los recursos en las islas dependían del éxito de la actividad ceremonial, testimoniada por centenares de figurinas humanas, incensarios, ocarinas y pipas cerámicas, flautas de hueso y silbatos de concha, recuperados por los arqueólogos en complejos contextos primarios.

La presencia de esta diversidad de objetos en los campamentos temporales de las pequeñas islas oceánicas es un fenómeno excepcional en la arqueología del Caribe. En este sentido, la publicación de esta monografía es el cumplimiento de un prolongado esfuerzo y de un caro anhelo por proporcionar al lector una explicación sólida y coherente de este fenómeno arqueológico único. Es también el final de una importante etapa de ese camino verdaderamente exigente de la investigación arqueológica. A través de sus páginas, con un soporte teórico documental de inusual solidez y pertinencia, se difunde el fruto de muchos años de perseverante dedicación para sus autores, María Magdalena Mackowiak de Antczak y Andrzej Antczak, arqueólogos y antropólogos vinculados desde hace tiempo con la Universidad Simón Bolívar.

Se trata, sin duda, de una obra mayor, enriquecida por 1500 ilustraciones y más de 200 tablas, que describe hallazgos arqueológicos excepcionales recuperados de manera sistemática durante más de 60 campañas de trabajo de campo, y desarrolla propuestas verdaderamente seminales para el entendimiento del significado y la valoración del legado prehispánico en Venezuela y, en especial, en sus territorios insulares.

Este volumen ha sido concebido no solamente como lectura referencial para profesionales y estudiantes de arqueología y antropología, sino también esta dirigido al lector no especializado que puede sentirse atraído por el vibrante, colorido y desconocido pasado prehispánico presentado en estas páginas. También, a través de esta monografía los autores aspiran a infundir El Orgullo por el Pasado, el lema que orienta sus trabajos de investigación y docencia.

Este vasto y complejo proyecto editorial ha sido posible gracias a la concertación de un gran equipo profesional y una venturosa alianza de nuestra Universidad con Banesco y Petrozuata, confluencias que celebramos también como promesas felizmente cumplidas.

El libro ha recibido numerosos premios nacionales incluyendo:

IV Premio Nacional del Libro 2006, Mejor Libro Científico otorgado por el Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Cultura.

2009 Premio Alterno por Mejor Investigación en Ciencias Sociales, otorgado por la ASOVAC (Asociación Venezolana para el Avance de la Ciencia).

2007 Premio Andrés Bello para la Mejor Investigación en Ciencias Sociales otorgado por la Universidad Simón Bolívar.

Ausstellungskatalog zur gleichnamigen Ausstellung für die Kunstbibliothek im Museum für Fotografie Berlin

Exhibition catalogue to the exhibition curated for for the Kunstbibliothek at the Museum für Fotografie Berlin

Überwachung ist nicht nur ein aktuelles Thema, sondern auch ein historisches Phänomen. Dieser Ausstellungskatalog präsentiert eine Genealogie des überwachenden Blicks.
Vor dem apparativen Auge der Kamera, das heutzutage allgegenwärtig ist, haben andere „Augen“ Menschen überwacht. In der Epoche der Aufklärung symbolisierte das Auge der Vernunft eine selbstüberwachende Idee. Derzeit wurden Staat und Gesetz mit einem allsehenden Auge identifiziert. Den ikonografischen Ursprung hierzu bildet das religiöse Symbol vom Auge Gottes. Dieses „Auge“, das alle Aktionen und Gedanken eines Christen erfasst, übte, als unsichtbare Instanz, eine mächtige Wirkung auf den Gläubigen aus. Sei es Gott, Staat oder Technik – konstant bei dieser Genealogie bleibt der psychologische Druck einer unüberprüfbar höheren Instanz.
Der Titel geht auf einem anonymen Holzschnitt aus dem Jahr 1546 zurück. Aus einer entfernten Vergangenheit sendet dieses Bild die Botschaft: „Vorsicht, Ihr werden gesehen, gehört!“.

Longchenpa’s Precious Treasury of the Genuine Meaning (henceforth PTGM) will dodge and overspill any attempt to classify it in simple disciplinarian molds. Surely, it is possible to deem it a “religious” book, but that will not make any justice. The treatise’s soteriological goals are woven together with cosmogony accounts, embryology, anatomy, ethics, cosmology, psychology, pedagogy, practice orientation, and even thanatology. Studying it in a traditional academic setting, then, is a task that requires well-thought strategies – in face of the thematic abundance, moreover, the entry point to this book seems to be particularly important. One could take it, for instance, as a philological object of analysis, focusing on its linguistic singularities and unveiling a historical context through the text – that is, treating it more as archaeological evidence and less as something that can teach the researcher about anything other than its own history. Conversely, the text can be approached as a philosophical piece, enabling new insights to the reader about the world “outside” the text.

La tradition philosophique attribue à Nietzsche un rôle fondateur dans l'histoire des pensées perspectivistes. Il semblerait en effet que Nietzsche soit l'inventeur du mot "perspectivisme" : dans cet article, je commence donc par m'intéresser au cheminement philosophique qui a conduit Nietzsche à choisir ce terme. J'évoque à cet égard un contexte précis, qui est la lecture nietzschéenne d'un livre de Gustav Teichmüller intitulé Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt. En montrant comment Nietzsche retourne les thèses de Teichmüller, on peut à mon avis clarifier la signification et le statut du perspectivisme nietzschéen. Je m'appuie dès lors sur ce dialogue pour soutenir que le perspectivisme n'est pas simplement une doctrine épistémologique, mais une philosophie de la réalité qui rend nécessaire une méthode de travail bien particulière.

O livro apresenta uma reflexão sobre o perspectivismo nietzschiano e sua relação com o projeto de uma transvaloração dos valores, ao qual estaria subordinado. Daí falarmos num “primado da prática” sobre a teoria a partir de um paralelo com o pensamento kantiano, que nos fornece elementos para pensar, por exemplo, a possibilidade de um discurso “normativo” mesmo ali onde os aspectos “descritivos” da cosmologia pareciam sufocar a capacidade do homem para a ação. Torna-se plausível, desse ponto de vista, a idéia de uma “guerra filosófica”, conduzida sob o signo do espírito livre e de sua liberdade de tipo nobre, contra o dogmatismo que teria marcado os vários empreendimentos filosóficos da história ocidental. Graças ao duplo ponto de vista de inspiração kantiana, porém, e ao propósito de não aceitar acriticamente a “letra do texto”, uma tal guerra deixaria de atrelar-se à defesa da aristocracia e poderia associar-se a certos ideais dessa mesma tradição cultural que Nietzsche teria pretendido implodir, entre eles a liberdade individual e de criação cuja efetividade parece depender, em princípio, de um certo pressuposto democrático.

This thesis mainly focuses on the description and analysis of the Moça Nova Festival, the initiation ritual through which Ticuna young women go through. The Ticuna people speak an isolated language and inhabit, for the most part, the Upper Solimões River (Amazonas, Brazil), spread across Brazil, Peru and Colombia. At the time of the menarche, girls are secluded and the ritual is organized. In order to understand this festival, which marks the moment when girls leave seclusion, I present how it relates to other dimensions of Ticuna life: social organization and kinship, mythology, cosmology, body and shamanism. Both the ethnography and the analysis concentrate primarily on the songs, musical instruments and mythic narratives related to the festival and its ritual process.

Texte présenté au Colloque Francis Ponge à Cerisy (2015)

Sous une autre perspective que celle de la littérature française – celle du Brésil –, que devient Francis Ponge, lorsqu’il est traduit ? Est-ce que la traduction le transforme en quelque chose de différent ? Que se passe-t-il si on le défrancise, si on le franchise ? Or, tout comme Ponge crée des perspectives pour que l’on accède aux choses avec un regard nouveau, la traduction peut créer de nouvelles perspectives pour comprendre les choses de Ponge et la chose Ponge.

L’analisi dei principali temi della filosofia di Nietzsche conduce all’individuazione della nozione di forza come elemento centrale delle sue riflessioni. Egli la incorpora ed utilizza filosoficamente, in periodi diversi, per la definizione di teorie centrali quali l’eterno ritorno, la volontà di potenza e il prospettivismo conoscitivo. L’assimilazione di questa nozione – come è stato osservato in passato – può essere riportata alla sua lettura nel 1873 della Theoria philosophiae naturalis del matematico Ruggero Boscovich.
Attraverso una dettagliata analisi del materiale postumo oltre che del contesto delle discussioni scientifiche dell’epoca, questo studio si propone di chiarire nella maniera più esaustiva fino a che punto il sistema di Boscovich e, più in generale, la visione dinamica del mondo in esso delineata abbiano influito sul pensiero nietzscheano, con la precisa finalità di restituire nella sua complessità il rapporto di Nietzsche con questa figura.

This article explores the four sources of (scientific) knowledge: perception, inference, reference and comparison. In Western literature on the nature, criterion, scope and kinds of knowledge the importance of comparing, said to be the core of cognition, has been somewhat neglected, which is remarkable because no research (and certainly no country research) can be conducted without drawing comparisons, without taking two, or more than two, objects, individuals or entities and examining in what respect(s) they are similar and in what respect(s) they are different. Whoever decides to engage in comparative country research has to decide on (a) the kind of objects to investigate, (b) the respect in which to conduct the investigation, and (c) the research method to follow. In brief, important decisions have to be made, decisions that will determine the structure and accessibility of the research outcome. After reference to the problem vividly described by the old, Indian parable of the ‘the blind men and the elephant’, a clue is taken from Nietzsche’s perspectivism.

This thesis intends an opening move in the field of legal theory as well as in that of law and technology studies, and especially in the intersection of the two. It tries to construct a theory of law and of its relation to technology that allows for the navigation of the contemporary passage from what I call modern technomics to a platform technomics linked to the emergence of planetary scale computation, algorithmic governance and the climate crisis. To do that, I first try to make a contribution to a speculative legal theory (neither an “internal” theory of modern law as we know it, nor a critical/deconstructive legal theory). I do so by reading two key thinkers of modern law, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, as complementary, and through currents of the so-called “speculative turn” in contemporary theory. Kelsen is read as an accelerationist/inhumanist, and Schmitt in light of cosmo/geontopolitics, while Deleuze and Guattari’s assemblage theory serves as a background through which the rest is connected. Secondly, I mobilize this conceptual apparatus to speculate about platform technomics. I build technomic concepts of code, platform, device, application, interface and user. Algorithmic demogrammar is defined as operating by massive data collection, tracing of graphs and modulation of conducts. I look to trace some tendencies in the transition to platform technomics, e.g. to the contingency of the positions of person and thing, to the indistinction between norm and bias, to the non-instrumentality of technics, to the plurality of worlds, to the superimposition of nomoi, to the confusion of cognition and governance etc. I finish by offering three speculative models/paradigms for the navigation of platform technomics – an inhuman model, based on the hypothesis of general intelligence; an animistic paradigm, linked to the Gaia hypothesis/myth, and, finally, a tentative composition between the two.

In this talk, I would like to propose a theoretical experiment of a very tentative and preliminary character. This experiment consists in mobilizing the conceptual apparatus of Amerindian perspectivism, especially as reconstructed in Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s ontological anthropology, in order to account for certain dimensions of the contemporary process we have come to call platformization. This experiment stems from the intersection of two lines of research, one concerning what I call platform nomics, i.e., the study of platforms as entities which constitute an order at once political, juridical, technical, spatial and cosmic; the other concerning non-modern ontologies, decolonization, and the relation between cosmologies and technology, which has been explored by Yuk Hui through concepts like cosmotechnics and technodiversity.

New media studies has often focused on the difference between traditional and new media objects while neglecting the perspectival difference in worldview and subjectivity concomitant with the becoming-ubiquitous of the digital. In this paper, I first illustrate with some examples from science fiction the complex relation between difference in kind and difference in degree. This allows me to examine why some well-known demarcations between traditional and new media seem blurry and untenable. There is, however, one line of cleavage that does hold water: the binary of analogue and digital proposed by N. Katherine Hayles. To see why, I compare works of fiction that present media technologies via analogue subjectivity with Tao Lin’ s Taipei, a novel that presents lived experience through digital subjectivity, thereby revealing the continuing potential of new media studies for literature.

By means of an in-depth exegesis of the works of Alasdair MacIntyre and Friedrich Nietzsche, my dissertation argues that the fundamental pathology afflicting Modernity in the West is not a crisis of values—whether valuelessness or value-anarchy (i.e., an axiological crisis)—as MacIntyre claims, but meaninglessness and will-lessness (i.e., a practical-existential crisis), the latter having profound cultural and political implications in Nietzsche’s view and prognosticating cultural passivity and total nihilism for the West.

With his emphasis on the ‘revaluation of all values’, I argue that Nietzsche proposes a positive program designed to counteract this general decline in the cultural health of the West unleashed by the décadent and ressentimental instincts and their domination (for millennia) of the Western form of life (i.e., ‘culture-complex’) within different corruptive/degenerative paradigms. By means of a distinctive tragic and visionary realism that emphasizes the natural condition of human life (as one shaped in relation to suffering, disorder and flux and in an incessant search for meaning) and the differential ‘psycho-physiology’ (or ‘nature’) of various human types (in terms of their capacity for mythopoetic activity), Nietzsche hopes to reaffirm the dominance of the (healthy) ‘pathos of Distanz’ embodied in the Übermenschlich types of persons and to do so within an epoch-transforming project that is informed by a novel ‘philosophy of life’ and deemed attainable within a new ‘politics of culture’.

Under the aegis of what he calls ‘great politics’ and conceives of as an ‘agonistic aristocracy’, Nietzsche envisions the radical possibility for profound cultural transformation and regeneration, anticipated since the Enlightenment, to finally be effected as the ‘destiny of task’ of those higher and exceptional types of men—the Übermenschen, bringing about a new dawn in (higher) culture. Nietzsche’s emphasis on culture as the source of symbolic and practical meaning (i.e., semiotic order) for human life and his insistence on the dynamic transformation of ‘culture-complexes’ within continuous cycles of ascent and decline, a process informed by the willpower of outstanding human agents or the Übermensch (exemplifying the strongest spirits in mankind), betrays his critique of Modernity as well as his overarching life-affirming philosophy and theory of (cultural) agency—all within a distinctive form of realism and of ‘dispositional-spiritual’ (or perspectival) orientation we can label “anthro-culturalism”.

Neste ensaio, fruto da experiência docente na periferia colonial do capitalismo racializado brasileiro retomo, muito brevemente, a conexão
encontrada na filosofia ocidental entre ontologia e linguagem para dar explicitude aos fundamentos da virada linguística e para apontar a transição para uma virada ontológica, discutida dessa forma em
duas instâncias, que parecem ter estado até então incomunicáveis. O perspectivismo ameríndio, que poderíamos talvez considerar um capítulo da virada ontológica mais ampla na antropologia social contemporânea, e o afropessimismo afroamericano, descendente das tradições do
radicalismo negro norte-americano e da Africa e diáspora.

This essay is about "knowing limits," both in the sense of acknowledging the inevitable perspectival limits of our knowledge, and in the sense in which the act of knowing delimits the parameters of that which is known. Moreover, it aims to cultivate a versatile perspectivism that is ethically oriented by a capacity for ecstatic empathy rather than an egocentric will to power. The essay begins with an examination of the mind/body problem as a paradigmatic case of perspectival ambiguity, making reference to a wide range of authors. The focus of the central sections of the essay is on Nietzsche and Heidegger, while the final sections are devoted to developing a phenomenological reading of Zhuangzi and Zen. At issue throughout is the articulation of a versatile perspectivism responsive to both the demarcative and disclosive senses of knowing limits.

(Published version)

Zhuangzi and Nietzsche have both been said to advocate some kind of perspectivism, as well as being against anthropocentrism. A comparison of the two thinkers raises some interesting questions, the answers to which help us get clearer about what each is saying about these two topics. Some commentators claim that Nietzsche believes we can never transcend the human perspective, but a comparison with Zhuangzi highlights passages that suggest otherwise. An examination of the ‘Equalizing Assessments of Things’ (Qiwulun) chapter of the Zhuangzi along with the ‘Before the Sunrise’ chapter of Thus Spoke Zarathustra prompts the question: How does the Daoist sage’s ‘letting all things bask in the broad daylight of Heaven’ compare with Zarathustra’s blessing, ‘to stand over each and every thing as its own Heaven’? The answer brings to light some previously unnoticed parallels that enhance our appreciation of both thinkers.

Philosophy has long closely associated perspectivity and perspectivism with Nietzsche and often identified them with relativism. Recent research, however, shows that this reduced picture needs to be corrected. Perspectivity can be conceived as a basic structure of human cognition and, moreover, can be deployed as a central concept of a strong epistemology of contemporary pluralism. As a subject of the history of philosophy, theories of perspectivity are neither unexplored nor unknown. However, contemporary discourse moves at a noticeable distance from its prehistory. Research has rarely attempted a historical reconciliation with the various periods and traditions of perspectival thought.
This volume aims to help fill this gap by contrasting medieval, modern, and contemporary perspectivisms or standpoint doctrines historically and systematically. Methodologically, this confrontation presupposes a common concept and a heuristic definition of the object of research. Such a definition should thereby form itself in a perspectivist manner, because a definite 'essence' of perspectivity cannot be postulated dogmatically and completely ahistorically. Our research therefore takes a look at the variety of possible standpoints on its object, perspectivity, through philosophical-historical analyses of its speculative performance, its phenomenological relevance, and its systematic effects.

This work studies the concepts of the body in East and South Asian bodily religious practices and the role of human body in religion. This study focusses on the Chinese and Indian bodily practices, more specifically on Hatha Yoga and Taoist techniques and concepts, in order to find out which concepts of the body form the basis of those practices and what is their inner logic, i.e. how the body is perceived and what the bodily goals of the practitioners are.

The results of the study show that the transformation of the body can be a religious goal. So far, the bodily transformation as an independent religious goal has been widely ignored in the religious studies, and the physical changes that accompany the spiritual transformation have been treated merely as side effects. The current study shows, however, that changing one’s body can also be the main motif for religious practices.

In premodern or religious thinking, the body is not perceived merely as a biological entity, but it also comprises of a number of cultural and social characteristics. The body is seen as being constructed and the construction is an on-going process. This construction process is a prerequisite for ritual self-transformation. A human beings person and body is seen as dependant on social relations and the body is seen as unstable and ever-changing. Thus, the body also involves a social dimension and is also connected with ethics. In a way, ethics and morale can be described as bodily categories.

El americanismo del trópico ha demostrado ser una de las áreas más dinámicas y creativas de la antropología contemporánea, ejerciendo una creciente influencia en la agenda conceptual más amplia. Sin embargo, a pesar de este florecimiento y de que la obra fundamental de Lévi-Strauss-dentro de la cual, el pensamiento amerindio ocupa un lugar de honor-ya ha estado en circulación durante más de medio siglo, la originalidad radical de la contribución de los pueblos del continente al patrimonio intelectual de la humanidad todavía no ha sido plenamente absorbida por la antropología. Más concretamente, algunas de las implicaciones de esta contribución para la teoría antropológica propiamente dicha aún están por determinarse. Esto es lo que pretendo comenzar a hacer aquí sugiriendo algunas reflexiones adicionales sobre el perspectivismo amerindio, un tema con el que he estado ocupado (o quizás obsesionado) durante los últimos años. 2 TRADUCCIÓN El título de este trabajo es una alusión a un famoso artículo de Fred Eggan (1954) titulado "Antropología social y el método de la comparación controlada", que formaba parte de la caja de herramientas del conocido Proyecto Harvard-Centro de Brasil, del que soy uno de los descendientes académicos. La doble diferencia entre los títulos registra la dirección general de mi argumento, que, a decir verdad, tiene poco que ver con el de Eggan. La sustitución de "perspectivismo" por "social" indica en primer lugar que la "antropología" a la que me refiero es una formación híbrida, resultado de cierta imbricación recursiva entre los discursos antropológicos occidentales (nuestra propia etno-antropología), que tienen sus raíces en

Este artículo traza un recorrido por los sentidos que asumió el perspectivismo en la obra del antropólogo Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, uno de sus principales referentes desde 1990. Primero, abordaremos las nociones de persona, humano y sociedad tal como son desarrolladas en sus escritos iniciales sobre los araweté. Mostraremos cómo dicha etnografía le permitió elaborar temas centrales del perspectivismo amerindio en tanto teoría antropológica. Luego nos adentramos en una segunda etapa de su obra, en la cual el perspectivismo es conceptualizado como una metafísica chamánica amazónica
y como una alter-antropología nativa con la cual dialogar y desde la cual repensar el naturalismo occidental. Buscamos enfatizar que el perspectivismo no surgió bajo la forma de una teoría metafísica,
ya que la etnografía amazónica fue clave en su inspiración; y que tampoco emergió únicamente de la imaginación conceptual de este autor, puesto que dichas postulaciones se insertan en una historia disciplinar comenzada por el precursor del americanismo, Claude Lévi-Strauss. Concluimos poniendo en perspectiva su obra en la antropología contemporánea.

> Context • Society is faced with “wicked” problems of environmental sustainability, which are inherently multiperspectival, and there is a need for explicitly constructivist and perspectivist theories to address them.
> Problem • However, different constructivist theories construe the environment in different ways. The aim of this paper is to clarify the conceptions of environment in constructivist approaches, and thereby to assist the sciences of complex systems and complex environmental problems.
> Method • We describe the terms used for “the environment” in von Uexküll, Maturana & Varela, and Luhmann, and analyse how their conceptions of environment are connected to differences of perspective and observation.
> Results • We show the need to distinguish between inside and outside perspectives on the environment, and identify two very different and complementary logics of observation, the logic of distinction and the logic of representation, in the three constructivist theories.
> Implications • Luhmann’s theory of social systems can be a helpful perspective on the wicked environmental problems of society if we consider carefully the theory’s own blind spots: that it confines itself to systems of communication, and that it is based fully on the conception of observation as indication by means of distinction.

This chapter approaches Zen, in part, from the perspective of Western discourses on perspectivism.  It begins by examining the ambivalently egocentric character of Nietzsche’s perspectivism, and later contrasts the egocentric perspectivism employed by Renaissance Western artists with the “floating perspective” developed by Song Chinese landscape painters.  It also investigates the relevant Buddhist background of Zen, especially the perspectivism of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra and the Huayan school, which it compares and contrasts with that of Leibniz’s monadology.  Passing through some reflections on Cusanus, it ultimately looks to classical Zen masters such as Linji and Dōgen and to the Kyoto School Zen philosopher Nishitani Keiji in order to make its case. 
At issue throughout is the question of what Zen can contribute to a cross-cultural dialogue on the nature of knowledge.  The thesis is that the epistemology implied in Zen is a kind of perspectivism, and yet it differs significantly from the egocentric varieties of perspectivism that are prevalent in the Western tradition.  The epistemology of Zen, it is argued, is a nonegocentric perspectivism.  More precisely, the point is this: Rather than seeing things only from one’s own habitually egocentric point of view, Zen cultivates one’s ability to play the role of either “host” or “guest,” as appropriate to the situation, and in general to empathetically and compassionately participate in the myriad perspectival openings onto the world that take place in singular events of interconnection.

Friedrich Nietzsche has long been recognized as a pivotal thinker in the history of moral philosophy, but until the last quarter century his importance for our understanding of  the concepts of truth and knowledge had been largely ignored in English-language scholarship. In my dissertation, I add to the growing discussion on Nietzsche’s theory of human cognition. While more attention has recently been given to this dimension of Nietzsche’s thought, several key aspects have been largely ignored or insufficiently treated including the effects that the ethical or evaluative domain have on the way we cognize the
world, the role that radical skepticism plays in motivating Nietzsche’s theory, and the connections between Nietzsche’s views on cognition and his larger philosophical project.

What is distinctive about my project is the connection I draw between Nietzsche’s critique of the unconditional will to truth in On the Genealogy of Morals and Beyond Good and Evil and his treatments of epistemological issues. Without understanding this connection, one cannot understand how Nietzsche’s distinctive positions on truth, knowledge, and cognition relate his overall project. My dissertation sets out to answer four main questions regarding Nietzsche’s theory of cognition, each question corresponding to a chapter of the completed work. In Chapter One I ask what the relationship is between Nietzsche’s views on truth, knowledge, and cognition and his larger philosophical project of overcoming nihilism. Here I argue that Nietzsche’s views on cognition follow directly from his analysis
of the nihilism of post-Christian Europe and that his project of overcoming that nihilism requires a complete revaluation of human knowing. Chapter Two asks what Nietzsche’s
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relationship is with skepticism and to what extent can Nietzsche be labeled a skeptic. I show that Nietzsche can be squarely placed in the skeptical tradition in philosophy that includes
the Ancient Greek skeptics and the modern heuristic skeptic, Descartes. Nietzsche, however, rejects Descartes attempts to escape radical skepticism, and so can be properly labeled a
radical skeptic himself. The next chapter asks what Nietzsche’s model is for how human cognition functions given that it is not designed to aim for truth (as it is traditionally understood, i.e. correspondence). I explore the ways that his favored metaphors of textual interpretation and optical perspective function in elucidating what goes on when we think, highlighting these metaphors strengths and weaknesses. I ultimately conclude that cognition is a practical endeavor with theoretical objects, leading Nietzsche to reject the Kantian
distinction between the practical and theoretical employments of reason. Finally I ask, given Nietzsche’s model of how human cognition functions, how should we evaluate competing
knowledge claims between individuals? It has been argued that Nietzsche’s pespectivism leads to an unacceptable global relativism regarding, if not truth, then at least epistemic
justification. I argue that Nietzsche does not need to abandon the most radical of his conclusions, and he can still account for how and why some positions on theoretical and
philosophical matters are better than others, and so an unacceptable “anything goes” kind of relativism does not follow from his views.

After answering these four main questions regarding Nietzsche’s views on truth, knowledge, and cognition, I look at how a metaphysics is possible for Nietzsche given his skepticism. I argue that one of the ways a philosopher can create the conditions for overcoming nihilism and affirming life is to create a metaphysics that is both ruthlessly honest to one’s cognitive commitments and an artistically creative outpouring of one’s abundant, healthy drives. I show in this final chapter how a metaphysics that is self-aware of its epistemic limitations fits into some of the contemporary interpretations of Nietzsche’s positive project.

L’anthropologie est une recherche moderne. Etymologiquement « savoir sur l'humain », elle est en effet le nom d'une discipline académique née à la fin du XVIIIe, mais aussi de tout l’horizon de connaissance qui lui donne son sens, qu'on peut résumer par cette question « Qu’est-ce que l’homme ? ». La centralité de cette interrogation est la source et la conséquence d’un Grand Partage entre les humains et les non-humains, constitutif du schème ontologique et épistémologique de la modernité, l'anthropocentrisme. La discipline anthropologique peut dans ce contexte être vue comme un angle particulier d’une anthropologie philosophique, celle qui associe la question de l’humain a celle de l’autre. Mais cette cohabitation est périlleuse : l'humanité des autres n'est jamais évidente, jamais satisfaisante, parce qu'en rencontrant d’autres avatars de cette humanité, on rencontre en même temps d’autre façons de la sémantiser. Penser l’humanité des autres ne semble pas pouvoir se résoudre en appliquant des critères distinctifs, mais par l'écoute de leur propre définition de ce que c'est que d'être humain. Il s'agit alors de se demander quelle est leur anthropologie, c'est-à-dire : qu’est-ce que l'anthropologie de leur point de vue ? L'unique façon de répondre de manière satisfaisante à la question "Qu'est-ce que l'homme?" devient la remise en cause de cette question et de la manière dont elle est posée. Nous proposons dans ce travail d'envisager comment un certain renouveau contemporain de la pratique anthropologique, abordé à travers le travail sur le perspectivisme amérindien de l'anthropologue brésilien Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, renverse les catégories de la pensée anthropocentrique et permet un réinvestissement philosophique fécond de la grande thématique métaphysique de l'humanité.