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What are we to make of statements that jaguars see themselves as humans, or of doubts about the boundary between dreams and waking? Jointly authored by an anthropologist and a philosopher, this book investigates some of the most puzzling ideas and practices reported in modern ethnography and ancient philosophy, concerning humans, animals, persons, spirits, agency, selfhood, consciousness, nature, life, death, disease and health. The study’s twin aims are first to explore the possibility of achieving a better understanding of the materials we discuss and then to see what lessons we can draw from them to challenge and revise our own fundamental assumptions.
“This is a work of outstanding interest and originality, both in form and in content.” • Nicholas Jardine, Cambridge University
“This is a rare treat: a sequence of conversations between an anthropologist and a philosopher who tease out a series of fascinating questions, notably those posed to the mind of the philosopher by the materials of the anthropologist. It is a hugely illuminating exercise, because of who they are and what they are discussing.” • Marilyn Strathern, Cambridge University
Chapter 1. Are People and Animals Separate Kinds of Beings?
Chapter 2. Could Animal-Human Transformations Be Considered as Dreaming or Hallucinating?
Chapter 3. Could We Think of Transformations as Metaphoric?
Chapter 4. Similarities and Contrasts with Ancient Greece
Chapter 5. Are There Complete and Incomplete Transformations?
Chapter 6. How Do Things Become Equivalent?
Chapter 7. Is Shamanism a Kind of Disease?
Chapter 8. Are There Objects without Perspectives?
Chapter 9. Why Are Some Animals Unable to Transform?
Chapter 10. Do Transformations Need Proof? Are Shamans and Healers Ever Doubted?
Chapter 11. Are Transformations Analogous to Miracles? Is It All about Believing?
Chapter 12. Is Proof Linked to Literacy?
Chapter 13. Could Those Transformations Be Compared to Those in Literary Fiction?
Chapter 14. Should We Talk about Ontologies When Faced with a World in Flux?
Chapter 15. Anthropologists and Philosophers
Conclusion
References
Index