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Abstract

Relationships with all the other beings that inhabit the living environments of human societies have evolved over time and continue to do so. A book such as Philippe Descola's ("Beyond Nature and Culture"), which aims to order these relationships by identifying the underlying schemes of practices, is of interest to all people dealing with the environment today. Starting from the ways "the other" is identified, his analysis leads him to develop four ontologies (animism, totemism, naturalism and analogism). These enable him to classify human societies according to the way they consider other non-human beings and to the relationships they entertain with them. This endeavour has not failed to generate criticism, mainly from anthropologists who do not recognize the features proposed by the author in the societies they have investigated. Therefore, we needed to follow his reasoning step by step in order to understand the arguments which are to be questioned or adhered to. We consider first the relevance of the division into four ontologies. We then criticize some aspects of the author's approach and especially the way he avoids dealing with the dynamics that have affected human societies over time, especially in their relationships with animals and plants. © NSS Dialogues, EDP Sciences 2007.