Rethinking Relation-Substance Dualism

Submutances and the Body

Aurélie Névot (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

296 Seiten

2025
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-032-42664-8 (ISBN)

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This book analyses anthropological debates on “relationism” (referring to methodological and theoretical issues) and sets out to reconsider these discussions with regards to the notion of “substance” (generally associated with the body). Reflecting on the philosophical origins and implications of these two concepts, the author aims to bring them to the heart of contemporary anthropological discourse and addresses the erasure (or blurring) of “substance” in favour of “relation.” The argument put forward is that the conceptual pairing of “substance-relation” should be substituted for the “nature-culture” dualism that has been dominant in structural anthropology. The chapters engage with the work of scholars such as Philippe Descola, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, and Wang Mingming as part of a decentring and questioning of the tradition in which anthropology is rooted. The book also considers the role that the anthropology of China plays in the re-evaluation of the relationship between relation and substance. The concept of “submutance” is introduced with Chinese ethnographic material to explore the possibility of moving beyond the relation-substance dualism of Western heritage. This is valuable reading for scholars interested in the theory and history of anthropology.

Aurélie Névot is an anthropologist and research professor at the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS).

Introduction. Lévi-Strauss’ Enfants Terribles

Part I Historiographical Overview

1 From Substantialist Premises to Relationalist Perspectives. From Aristotle to Cognitivism via Lévi-Strauss

2 Anthropo-Philosophical and Ethno-Phenomenological Relations. From Torment to Ecstasy?

Conclusion to Part I

Part II Structuralist Legacies

3 Body and Intentionality. Descola’s “Relative Universalism”

4 The body-Sign. Viveiros de Castro’s anti-substantialist relationism

Conclusion to Part II

Part III Chinese Relationisms and Submutances

5 The Lost Body. Wang Mingming’s “Cosmology of Relationship” and Hierarchical Relationism

6 Shamanic Bodies and Submutances. The Course of Writing, Blood, Breath and Water

Conclusion to Part III

Conclusion. “What the body can do”

Erscheinungsdatum	07.11.2023
Reihe/Serie	Routledge Studies in Anthropology
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	520 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Metaphysik / Ontologie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-032-42664-0 / 1032426640
ISBN-13	978-1-032-42664-8 / 9781032426648
Zustand	Neuware