Framed by a critical take on the anthropological use of Western epistemological and cosmo-ontological notions, this article explores their applications to different cultural life-worlds that anthropologists explore and write about. I assess the inadequacy of this enterprise and offer a constructive corrective based on a positive and critical anthropological appreciation and appropriation of Western intellectual tradition. More specifically, this is carried out by means of the phenomenologically grounded considerations of the history of Western philosophy, theology and religiosity. My exercise is primarily motivated by my pursuit of the interpretation of the originality of the cosmo-ontological dimensions constitutive of New Guinea life-worlds, the region where I have done long-term field research. Accordingly, although I will primarily draw on ethnographies from New Guinea, relevant examples from other parts of the world are also used. As for the critical epistemological problematics of the article, it is relevant for anthropology’s universal and ongoing constructive self-elucidation and transformation.
Aikhenvald, A.Y. and R.M.W. Dixon (eds) (2003) Studies in Evidentiality . Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.
2.
Bercovitch, E. ( 1989) ‘Mortal Insights: Victim and Witch in the Nalumin Imagination’, in G. Herdt and M. Stephen (eds) The Religious Imagination in New Guinea. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
3.
Bidney, D. ( 1967[1953]) Theoretical Anthropology. New York: Schocken Books.
4.
Bird-David, N. ( 1999) ‘"Animism" Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology’, Current Anthropology40 (Suppl.): S67-S91.
5.
Bruno, G. ( 1997) Cause, Principle and Unity and Essays on Magic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6.
Busby, C. ( 1997) ‘Permeable and Partible Persons: A Comparative Analysis of Gender and Body in South India and Melanesia’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 3(2): 261-78.
7.
Case, S.J. ( 1971[1929]) Experience with the Supernatural in Early Christian Times. New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc.
8.
Castoriadis, C. ( 1987) Imaginary Institution of Society. London: Polity Press.
9.
Castoriadis, C. ( 1997) ‘The Retreat from Autonomy: Postmodernism as Generalized Conformism’, in World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
10.
Chafe, W. and J. Nichols (eds) (1986) Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
11.
Cicero (1972) The Nature of the Gods. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
12.
Clifford, J. ( 1982) Person and Myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian World . Berkeley: University of California Press.
13.
Coomaraswamy, A. ( 1977) Selected Papers, 2 vols. Princeton : Princeton University Press.
14.
Corbin, H. ( 1969) Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi . Princeton: Princeton University Press.
15.
Corbin, H. ( 1993) History of Islamic Philosophy. London : Kegan Paul Intl.
16.
Couliano, I. ( 1987) Eros and Magic in the Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
17.
De Lubac, H. ( 1934) ‘Remarques sur l’historie du mot "surnaturel"’ , Nouvelle Revue Theologique61(3): 225-49.
18.
Dumont, L. ( 1977) From Mandeville to Marx: The Genesis and Triumph of Economic Ideology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
19.
Dumont, L. ( 1986) Essays on Individualism: Modern Ideology in Anthropological Perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
20.
Gell, A. ( 1998) Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
21.
Gilson, E. ( 1991[1936]) The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
22.
Gilson, E. ( 1952) Being and Some Philosophers. Toronto : Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
23.
Gilson, E. ( 1985[1955]) History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages. London: Sheed and Ward.
24.
Gurvitch, A. ( 1978) ‘Galilean Physics in the Light of Husserl’s Phenomenology’, in T. Luckmann (ed.) Phenomenology and Sociology. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
25.
Halbfass, W. ( 1992) On Being and What There Is: Classical Vaisesika and the History of Indian Ontology. Albany: State University of New York Press.
26.
Hallowell, A.I. ( 1960) ‘Ojibwa Ontology, Behavior, and World View’ , in S. Diamond (ed.) Primitive Views of the World: Essays from Culture in History. New York: Columbia University Press.
27.
Heidegger, M. ( 2008) Basic Concepts of Ancient Philosophy (trans. R. Rojcewicz) . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
28.
Herdt, G. ( 1986) ‘Self and Culture: Contexts of Religious Experience in Melanesia’, in G. Herdt and M. Stephen (eds) The Religious Imagination in New Guinea. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
29.
Hollenback, J.B. ( 1996) Mysticism: Experience, Response, and Empowerment. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press .
30.
Hulkrantz, A. ( 1983) ‘The Concept of the Supernatural in Primal Religion’ , History of Religions22(3).
31.
Isaacs, S. ( 1952) ‘The Nature and Function of Phantasy’, in M. Klein (ed.) Developments in Psycho-Analysis. London: The Hogarth Press.
32.
Izutsu, T. ( 1983) Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts. Berkeley: University of California Press.
33.
Izutsu, T. ( 1997)Creation and the Timeless Order of Things: Essays in Islamic Mystical Philosophy. Ashfield: White Cloud Press.
34.
Jacka, J. ( 2006) ‘"Our Skins Are Weak": Ipili Modernity and the Demise of Discipline’, in S. Bamford (ed.) Embodying Modernity and Post-Modernity: Ritual, Praxis, and Social Change in Melanesia. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
35.
Jambet, C. ( 2006) The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra. New York: Zone Books.
36.
Jung, C.G. ( 1969) Psychological Types. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
37.
Kenny, J.P. ( 1967) ‘Supernatural’, in New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 13. New York: McGraw-Hill.
38.
Kerenyi, K. ( 1962) Greek and Roman Religion. London: Thames & Hudson.
39.
Kirsch, S. ( 2006) Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis and Environmental Relations in New Guinea. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
40.
Klass, M. ( 1995) Ordered Universes: Approaches to the Anthropology of Religion . Boulder: Westview Press.
41.
Knauft, B. ( 1994) ‘Foucault Meets South New Guinea: Knowledge, Power, Sexuality’, Ethos22(4): 391-438.
42.
Koestler, A. ( 1981[1967]) The Ghost in the Machine. London: Picador.
43.
Kohanski, A.S. ( 1984) The Greek Mode of Thought in Western Philosophy. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
44.
Kohn, E. ( 2007) ‘How Dogs Dream: Amazonian Natures and the Politics of Transpecies Engagement’, American Ethnologist34(1): 3-24.
45.
Lattas, A. ( 1987) ‘The New Panopticon: Newspaper Discourse and the Rationalisation of Society and Culture in New South Wales 1803-1830’ , unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Adelaide.
46.
Lattas, A. ( 1998) Cultures of Secrecy: Reinventing Race in Bush Kaliai Cargo Cults. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
47.
Lawrence, P. ( 1964) Road Belong Cargo. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
48.
Leclerc, I. ( 1972) The Nature of Physical Existence. New York: Humanities Press.
49.
Leclerc, I. ( 1986) The Philosophy of Nature. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
50.
Leenhardt, M. ( 1979) Do Kamo: Person and Myth in the Melanesian World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
51.
Lienhardt, G. ( 1961) Divinity and Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
52.
Lindstrom, M. ( 1990) Knowledge and Power in a South Pacific Society. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
53.
Lohmann, R.I. ( 2003) ‘The Supernatural Is Everywhere: Defining Qualities of Religion in Melanesia and Beyond’, Anthropological Forum13(2): 175-85.
54.
Malinowski, B. ( 1963) ‘Review of E. Durkheim, Les Formes Elementaires de la Vie Religioeuse’, in B. Malinowski (ed.) Sex, Culture, and Myth. London: RupertHartDavies.
55.
Malinowski, B. ( 1993) ‘A Fundamental Problem of Religious Sociology’ , in R. Thornton and P. Skalnik (eds) Early Writings of Bronislaw Malinowski. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
56.
Marriott, McKim ( 1976) ‘Hindu Transactions: Diversity without Dualism’ , in B. Kapferer (ed.) Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic Behavior. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.
57.
Martin, D.B. ( 1996) The Corinthian Body. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
58.
Martin, D.B. ( 2004) Inventing Superstition: From the Hippocratics to the Christians . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
59.
Mimica, J. ( 1981) ‘Omalyce: An Ethnography of the Iqwaye View of the Cosmos’, PhD dissertation, Australian National University .
60.
Mimica, J. ( 1988) Intimations of Infinity: The Cultural Meanings of the Iqwaye Counting and Number Systems. Oxford: Berg.
61.
Mimica, J. ( 1993) ‘The Foi and Heidegger: Western Philosophical Poetics and a New Guinea Life-World’, The Australian Journal of Anthropology4(2): 79-95.
62.
Mimica, J. ( 1996a) ‘Review of Planets, Stars, & Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200-1687, by Edward Grant’The Australian Journal of Anthropology7(1): 73-9.
63.
Mimica, J. ( 1996b) ‘On Dying and Suffering in Iqwaye Existence’ , pp. 213-237 in M. Jackson (ed.) Things as They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
64.
Mimica, J. ( 2001) ‘A Review from the Field (a critical review of Gilbert Herdt’s Sambia’s Sexual Culture: Essays from the Field)’ , The Australian Journal of Anthropology12(2): 225-37.
65.
Mimica, J. ( 2003) ‘The Death of a Strong, Great, Bad Man: An Ethnography of Soul Incorporation’, Oceania73(4): 260-86.
66.
Mimica, J. ( 2006) ‘Dreams, Laki, and Mourning: A Psychoanalytic Ethnography of the Yagwoia (PNG) "Inner Feminine", Part I’, Oceania76(1): 27-60.
67.
Mimica, J. ( 2007) ‘Descended from the Celestial Rope: From the Father to the Son, and from the Ego to the Cosmic Self ’, pp. 78-105 in J. Mimica (ed.) Explorations in Psychoanalytic Ethnography . New York: Berghahn.
68.
Nasr, S.H. ( 1992[1968]) Science and Civilization in Islam. New York: Barnes & Noble.
69.
Needham, J. ( 1959) The Great Titration. London: Allen and Unwin.
70.
Pedersen, M.A., R. Empson and C. Humphrey (eds) ( 2007) Perspectivism: Inner Asia. [Special issue]9(2): 141-344.
71.
Pines, S. ( 1997) Studies in Islamic Atomism. Jerusalem : The Magnes Press.
72.
Plato (1975) Republic. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
73.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, G. ( 1976) ‘Cosmology as Ecological Analysis: A View from the Rain Forest’, Man (N.S.) 11: 307-18.
74.
Rohde, E.(1966[1925]) Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks, 2 vols. New York: Harper and Row.
75.
Rosemann, P.W. ( 1999) Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault. London: Macmillan.
76.
Sahlins, M. ( 2002) Waiting for Foucault, Still. Chicago : Prickly Paradigm Press.
77.
Saler, B. ( 1977) ‘Supernatural as a Western Category’, Ethos55(1): 31-53.
78.
Scharfstein, B. ( 1998) A Comparative History of Philosophy: From the Upanishads to Kant. Albany: State University of New York Press.
79.
Schieffelin, E.L. ( 1976) The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers . New York: St Martin’s Press .
80.
Schuon, F. ( 1999[1954]) Language of the Self: Essays on the Perennial Philosophy. Bloomington: Wisdom Books.
81.
Stasch, R. ( 2008) Society of Others: Kinship and Mourning in a West Papuan Place. Berkeley: University of California Press.
82.
Strathern, M. ( 1988) The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
83.
Trompf, G.W. ( 1989) ‘Macrohistory and Acculturation: Between Myth and History in Modern Melanesian Adjustments and Ancient Gnosticism’, Comparative Study in Society and History31(4): 621-48.
84.
Van der Leeuw, G. ( 1967[1933]) Religion in Essence and Manifestation, 2 vols. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith .
85.
Viverios de Castro, E. ( 1998) ‘Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism’ , Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 4(3): 469-88.
86.
Viverios de Castro, E. ( 2004) ‘Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies’, Common Knowledge10(3): 463-84.
87.
Viverios de Castro, E. ( 2007) ‘The Crystal Forest: Notes on the Ontology of Amazonian Spirits’, Inner Asia [Special Issue on Perspectivism]9(2): 153-72.
88.
Voegelin, E. ( 1951) The New Science of Politics. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
89.
Voegelin, E. ( 2000[1957]) Plato and Aristotle: Order and History, Vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
90.
Voegelin, E. ( 1974) Order and History: The Ecumenic Age, Vol. 4. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
91.
Von Bertalanffy, L. ( 1960[1952]) Problems of Life. New York: Harper & Brothers.
92.
Von Uexkull, J. ( 1957) ‘A Stroll through the Worlds of Animals and Man’ , in C.H. Schiller (ed.) Instinctive Behavior. London: Methuen & Co.
93.
Von Uexkull, J. ( 1982) ‘The Theory of Meaning’, Semiotica42(1): 25-82.
94.
Wagner, R. ( 1991) ‘The Fractal Person’, in M. Godelier and M. Strathern (eds) Big Men and Great Men: Personifications of Power in Melanesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
95.
Weiner, J.F. ( 2001) Tree Leaf Talk: A Heideggerian Anthropology. Oxford: Berg.
96.
Williams, F.E. ( 1924) The Natives of the Purari Delta. Port Moresby: Government Printer.
97.
Wolfson, H.A. ( 1973) Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
