Who Is afraid of the Ontological Wolf ? Some Comments on an Ongoing Anthropological Debate

Abstract

The article outlines both some of the stimuli that led to the “ontological turn” in anthropology and some of its implications. Ontology is outlined here by the author as an anti-epistemological and counter-cultural, philosophical war machine. He maintains that three main premises of so-called ontological turn were the crisis of representation in the socials sciences, development of STS studies and the ongoing double crisis — within global capitalism and in climate. He supposes that the profound philosophical debt of ethno-anthropology to the Kantian epistemocritical turn, and calls for a return of sorts to a “pre”-Kantian or speculative concern with ontological questions in the treatment of ethnographic materials. The most important consequence of ontological turn in Anthropology is its transformation into comparative metaphysics as well as metaphysics — into comparative ethnography. Anthropologist turns into an ontological negotiator or diplomat and is supposed to give a “good enough description” of a people. Author presents his own methodological credo “always leave a way out for the people you are describing,” which becomes the base for new “epistemological ethics” in anthropology. He refers to Gilles Deleuze and his concept of “Autrui” as a possibility of another world contained in the “face/gaze of the other.” According to author anthropology’s role consists not that in explaining the world of the other, but rather of multiplying our world. It is supposed neither to give an exhaustive explanation nor to attempt to actualize the possibilities immanent for others’ thought but endeavor to sustain them as possible indefinitely.