1. I use “Occidental” whenever I want to refer to the “imaginary figure” that Dipesh Chakrabarty refers to as “Europe” (2000: 4)—a virtual reality that one cannot afford not to think with when analyzing the constitution of modernity (cf. also Latour 1993).
2. In recent work on material culture, some stress discourses of the object's or “fetish's” agency (Gell 1998; Pels 1998; Pietz 1985, 1987, 1988, 1999); while others (Appadurai 1986; Myers 2001a; and, to a lesser extent, Keane 1997) stress the human regimes of value to which objects are subordinated. The more remarkable thing about this literature, however, is its recent convergence of human and objective agency and intention (see especially Gell 1998; Keane 1996, 2001; Miller 1987; and Spyer 1998).
3. As Emile Durkheim (1965 [1912]: 144–5) and, commenting on Durkheim's work, Michael Taussig (1993) bring out, the relationship is much more complex, especially when one considers its historical layering (see, e.g. Myers 2001b; Wolfe 1999).
4. Cf. Carrier (1998) and Miller (1998) in their discussion of virtuality and “virtualism.” I have neglected to discuss these notions, as well a number of other relevant concepts (such as “idealism“; or “metaphysics“; or “theory” versus “empiry”). I readily admit, however, that such different vectors of contest may generate important modifications of my present argument.
5. Such conjecture is, among other things, the standard operation of medical diagnosis—when based, that is, on finding out what ails living organisms (see Ginzburg 1983). One can find its equivalent in social science in terms of the conjecture of evolutionist schemata, cultural patterns, or functional relationships on the basis of their perceived effects (as in the case of Wallace and Tylor; see Pels 2003). See the remarks, below, on Durkheim's “hyperspiritual”conscience collectiveand Tylor's notion of “culture.”