The bewitchment of our intelligence: Scepticism about other minds in anthropology

Abstract

This article aims at characterizing how the problem of scepticism about other minds appears in anthropology. To do so, I offer a close reading of Nils Bubandt's book, The Empty Seashell (2014), a study of witchcraft and doubt on the North Maluku Island of Halmahera. Through its deep engagement with issues revolving around scepticism, I take the book to be an example of the tendency to consider the problem of sceptical doubt about others as a problem of access to the inner thoughts and feelings of other people. By looking closely at its attempts to respond to this problem, I endeavour to shed light on the ways in which, in working the problem of scepticism out, we may be doing exactly the reverse: giving into the sceptical impulse. How does a certain way of asking questions about scepticism nourish the drive to it? I am interested in the drift towards scepticism that precisely takes the form of a claim against it. In showing that such a drift is prompted by a certain use of language, I hope to elucidate some ways in which scepticism is lived and is thus not merely an intellectual conundrum, but an ordinary human condition.