{"id":1005,"date":"2021-03-20T11:28:57","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T09:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/?p=1005"},"modified":"2021-03-20T11:33:14","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T09:33:14","slug":"how-forests-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/2021\/03\/20\/how-forests-think\/","title":{"rendered":"How forests think?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TSElosophers meeting 12.3.2021. Erkki Lassila, Kari Lukka, Maija-Riitta Ollila, Morgan Shaw, Otto Rosendahl.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Kohn, Eduardo (2013) How forests think: Toward an anthropology beyond the human<\/em>. University of California Press, Berkeley.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Summary<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In How Forests Think<\/em>, Eduardo Kohn explores the question of how to create an analytical framework for anthropology that can include both humans and nonhumans. Kohn\u2019s investigation is based in his long-term fieldwork in \u00c1vila, a village of Quichua-speaking Runa people in Ecuador’s Upper Amazon. Kohn brings his readings of the semiotic theories of pragmatist philosopher Charles Peirce, the application of Peirce\u2019s work to biology by Terrence Deacon, and a number of other theoretical reference points into conversation with his observations from \u00c1vila. A central contention of the book is that \u201cseeing, representing, and perhaps knowing, even thinking, are not exclusively human affairs” (Kohn 2013, 16). The TSElosophers read the book\u2019s Introduction and first chapter, \u201cThe Open Whole\u201d, which examine what it would mean for anthropology to take this claim seriously. This section also opens a number of questions about what doing so might tell us about how to live as humans in a world inhabited by many other kinds of living beings.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Discussion<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Kohn problematizes a conventional view of anthropology, arguing for the development of an \u201canthropology beyond the human\u201d based on the assumption that there is more continuity between anthropos<\/em> and other forms of life that has been recognized in the past. Kohn argues that by focusing exclusively on the processes of meaning-making that are unique to human language, the human sciences have so far overlooked the many ways in which all life is produced through the creation and use of signs (i.e. semiosis). \u201cProvincializing\u201d linguistic representation based on the type of signs that are used by humans alone would treat language as a very special human case of what Kohn holds to be a vastly more widespread phenomenon. Thus, this book invites us to entertain the possibility that other living beings, through their own ways of making sense of and representing their surroundings and relations, also think. This suggests we need to pay attention to the specific ways in which even, for instance, forests think alongside us, but not exactly like us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recurring questions surrounded Kohn\u2019s elaboration of an extensive and idiosyncratic theoretical framework, which often felt cumbersome. Was all of it really necessary, and if so, where did this perceived need come from? Is it primarily relevant to a readership that is not familiar with ongoing paradigmatic debates within anthropology? The extended treatment of Pierce\u2019s semiotics and conception of realism was helpful to those of us who were completely unfamiliar with his work, but Kohn\u2019s strategy of interweaving it with his ethnographic material was not always successful, leaving many key points ambiguous. However, to be fair, since we read only a portion of the text, it is possible that the ideas opened up in these early sections are dealt with more fully in the remainder of the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kohn periodically critiques other approaches he situates within the Posthumanities, particularly the work of Bruno Latour and Jane Bennett. He particularly charges that Latour mistakenly brings the human and nonhuman together using an \u201canalytic of mixture\u201d that elides meaningful differences between language and things (Kohn 2013, 56). Unfortunately, this line of argumentation is not further developed, remaining too vague to consider more thoroughly. What we can be confident in that Kohn aligns himself with some of the aims, but not the means of these other thinkers, while making the case that his own perspective is a viable alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our discussion pulled on the numerous loose threads left dangling in a tantalizing way from Kohn\u2019s text. How does the concept of consciousness fit into his framework? Is self-awareness just a rare and exceptional aspect of becoming a self? Is Kohn completely rejecting the agency of inanimate matter even as he tries to more firmly ground it for living things? Should thinking be stretched beyond cognition in this way, or would another verb have avoided unnecessary confusion? Those TSElosophers hungry for answers will look to what insights the next chapters of How Forests Think<\/em> hold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the TSElosphers found this book to be difficult but intriguing reading. Those of us who were enthusiastic about it focused on its potential to inform efforts to rethink human environmental ethics in the Anthropocene. However, we also questioned whether the particular approach Kohn takes creates the most fertile ground for new ideas in this area. In particular, the question was raised whether the book\u2019s worry is only a worry about an allegedly too narrow window of analysis of anthropology \u2013 it is already well-known in many other fields of science, not least biology, that all living creatures communicate with their environment, yet not with human language. A strength of this work, however, is the way it got us talking about the possibility of seeing our human relations to the wider world in a new and surprising way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TSElosophers meeting 12.3.2021. Erkki Lassila, Kari Lukka, Maija-Riitta Ollila, Morgan Shaw, Otto Rosendahl. Kohn, Eduardo (2013) How forests think: Toward an anthropology beyond the human. University of California Press, Berkeley. Summary In How Forests Think, Eduardo Kohn explores the question of how to create an analytical framework for anthropology that can include both humans and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[108,87,123],"class_list":["post-1005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anthropology","tag-book","tag-pragmatism","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1008,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1005\/revisions\/1008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/tselosophers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}