Debates on Perspectivism

The MCTM1International Research Network ( FMSH-LC2S/PHEEAC-CESSMA) is organising a new seminar: Debates on Perspectivism: a reflection on Otherness and Epistemic Justice.

The aim of this seminar is to present and discuss the notion of ‘perspectivism’ and its development at the intersection of anthropology and philosophy. Having become a central concept in contemporary anthropology, notably with the contributions of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro on Amazonian perspectivism, this notion has become central to debates on decolonial thought. However, its dominant place in academic discourse raises critical questions about epistemic justice: uses of the concept are accompanied by epistemological and political debates, particularly on the use of indigenous knowledge in the academic context. With this in mind, the seminar aims to explore the dynamics of translation and theoretical transfer between philosophy and anthropology, highlighting the potential risks of epistemic violence associated with the translation and appropriation of indigenous experience and knowledge in terms of Western categories. The aim is to explore the possibilities of moving away from the function of ‘representation’, held as a human universal by Western thought, which alone is capable of discerning the different ways of making sense of the world. Is it possible to speak from within a (non-Western) ‘cosmogony’ that does not ‘represent’ the world from a human point of view, but from a set of perspectives foreign to this location of the human mind, if this restitution is offered through discourses whose understanding remains dependent on a position outside these cosmogonies and inside the philosophical field with which we are familiar?

→ Find out more about the programme (FR)