Cosmogony Today: Counter-Cosmogony, Perspectivism, and the Return of Anti-biblical Polemic
In this article I review critical thought about cosmogony in the social sciences and explore the current status of this concept. The latter agenda entails three components. First, I argue that, even where cosmogony is not mentioned, contemporary anthropological projects that reject the essentialist...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Berghahn
[2015]
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In: |
Religion and society
Year: 2015, Volume: 6, Issue: 1, Pages: 44-61 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Cosmogony
/ Dualism
/ Criticism
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Further subjects: | B
Viveiros de Castro
B Essentialism B Ontology B Perspectivism B Non-dualism B Monotheism B Cosmogony B Cosmology |
Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | In this article I review critical thought about cosmogony in the social sciences and explore the current status of this concept. The latter agenda entails three components. First, I argue that, even where cosmogony is not mentioned, contemporary anthropological projects that reject the essentialist ontology they ascribe to Western modernity in favor of analytical versions of relational non-dualism thereby posit a "counter-cosmogony" of eternal relational becoming. Second, I show how Viveiros de Castro has made Amazonian cosmogonic myth - understood as counter-cosmogony - iconic of the relational non-dualist ontology he terms "perspectival multinaturalism". Observing that this counter-cosmogony now stands in opposition to biblical cosmogony, I conclude by considering the consequences for the study of cosmogony when it becomes a register of what it is about - when it becomes, that is, a form of polemical debate about competing models of cosmogony and the practical implications that they are perceived to entail. |
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ISSN: | 2150-9301 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion and society
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.3167/arrs.2015.060104 |