Talk:Animism/Archive 3

message: Sam, are you sure that the term you want to describe your own beliefs isn't hylozoism? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:30, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)
:Its related, Jungian Panpsychism even more so, but the term I normally use when describing my beliefs is Pantheism / panentheism. Hylozoism has a bit much emphasis on materialism, and not enough on consciousness and individual volition. Animism itself has an excess of emphasis on ritualism, but:
::Animism is the belief that personalized supernatural beings (or souls) inhabit all objects and govern their existence.
::Animism (from animus, or anima, mind or soul), originally means the doctrine of spiritual beings, including human souls. It is often extended to include the belief that personalized, supernatural beings (or souls) endowed with reason, intelligence and volition inhabit ordinary objects as well as animate beings, and govern their existence (pantheism or animatism). This can be stated simply as "everything is alive" 'everything is conscious" or "everything has a soul".
:is a pretty excellent explanation of my views. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 12:12, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Aside

message: Under 'plants' it says "Just as human souls are assigned to animals..."  Problem is, it doesn't say that HUMAN souls are assigned to animals, and I think that it is a mischaracterization of animism to indicate that the souls that are believed to inhabit animals, plants and rocks under animism are 'Human'.  It may seem like splitting hairs, but I think that this is an important distinction.   I think we would be better with 'human-like' souls in this description.  Comments?  Oh boogers, I am not logged in.  ":)
--68.239.134.78 02:53, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Human' Souls 

message: How, exactly, is the "new animism" different from hylozoism? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:24, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
I don't think its useful to use the terms new animism and old animism.  Are they used this way in the literature?  It may be more useful to address this in several terms, e.g. to the lay public animism is a sort of proto-religion, the sociological definition is blank, and evolved from blank, blank and blank, etc.  Comments?L Hamm 02:50, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "New animism" 

message: "In recent anthropology the concept of animism has had a rather bad press, on account of its liberal use in the past to brand, as primitive superstition, systems of belief which allegedly attribute spirits or souls to things, living or non-living, which to any rational, thinking person are ‘obviously’ mere objects of nature (for a review 4of these usages, see Bird-David 1999: S67— 8). Philippe Descola, however, suggests a way of considering animism that is rather more respectful of indigenous understandings. Animism, he writes, is ‘a kind of objectification of nature [which] endows natural beings not only with human dispositions, granting them the status of persons with human emotions and often the ability to talk, but also with social attributes — a hierarchy of positions, behaviours based on kinship, respect for certain norms of conduct’ (Descola 1992: 6 114). . . Critically, in such a system, relations between persons — that is, social relations — can override the boundaries of humanity as a species. Thus, as Hallowell reports, ‘the world of personal relations in which the Ojibwa live is a world in which vital social relations transcend those which are maintained with human beings’ (OO, p. 43)." from Ingold, Tim. Perception of the Environment : Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London, , GBR: Routledge, 2000. p 106. 
This seems to be a reasonable expansion of the definition beyond that provided by EB, to include recent scholarship and contemporary anthropological views of 'animism'.L Hamm 03:59, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Tim Ingold is respected, as is Descola.  It would be worth tracking down an article on this topic by Bird-David in Current Anthropology a few years ago, too ... Slrubenstein   |  Talk 22:27, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I'll attempt to find that citation, thank you. L Hamm 16:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Nurit Bird-David article: "Animism" revisited: Personhood, environment, and relational epistemology.  Nurit Bird-David Current Anthropology Feb 1999. p. 40.  L Hamm 20:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations 

message: Isn't there a stage in childhood mental development where the child regards anything that moves of itself as being alive? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pmurray bigpond.com (talk • contribs) 15 Nov 2005.
: Ouspensky would certainly have thought so, but I would guess that this is a misuse of terms: I would guess that a child at that stage of development simply does not yet have a concept that corresponds to an adult notion of "alive". -- Jmabel | Talk 03:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Piaget also thought that the stage before concrete operations was "animistic".  John D. Croft 14:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Childhood Mental Development 

message: The lead section of the article (introduction) is unreferenced and doesn't appear to give a precise definition of what animism is. I propose replacing it with the definition here:
:"Animism is the belief in personalized, supernatural beings (or souls) that often inhabit ordinary animals and objects, governing their existence."
Any takers? Sofeil 04:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I personally feel this definition is in error, as it makes a separation which is Europo-centric, about separation of "ordinary" and "extraordinary".  Animism lived in a world that was totally extra-ordinary, in which there was no separation between supernatural and natural.  The definition is thus falling back into the Victorian views.  John D. Croft 14:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition

message: It seems that the section on Tylor might benefit from including some of the specific observations of the development of his theory:
"As he developed his theory of animism, Tylor took an interest in the modern spiritualist movement, fashionable at the time.  He even went to London from Somerset for a month to investigate spiritualist seances.  In 1869 he argued that "modern spiritualism is a survival and a revival of savage thought"."  p. S69 of Nurit Bird-David's article "Animism" Revisited.  According to Graham Harvey (Animals, Animists, and Academics in the journal Zygon) "Tylor's theory of the nature of religion was swiftly mischaracterized for a theory of the origins of religion".  
Does Tylor ever make reference to el or al as the article currently stands?  Unless there is a supporting citation I'd advocate striking that portion from that section.  L Hamm 22:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sir Edward Burnett Tylor 

message: "Other familiar conceptions identify the soul with the liver (see omen)"
going to Omen after it is mentioned in reference to the Liver gives no information about the topic. i would strongly suggest removing it, or trying to figure out if there is an alternate page that was supposed to be linked. -Skp2y F thorax 04:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Liver != Omen

message: I don't know why "pinto" is linked as a similar concept - the link simply goes to the disambiguation page for the word "pinto". If it's supposed to link to an actual concept, it should link directly - if not, it's a joke or error and should be deleted. 18:51 3, March 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.23.33.14 (talk) 23:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pinto?

message: This page needs to be revised. There are far too many subheadings of little content. 71.82.161.14 06:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: I have inserted citaions and references to one of the sections needing them, and deleted the "citations needed" tag. John D. Croft 09:54, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations