The Perception of the Environment

6.14 x 1.42 x 9.21 inches, 602 pages

English language

Published Nov. 30, 2021 by Routledge.

ISBN:: 978-1-032-05227-4

(1 review)

In this work Tim Ingold offers a persuasive new approach to understanding how human beings perceive their surroundings. He argues that what we are used to calling cultural variation consists, in the first place, of variations in skill. Neither innate nor acquired, skills are grown, incorporated into the human organism through practice and training in an environment. They are thus as much biological as cultural. To account for the generation of skills we have therefore to understand the dynamics of development. And this in turn calls for an ecological approach that situates practitioners in the context of an active engagement with the constituents of their surroundings.

The twenty-three essays comprising this book focus in turn on the procurement of livelihood, on what it means to ‘dwell’, and on the nature of skill, weaving together approaches from social anthropology, ecological psychology, developmental biology and phenomenology in a way that has never …

In this work Tim Ingold offers a persuasive new approach to understanding how human beings perceive their surroundings. He argues that what we are used to calling cultural variation consists, in the first place, of variations in skill. Neither innate nor acquired, skills are grown, incorporated into the human organism through practice and training in an environment. They are thus as much biological as cultural. To account for the generation of skills we have therefore to understand the dynamics of development. And this in turn calls for an ecological approach that situates practitioners in the context of an active engagement with the constituents of their surroundings.

The twenty-three essays comprising this book focus in turn on the procurement of livelihood, on what it means to ‘dwell’, and on the nature of skill, weaving together approaches from social anthropology, ecological psychology, developmental biology and phenomenology in a way that has never been attempted before. The book is set to revolutionise the way we think about what is ‘biological’ and ‘cultural’ in humans, about evolution and history, and indeed about what it means for human beings – at once organisms and persons – to inhabit an environment. The Perception of the Environment will be essential reading not only for anthropologists but also for biologists, psychologists, archaeologists, geographers and philosophers.

This edition includes a new Preface by the author.

1 edition

gesang reviewed The Perception of the Environment by Tim Ingold

Echoes from the "Gaian Age"

4 stars

The main point of the book should not be alien to those familiar with contemporary thoughts, namely with Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, A. N. Whitehead, embodied cognition and the like. It is an anthropological-socialogical view of, broadly speaking, the phenomenological and processual thesis that all events and objects are inseparable from the (not-necessarily physical) environment that they're situated in, and is a developed form of German historicism and romanticist thoughts. From the most fundamental process of sensual perception to language "acquisition" or rather language-ability generation, there is no "innate ability" that is coded in the genes that would be expressed and actualized.

It's a pity that philosophers, evolutionary biologists and anthropologist do not even try to learn some more "fundamental" science outside of their professional requirements, like physics and information theory, and some mathematics and theoretical computer science, since it is manifest that a same trend is burgeoning in both family of …

The main point of the book should not be alien to those familiar with contemporary thoughts, namely with Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, A. N. Whitehead, embodied cognition and the like. It is an anthropological-socialogical view of, broadly speaking, the phenomenological and processual thesis that all events and objects are inseparable from the (not-necessarily physical) environment that they're situated in, and is a developed form of German historicism and romanticist thoughts. From the most fundamental process of sensual perception to language "acquisition" or rather language-ability generation, there is no "innate ability" that is coded in the genes that would be expressed and actualized.

It's a pity that philosophers, evolutionary biologists and anthropologist do not even try to learn some more "fundamental" science outside of their professional requirements, like physics and information theory, and some mathematics and theoretical computer science, since it is manifest that a same trend is burgeoning in both family of fields. Namely, information retrieval as receiving something directly given v.s. as decoding and internal mathematics v.s. fixing a category (Set); cognitive science v.s. ecological psychology and set-theoretical foundation of mathematics v.s. practical foundations. These, for those familiar with 20th century (actually should be seen as 19th century since I'll let the year 1933 be the watershed) European thoughts, with Schellingianism, Bergsonism, Teilhardian and Whiteheadian thoughts, should, again, not be alien, but it doesn't seem like most people are well-read in philosophy and 20th century thoughts.

There are internal contradictions in Ingold's thoughts, or more precisely in his application of the thoughts in diverse topics. For example, sometimes it is rejected that there are any "ephemeral and meaningless sense data", even "formless, raw data", whereas sometimes the notion of "raw perceptual data" is used freely to describe a learning process. He also vacillates between postulating some innate abilities in human and rejecting others, without a clear schema for the differentiation. This is due to the fact that a corresponding epistemology that renders acquisitions of new information possible without any innate ability, without a program or a computational processing unit that is universal, is not given.

To avoid the notion radically, a new kind of metaphysics that abolishes the very independence of subject from his surrounding should be developed. An option would be A. N. Whitetead's process metaphysics, the other, that might not be separated from process thought, is an anti-realist meaning-theory. The former abolishes the notion of subject-object or even any object but only concerns itself with events and processes, and the latter adopts a constructivist view of reality by denying the reality of the presence/existence of information without a "representation" or "realization", i.e. without being subject to perception.

Ingold's writings are clear and without any muddle, but it might seem repetitive and wordy as the thoughts presented take shape. He cites and quotes tons of writings and is literally a human library, but I doubt that quoting and citing are of any help: though promising and insightful, the logical architecture is incomplete, and can only be supplemented by, but not based upon, enumeration of facts and debates. Also he uses rather political-ideological phrases and concepts like "Western" "teleological" much too often, while indicating that he himself is not ideological. It might have been understandable in 2000, but now it leaves a bad taste.

Nevertheless, an exceedingly good book that summarizes the general constructivist-intuitionist-processual-phenomenological trend in the field of psychology, anthropology and biology, that should come handy for newcomers. It is advisable to read the introduction to each parts and chapters then read individual chapters selectively, than read the book from beginning to end.

Subjects

Anthropology
Ecology
Psychology
Philosophy of Mind