Overall, the individual articles draw on quite different types of ontology, even when discussing ‘agentive’ and ‘calculatory’ forms of divination, as suggested in the introduction. The articles in this issue are mainly concerned with explicit ontologies and the tracing of ontologies implicit in divinatory practice that in some cases are glossed as deep ontologies. 1 Matthews uses Michael Scott's term ‘deep ontology’ for analytical frameworks such as Descola's fourfold way, a characterization of the modes of reasoning found in ontologies (explicit or implicit). In his introduction to this issue, William Matthews distinguishes explicit and deep forms of ontology. I would add ‘worldview’ and ‘mentality’ to the list. However, turning to one of those closely associated with the creation of the turn, we find that “these ‘basic ideas’ about the ‘constitution of the world,’ are quite similar to that which once got called, in the bad old days, ‘cosmology,’ ‘ontology,’ or even ‘culture’” ( Viveiros de Castro 2012: 66). From the outside, it seems that many of those circling round the ontological turn seem to take for granted that anthropologists can recognize an ontology when they see, taste, or smell one and that no further definition is needed.
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