How Forests Think: Anthropology Beyond Humanity by Eduardo Kohn (Canada) Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House’s popular non-fiction books of the week

Can forests think? Can dogs dream? This book attempts to tell how creatures other than humans create the possibility of opening up a new world, and it also reflects the trend of anthropology towards ontology and de-humanization. His topic involves a fundamental reflection on anthropology and "humanity" so that we can learn to "ecologicalize" our ethics. Cohen's theory is based on semiotics and linguistics. In Ávila, Ecuador, he used an ethnographic method to deeply examine the way of survival of the Luna people and tried to understand how they connected themselves with various "existences" in the densest forest in the world where they lived: such as the power of the soul, the power of the elves, and even the communication methods between trees and monkeys. Therefore, in his book, he challenged the basic theory of anthropology, that is, what is human and how humans are different from other non-human creatures. And this division also gives the author new anthropological research tools. Trying to subvert the role of human language in exploring the external world, advocating that thinking is not owned by humans and thinking transcends humans, this proposition is revolutionary in academia.

How Forests Think won the 2014 Gregory Bateson Anthropology Award for the best book. This book has inspired the imagination of the Earth's ecology in surprising ways, and its derivative works include not only the eponymous symphony premiered at Lincoln Center, but also international museum exhibitions and best-selling works of fiction and nonfiction. The book has been warmly welcomed and recognized by leading scholars in anthropology and the environmental humanities.

※ Donna Haraway called it "a powerful and wonderful book that changed my dreams and reshaped my fixed interpretive habits."

※ Bruno Latour called it "a work of art" and "a refreshing ... philosophical anthropology".

※ Luo Anqing believes that this book will "trigger important dialogues within and beyond anthropology."

※ Marilyn Strathairn called it "the most creative leap of thought."

※ Philip Descartes said: "A striking feature of How the Forest Thinks is its complex - and extremely beautifully written - blend of subtle theoretical propositions with even more subtle ethnography."

※ Le Monde described it as: "A true reflection on the discipline of anthropology... a masterpiece... admirable and already a classic."

※ The Times Literary Supplement commented: "Cohen...walks a tightrope with perfect balance: never losing sight of the unique aspects of being human while refusing to force those aspects to separate us from the rest of the rich world of thought."

Eduardo Kohn is an anthropologist, associate professor of anthropology at McGill University, and winner of the 2014 Gregory Bateson Award from the American Association for Cultural Anthropology. His latest project, “A Forest of Trees,” builds on “How the Forest Thinks,” arguing that the forest—an emergent product of a vast network of highly “absent” nonhuman semiotics—is a real thing, not just a human abstraction.

Translator:

Mao Zhu, PhD in Philosophy from Peking University, visiting scholar at KU Leuven, Belgium, postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, with co-supervisor Ye Xiushan as research fellow. He joined the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2016. His research fields are phenomenology and modern philosophy, and he is also engaged in contemporary art research and art criticism.