Arjen Kleinherenbrink
(Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
Reclaiming the ontological commons: why multiple worlds do not exist
Is there a common world? Do humans and non-humans, despite their many differences, inhabit the same reality? According to an influential strain of thought in anthropology, science and technology studies, and philosophy, the answer is ‘No!’. Instead, our planet would literally consist of multiple ontologically distinct worlds. Thus the ontological commons are enclosed. Proponents of what anthropologists call the ‘ontological turn’ (OT) see this as finally rectifying a typically Western conceit: the idea that we moderns would have a worldview rooted in universal truths disclosed by modern science and rational thought, whereas non-moderns would ‘merely’ have worldviews rooted in folklore and irrational beliefs. OT does not just accept that different collectives have different ontological theories about what entities are, but also – and herein lies its originality – that such ontologies are credible evidence of different collectives truly existing in different worlds. If this is the case, ‘we’ can no longer claim to know what is really the case for cultures ‘over there’ in spite of their own beliefs and practices, because ‘over there’ plays by their rules. I argue that despite its noble intentions, OT’s position is untenable. OT theories rely on a meta-ontology according to which reality literally materializes differently depending on which concepts are dominant in a certain group during a certain period. This blend of Idealism and relationism is demonstrably false. It is also inherently conservative, hierarchical, and uncritical in ways that are at odds with OT’s overall political aims. OT’s redistribution of ontological commons via balkanization is ultimately a self-defeating enterprise. Following key insights from Object-Oriented Ontology and Critical Realism, I argue why the real way forward is not the idea that every group has privileged access to its own kinds of things, but rather that no group has privileged access to any kind of thing.
