EYE, MIND AND WORD IN ANTHROPOLOGY
by
PAUL STOLLER*
La nature est à l'intérieur.
CÉZANNE
To know nature is to know the texture of inner space, for
"Qualité, lumière, couleur, profondeur, qui sont là-bas devant nous, n'y sont que parce qu'elles éveillent un écho dans notre corps, parce qu'il leur fait accueil" (Merleau-Ponty 1964a: 22).
Cézanne and his admirer Merleau-Ponty are heretics. They dare to challenge the Aristotelian premise that nature is on the outside. How can we know if we cannot test experimentally that which we observe? How can we know if we do not have a theoretical orientation which gives form and substance to brute experiential data? Despite their intellectual heresy, Cézanne and Merleau- Ponty realize that the world consists of much more than observed objective reality and the hypotheses, theorems and laws which scientists extract from their observations. In his brilliant essay, L'Œil et l'esprit, Merleau-Ponty writes:
"La science manipule les choses et renonce à les habiter [. . .] Elle est,
* Acknowledgements. Research upon which the present paper is based was made possible through monies provided by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant (GOO- 76-03659), a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (# 3175), a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship in Science for the academic year 1979-80, two grants from the American Philosophical Society (1981, 1982), and a series of faculty grants from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. I thank these institutions for their generous support. For their comments and advice, I thank Chris Soufas, a master of current literary theory, and Jeanne Favret-Saada who has been a continuous source of support. I would also like to thank Joan Koss who first encouraged me to write this paper. Research in Niger could not have been accomplished without the aid of many people, including, first and foremost, S. E. Col. Seyni Kountche, President of the Republic of Niger, who has granted me four authorizations to conduct research in Niger, Dioulde Laya, a continuing source of support, and the researchers and officials of the Institut de Recherche en Sciences Sociales of the University of Niamey. Thanks are also due to Mrs. Lucille Mitchell who typed and retyped this manuscript.
L'Homme, juil.-déc. 1984, XXIV (3-4), pp. 91-114.
