#  Video: Anthropology as Cosmic Diplomacy: Toward an Ecological Ethics for the Anthropocene 

 





November 15, 2017

 

 

"Forests think." Eduardo Kohn, author of the book *How Forests Think*, discusses a kind of thinking, which he calls “sylvan," that is manifested by tropical forests and those that live with them. This mode of thought can provide an ethical orientation in these times of planetary human-driven ecological devastation that some call the “Anthropocene." Kohn discusses three projects in and around the tropical forests of Ecuador whose goal is to capacitate sylvan thought. This research, which has brought him into collaboration with indigenous leaders and shamans, lawyers and conceptual artists, and even forest spirits and archaic pre-hispanic ceramic figures, has encouraged Kohn to see his anthropological vocation as a kind of “cosmic diplomacy.” This form of diplomacy is “psychedelic” in so far as its goal is to make manifest the mind, manifesting the nature of sylvan thinking on whose behalf it advocates. Another word for this kind of emergent mind is “spirit.” Kohn explores alternative “sylvan” means to give voice to the spirits among us, and traces the challenge this poses for how we should think about what it means to be human.

*How Forests Think*, which has been translated into several languages, won the 2014 Gregory Bateson Prize and is short-listed for the upcoming 2018 Prix littéraire François Sommer. Eduardo Kohn's research continues to be concerned with capacitating sylvan thinking in its many forms. He teaches Anthropology at McGill University.



 

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 Harvard Divinity School · Anthropology as Cosmic Diplomacy: Toward an Ecological Ethics for the Anthropocene 

 



 

 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ Center for the Study of World Religions ](/media-topic/center-study-world-religions)
- [ CSWR ](/media-topic/cswr)
- [ Audio ](/news-classification)
- [ Matter and Spirit: Ecology and the Non-Human Turn ](/programming-threads/matter-and-spirit-ecology-and-non-human-turn)