The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-human WorldAn accomplished sleight-of-hand magician as well as a gifted philosopher, David Abram has lived and traded magic with indigenous sorcerers on several continents. Starting from the intimate relation between these traditional magicians and the animals, plants, and natural elements that surround them, The Spell of the Sensuous draws us into a remarkable series of investigations regarding the fluid, participatory nature of perception, and the reciprocity between our senses and the sensuous earth. The book unfolds into an exploration of language, and of the power our words have to enhance or to stifle the spontaneous life of the senses. Contrasting the spoken stories of diverse indigenous oral cultures with ways of speaking common to literate civilization, The Spell of the Sensuous reveals the profound impact that writing (and the alphabet) has had upon the human experiences of time, of space, of earthly place. |
Contents
Philosophy on the way to Ecology | 31 |
The Flesh of Language | 73 |
Animism and the Alphabet | 93 |
Copyright | |
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Other editions - View all
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World David Abram Limited preview - 2012 |
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World David Abram Limited preview - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
Aboriginal abstract aleph-beth alphabet ancestors ancient animate earth animistic awareness Basso birds bodily breath Bruce Chatwin character depths dimension discourse Dreaming Dreamtime earthly ecology emergence encounter entities experience experienced eyes feel field forest Gary Snyder gestures Greek ground Hebrew Hebrew Bible Heidegger Hopi language horizon human community Husserl Ibid indigenous influence invisible Jewish Kabbalah Kabbalistic Koyukon Lakota land landscape language letters life-world linguistic literacy living magic Maurice Merleau-Ponty meaning Merleau-Ponty more-than-human native nature Navajo nonhuman one's oral culture ourselves participation particular perceive perception person Phaedrus phenomena Phenomenology philosophical Pintupi plants Plato precisely present realm reciprocity relation rhythms sacred scribes Semitic sensible sensing body sensory sensuous world shaman shapes shift Socrates song songline sounds space spatial speak specific speech spoken stories structure surrounding synaesthetic terrain things tion traditional trans trees University Press visible voice vowels Western Apache Wind words writing system written York