[SPHePS] Norman MADARASZ, "De multiples ontologies ou une ontologie du multiple?" (2026 04 08)

Value of the Information & Strength of the Argument

The talk’s main value lies in its ambitious attempt to bridge two apparently distant philosophical universes: the anthropological ‘ontological turn’ (Descola, Viveiros de Castro) and Alain Badiou’s formal philosophy of the multiple. Madarasz offers a subtle, well-informed reading of Descola’s model, showing its structuralist underpinnings while pointing out a conceptual blind spot — the missing third term between interiority and physicality. The argumentation is careful and layered, moving from ethnographic observations to abstract philosophical claims. However, the lecture remains somewhat exploratory and allusive: the promised ‘system Phi Beta’ is only gestured at, never fully developed, leaving the listener with a suggestive but incomplete demonstration. The personal reflections on his own position as a ‘colonial agent’ within the Brazilian academic system add an honest, self-critical dimension to the argumentation, although some passages remain dense and could benefit from further clarification.

Scientific Rigor, Source Quality, Title Accuracy

Madarasz demonstrates solid command of the primary sources: he cites Descola’s ‘Par-delà nature et culture’ (with page reference), Lévi-Strauss’s ‘L’Homme nu’, and engages with Viveiros de Castro’s conceptual apparatus. The title’s adequacy is strong, as the talk explicitly addresses the tension between plural ontologies and a univocal ontology of the multiple. The presentation is a university seminar talk, not a peer-reviewed publication; it follows an academic format with structured exposition, but without a formal bibliography or footnotes. The speaker openly acknowledges his academic trajectory and positions his argument within ongoing debates. The reference to the Brazilian academic system (CAPES) and his personal experience adds a grounded contextual layer, but no external sources are explicitly quoted beyond the already mentioned authors and his own books.

The title accurately reflects the core tension addressed: the coexistence of multiple ontologies (Descola) versus a single ontology grounded in the multiple (Badiou), explored through a structuralist lens.

7/10

The talk is delivered by a specialist philosopher with a strong academic background (PhD under Alain Badiou, professor in Brazil for over a decade). The argumentation is rigorously structured, drawing on canonical works (Descola, Lévi-Strauss, Badiou, Viveiros de Castro) and placing them in critical dialogue. However, the content is largely speculative and theoretical, with some assertions (e.g., about mathematics among Indigenous peoples) not backed by detailed empirical evidence within the talk itself.

Markers derived by PSI from the transcript: the creator did not define chapters.

• 01:00Patrice Maniglier introduces Norman Madarasz and his academic background.
• 06:00Madarasz begins his talk, offering a catalogue from an exhibition by Elton Krenak as a gift.
• 08:00Introduction to Descola's four ontologies model and its structuralist foundations.
• 16:00Discussion of Descola's naturalism and analogism, and the role of interiority/physicality.
• 24:00Application of the ontological model to the Brazilian context; coexistence of naturalism and animism.
• 35:00Reflection on the 'ontological turn' and the absent 'third term' between interiority and physicality.
• 45:00Introduction of mathematical practices among Indigenous peoples (Mayas, Hohokam) as a possible third term.
• 55:00Raising the question of the multiple as constitutive of being; allusion to the 'Phi Beta' system.
• 1:05:00Critical remarks on philosophy's colonial legacy and its representation in anthropology.
• 1:15:00Personal reflections on his CAPES scholarship and the Brazilian academic system.

• Par-delà nature et culture (Beyond Nature and Culture) — Referenced as the source of Descola's four ontologies model, with a page reference to the French edition.
• L'Homme nu (The Naked Man) — Cited as a reference for Lévi-Strauss's structural analysis of body and soul.
• O Múltiplo sem Um: Uma apresentação do sistema filosófico de Alain Badiou — One of Madarasz's own books, mentioned in the introduction.
• O Realismo Estruturalista: sobre o imanente, o intrínseco e o inato — Another of Madarasz's books, mentioned in the introduction.
• Foucault, o quinto limiar : estruturalismo e ontologia queer — Another of Madarasz's books, mentioned in the introduction.

• Alain Badiou - Being and Event (L'Être et l'Événement) — Badiou's foundational work presenting the multiple as the basis of being; central to Madarasz's argument.
• Philippe Descola - Par-delà nature et culture — The book presenting the four ontologies model, directly discussed and critiqued in the talk.
• Claude Lévi-Strauss - Mythologiques series — Source of the structuralist methodology that grounds the analysis of ontologies.

• Eduardo Viveiros de Castro - Cannibal Metaphysics (Métaphysiques cannibales) — Viveiros de Castro's perspectivist multinaturalism is generally seen as a diverging approach from both Descola's systematic model and Badiou's mathematical ontology, challenging the notion of a unified 'multiple'.
• Conventional Western anthropology (positivist tradition) — The ontological turn itself, which the talk partly embraces and partly questions, represents a break from mainstream naturalist anthropology.