tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post7178925257608378931..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Irrational (Human) Objects of a Rational Law -- More on Deer Carcasses and the Medieval English ForestCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-89628232094999632722012-08-01T14:01:48.326-04:002012-08-01T14:01:48.326-04:00I have until now remained skeptical of post-human ...I have until now remained skeptical of post-human and object-oriented projects, mainly because I have found myself unable to remove my own agency as a thinker from any attempt to think about the non-human. This essay, however, has opened up to me, as a historical theologian, a possible way of understanding these approaches -- though I think I would term what I am about to describe "para-human" rather than "post-human".<br /><br />My new thoughts on this were triggered by your notice that the deer were amongst the "quasi-sacred" things in Bracton's account -- things that, crucially, were related to the sacramental/quasi-sacramental nature of royal power (with which we are familiar from Kantorowicz). Although medieval ontologies (especially neo-platonic) privileged the place of the human at the top and center of the chain of being (as microcosm of the macrocosm), they did recognize in the notion of sacramentality, as an ontological relationship, the investment of non-human objects with power.<br /><br />It seems to me, then, that sacramentality is one way to approach how medievals would understand non-human agency.Nathaniel M. Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01835009706332559978noreply@blogger.com