How Shall we Live? with anthropologist and lineologist Tim Ingold
Mar 30, 2025
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Tim Ingold, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen, joins to discuss the intricate weaving of life through 'lines' instead of blocks. They explore the concept of wayfaring as our fundamental experience, emphasizing interconnectedness between nature and culture. Ingold argues for greater awareness and responsibility in our actions and choices. The conversation touches on creativity, personal journeys, and the importance of nurturing love and respect for the world, offering transformative insights into how we engage with life and each other.
Tim Ingold emphasizes that life is a continuous journey shaped by interwoven threads of experiences, urging a reevaluation of how we perceive existence.
The interplay between nature and culture is complex and interconnected, as illustrated by the Sami's relationship with reindeer, challenging traditional separations between the two.
Education should cultivate a sense of responsibility towards the world, fostering a love for life and empowering future generations to navigate their paths.
Deep dives
The Concept of Thoughtfulness
Being thoughtful involves attentiveness to both nature and culture, which are often misunderstood in modern thought. Traditional views of reindeer among the Sami illustrate a complex relationship between animals and humans, where both learn and adapt to coexist. This interconnectedness emphasizes the intelligence of reindeer and their deep understanding of the landscape, challenging the perception of nature and culture as separate entities. The speaker advocates for a return to the original meanings of these terms, where nature signifies the genesis of life and culture represents the cultivation of that life.
Personal Journeys and Influences
The speaker reflects on the formative influences from their childhood, including their father's mycological interests and the practice of fieldwork with Sami people. These experiences highlight the significance of personal pathways in human identity, suggesting that people's lives can be mapped through their unique footpaths and interactions with the environment. Additionally, the speaker connects their long-term engagement with playing the cello to their cognitive processes, affirming the importance of gesture and movement in shaping thoughts and writing. Each of these influences converges on creating a deeper understanding of life as a series of intertwined lines.
Reassessing Concepts of Embodiment
The speaker expresses frustration with the widely used concept of embodiment, arguing that it often conflates the physical body with the skillful activities that are inherently lively. There is a concern that this conflation limits the understanding of human experiences, making them seem automatic rather than dynamic and engaged. The notion that breathing must be understood as active rather than embodied illustrates the pitfalls of treating physical actions as mere mechanical outputs. By redefining these concepts, the speaker suggests a shift towards recognizing human agency and responsiveness as vital components of existence.
The Role of Technology in Our Lives
The speaker is skeptical about the sustainability of digital technology and its future impact on society, arguing that current practices are unsustainable and threaten the environment. They emphasize the importance of preserving traditional skills that have been beneficial for generations, asserting that these skills should be safeguarded for future use. This perspective positions human knowledge and practices that have developed over millennia as essential components in creating a viable future, rather than reliance on emerging digital technological trends. The challenge lies in successfully communicating this urgency and necessity to a broader audience.
Education as a Collective Responsibility
Education is framed as a vital activity that not only transmits knowledge but also instills a love for the world, as influenced by Hannah Arendt's ideas. The speaker posits that true education involves demonstrating to younger generations the significance of the world we inhabit, fostering a sense of responsibility and hope for future stewardship. By acknowledging the importance of collective memory and tradition, the speaker advocates for an approach to education that merges the wisdom of the past with the prospects of the future. This vision entails teaching children about the world in a way that empowers them to navigate and renew it for generations to come.
The Interconnectedness of Lives and Paths
Life is expressed as a continuous line, shaped by individual experiences, interactions, and environments that create paths. These lines represent both personal journeys and collective histories, indicating that our actions and choices extend beyond ourselves and connect to others. The speaker highlights the importance of recognizing these paths to understand how individual and communal practices influence one another within the fabric of society. By fostering awareness of our interconnectedness, we can better appreciate our roles in creating meaning and sustaining relationships across generations.
Life is not built by blocks but by lines woven together according to Tim Ingold, emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Aberdeen and a leading thinker in anthropology and philosophy. Tim Ingold and Andrea Hiott explore key themes from Tim's influential works, such as 'Anthropology: Why It Matters' and 'Lines,' discussing how life is a continuous journey along interwoven threads and traces shaped by our every action. Building on Gibson, Deleuze, Hallowell, Merleau-Ponty, and others, Ingold's idea of 'wayfaring' as our fundamental mode of being challenges traditional distinctions between nature and culture, mind and body, and forces us out of block-mind and into traces and threads of life interwoven. This enriching dialogue touches on the importance of awareness, attention, and responsibility, offering insights into how these ideas can help us navigate toward a world where love and respect for life are central. Whether it's through storytelling, music, or everyday actions, learn how our paths shape our humanity and influence the futures we create. This episode is an opportunity to reflect on how we should live together in a world full of possibility, a world we love enough to take responsibility for together.
00:00 Introduction to Love and Philosophy 00:05 Introducing Tim Ingold and His Work 00:43 The Concept of Lines in Life 01:43 Wayfaring and Life as a Process 02:54 The Importance of Awareness and Responsibility 04:18 Tim Ingold's Influences and Philosophical Approach 10:28 Tim Ingold's Early Life and Inspirations 17:26 Fieldwork and Anthropology 25:16 Challenging Traditional Divisions in Science and Humanities 32:07 The Evolution of Tim Ingold's Thought 48:47 Revisiting Nature and Culture 51:48 Anthropology as a Conversation 54:46 The Anthropological Conversation 56:12 Subject and Object in Anthropology 57:58 The Middle Voice of the Verb 59:39 Crafting and Teaching 01:06:38 The Concept of Lines 01:13:24 Embodiment and Attention 01:27:42 The Future of Technology and Education 01:39:52 Hope for the Future
‘For we are made of lines. We are not only referring to lines of writing. Lines of writing conjugate with other lines, life lines, lines of luck or misfortune, lines productive of the variation of the line of writing itself, lines that are between the lines of writing.’
— Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
