The so-called ontological turn, drawing largely on Viveiros de Castro´s notion of Amazonian perspectivism, has attracted considerable attention in contemporary anthropology. The proponents of ontological relativism were indeed submitted to strong criticism focusing, among other things, on the questions of obscurity, solipsism or meta-ontology. In the theoretical section of the study, I present selected themes of this approach, its merits, but also its difficulties that I try to overcome by means of present-day phenomenological anthropology. The key question - in which are the examined otherness and its apprehending grounded? - I attempt to answer through the concepts of the everyday experience and the lifeworld. In the empirical section of the study, I illustrate the theory with the ethnography of Maya perception of crosses, mountains and caves, which are considered to be living and acting beings.
The study summarizes the work of Maurice Bloch, especially his theory of ritual and religion. Focusing on Bloch’s concepts of rebounding violence, ideology and knowledge, it is argued that the cognitive dualism does not correspond to the fact of the entirety of the human mind, a unique constellation of specific biological, natural environmental, historical, social and cultural circumstances as well as personal and experiential conditions. When dealing with some analogies of Bloch’s thought, the assumptions of Marx, Freud and Rousseau are recalled. The recognition of the eurocentric polarization also demands a mention of the Latin naturalis and supernaturalis dichotomy as well as the Greek sophistic duality of fysei and nomó. On the other hand, Bloch’s precise critique of functionalist and Marxist approaches allows moving towards deeper psychosocial processes within ritual.