Notes for an Ontological Approach within Manuscript Studies: Object Oriented Ontology and the Pothi Manuscript Culture

Abstract

Defining a specific manuscript culture can be seen as an exercise in ontology. The present article embraces and applies the philosophical framework of object-oriented ontology (triple-O) as developed by the contemporary philosopher Graham Harman in order to appreciate what we can call the ‘pothi manuscript culture’. As we acknowledge the existence of such a specific manuscript culture and the fact that it thrived for circa two millennia in South, South-East and Central Asia, we venture into identifying key historical moments and hypothesising possible counterfactual events that shaped it as a social object. And as for those social theories that claim to avoid philosophy altogether, they invariably offer mediocre philosophies shrouded in the alibi of neutral empirical fieldwork. (Harman 2016, 4) Wer nichts über die Sache versteht, schreibt über die Methode. (Gottfried Hermann, see Perilli 2006, 126) 1 On the place of philosophy in manuscript