The core claim
Viveiros de Castro described an Amerindian perspectivism in which many beings share a common human-like interiority but differ in body, and each therefore sees itself as a person and others as animals or spirits. Jaguars see blood as manioc beer; vultures see rotting meat as roasted fish.
Why it inverts Western assumptions
Where naturalism assumes one nature and many cultures, perspectivism assumes one culture and many natures. The shift is not decorative: it changes what a ritual specialist is doing when they take another being's point of view.
The disagreements
Critics argue the model is over-generalised from a few Amazonian cases, that it aestheticises Indigenous thought for a European philosophical audience, and that 'ontology' can become unfalsifiable. The debate is live and this atlas labels it as such.