Current debates around animism turn again and again to the question of definition. Scholars argue over whether it should be understood narrowly, as belief in souls or spirits inhabiting natural objects, or more broadly, as a relational way of being in a world populated by many kinds of persons, only some of whom are human. This dispute is closely tied to a shift from older, evolutionary models that treated animism as a “primitive” stage of religion toward approaches that take animist ontologies seriously on their own terms. Some favor cognitive explanations that focus on how humans attribute mentality to non-humans, while others emphasize ontological perspectives that highlight different understandings of what exists and how beings relate. Underneath these technical disagreements lies a deeper question: is animism primarily a set of beliefs, or a lived pattern of relationship with a more‑than‑human world?

Another major area of discussion concerns personhood, agency, and the scope of the term itself. There is ongoing debate about which entities count as “persons” in animist contexts and what criteria—such as agency, communication, or intentionality—are involved. Related to this is the question of how literally to take claims that animals, plants, rivers, or landscapes act, respond, or exert power, and whether applying concepts like “agency” or “subjectivity” imports foreign philosophical assumptions. Scholars also wrestle with how animism relates to neighboring categories such as shamanism, totemism, pantheism, and panpsychism, and whether it names a distinct type of religiosity or a dimension present across many traditions. These discussions reveal concern that the category may either illuminate important patterns or blur too many differences to remain useful.

A further set of debates focuses on the cultural and ethical implications of using the term at all. Many point out that “animism” emerged within a Western, colonial framework that once ranked religions on a scale from primitive to advanced, and they question whether the term can be disentangled from that history. Some argue that it imposes an external lens that misrepresents indigenous and local understandings, while others seek to “decolonize” and repurpose the concept by grounding it more firmly in self-descriptions and lived practices. This tension is especially visible in discussions of so‑called “new animism,” which some regard as a valuable analytic tool for understanding contemporary human–environment relations, and others see as a romanticized or overly expansive use of the term. Across these debates, the central issue is whether animism can serve as a respectful, analytically sharp way of speaking about diverse spiritual relationships with the natural world, or whether it inevitably distorts what it aims to describe.