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The Savage Mind
An examination of the structure of the thought of primitive' peoples, and has contributed significantly to our understanding of the way the human mind works.
310 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
About the author
Claude Lévi-Strauss
234 books773 followersClaude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist, well-known for his development of structural anthropology. He was born in Belgium to French parents who were living in Brussels at the time, but he grew up in Paris. His father was an artist, and a member of an intellectual French Jewish family. Lévi-Strauss studied at the University of Paris. From 1935-9 he was Professor at the University of Sao Paulo making several expeditions to central Brazil. Between 1942-1945 he was Professor at the New School for Social Research. In 1950 he became Director of Studies at the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes. In 1959 Lévi-Strauss assumed the Chair of Social Anthroplogy at the College de France. His books include The Raw and the Cooked, The Savage Mind, Structural Anthropology and Totemism (Encyclopedia of World Biography).
Some of the reasons for his popularity are in his rejection of history and humanism, in his refusal to see Western civilization as privileged and unique, in his emphasis on form over content and in his insistence that the savage mind is equal to the civilized mind.
Lévi-Strauss did many things in his life including studying Law and Philosophy. He also did considerable reading among literary masterpieces, and was deeply immersed in classical and contemporary music.
Lévi-Strauss was awarded the Wenner-Gren Foundation's Viking Fund Medal for 1966 and the Erasmus Prize in 1975. He was also awarded four honorary degrees from Oxford, Yale, Havard and Columbia. Strauss held several memberships in institutions including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society (Encyclopedia of World Biography).
Some of the reasons for his popularity are in his rejection of history and humanism, in his refusal to see Western civilization as privileged and unique, in his emphasis on form over content and in his insistence that the savage mind is equal to the civilized mind.
Lévi-Strauss did many things in his life including studying Law and Philosophy. He also did considerable reading among literary masterpieces, and was deeply immersed in classical and contemporary music.
Lévi-Strauss was awarded the Wenner-Gren Foundation's Viking Fund Medal for 1966 and the Erasmus Prize in 1975. He was also awarded four honorary degrees from Oxford, Yale, Havard and Columbia. Strauss held several memberships in institutions including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society (Encyclopedia of World Biography).
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June 28, 2013
Okay, first of all, these French guys have a way of talking about everything-and-nothing at the same time. From Braudel to Saussure to Barthes to Foucault to Mouffe to Derrida to Lacan to Deleuze and Guattari (and yes, Sartre), they have insisted on describing the deep structures (mentalities, langue, semiotics, microphysics of power, overdetermination, differance, etc) that underlie the petty details of history. Levi-Strauss deserves mention as part of this group. Along with Braudel, Levi-Strauss was arguably the only one of them to 'get his hands dirty,' so to speak. As an anthropologist, he critically responded to a deep tradition of romanticism and scientism (two sides of the same Eurocentric coin) in a very technical way, much like those other philosophers and theorists did so in more epistemological ways. It requires a certain mindset from the reader, especially if you not a big-picture kind of person.
Here is an example of what might seem like a subtle technicality that, when considered within the history of anthropology, really blew the whole field wide open and marks an important work in the re-definition of the word "culture" itself (culture, myth and language were becoming increasingly synonymous). Levi-Strauss forced anthropologists--arguably an academic front for Eurocentrism and empire--to integrate relativism into their models, thus debunking longstanding myths of "universal man" based on "superior" European civilization/culture. He writes: "ideas and beliefs of the 'totemic' type . . . constitute codes making it possible to ensure . . . the convertibility of messages appertaining to each level, even of those which are so remote from each other that they apparently relate solely to culture or solely to society, that is, to men's relations with each other, on the one hand, or, on the other, to phenomena of a technical or economic order which might rather seem ton concern man's relations with nature. This mediation between nature and culture, which is one of the distinctive functions of the totemic operator, enables us to sift out of what may be true from what is partial and distorted in Durkheim's and Malinowski's accounts. THEY EACH ATTEMPTED TO IMMURE TOTEMISM IN ONE OR OTHER OF THESE TWO DOMAINS. IN FACT, HOWEVER, IT IS PRE-EMINENTLY THE MEANS (OR HOPE) OF TRANSCENDING THE OPPOSITION BETWEEN THEM (90-91).
Note: scholars to this day are trying to transcend the distinction between nature and culture. To my mind, postmodernism has been an awkward start, or hiccup, in that direction, and I even see Levi-Strauss' call for an emphasis on space in preference to time as an anticipation of Frederic Jameson in "Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism." Levi-Strauss was among the first academics to be vociferous in this paradigmatic shift toward the democratization of the very idea of culture. It isn't enough to just write off previous anthropology as "armchair anthropology" or "pseudo-science"; those were the anthropology and science of the day, and they served profound social, political, and imperial purposes. To argue that indigenous peoples had culture was an epistemic gesture toward decolonization, even while the 'anti-colonial' Sartre was implying that History was dialectical (and thus linear). I think Raymond Williams' "culture is ordinary" can be seen as a nod to Levi-Strauss calling for "the reintegration of culture in nature and finally of life within the whole of its physico-chemical conditions" (247), or as Williams would have put it, the whole of its experience.
Levi-Strauss writes again in Ch. 3: "Nature is not in itself contradictory. It can become so ONLY IN TERMS OF SOME SPECIFIC HUMAN ACTIVITY WHICH TAKES PART IN IT . . . MAN'S RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS NATURAL ENVIRONMENT REMAIN OBJECTS OF THOUGHT: MAN NEVER PERCEIVES THEM PASSIVELY . . . THE MISTAKE OF MANNHARDT AND THE NATURALIST SCHOOL WAS TO THINK THAT NATURAL PHENOMENA ARE what MYTHS SEEK TO EXPLAIN, WHEN THEY ARE RATHER THE medium through which MYTHS TRY TO EXPLAIN FACTS WHICH ARE THEMSELVES NOT OF A NATURAL BUT A LOGICAL ORDER" (95). I personally don't disagree with the Naturalist School wholeheartedly, but I would say that a naturalist explanation on its own would be incomplete and/or particularistic.
These are two poignant examples that served to debunk the notion that non-Europeans, especially tropical and sub-equatorial peoples, were living in a "natural" state, as savages living "one with nature." Compare, for example, Levi-Strauss' _The Savage Mind_ to the Charles Mann's first chapter, "Holmberg's Mistake," in the book 1491.
That said, Levi-Strauss's work was flawed in that it tended to be synchronic rather than diachronic. But after all, history often is "an illusion sustained by the demands of social life" (256). Or as Foucault once quipped: I'm not a historian, but nobody's perfect.
Here is an example of what might seem like a subtle technicality that, when considered within the history of anthropology, really blew the whole field wide open and marks an important work in the re-definition of the word "culture" itself (culture, myth and language were becoming increasingly synonymous). Levi-Strauss forced anthropologists--arguably an academic front for Eurocentrism and empire--to integrate relativism into their models, thus debunking longstanding myths of "universal man" based on "superior" European civilization/culture. He writes: "ideas and beliefs of the 'totemic' type . . . constitute codes making it possible to ensure . . . the convertibility of messages appertaining to each level, even of those which are so remote from each other that they apparently relate solely to culture or solely to society, that is, to men's relations with each other, on the one hand, or, on the other, to phenomena of a technical or economic order which might rather seem ton concern man's relations with nature. This mediation between nature and culture, which is one of the distinctive functions of the totemic operator, enables us to sift out of what may be true from what is partial and distorted in Durkheim's and Malinowski's accounts. THEY EACH ATTEMPTED TO IMMURE TOTEMISM IN ONE OR OTHER OF THESE TWO DOMAINS. IN FACT, HOWEVER, IT IS PRE-EMINENTLY THE MEANS (OR HOPE) OF TRANSCENDING THE OPPOSITION BETWEEN THEM (90-91).
Note: scholars to this day are trying to transcend the distinction between nature and culture. To my mind, postmodernism has been an awkward start, or hiccup, in that direction, and I even see Levi-Strauss' call for an emphasis on space in preference to time as an anticipation of Frederic Jameson in "Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism." Levi-Strauss was among the first academics to be vociferous in this paradigmatic shift toward the democratization of the very idea of culture. It isn't enough to just write off previous anthropology as "armchair anthropology" or "pseudo-science"; those were the anthropology and science of the day, and they served profound social, political, and imperial purposes. To argue that indigenous peoples had culture was an epistemic gesture toward decolonization, even while the 'anti-colonial' Sartre was implying that History was dialectical (and thus linear). I think Raymond Williams' "culture is ordinary" can be seen as a nod to Levi-Strauss calling for "the reintegration of culture in nature and finally of life within the whole of its physico-chemical conditions" (247), or as Williams would have put it, the whole of its experience.
Levi-Strauss writes again in Ch. 3: "Nature is not in itself contradictory. It can become so ONLY IN TERMS OF SOME SPECIFIC HUMAN ACTIVITY WHICH TAKES PART IN IT . . . MAN'S RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS NATURAL ENVIRONMENT REMAIN OBJECTS OF THOUGHT: MAN NEVER PERCEIVES THEM PASSIVELY . . . THE MISTAKE OF MANNHARDT AND THE NATURALIST SCHOOL WAS TO THINK THAT NATURAL PHENOMENA ARE what MYTHS SEEK TO EXPLAIN, WHEN THEY ARE RATHER THE medium through which MYTHS TRY TO EXPLAIN FACTS WHICH ARE THEMSELVES NOT OF A NATURAL BUT A LOGICAL ORDER" (95). I personally don't disagree with the Naturalist School wholeheartedly, but I would say that a naturalist explanation on its own would be incomplete and/or particularistic.
These are two poignant examples that served to debunk the notion that non-Europeans, especially tropical and sub-equatorial peoples, were living in a "natural" state, as savages living "one with nature." Compare, for example, Levi-Strauss' _The Savage Mind_ to the Charles Mann's first chapter, "Holmberg's Mistake," in the book 1491.
That said, Levi-Strauss's work was flawed in that it tended to be synchronic rather than diachronic. But after all, history often is "an illusion sustained by the demands of social life" (256). Or as Foucault once quipped: I'm not a historian, but nobody's perfect.
May 26, 2022
OK. The blurbs on the back tell us 'no outline is possible' and 'no précis is possible'. So let's attempt the impossible.
Savage Mind is intended to arrest our sense of time in the macro-historical sense, asking us to see humanity and the culture that humanity presupposes as something nearly eternal at its very depth. The truth which Levi-Strauss (hereafter L-S) develops is intended to destroy our common sense prejudices about how natives think. For L-S we are all natives. There is no Hobbesian hell that we crawled out of. We are all born into a heritage of both language (all languages are equally old) and culture (all cultures are systematically patterned, open to a creative transformation by the participants in this system). We are all natives in the sense that our linguistic and sociocultural patterns have corollaries in the most un-modern of contexts. A tribe might conceptually divide itself into clans, grouped into oppositions (usually binary). But voila, our thoroughly modern political systems divide our own enormous tribe in exactly the same ways. Although we moderns have tremendously elaborate sciences and almost as complex ideologies, we are all blessed (or is it cursed) by the same savage mind. We cannot escape this. In our own local existence, we tend to think in dualities and contrasts, in terms of a lexicon of social and aesthetic categories, as well as in terms of a symbolic syntax analyzable into features and oppositions. We differ of course in the manic specialization of our cultures into organic composites, and we also tend to think with abstract (made up) ideas instead of appropriating the concrete world of natural kinds (kinds of plants, kinds of animals) to generate our matrices of thought.
In my view, one shared by the anthropological tradition, our self estimation of our own intellectual talents is overblown. Television, for example, is a complex scientific achievement for the dissemination of sometimes sophisticated ideological content. But I don't make televisions and I don't produce programs on TV. Few people do. The science and propaganda of our civilization is left to the experts. There is no comparable specialization in the primitive world. Every man and every woman is expected to fabricate their very own tools and to fashion their very own ideological products. So although a television is a far greater technical accomplishment, it is a tool made by others to articulate ideas made by others. True enough, the savages are not engineers, but it takes the same degree of intellect to be a bricoleur, a jack of all trades who is capable of making or improvising all that is needed for survival and for intellectual satisfaction. Although modernity preaches self-reliance, it is the savage mind that practices it. I think Jack Goody said that.
I feel there is little to criticize here. An obvious starting point would be to point out that rationalism, although alive and well in linguistics, no longer seems so relevant to cultural anthropology. The reflexive turn in anthropology has led to an awareness that the intellect is perhaps a much greater concern of the professors than it is of the Natives, us or them. The festishization of the mind had reached its high water mark in The Savage Mind. Another criticism I have heard is that L-S is a pseudo-Marxist. Although he always claimed to have been a Marxist, it is hard to see his work as materialist (it is idealist most of the time), as dialectical (his notion of dialectic is not really Hegelian in any clear sense), or as concerned with labor (apart from the non-commodified and non-alienated form of the natives' products). Finally, it has been said that L-S deploys a method that cannot really be replicated in the research programs of others. I personally have found it rewarding to apply his system to questions of ancient Greek mythology. There are certainly good structuralists and there are bad ones, but the high bar set by L-S should not discourage anthropologists from attempting to follow his lead.
Savage Mind is intended to arrest our sense of time in the macro-historical sense, asking us to see humanity and the culture that humanity presupposes as something nearly eternal at its very depth. The truth which Levi-Strauss (hereafter L-S) develops is intended to destroy our common sense prejudices about how natives think. For L-S we are all natives. There is no Hobbesian hell that we crawled out of. We are all born into a heritage of both language (all languages are equally old) and culture (all cultures are systematically patterned, open to a creative transformation by the participants in this system). We are all natives in the sense that our linguistic and sociocultural patterns have corollaries in the most un-modern of contexts. A tribe might conceptually divide itself into clans, grouped into oppositions (usually binary). But voila, our thoroughly modern political systems divide our own enormous tribe in exactly the same ways. Although we moderns have tremendously elaborate sciences and almost as complex ideologies, we are all blessed (or is it cursed) by the same savage mind. We cannot escape this. In our own local existence, we tend to think in dualities and contrasts, in terms of a lexicon of social and aesthetic categories, as well as in terms of a symbolic syntax analyzable into features and oppositions. We differ of course in the manic specialization of our cultures into organic composites, and we also tend to think with abstract (made up) ideas instead of appropriating the concrete world of natural kinds (kinds of plants, kinds of animals) to generate our matrices of thought.
In my view, one shared by the anthropological tradition, our self estimation of our own intellectual talents is overblown. Television, for example, is a complex scientific achievement for the dissemination of sometimes sophisticated ideological content. But I don't make televisions and I don't produce programs on TV. Few people do. The science and propaganda of our civilization is left to the experts. There is no comparable specialization in the primitive world. Every man and every woman is expected to fabricate their very own tools and to fashion their very own ideological products. So although a television is a far greater technical accomplishment, it is a tool made by others to articulate ideas made by others. True enough, the savages are not engineers, but it takes the same degree of intellect to be a bricoleur, a jack of all trades who is capable of making or improvising all that is needed for survival and for intellectual satisfaction. Although modernity preaches self-reliance, it is the savage mind that practices it. I think Jack Goody said that.
I feel there is little to criticize here. An obvious starting point would be to point out that rationalism, although alive and well in linguistics, no longer seems so relevant to cultural anthropology. The reflexive turn in anthropology has led to an awareness that the intellect is perhaps a much greater concern of the professors than it is of the Natives, us or them. The festishization of the mind had reached its high water mark in The Savage Mind. Another criticism I have heard is that L-S is a pseudo-Marxist. Although he always claimed to have been a Marxist, it is hard to see his work as materialist (it is idealist most of the time), as dialectical (his notion of dialectic is not really Hegelian in any clear sense), or as concerned with labor (apart from the non-commodified and non-alienated form of the natives' products). Finally, it has been said that L-S deploys a method that cannot really be replicated in the research programs of others. I personally have found it rewarding to apply his system to questions of ancient Greek mythology. There are certainly good structuralists and there are bad ones, but the high bar set by L-S should not discourage anthropologists from attempting to follow his lead.
September 6, 2009
A difficult book to get through, as I needed to make sure I understood what he was saying. There are many intriguing thoughts nestled among the scientific reportings. It would be a great adventure to do an in-depth comparison of Levi-Strauss and Mead, but that study will have to wait for a couple lifetimes down the road unfortunately.
January 1, 2013
I had forgotten just how seminal Levi-Strauss was to literary and critical social theory- which seems to be what's left of Western philosophy- until I read this. Whether or not his systems approach is right in all its details for traditional societies is impossible for me to say. But his major contribution to anthropology- to have basically shredded its colonialist presuppositions by demonstrating that traditional peoples' way of thinking was not "primitive" in its relationship to logic and science, or to social behavior, but other-directed and coherent in itself- is magnificently evident here. His original insight is now the accepted way of thinking about cultural difference in academe. (Whether it has really penetrated beyond the academy, is another and a sadder question.) In any case, he is a great writer and refreshing to read--it's like clearing mental cobwebs.
April 17, 2010
Instead of reading this long and brutal book, read Rumi's beautiful first poem in Divane Shams. What Rumi said in 10 lines so beautifully and elegantly 800 years ago, this French dude is trying to say in this long and horribly written book: categories are arbitrary.
July 23, 2011
Passionant mais un peu difficile à digérer complètement. L’intérêt que soulève l'ethnologie est immense mais l'ampleur de la tache de Levy Strauss qui embrasse un sujet particulièrement vaste fait que l'esprit se perd parfois en essayant le suivre. Aurait il pu utiliser un peu moins de jargon philosophique et linguistique, serrer un peu plus ses raisonnements ? Son approche qui consiste à essayer de trouver ce qui unifie la pensée des êtres humains malgré les variations observées est très sympathique, mais on comprend aussi que sa méthode ait pu susciter des réserves
January 21, 2019
#bookreview
الفكر البري المترجم عن الكتاب the savage mind بقلم الكاتب الفرنسي Claude levi Strauss.
قبل كل شيئ، الانثرپولوجيا هي دراسة الثقافة و الثقافة هي نتاج كل شيئ منذ بداية الوقت الى نهايته. معرفتي بها كاختصاص تقتصر على علاقة اللغة بالثقافة و كيف أن الواحدة جزء و كل من الاخرى. قراءة هذا الكتاب كان بمثابة تحدي لأنه يتطلب معرفة ليست ببسيطة في هاذا المجال. الكلمات المفتاحية و الدليلية صعبة للغاية و اختصاصية. مثالا على هذا، كلمة برقيل التي تترجم الى الفرنسية الى bricoleur و هو الشخص الذي يتسم بصفات عكسية للعالم، حيث يصنع الاشياء او يحلل الامور فيما اتيحت له، اي أن مجاله لا يقتصر على العدم او الغير موجود على عكس العالم.
اعتمد الكاتب على الدراسة التحليلية و ليست النقدية في مسميات الأمور و الأحداث و هي من صفات structuralism او الدراسة البنيية. أي ان الثقافة هي مجموعة من الاشياء و الاحداث التي تصنف الى عدة اصناف و المقارنة بين ثقافة و اخرى يعني المقارنة بين صنف و اخر و هذا ما يسميه الكاتب ب odds and ends للثقافة، ما تبقى منها ليصفها و يصنفها.
الفكر البري المترجم عن الكتاب the savage mind بقلم الكاتب الفرنسي Claude levi Strauss.
قبل كل شيئ، الانثرپولوجيا هي دراسة الثقافة و الثقافة هي نتاج كل شيئ منذ بداية الوقت الى نهايته. معرفتي بها كاختصاص تقتصر على علاقة اللغة بالثقافة و كيف أن الواحدة جزء و كل من الاخرى. قراءة هذا الكتاب كان بمثابة تحدي لأنه يتطلب معرفة ليست ببسيطة في هاذا المجال. الكلمات المفتاحية و الدليلية صعبة للغاية و اختصاصية. مثالا على هذا، كلمة برقيل التي تترجم الى الفرنسية الى bricoleur و هو الشخص الذي يتسم بصفات عكسية للعالم، حيث يصنع الاشياء او يحلل الامور فيما اتيحت له، اي أن مجاله لا يقتصر على العدم او الغير موجود على عكس العالم.
اعتمد الكاتب على الدراسة التحليلية و ليست النقدية في مسميات الأمور و الأحداث و هي من صفات structuralism او الدراسة البنيية. أي ان الثقافة هي مجموعة من الاشياء و الاحداث التي تصنف الى عدة اصناف و المقارنة بين ثقافة و اخرى يعني المقارنة بين صنف و اخر و هذا ما يسميه الكاتب ب odds and ends للثقافة، ما تبقى منها ليصفها و يصنفها.
November 19, 2023
This new translation of La Penseé Sauvage by Claudi Lévi-Strauss, a classic of structuralist anthropology, brings the English version closer to the original French. The translators have added an abundance of explanatory notes that help eludicidate Lévi-Strauss's thinking and their own translation choices. It is not an easy read, as is the case with most of Lévi-Strauss's work after Tristes Tropiques, which is where anyone unfamiliar with his writing should start.
Lévi=Strauss's chief point is that so-called "primitive" peoples--he examines especially the Indigenous populations of Australia and North America, but diverts from time to time into other parts of the world--did not think in a way fundamentally different from western science, but followed reasoning patterns that anticipated and made possible "modern" scientific thinking. He approaches this argument first through a discussion of totemism, which had been used by his predecessors as evidence of the dissociation of "primitive thinking" from "modern." Totemism, he shows, obeys a logic that is indistinguishable from the ways "moderns" think in science. He goes on, then, to expand on these results, including in an extended critique of Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason--pages that open a window on the debates in French intellectual circles in the heady and creative days of the 1960s.
Anthropology has moved on from structuralism, but Lévi-Strauss remains central to the intellectual evolution of the field and remains a crucial contribution to the ways anthropology works today.
Lévi=Strauss's chief point is that so-called "primitive" peoples--he examines especially the Indigenous populations of Australia and North America, but diverts from time to time into other parts of the world--did not think in a way fundamentally different from western science, but followed reasoning patterns that anticipated and made possible "modern" scientific thinking. He approaches this argument first through a discussion of totemism, which had been used by his predecessors as evidence of the dissociation of "primitive thinking" from "modern." Totemism, he shows, obeys a logic that is indistinguishable from the ways "moderns" think in science. He goes on, then, to expand on these results, including in an extended critique of Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason--pages that open a window on the debates in French intellectual circles in the heady and creative days of the 1960s.
Anthropology has moved on from structuralism, but Lévi-Strauss remains central to the intellectual evolution of the field and remains a crucial contribution to the ways anthropology works today.
June 25, 2022
မအားမလပ်တဲ့ကြားထဲက တစ်လကျော်ကြာတဲ့ နောက်မှာတော့ ဒီစာအုပ်ကို အပြတ်ဖြတ်နိုင်ခဲ့ပြီ
Levi Strauss ရဲ့ ခြည်းကပ်ပုံက linguistic တစ်ယောက် ဖြစ်တဲ့ ဆောဆူးရဲ့ structuralism ပုံစံကို မှီငြမ်းထားတာ ဖြစ်လို့ structural anthropology category ထဲ မှာအကြုံးဝင်သွားတယ်။ လူနဲ့ တိရိစ္ဆ န်တွေ ကွာခြားသွားကြရာမှာ ဘာသာစကား အပြင် semiotics တွေ symbolism တွေမှာ တာသွားတာပါဘဲ။ ဒီစာအုပ်ရဲ့ main theme က domesticated thought လို့ ခေါ်တဲ့ modern scientific thinking နဲ့ wild thought လို့ ခေါ်တဲ့ primitive thinking အကြား ဘာကွာ သွားသလဲဆိုတာကို ထောက်ပြသွားတာဘဲ။(spoiler alert;စာရေးသူက အဲဒီအတွေးနှစ်ခုဟာ ကွာခြားမှု မရှိကြောင်း ချေပသွားတယ်) အထူးသဖြင့် civilized ဖြစ်တယ် ဆိုတဲ့ အနောက်တိုင်းသားတွေဟာ အာရှသားတွေ အရှေ့အလယ်ပိုင်းသားတွေ ဌါနေတိုင်းရင်းသားတွေ ထက် အသိပညာပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာမှာရော culture ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာမှာ ရော တဆင့်ပိုမြင့်တယ် ဆိုတဲ့ preconceived idea တွေ ရှိကြတယ်။ သို့ပေမယ့် ethnologist တွေ ဌါနေတိုင်းရင်းသားတွေ နဲ့ အနီးကပ်နေထိုင်လေ့လာကြည့်တဲ့အခါ အနောက်တိုင်းသားတွေ နဲ့ မတူညီ တဲ့ paradigm မှာ တွေးခေါ်ကြပြီး scientific ဆန်တဲ့ အငွေ့အသက်တွေပါရှိကြောင်း သိရတယ်။ သံထည်တွေ ကြေးထည်တွေ သွန်းလုပ်နိုင်တာကိုက အမှုမဲ့ အမှတ်မဲ့ တွေ့ရှိခြင်းမျိုးလို မဟုတ်ဘဲ အကြိမ်ကြိမ်အခါခါ လေ့လာစမ်းသပ် ပြုလုပ်မှုရဲ့ ရလာဒ်တွေ ဖြစ်တယ် ဆိုတဲ့ အကြောင်းကို ရှင်းထားသလို တချို့သော ဌါနေတိုင်းရင်းသားတွေရဲ့ botanical knowledge ဟာ ခေတ်မှီ botanist တွေ ထက် ပိုပြီးတိကျတာတွေ ရှိကြောင်း ထောက်ပြထားတယ်။
Nature/Culture dichotomy မှာ totem တွေ mythတွေ ရဲ့ အခန်းကဏ္ဍ အနေနဲ့ သဘာဝတရား နဲ့ထပ်တူပြုခြင်းမျိုး (identification)မဟုတ်ဘဲ လူမျိုးစု တစ်ခုနဲ့ တစ်ခု အကြား differentiation အတွက်သာ ဖြစ်တယ် ဆိုတဲ့ hypothesis က linguistic မှာ signifier တခုနဲ့ တခု differentiation (ခြားနားမှု) ဖြစ်မှု ကိုသွားပြီး မှီငြမ်းထားတာ တွေ့ရတယ်( this is a book because it is not a chair ဆိုသလိုမျိုး) bear clan,eagle clan အစရှိသဖြင့် လူမျိုးစုများရဲ့ totem ထားရှိခြင်းဟာ symbolic အရသာဖြစ်ပြီး ဌါနေတိုင်းရင်းသားတွေ ကိုယ်တိုင်ဟာလည်း အမှန်တကယ် ဝက်ဝံကနေ ဆင်းသက်လာတယ် လို့ ယုံကြည်ခြင်းမရှိကြောင်း ရှင်းထားတာတွေ့ရတယ်( modern civilization မှာလည်း circulation of myth and totemism တွေကို တွေ့နိုင်တယ် အားကစား နဲ့ ပတ်သက်ပြီးဥပမာ ပြောရရင် လီဗာပူး ပရိတ်သတ်တွေဟာ သူတို့ကိုယ်သူတို့ ကြိုးကြာနီ တွေလို့ ခံယူထားသလိုမျိုးဘဲ) နောက်ဆုံး chapter မှာ ယန်းပေါလ် ဆာ့ဒ်ရဲ့ dialectic/analytic အကြပ်အတည်းကို ဖြင်ပြထားပြီး historian တယောက်နဲ့ ethnologist တယောက် အကြား သမိုင်း အပေါ် မတူညီတဲ့ ချည်းကပ်မှု အကြောင်းကို ရှင်းသွားတယ်။
Levi Strauss ရဲ့ ခြည်းကပ်ပုံက linguistic တစ်ယောက် ဖြစ်တဲ့ ဆောဆူးရဲ့ structuralism ပုံစံကို မှီငြမ်းထားတာ ဖြစ်လို့ structural anthropology category ထဲ မှာအကြုံးဝင်သွားတယ်။ လူနဲ့ တိရိစ္ဆ န်တွေ ကွာခြားသွားကြရာမှာ ဘာသာစကား အပြင် semiotics တွေ symbolism တွေမှာ တာသွားတာပါဘဲ။ ဒီစာအုပ်ရဲ့ main theme က domesticated thought လို့ ခေါ်တဲ့ modern scientific thinking နဲ့ wild thought လို့ ခေါ်တဲ့ primitive thinking အကြား ဘာကွာ သွားသလဲဆိုတာကို ထောက်ပြသွားတာဘဲ။(spoiler alert;စာရေးသူက အဲဒီအတွေးနှစ်ခုဟာ ကွာခြားမှု မရှိကြောင်း ချေပသွားတယ်) အထူးသဖြင့် civilized ဖြစ်တယ် ဆိုတဲ့ အနောက်တိုင်းသားတွေဟာ အာရှသားတွေ အရှေ့အလယ်ပိုင်းသားတွေ ဌါနေတိုင်းရင်းသားတွေ ထက် အသိပညာပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာမှာရော culture ပိုင်းဆိုင်ရာမှာ ရော တဆင့်ပိုမြင့်တယ် ဆိုတဲ့ preconceived idea တွေ ရှိကြတယ်။ သို့ပေမယ့် ethnologist တွေ ဌါနေတိုင်းရင်းသားတွေ နဲ့ အနီးကပ်နေထိုင်လေ့လာကြည့်တဲ့အခါ အနောက်တိုင်းသားတွေ နဲ့ မတူညီ တဲ့ paradigm မှာ တွေးခေါ်ကြပြီး scientific ဆန်တဲ့ အငွေ့အသက်တွေပါရှိကြောင်း သိရတယ်။ သံထည်တွေ ကြေးထည်တွေ သွန်းလုပ်နိုင်တာကိုက အမှုမဲ့ အမှတ်မဲ့ တွေ့ရှိခြင်းမျိုးလို မဟုတ်ဘဲ အကြိမ်ကြိမ်အခါခါ လေ့လာစမ်းသပ် ပြုလုပ်မှုရဲ့ ရလာဒ်တွေ ဖြစ်တယ် ဆိုတဲ့ အကြောင်းကို ရှင်းထားသလို တချို့သော ဌါနေတိုင်းရင်းသားတွေရဲ့ botanical knowledge ဟာ ခေတ်မှီ botanist တွေ ထက် ပိုပြီးတိကျတာတွေ ရှိကြောင်း ထောက်ပြထားတယ်။
Nature/Culture dichotomy မှာ totem တွေ mythတွေ ရဲ့ အခန်းကဏ္ဍ အနေနဲ့ သဘာဝတရား နဲ့ထပ်တူပြုခြင်းမျိုး (identification)မဟုတ်ဘဲ လူမျိုးစု တစ်ခုနဲ့ တစ်ခု အကြား differentiation အတွက်သာ ဖြစ်တယ် ဆိုတဲ့ hypothesis က linguistic မှာ signifier တခုနဲ့ တခု differentiation (ခြားနားမှု) ဖြစ်မှု ကိုသွားပြီး မှီငြမ်းထားတာ တွေ့ရတယ်( this is a book because it is not a chair ဆိုသလိုမျိုး) bear clan,eagle clan အစရှိသဖြင့် လူမျိုးစုများရဲ့ totem ထားရှိခြင်းဟာ symbolic အရသာဖြစ်ပြီး ဌါနေတိုင်းရင်းသားတွေ ကိုယ်တိုင်ဟာလည်း အမှန်တကယ် ဝက်ဝံကနေ ဆင်းသက်လာတယ် လို့ ယုံကြည်ခြင်းမရှိကြောင်း ရှင်းထားတာတွေ့ရတယ်( modern civilization မှာလည်း circulation of myth and totemism တွေကို တွေ့နိုင်တယ် အားကစား နဲ့ ပတ်သက်ပြီးဥပမာ ပြောရရင် လီဗာပူး ပရိတ်သတ်တွေဟာ သူတို့ကိုယ်သူတို့ ကြိုးကြာနီ တွေလို့ ခံယူထားသလိုမျိုးဘဲ) နောက်ဆုံး chapter မှာ ယန်းပေါလ် ဆာ့ဒ်ရဲ့ dialectic/analytic အကြပ်အတည်းကို ဖြင်ပြထားပြီး historian တယောက်နဲ့ ethnologist တယောက် အကြား သမိုင်း အပေါ် မတူညီတဲ့ ချည်းကပ်မှု အကြောင်းကို ရှင်းသွားတယ်။
December 25, 2017
The book outlines the concept of (cultural) bricolage. While the term was adapted to other areas, the examples stem from “classic” ethnography studying indigenous cultures in remote settings. If you only want to read a part of the book, I suggest to spend time on the first few chapters which include the bricolage definition.
November 27, 2009
intensely complex and dense. but, once you start to get past the bricoleur and Levi-Strauss's heavy French-ness, its definitely something to think about. Good discussion of classification and the human mind and critique of Sartres.
August 7, 2022
Claude Lévi-Strauss' The Savage Mind, a translation of his La Pensée Sauvage, is a difficult book to summarize; for a structuralist, he seems to be somewhat lacking in structure in his writings. It is a very discursive book, and full of analogies and metaphors which to me at least obscure rather than clarify what he is trying to say (although sometimes interesting in themselves). To do my best: "Savage" or pre-literate peoples are experts at classification, at producing taxonomies of natural and social phenomena at every level; their classifications are based on structures of differences rather than resemblances; they postulate homologies between systems of differences at different levels, including behavior (marriage rules, food or verbal prohibitions and so forth) which have been mistakenly linked by ethnologists in the concept of "totemism" (the book by him which I read last, Totemism, published the same year, he describes as a kind of preface to the current book); these homologies combine to form coherent "totalizing" conceptions of the world; the very different systems of different pre-literate cultures are formed from similar structures of classification by "transformations" which give different contents to the same structural forms. He illustrates these theses in the first eight chapters by examples taken from many cultures in Africa, Asia, and especially the Americas and Australia.
The ninth and last chapter is a polemic against Sartre's Critique de la raison dialectique (of which I have read only the preface, published separately as Questions de Méthode) over the nature of dialectical reason, its relationship to analytical reason, the nature of history, and the relations of history and dialectic. While this was very interesting, I'm not sure I would agree with either of their views on dialectic; while both Lévi-Strauss and the later Sartre consider themselves within the Marxist tradition, they each combine Marx differently with other viewpoints, e.g. de Saussure and structural linguistics, Freudian psychology, and the phenomenological tradition of Husserl and Heidegger. Obviously, an understanding of both Lévi-Strauss and Sartre is necessary to understand many of the trends in contemporary social thought, but it is also more fundamentally necessary to understand the concepts of Marx, which most American academics (to say nothing of the general populace) are far from possessing.
The ninth and last chapter is a polemic against Sartre's Critique de la raison dialectique (of which I have read only the preface, published separately as Questions de Méthode) over the nature of dialectical reason, its relationship to analytical reason, the nature of history, and the relations of history and dialectic. While this was very interesting, I'm not sure I would agree with either of their views on dialectic; while both Lévi-Strauss and the later Sartre consider themselves within the Marxist tradition, they each combine Marx differently with other viewpoints, e.g. de Saussure and structural linguistics, Freudian psychology, and the phenomenological tradition of Husserl and Heidegger. Obviously, an understanding of both Lévi-Strauss and Sartre is necessary to understand many of the trends in contemporary social thought, but it is also more fundamentally necessary to understand the concepts of Marx, which most American academics (to say nothing of the general populace) are far from possessing.
February 20, 2018
Una lectura muchas veces enredada, especialmente si no se está al tanto de las disquisiciones disciplinares, y también por la naturaleza del tema, pero en general muy estimulante. Entre las cosas que me sorprendieron fue que, a contramano de las acusaciones contra el estructuralismo de no considerar los aspectos sincrónicos, y si no me equivoco en entenderlo, acá Lévi-Strauss sí lo hace, descentrando la obsesión occidental con la historia y tratando de situar la diacronía dentro de las operaciones del totemismo. Un libro muy entretenido.
March 25, 2020
"Denilebilir ki, Claude Levi-Strauss'un düşüncesini kavramak için, Yaban Düşünce, girilmesi gereken ilk kapıdır." (Tahsin Yücel)
February 21, 2021
Un libro citatissimo se ci si occupa di mitologia – ma non solo, questo affascinante trattato di Lévy-Strauss verte sulla struttura del pensiero, che sia “selvaggio” (primitivo) o no (ma perché, allora chiamarlo: “selvaggio”?). È una raccolta di riflessioni ed analisi pregnante che richiedono però una lettura molto concentrata. Ma una volta che si è riusciti a mettersi sulla stessa lunghezza d’onda di Lévy-Strauss succede qualcosa di straordinario: si riesce a percepire quell’incredibile sforzo intellettuale che combina e amalgama i passaggi da due realtà dialettiche opposte: la diacronia e la sincronia, lo spazio e il tempo, l’individuo e la società, il fluire (delle azioni e del tempo) come una somma di istanti fermi. Si sente proprio il cervello che si muove – come quello di una medusa, dilatandosi e restringendosi! Pazzesco!
Mi sono poi inchinata sull’ultimo capitolo in cui critica Sartre e la sua “Critica della ragione dialettica” nonché dell’idea (o intenzione) dello stesso della definizione di etnologia. Non è la prima volta che leggo di critiche al filosofo in questo campo e seppure io non abbia letto nulla di suo in proposito, mi sono ritrovata completamente sia nelle critiche di Lévy-Strauss che di Durand (autore di: “Antropologia dell’immaginario”), seppure devo ammettere che il mio riconoscermi sia di parte perché si basa solo sugli estrapolati di Sartre da parte degli altri. Comunque un lavoro eccezionale – non alla portata di tutti, però: richiede davvero tanta, tanta concentrazione, una certa flessibilità mentale che poggia su un allenamento intellettuale di testi filosofici e antropologici pregressa (o per lo meno: aiuterebbe molto. Nel mio caso è stato così).
Mi sono poi inchinata sull’ultimo capitolo in cui critica Sartre e la sua “Critica della ragione dialettica” nonché dell’idea (o intenzione) dello stesso della definizione di etnologia. Non è la prima volta che leggo di critiche al filosofo in questo campo e seppure io non abbia letto nulla di suo in proposito, mi sono ritrovata completamente sia nelle critiche di Lévy-Strauss che di Durand (autore di: “Antropologia dell’immaginario”), seppure devo ammettere che il mio riconoscermi sia di parte perché si basa solo sugli estrapolati di Sartre da parte degli altri. Comunque un lavoro eccezionale – non alla portata di tutti, però: richiede davvero tanta, tanta concentrazione, una certa flessibilità mentale che poggia su un allenamento intellettuale di testi filosofici e antropologici pregressa (o per lo meno: aiuterebbe molto. Nel mio caso è stato così).
November 19, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in June 2001.
Many books that, like The Savage Mind, go on to become influential on the way that people think, have at their time of writing two purposes, of which one only ensures their survival. The immediate cause of the genesis of such a book is to make a specific point or answer some then current school of thought; in this case, Lévi-Strauss wanted to counter some ideas about totemism in anthropology. This first purpose then suggests a more general thesis, more philosophical and theoretical, more illuminating of the way in which people think; in this case, it concerns how human beings classify and understand the world around them.
I have no claims to be an expert - or even to be greatly interested - in anthropology. The argument about totemism is hard to follow (mainly because the opinions with which Lévi-Strauss is disagreeing are assumed to be known to the reader), and in the end is only interesting as a series of illustrations to the philosophical thesis about the need we have to classify our environment.
I am not sure that I would agree with everything that Lévi-Strauss has to say. He argues against the idea that the various classification schemes he looks at are antecedents of scientific method, feeling instead that they are substantially different. There are clearly differences, but I would feel that the history of science shows the development of modern method in the late medieval period, as experiment and verifiability began to be seen as important, but that the body of knowledge attained by that time in Western Europe is in many ways analogous to (say) the medical theories of a tribe in the Amazon. Possibly what Lévi-Strauss meant is that the ideas of the medieval West were more theoretical and analytical, the theory of humours for example generalising ideas like bitter tasting substances being good for stomach upsets.
On the other hand, he may be against the implication that science is a superior development, an advance on earlier thought systems. In some ways, this is clearly the case; we certainly seem to be able to understand the nature of the physical world more accurately than our medieval ancestors could - every time we turn on an electric light bears witness to this. On the other hand, to say that this makes science "better" goes against the trend of thought since the sixties, and Lévi-Strauss could easily be anticipating this.
As a logician, one thing which struck me is that the classifications which form the examples are almost exclusively binary; something is either in a group or out of it with no middle ground, even if this requires some strange manipulation to shoehorn some objects into one group. This is clearly related to one of the main functions of classification, which is to reduce the complexity of the world and make it easier to understand; a tendency to view things as black or white is much simpler than admitting to hundreds of shades of grey.
I wouldn't claim to completely understand The Savage Mind. There is too much from fields of knowledge unfamiliar to me, and Lévi-Strauss' argument is very complex to take in at a single reading. From the very first page, however, it is clear that the book is the product of a first-rate mind, and it is absolutely fascinating.
Many books that, like The Savage Mind, go on to become influential on the way that people think, have at their time of writing two purposes, of which one only ensures their survival. The immediate cause of the genesis of such a book is to make a specific point or answer some then current school of thought; in this case, Lévi-Strauss wanted to counter some ideas about totemism in anthropology. This first purpose then suggests a more general thesis, more philosophical and theoretical, more illuminating of the way in which people think; in this case, it concerns how human beings classify and understand the world around them.
I have no claims to be an expert - or even to be greatly interested - in anthropology. The argument about totemism is hard to follow (mainly because the opinions with which Lévi-Strauss is disagreeing are assumed to be known to the reader), and in the end is only interesting as a series of illustrations to the philosophical thesis about the need we have to classify our environment.
I am not sure that I would agree with everything that Lévi-Strauss has to say. He argues against the idea that the various classification schemes he looks at are antecedents of scientific method, feeling instead that they are substantially different. There are clearly differences, but I would feel that the history of science shows the development of modern method in the late medieval period, as experiment and verifiability began to be seen as important, but that the body of knowledge attained by that time in Western Europe is in many ways analogous to (say) the medical theories of a tribe in the Amazon. Possibly what Lévi-Strauss meant is that the ideas of the medieval West were more theoretical and analytical, the theory of humours for example generalising ideas like bitter tasting substances being good for stomach upsets.
On the other hand, he may be against the implication that science is a superior development, an advance on earlier thought systems. In some ways, this is clearly the case; we certainly seem to be able to understand the nature of the physical world more accurately than our medieval ancestors could - every time we turn on an electric light bears witness to this. On the other hand, to say that this makes science "better" goes against the trend of thought since the sixties, and Lévi-Strauss could easily be anticipating this.
As a logician, one thing which struck me is that the classifications which form the examples are almost exclusively binary; something is either in a group or out of it with no middle ground, even if this requires some strange manipulation to shoehorn some objects into one group. This is clearly related to one of the main functions of classification, which is to reduce the complexity of the world and make it easier to understand; a tendency to view things as black or white is much simpler than admitting to hundreds of shades of grey.
I wouldn't claim to completely understand The Savage Mind. There is too much from fields of knowledge unfamiliar to me, and Lévi-Strauss' argument is very complex to take in at a single reading. From the very first page, however, it is clear that the book is the product of a first-rate mind, and it is absolutely fascinating.
April 13, 2008
Totemism is dead! Take that, nineteenth-century armchair anthropology! What edifice shall we build upon its scattered remains? This movement would later be called Edificism, which would be followed by Post-Edificism.
Fred and Ben Savage take you on a tour the intimate world they created through sheer cognitive willpower. Today, we are all scientists, and we are all savages.
Don't miss a WORD of these savage delights!
* The French national pasttime, bricolage! Turns out the human habit is hard-wired since at least the paleolithic. (Ch. 1, see also Sister Act II: Back in the Habit)
* Caste and 'totemism' are the same, but different! (Ch. 4)
* The proper names of birds, dogs, cattle, and horses. And, a turnip. (Ch. 7).
* Sartre and historians are eviscerated for all to see! Turns out they don't know what they're talking about! TURNS OUT WE DON'T NEED HISTORY! (Ch. 9).
Fred and Ben Savage take you on a tour the intimate world they created through sheer cognitive willpower. Today, we are all scientists, and we are all savages.
Don't miss a WORD of these savage delights!
* The French national pasttime, bricolage! Turns out the human habit is hard-wired since at least the paleolithic. (Ch. 1, see also Sister Act II: Back in the Habit)
* Caste and 'totemism' are the same, but different! (Ch. 4)
* The proper names of birds, dogs, cattle, and horses. And, a turnip. (Ch. 7).
* Sartre and historians are eviscerated for all to see! Turns out they don't know what they're talking about! TURNS OUT WE DON'T NEED HISTORY! (Ch. 9).
July 3, 2014
I mainly read this book to understand Levi-Stauss' use of the term 'bricoleur'-- often translated as 'tinkerer.' Levi-Strauss defines bricoleur as someone who differs from a scientist and who "makes do with whatever is at hand." He states that raw or naive art shows the "mytho-poetical nature of bricolage" and that "art lies half-way between scientific knowledge and mythical or magical thought." This intrigues me as I seek to understand (and craft) the so-called 'lyric essay,'which to me is a type of bricolage.
June 27, 2018
très instructif et intéressant en particulier quand il explique que la connaissance fine du milieu, de la faune et de la flore des tribus se retrouvent transcrits dans la multitude de noms et de nuances qu'ils ont créés pour les décrire et sont un indicateur important du niveau de connaissance atteint, par ces sociétés trop souvent décrite comme "sauvages" ou primitives car différentes.
February 22, 2011
Harder to read than "Tristes tropiques" but interesting.
September 30, 2013
Essential reading (regardless of one's view of L.-S.) - it is Claude L.-S.'s masterpiece
May 6, 2016
Very, very interesting. I was not keen on the writing style but I guess I'm too used to novels. A must read for those interested in anthropology.
February 3, 2020
Exceptional anthropological work on truth as a social institution!
August 13, 2017
Could the reader, however well versed in structural anthropology answer for me the meaning of the following paragraph on p 21 chapter 1, quoted "Mythical thought appears to be an intellectual form of 'bricolage' in this sense also. Science as a whole is based on the distinction between the contingent and the necessary, this being also what distinguishes event and structure. [myitals]The qualities it claimed at its outset as peculiarly scientific were precisely those which formed no part of living experience and remained outside and, as it were, unrelated to events.[\ital] This is the significance of the notion of primary qualities. Now, the characteristic feature of mythical thought, as of 'bricolage on the practical plane, is that it builds up structured sets, not directly with other structured sets but by using theremains and debris of events: in French 'des bribes et des morceau,' or odds and ends in English, fossilized evidence of the history of an individual or society." End quote.
Does he think the English and French were the only two societies to have discovered fossils, first reaction? ''Science as a whole..." here I suppose referring to a method or meta-science, but then: [boldital]The qualities it claimed[\endital] at its outset as peculiarly scientific, how does one anthropologist who just happened to be a professional writer really identify that any qualities were claimed by anyone, whether the French or the English? Here he gives two languages however briefly, hence Europe is propably a mythical place.
I should note that I was fully enjoying and will almost certainly continue to enjoy the rest of this gripping read en route to and from *work.* The Savage Mind, by Claude Levi-Strauss
Does he think the English and French were the only two societies to have discovered fossils, first reaction? ''Science as a whole..." here I suppose referring to a method or meta-science, but then: [boldital]The qualities it claimed[\endital] at its outset as peculiarly scientific, how does one anthropologist who just happened to be a professional writer really identify that any qualities were claimed by anyone, whether the French or the English? Here he gives two languages however briefly, hence Europe is propably a mythical place.
I should note that I was fully enjoying and will almost certainly continue to enjoy the rest of this gripping read en route to and from *work.* The Savage Mind, by Claude Levi-Strauss
December 10, 2021
( Levi-Strauss, Claude. (2001.) Divlja misao. Zagreb : Golden market. S franc. prevela Jagoda Milinković)
Radovi Levi-Straussa uvijek nam se čine interdisciplinarnima. “Divlja misao”, premda blisko onome što bi se tradicionalno mogllo nazvati filozofijom, kapitalno je djelo postmodernističke antropologije. Budući da mi se čini nemoguće ponoviti ukratko složena Levi-Straussova razmatranja, mogu reći da mi je prvi dio knjige bio poprilično zanimljiv, dok se sabranost i interes (iz)gubio u smjeru približavanja kraju. “Divlja misao” naziv je kojim Levi-Strauss želi označiti način kako misle i kako se ponašaju pripadnici kultura koje smo zbog niske razine tehnologije navikli nazivati “primitivnima.” Autor smatra da je razlika između načina na koji misle i djeluju pripadnici tehnički nerazvijenih kultura i “nas” samo modalna (a ne supstancijalna)- nalik razlici između divljih i pripitomljenih životinja, dakle, građa i temeljne zakonitosti su (u oba slučaja) iste. Preporuka njegova kritičara Edmunda Leacha o laćanju glasovite Empsonove knjige “Sedam tipova dvosmislenosti” kao uvod u razmijevanje i ovog djela, prekasno je do mene došla. Sve sam uvjereniji u susret s njegovim “Mitologikama” i “Totemizmom danas.” Životinje u njegovoj totemskoj klasifikaciji nisu, kako piše, “dobre za jelo”, nego su “dobre za mišljenje.” Levi-Straussova tvrdnja o “jeziku mitova” koji su potpuno nalik “jeziku glazbe” navela me pjevušiti mitom o mitovima.
Radovi Levi-Straussa uvijek nam se čine interdisciplinarnima. “Divlja misao”, premda blisko onome što bi se tradicionalno mogllo nazvati filozofijom, kapitalno je djelo postmodernističke antropologije. Budući da mi se čini nemoguće ponoviti ukratko složena Levi-Straussova razmatranja, mogu reći da mi je prvi dio knjige bio poprilično zanimljiv, dok se sabranost i interes (iz)gubio u smjeru približavanja kraju. “Divlja misao” naziv je kojim Levi-Strauss želi označiti način kako misle i kako se ponašaju pripadnici kultura koje smo zbog niske razine tehnologije navikli nazivati “primitivnima.” Autor smatra da je razlika između načina na koji misle i djeluju pripadnici tehnički nerazvijenih kultura i “nas” samo modalna (a ne supstancijalna)- nalik razlici između divljih i pripitomljenih životinja, dakle, građa i temeljne zakonitosti su (u oba slučaja) iste. Preporuka njegova kritičara Edmunda Leacha o laćanju glasovite Empsonove knjige “Sedam tipova dvosmislenosti” kao uvod u razmijevanje i ovog djela, prekasno je do mene došla. Sve sam uvjereniji u susret s njegovim “Mitologikama” i “Totemizmom danas.” Životinje u njegovoj totemskoj klasifikaciji nisu, kako piše, “dobre za jelo”, nego su “dobre za mišljenje.” Levi-Straussova tvrdnja o “jeziku mitova” koji su potpuno nalik “jeziku glazbe” navela me pjevušiti mitom o mitovima.
January 13, 2022
Öncelikle kitabın okunmasının ve anlaşılmasının çok zor olduğunu belirtmek istiyorum. Geçen Terimler, anlatım dili, devrik cümleler, kitapta çok daha rahat ifade edilebilecek cümleleri anlaşılmaz terimlerle içinden çıkılmaz hale getirmiş… Bu nedenle malesef kitabı tavsiye edemeyeceğim !!!
Kitap yaban düşüncenin (yani ilkel denilen toplumların) totemcilik kavramının gerçekte içi boş ve yakıştırma bir kavram olduğunu, gerçekte antropologların düşüncesinde doğduğunu belirtiyor. İki tür insandan söz edenlerin tersine ne denli eskilere gidersek gidelim, insan düşüncesinin nesneleri hep karşılaştırıp birleştirdiğini, ayırıp sınıflandırdığını anlatıyor. Kitap yaban düşüncenin kendi içindeki Tutarlılığını , doğayı kültüre dönüştürme başarısını vurgulayıp, temelinde yer alan doğa - kültür özdeşliğinin altını çiziyor.
Kitaba göre insanlığın düşünce tarihinde iki aşama var
1. Aşama YABAN DÜŞÜNCE; son derece soyut
Ve doğmasına olanak sağladığı karşıtı;
2. Aşama MODERN DÜŞÜNCE; Bilimsel ve olgusal
Aslında kitap ;
YABAN DÜŞÜNCENİN, MODERN DÜŞÜNCENİN EVRİMSEL İLK AŞAMASI OLDUĞUNU vurgulamak istiyor. Birbirlerine karşıtta olsa modern düşüncenin yaban düşüncenin içinden çıktığını, bu nedenle yaban düşünceyi ayrımcı bir tavırla dışlayıp aşağılamamamız gerektiğini anlatıyor.
Kitap yaban düşüncenin (yani ilkel denilen toplumların) totemcilik kavramının gerçekte içi boş ve yakıştırma bir kavram olduğunu, gerçekte antropologların düşüncesinde doğduğunu belirtiyor. İki tür insandan söz edenlerin tersine ne denli eskilere gidersek gidelim, insan düşüncesinin nesneleri hep karşılaştırıp birleştirdiğini, ayırıp sınıflandırdığını anlatıyor. Kitap yaban düşüncenin kendi içindeki Tutarlılığını , doğayı kültüre dönüştürme başarısını vurgulayıp, temelinde yer alan doğa - kültür özdeşliğinin altını çiziyor.
Kitaba göre insanlığın düşünce tarihinde iki aşama var
1. Aşama YABAN DÜŞÜNCE; son derece soyut
Ve doğmasına olanak sağladığı karşıtı;
2. Aşama MODERN DÜŞÜNCE; Bilimsel ve olgusal
Aslında kitap ;
YABAN DÜŞÜNCENİN, MODERN DÜŞÜNCENİN EVRİMSEL İLK AŞAMASI OLDUĞUNU vurgulamak istiyor. Birbirlerine karşıtta olsa modern düşüncenin yaban düşüncenin içinden çıktığını, bu nedenle yaban düşünceyi ayrımcı bir tavırla dışlayıp aşağılamamamız gerektiğini anlatıyor.
January 24, 2022
A few minutes after having finished reading the last chapter, someone asked me what the book was about. I felt a strong urge, which perhaps I should have listened to, to answer "I don't know". Instead I rambled on for a few minutes about the main argument opposing the view of a fundamental difference between the mind of "savages" and "civilized" people. That the confusion stemmed from an inability to understand and map the system of savage culture as a whole. This provoked the very understandable answer, which I've also seen on reviews here, "Do you really need a 300-page book to arrive at such a conclusion?"
The question, in-and-of-itself, makes a lot of sense. If this were all the book were about, on the naive level, I would not have given it a second glance and would definitely not have bought, read, and enjoyed the thing. I will dedicate this review to (hopefully) shine light on this confusion and elevate the brilliance found in such a seemingly (in my honest opinion) boring topic.
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The rest of the review is yet to be written, take the opportunity to write it yourself by reading the work
The question, in-and-of-itself, makes a lot of sense. If this were all the book were about, on the naive level, I would not have given it a second glance and would definitely not have bought, read, and enjoyed the thing. I will dedicate this review to (hopefully) shine light on this confusion and elevate the brilliance found in such a seemingly (in my honest opinion) boring topic.
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The rest of the review is yet to be written, take the opportunity to write it yourself by reading the work
June 26, 2022
A very dense, very intricate, very in-depth discussion and thesis on the real structure of totemic, "primitive" thought and organization of such culture's worldviews. There are a lot of concepts and structures here that Lévi-Strauss employs with a wide range of application in other areas that have since come into use by various other scholars and academics. This in of itself proves that "savage thought" is actually quite systematic, dialectical, and advanced in important ways, although Lévi-Strauss himself demonstrates this continually throughout the book.
This took me a long time to read. I put it down for a while after finishing with the first three chapters. But then, I persevered, and it was quite rewarding actually all the way through (especially the last two chapters), even though it was often quite an exercise to my brain in understanding what he wrote. This book is very important not only because of its perennial relevance to post-structuralist theorists, but on its own it stands as a major work of 20th century philosophical anthropology.
This took me a long time to read. I put it down for a while after finishing with the first three chapters. But then, I persevered, and it was quite rewarding actually all the way through (especially the last two chapters), even though it was often quite an exercise to my brain in understanding what he wrote. This book is very important not only because of its perennial relevance to post-structuralist theorists, but on its own it stands as a major work of 20th century philosophical anthropology.
April 8, 2019
Apart from its political incorrectness in today's world, the title of this book is a bit misleading. The book is really about similarities and differences between schemes of classification and naming across human cultures. Levi-Strauss provides an exhaustive analysis with a multitude of examples from every continent. He is very erudite, but it is a slog to get through. He finds structures and connections for classification systems across categories of kinship and other social relations and connecitons to the natural world. Some are built on contrast, others on complementary or supplementary relationships. His analysis is tied up into a lot of neat bundles, like when he tells us that animals with which we have a metaphorical relationship commonly have metonymical names, whereas animals with which we have a metonymical relationship commonly have metaphorical names. It sounds cool and it is plausible, but is it really all true? Levi-Strauss himself seems to be caught up in the same fever for schemes of classification that infects the subjects of his study. It feels a lot to me like Freud, another man with a brilliant mind, who constructed a plausible and internally consistent theory that ultimately is based on not very much beyond Freud looking at himself in the mirror.
In a few moments of clarity, Levi-Strauss seems to acknowledge that his analysis of the various schemes of classification may or may not be right or meaningful, but that the important point is that these schemes exist at all. Here I think that he has hit upon something -- the need to classify is a fundamental driving characteristic of human thought that has been a key to human progress and that will continue to be important for as long as we are still around.
In a few moments of clarity, Levi-Strauss seems to acknowledge that his analysis of the various schemes of classification may or may not be right or meaningful, but that the important point is that these schemes exist at all. Here I think that he has hit upon something -- the need to classify is a fundamental driving characteristic of human thought that has been a key to human progress and that will continue to be important for as long as we are still around.
June 25, 2017
One of the most difficult books I have read. It's up there with Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery. I found myself constantly drifting between comprehension and confusion. Many sentences, paragraphs, pages had to be re-read because the language was so compact and the diction technical. There are too many details and examples where few would suffice, but not enough unpacking of the more intricate concepts proposed by the author. The analysis is exhaustive but the conclusions are not as profound as I had hoped.
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