Lucien
Levy-Bruhl
by Jean
Cazeneuve
1963
CHAPTER
ONE -
The Philosophy of L. L. B.
Utilitarianism
had a strong tendency to result in the same moral rules as the gospel. Hence, metamorals can only build theories on
existing customs without being able to influence them. Finally, moral theory
rests on to false assumptions. On the
one hand it supposes in effect that human nature is always and everywhere the
same, whereas it varies according to civilization.
On the
other hand, it reasons as if moral conscience were a harmonious whole. When in fact it harbors contradictions,
amalgamating precepts deriving from different sources.
Having
discredited moral theories, L. L. B. Lee is the foundation for the positive
signs of morals which bought to replace them.
This
science, like physics, bought to stick to purely object of facts, and to look
for their laws instead of trying to interpret them. To look at what is, not what ought to be.
L. L. B.
was a rationalist and perhaps he always wanted-the better to isolate rational
thought in all its purity-to see how everything in mankind's intellectual
behavior which seemed to deviate from this ideal could be explained
sociologically.
He read
translations of ancient Chinese philosophers and was amazed to find the text
incomprehensible. That's why he began
to wonder if they were not modes of thought which were impenetrable to each
other.
II.
The theory of primative mentality
L. L. B.
opposes the so-called animist school for whom the functions of the mind by the
same everywhere, but are simply used in the wrong way by primitive people.
On the
contrary, according to L. L. B., the differences fundamental, not fortuitous:
primative people's cannot reason badly, but they think differently from us.
He
hoped to create
"collective representations".
By that is meant discerning the ways of grasping reality, to the members
of the given social group. Although
such collective representations do not exist apart from individuals, they are
imposed on the latter and cannot be explained by purely individual psychology.
Characteristic
of primative people's is that they are mystical.
This does
not mean that they obey logic other than our own, because the two mentalities
are not totally unintelligible to each other.
It is not para-logical or anti-logical it is pre-logical.
In
calling it pre-logical key witness to say that it does not tie itself down, as
are thought does, to the avoidance of contradictions before all else.
Their
principal is called the "law of participation." By virtue of this law, things can be the
same time themselves and something else.
Usually
the logical and prelogical coexist.
Primative
man is far less able than we are too abstract and generalize. Things can not easily be isolated from the
means to which they are attached. For
example, numbers are rather forms of qualitative distinction, and this brings
about some peculiarities in their language.
Their vocabulary is very rich and copious ink is it is so I'm abstract,
and this makes the role of memory more important.
It is not
that primative man is only after occult powers. This would be poor reasoning not different reasoning.
There are
mystical causality is not grasped by reasoning that is intuitive through the
pre-connections which exist.
Primative
man has a sense of his personal existence, but he does not possess a clear idea
of self. Furthermore he does not
separate the individual from the species to which it belongs. In mind and the self is not confined within
the boundaries of the body but extends to what L. L. B. calls the appurtenance
(for example, hair, footprints and clothing).
We must
think about this when we translated words like soul, double, shadow,
reflection.
If
primitive people stagnate in this manner of thinking, it is because the
mystical nature of their mentality makes it impervious to experience, that is
to say in sensitive to the contradictions which objectively observe facts would
seem to present to their beliefs.
The
advance of civilization will never be able to make the mystical mentality
disappear completely.
L. L. B.
does not think the treaty logical is a non rational stage; he does not
subscribe to a doctorate of two mutually exclusive mentalities.
III.
Primative mentality and affectivity
certainly
the "savage" has concepts, but they are less systemized than
ours. The knowledge of primative people
is not classified rationally-it is unpackaged.
Items of knowledge are juxtaposed, the field stays open to mystical Cree
connections, and contradictions have little hope of being rejected.
Some
primative man can distinguish broadly between the natural and the supernatural
worlds. But often his experience
abruptly jumps from one to the other.
The supernatural is not isolated from the natural world. It is for this reason that nothing is absurd
to him since nothing is incompatible with the data of experience.
If the
prelogical is explained by the mystical, it must now be added that the mystical
results from the predominance of affectivity in experience.
Emotion
and sentiment give primative man in knowledge of reality other than that given
to him by purely object of experience.
He has "affective categories".
Primative
man does not need an intellectual act in order to recognize this special
tonality when the Affective category of the supernatural comes into play.
In Greek
and Latin mythologies deities are clearly individualized. But, among primative people is,
representations of the supernatural or very vague.
The
number one affective category is the fear of the unusual.
This fear
results in the search for a deference with large numbers of remedies and
Amulets.
Primative
man are capable of distinguishing between training and waking life, but they do
not place the former outside reality as we normally do.
In their
mythology is not organized like ours.
They are incoherent and scattered, but they have a homogeneity of tone
and uniformity of emotion.
Myth is
situated in a special time; it is' meta historical'. Ancestors brought in and out.
Some ancestors are in a time they cannot affect us some are.
Some
myths and help explained what is, but that is not their primary function. They reflect the supernatural and have a
value which is transcendental and life-giving.
Supernatural
reality comes to them not as knowledge that through experience of an aspect of
character that blends into a complex of representative elements.
Symbolism,
properly speaking, does not yet exist.
There is a unity and duality side-by-side. Thus the totem is not a symbol for the tribe as Durheim believes.
We go
from pre-religion to folklore when cultural heroes become beyond the pale of
interaction.
CHAPTER
2 - EXTRACTS
AGAINST
THE POSTULATE OF THE IDENTITY OF HUMAN NATURE (1903)
from now
on, we can no longer represent the whole of humanity, from the psychological and
moral point of view as similar.
And we
need to analyze the variety which is open to observation. Since this change is and is in tangible is
harder than research on the physical world.
Therefore we must scrupulously never stray from the objective method.
D'Alembert
created possible physics. For example,
rain is caused by thermometers dropping.
There is a danger of introducing our own states of mind under those we
are trying to research. To protect
ourselves we must use the sociological method.
FOR A
SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF MORAL REALITY
one-man
distinguish between ethics in more and in peace. And between theory and practice and ethics. He assumed practice always came from theory. This is an assumption. And perhaps a projection of our own
mentality and a confusion of cause with the fact.
Science
has changed the physical world to our own advantage, and there's no reason to
believe they can do the same to the social world. Experience shows us the practical ethics evolved.
So how
can we decide if conservation is rational.
THE TYPES
OF MENTALITY
a given
type of society, which has its own institutions and customs, will necessarily
have its own mentality as well. The
deduction is a hard one. We must guard
against our own mental habits in reading into other societies. Realize people do not reason or reflect like
us.
This way
we can abandon the notion that primative people are rudimentary forms of
us. On the contrary, it is normal where
practiced.
THE
COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATIONS OF PRIMITIVE PEOPLES
our terminology
is not necessarily applicable to denote a primative states of mind. For example, "collective
representations" assumes an understanding of the meaning of the word"
representations".
We see
you representations as intellectual.
Primative mentality is to undifferentiated for it to be possible to
consider the ideas or images of objects by themselves independent of emotions
and passions.
Primitive
peoples use initiation rites. Thus such
representations are acquired by the individual and circumstances likely to make
the deepest impression on their feelings.
These rites often involve tortures that put the nervous to the severest
tests. Therefore it would be difficult to
exaggerate the intensity of the emotional force of these representations. The object is not simply an idea or image.
Ideas and
concepts also imply a logical nature to us.
But these representations are real to the primative and real objects are
not presented in logical order.
THE LAW
OF PARTICIPATION AND THE PRELOGICAL
the minds
of primative people are not simply passive and ready to receive
impressions. They have many collective
representations. They are attentive to
mystical connections. They always imply
a "participation" between the beans or the objects linked in a
collective representation. This is the
"law of participation".
Objects
received and in net mystical forces, properties, qualities and actions which
are felled outside of themselves, without dens ceasing to be where they are.
The us
the opposition between one and many, the same and another etc., does not impose
the necessity to affirm one of the terms and one denies the other. The thing in and of itself as separate is
only of secondary interest.
Thus some
tribes say that they are aquatic animals, others parrots. State actually understand that they are
parrots. It is not been named a give
themselves, nor is it some kinship which they claim. What they wish to convey an essential identity. That they are at the same time they human
beings and parrots.
All societies
of totemic form admit of collective representations of the same type.
The
regularity of seasons are associated with carrying out of certain ceremonies by
special people. What we call the
natural relations of causality between events passed unnoticed, or have only
minimal importance. Mystical
participations are the most important.
In
representations and they are mystical.
In connections, pre logical.
But these
are two aspects of one fundamental mentality, not two distinct characteristics.
It is not
antilogical; no more is it alogical. In
calling it prelogical, I only want to say that unlike our thought, it does not
have to abstain from contradiction. It
obeys Firstly the law of participation.
The
simple statement of the general abstract term, such as man, animal, or
organism, contains a large number of judgments which imply definite
relationships between many concepts.
But the collective representations of primative people are not, like our
concepts.
LANGUAGE
AND NUMERATION
Indians
of North America take great care in describing relations.
Ponka
indians, trying to convey a man killed a rabbit as we would have him say that
must say, "he, one, animate, standing, in the nominative case, purposely
killed, by shooting an arrow, the rabbit, he , the one, animate sitting in the
objective case."
Cherokee
don't just have the vague "we"they have: "I and thou",
"I and ye", "I and ye two, " "I and he, "I and
they" , etc.... There are not less
than 70 distinct forms.
We oppose
the plural to the singular; a subject or object is either singular or
plural.. This involves logical thought
and its working stock.
MEMORY
The
memory plays a more important part in the prelogical mentality than in our
mental life.
Our store
of social thought is transmitted condensed in a hierarchy of concepts which are
coordinated with and subordinated to each other. We thus only remember things that we have logically deduced are
important.
In
primitive societies all has endless significance.
In
simpler societies, it soaks in complex and voluminous collective
representations. It is thus transmitted
almost solely by memory.
A sign
arouses in us the exercise of logic, and in the primitive man a complex and
mystical recollection which governs his action. And this very memory has a
special tonality which distinguishes it from ours.
And these
prelogical sensations areen't compartmentalized. And there are memory is our
very reliable and am very emotional. It
reconstructs the complex collective representations with great richness of
detail.
Our
thoughts come as sequels to the prior ones.
The thus our thoughts almost have a quality of conclusion at the end.
The
preconnections, the preperceptions and the prerationalizations which take up so
much room in the mentality of simpler societies involve no logical activity at
all, and are simply entrusted to the memory.
Thus we must expect to see this memory highly developed among primitive
peoples.
As in the
"user illusion" there is a lot of exformation that goes with all
information.
CAUSALITY
(1910)
in the
presence of something which interest, troubles, or frightens it, the mind of
primitive man does not follow the same course as ours.
We have
the permanent sense of intellectual security so well founded that we do not see
how it could be shaken; for it even supposing the sudden appearance of a
completely mysterious phenomenon we will be persuaded our ignorance is only
temporary. Sooner or later the cause
will be discovered.
Nature
for us is, therefore, intellectualized in advance. Our daily activity, in this in its humblest details, involves a
quiet and perfect confidence in the variability of natural laws.
Primitive
man when interested by a phenomenon immediately (by mental reflex) thinks
covenant called an invisible power which the phenomenon is a manifestation of.
No one
does actions unless favorable omens appear.
The invisible world and an invisible world form one. For my so oriented, there is no purely
physical fact.
When we
find the cause, the conditions, that is enough for us. Our problems are not theirs, their problems
are foreign to us.
MISONEISM
with very
rare exceptions, simpler societies have no history. Their menace, so instructive in other ways, cannot take its
place.
They hate
everything that comes from the outside.
Like close systems they hate change.
Everything causes a risk of decomposition.
They seek
to be the same as their great grandfather.
CONFUSION
BETWEEN THE MATERIAL AND THE SPIRITUAL (1927)
the
opposition between matter and spirit seems almost natural to us. For the primitive there is neither matter
nor body which does not give for it some mystical forces which we would call
spiritual.
APPURTENANCES
all of us
believe that we know exactly how our individual personality is formed, and
where its boundaries come. I and my
feelings, my thoughts, my memories. My
head, my arms, my legs, my internal organs, etc.., are also me. Everything else which I perceived is not
me. My individuality is thus grasp by
my consciousness and circumscribed by the surface of my body, and I believe
that that of my neighbor is exactly like mine.
Among
primitive peoples also, each individual as grads to himself his states of
consciousness, his limbs, and his organs.
Certain language is even express this fact by personal pronouns suffixed
to the said Substantives which designate these parts of the individual.
But this
suffixed and extends further, and it is applied also to the names of objects
which are in intimate relationship with the individual.
Secretions
and excretions, had anybody here, nails, tears, urine, instrument, Seaman,
sweat are all I.
this
explains the extreme care primitive societies often take for their left
behinds.
He calls
these left behinds, "appurtenances"
This
extends to footprints, clothes, things he makes or owns and corpses.
All must
be guarded.
UNITY-DUALITY
we see
ourselves as one. If we were not one we
would no longer be an individual, we would be composed of many.
The
primitive is in many including His appurtenances, (incuding his double, image,
and reflection}.
Is
reflection includes his name,and namessake ancestor.
Sometimes
the individual is to distinct beings: man and alligator (awake and
asleep). People get busted for things
done far always from them and don't complain. In his eyes and the duality does
not impede the fundamentally unity of the individual.
People
are never sure the dead will not return.
Some people have been killed by a sorcerer but still live in the tribe
(ie they are officially dead, but not really (in our minds))
THE MYSITICAL
EXPERIENCE
the
primitives experience is poorer and yet richer than ours. And they spend so much time in the spirit
world it is as real to them as our OneWorld is to us. Thus the word" experience" is a strange one. Our meaning is confined to things that
"really happened."
Our
notion of experience is also more cognitive and then demoted. Sounds colors smells don't make it into our
cognitive experiences.
In many
primitives survive an unfavorable climates.
They have managed to make marvelous use of the lessons of
experience. Nevertheless, it is not
only as a source of useful knowledge that their experience matters to them.
THE
AFFECTIVE CATEGORY OF THE SUPERNATURAL
our
traditional languages, grammars, philosophy, psychology and logic have accustomed
to us to consider generality as pertaining only two ideas. We are Aristotelian.
But other
mentality is essentially emotional.
Things to them and to the home and from the them and are not known as
facts but felt as facts.
Categories
should not be taken either in the Kantian sense. f
The fear
category, the hmn strange feeling category.
Primitive
men tell us, “we do not know about invisible powers, we believe.” Fear is often the basis. We do not believe, we fear.
Emotional
basis of dogma.
THE
UNUSUAL
Primitive
man’s attention is always on the alert. He is on the look-out for the unusual.
Anything
t that happens regularly doesn’t require any cause. Or at least there needn’t be any trouble about it. What happens only occasionally, must have a
cause!
Amongst
the Dinka, no event, no matter how small, doesn’t have a religious cause and
require sacrifice. An unusually large
pumpkin caused a goat sacrifice.
When
airplanes first appeared 50 bulls were slaughtered.
MYTHS and
LEGENDS
Primitive
myths that we have available are fragmentary and incomplete. Only a small number of folks in the tribe
possess a wide knowledge of them. This
knowledge is the priveledge of old men who are married and have children.
Some know
the middle, some the end, few the whole thing.
Further
the myths rarely for wholes. They are
independent of and indifferent to each other.
The mythology may be very rich but not have an underlying unifying
thread. Look how threadbare the old
testament is. A bunch of stories loosely
put together. Previously they weren’t.
18th
and 19th century peoples looked for origins and order in myths to
match their own. But in the case of
Australia or New Guinea or others they gave up.
One
informant on different occasions may give two different versions of the origin
of fire or the beginning of the human race (genesis). The Andamanese see each story as independent and do not
consciously compare one with another.
Gods
sometimes appear in human form and sometimes in other forms. They change with ease. A cat who is also a
man becomes a great lord without ceasing to be a cat, a pumpkin is turned into
a coach and a rat into a coachman.
Why did
we cease to believe in such stories a long time ago. He says “without doubt, the reason for it lies, at least partly,
in the rational character of the civilization which classical antiquity
established and bequeathed to us.
However,
history shows that this mental foundation is far from common. It has been established in only a few
societies, and has cost them centuries of effort.
Herein
lies the reason for the charm which draws us towards folk tales. As soon as we listen, this constraint is
suspended. We abandon rationality. We suspend the rational function, but know
we must go back .
RITUAL CEREMONIES
We barely
conceive of worship without more or less clearly defined and personalized
deities. For them the deities are
semi-physical realities that need directing.
They aren’t personalized into individual beings.
In
ceremonies imitating buffalo, they make the buffalo generally willing to be
killed. They are not a game!!
Frequently
these rituals have no particular end in mind.
By repeating what ancestors have done, one shares their essence.
Ancestors
are also brought back in such rituals.
Represent
means “make present again, or make what has disappeared, reappear. They don’t just imitate these folks, they
become them.
To wear a
mask then is no game. It is one of the
weightiest things a person can do. It
is to bring the invisible world into the visible.
THE TERM
“ PRELOGICAL” ABANDONED IN THE POSTHUMOUS CARNETS
It is not
a logic other than our own. That is, we
still have mystical and prelogical elements in our thought.===========
