ANTH245 2007-09-17
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ANTH 245: Lecture for SEPT 17 2007
Recap
Rappaport's second cybernetic loop
- Sacred propositions -> pragramatic proposition -> the System --> Ritual experience --> Sacred propositions
- Actually similar to this:
- EXPERIENCE --> RELIGION --> POLITICS --> ECONOMICS --> EXPERIENCE
Segue
Cognitive models
Actually looking at a pattern (myth)
Levi-Strauss
Background
Essay 1 (Structuralism)
>> See Levi-Strauss, 1951, "Language and the Analysis of Social Laws"
Wiener's pessimism
- Working from analysis of "time series" data under stable conditions
- e.g. anti-aircraft
- Famously found social science unfertile
The model of linguistics
- Historical linguistics
- Grimm's law
- Regular and unconscious
- Phonemes and perception ("sound blindness")
- Langue vs. Parole
Kroeber's Theory
Structuralism
- The linguistic analogy
- Elements and rules
- Same as "code"
- Same "universal grammar" applied to language and other domains
The image of the computer
- Explained by reference to the computer (or database)
- Not the only time:
The day may come when all the available documentation on Australian tribes is transferred to punched cards and with the help of a computer their entire techno-economic, social and religious structures can be shown to be like a vast group of transformations.
The Savage Mind, p. 89.
- Other examples from our reading this week?
Essay 2 (Mythology)
>> See Levi-Strauss, 1955, "The Structural Study of Myth"
Themes
Myth as signal and message
- Message as ontology
- Code as method of interpretation
- Myth itself is a vehicle for ontology
The function of myth
- Compare to Rappaport
- L-S focuses on content, Rappaport sacred context
- L-S helps explain myths credibility -- it overcomes contradictions
- Compare to Bateson
- Patterns
- Who is communicating?
L-S's image of the computer
- Confuses cybernetics with computation
- Actually very interested in databases
