Planeamento
Aulas
Presentation
Presentation of the course's programme, bibliography and system of evaluation. Introductory discussion of contemporary issues on symbolism and cognition. The need for an interdisciplinary approach (anthropology vis a vis the neurosciences) and the relevance of a revisited ethnography (Tim Ingold in the Debated Mind, and Maurice Bloch's connectivist views on cultural cognition). The problems of the Western-centric semantic (and rhetoric) conditioning of anthropological discourses. The limitations of a materialist approach to cognition. Example: António Damásio's Self comes to Mind: Constructing the conscious brain John Searle's critical review of Damasio's Self comes to mind Reading for next class:
The conundrums of cognition
Problematisation of accepted anthropological concepts. From Plato to the doctrine of Chalcedon: the archaeology of the n otions of dualism in Western thought. Counter-examples from non-Chalcedonic Churches. Mind - Language - Culture The notion of "category" in Anthropology and its logico-philosophical foundations. A criticism of the Aristotelian groundings of anthropological categorisations. The language-mind debate. Where do symbols stand? A lost possibility: non-rousseauian anthropology in the 18th century: de Sade, Lametrie, Montesquieu, Kant. Bibliography: Reading for next class: - B. Russel, History of Western Philosophy - E. Benveniste, Catégories de langue, catégories de pensée
The conundrums, continued
The notion of "category" in Anthropology and its logico-philosophical foundations. Boole, Cantor, Gödel - numbers, groups and paradoxes. Bertrand Russel's critical review of Aristotelian logics and metaphysics, and why it's important for a new grounding of anthropological thought. The language-mind debate: universality and substance. Categories of thought or categories of language. Bibliography: J. Barrow, The Book of Nothing. W. Folley, Anthropological Linguistics B. Russel, History of Western Philosophy E. Benveniste, Catégories de langue, catégories de pensée Reading for next class: W. Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreams, illusion and other realities
Language and mind - meaning and paradox
Dualism and concepts of ontological reality in Greek thought. A compared view with hindu thought (W. Doniger O'Flaherty) The dichotomous principles of Plato's philosophy: A. Lovejoy's criticism of the thisworldliness/thatworldliness divide in Plato and his heirs. The Greek way of thinking and making war: John Keegan's analysis of Greek dualism and their concepts of war. Judeo-Christian dualism and platonic thought. The way to the Calcedon. An explanation of the creed, and its ontological deirivatives. Bibliography: W. Doniger O'Flaherty, Dreams, illusion and other realities Reading for next class: E. Benveniste, Categories de la langue, categories de la pensée
Language and mind - categorisation and symbolism
The indefinition problem in what's proper to language and proper to thought: E. Benveniste's reading of the Categories, by Aristote. Detailed reading of the text. Sylvia Scribner's critical review of sylogism, in Ways of Thinking, Ways of Speaking A way forward from the linguistic-based, static and taxonomic models in ethnographic observation and in anthropological writing: Edmund Leach, Maurice Bloch, J.C. Gomes da Silva. Bibliography: E. Benveniste, Categories de la langue, categories de la pensée Maurice Bloch, How we think they think Edmund Leach, Political systems of Highland Burma Edmund Leach, Rethinking Anthropology J. C. Gomes da Silva, O Discurso contra si próprio J. Lave. Savagery of domesticated thought West, Science for the West, Myth for the rest? Reading for next class: G. Deleuze, La logique du sens
Semiological models and cognitive models in Anthropology
Discussion of Dan Sperber's critical review of C. Lévi-Strauss's model, in Du symbolisme en général D. Sperber vs T. Ingold and the Psychology / Ethnography debate in the Debated Mind Maurice Bloch's connectivist stand in How we think they think On AI and connectionism: Reading for next class: R. Needham's Belief, Knowledge and Experience D. Sperber, La fonction symbolique.
Belief and Knowledge
A short story of anthropologists' belief in "belief". "Folk psychology", conceptualisation and knowledge. R. Needham's Belief, Knowledge and Experience: issues on religion and cognition, and his influence on Dan Sperber's Le savoir des anthropologues. (see B. Saler's review in LAmerican anthropologist). Symbolism, belief and rationalism in D. Sperber's text in La fonction symbolique. To know and to believe, in Jean Pouillon's "Remarques le verbe croire". Reading for next class - preparation of class seminar: D. Sperber, Le savoir des anthropologues.
Seminar: Dan Sperber, Le savoir des anthropologues
Workshop, part 1 Content analysis of Dan Serber's book. E.E: Evans Pritchard, The Nuer D. Sperber, Le savoir des anthropologues J. Bureau, Le verdict du Serpent. Mythes, contes et recits des Gamo d'Éthiopie J. Abink, Review of Le verdict du Serpent. Mythes, contes et recits des Gamo d'Éthiopie Summary of the Seminar on "Croyances apparament irrationelles" General synopsis Division of the text into parts - partial description of arguments: Analysis of the psychological argument proposed by author Analysis of the construction of the argument - compared with the conclusions of Sec. 1 Analysis of the argument by illustration: dialogue of field notebook and "forgetting" Question: Interpretation vs. explanation: "Attention! Dragon dangereux." Reading for next class - preparation of class seminar, part 2: E.E: Evans Pritchard, The Nuer D. Sperber, Le savoir des anthropologues J. Bureau, Le verdict du Serpent. Mythes, contes et recits des Gamo d'Éthiopie
(chapter 2 of Le savoir des anthropologues, Dan Sperber)
- introduction
- Critique of intellectualism
- Critique of symbolism
- Critique of Relativism
- Rationalist thesis
- Conclusion
Seminar: Dan Sperber, Le savoir des anthropologues
Workshop, part 2 Content analysis of Dan Serber's book. Aditional reading: E.E: Evans Pritchard, The Nuer D. Sperber, Le savoir des anthropologues J. Bureau, Le verdict du Serpent. Mythes, contes et recits des Gamo d'Éthiopie J. Abink, Review of Le verdict du Serpent. Mythes, contes et recits des Gamo d'Éthiopie Reading for next class: - Lévi-Strauss: Anthropologie structurale II: Le champ de l'anthropologie Preparation of Seminar's review
Religion and Symbolism: classificatory models
Introduction to the life and work of C. Lévi-Strauss: Anthropologie structurale II: Le champ de l'anthropologie The influences of E. Durkheim, L. Levy-Bruhl. Anthropology and ideology: the role of C. Lévi-Strauss at the UNESCO. Reading for next class: A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, The comparative method in Social Anthropology C. Lévi-Strauss. Le totémisme aujourd'hui .
Religion and symbolism: totems
Illustration of the consubstantiation problem: reading of the Bible and other documentation. The notion of dual opposition, the Lévi-Straussean misreadings of phonology, and its implications on the analysis of symbolic thought. How A.R. Radcliffe-Brown's "union of contraries" ( The comparative method in Social Anthropology) is reinterpreted as "correlation of opposites" in C. Lévi-Strauss. Le totémisme aujourd'hui. The empiricist syndrome illustrated in L'evi-Strauss' "totemic illusion": clanic reciprocity as a function of dual symbolic thought in Le totémisme aujourd'hui and La pensée sauvage. Screening of interview to C. Lévi-Strauss (1972)
C. Lévi-Strauss: biography and epistemology
A synthesis of C. Lévi-Strauss´epistemological perspectives. Time and structure. Analysis of interviews to C. Lévi-Strauss Reading for next class: C. Lévi-Strauss, La pensée sauvage
Symbolism and classification
Review of classificatory perspectives of symbolism, from Durkheim and Mauss to the post-structuralists. The evils of classification applied to symbolism. C. Lévi-Strauss' La pensée sauvage. A reading of Lévi-Strauss' ideas in historical and philosophical context. Reading for next class: C. Lévi-Strauss, La pensée sauvage (continued)
Symbolism and classification, part 2
C. Lévi-Strauss' La pensée sauvage. A reading of Lévi-Strauss' ideas in historical and philosophical context. Totemism and caste (La pensée sauvage, chapter 4). A critical review of the rhetorical labyrinth proposed by the author. Deconstruction of classificatory methods in Anthropology. Reading for next class: Thomas Pavel, Le mirage linguistique
Rhetoric and ideology in C. Lévi-Strauss work
The utopian model behind the structural method proposal: analysis of Anthropologie strcturale II (the equalitarian future and the anthropologist's role; the paradigm of the "good savage") and of Structures Élementaires de la parenté (the primal dualist organisation of the Nambikwara). Reading of Thomas Pavel's Le mirage linguistique: deconstructution of C. L'evi-Strauss' "analysis of myths" and its non-compliance with Trubetzkoy's methodological constraints. Reading of Boris Wiseman's " Thought and culture: a reading of Claude Lévi-Strauss" Reading for next class: R. Needham, Right and Left: Essays in dual symbolic classification
Lévi-Strauss in Great Britain
Lévi-Strauss and its British readers: R. Needham, E. Leach and J. Goody The impact of C. Lévi-Strauss' ideas and writings in the reshaping of British anthropology, criticisms and adoptions of structural methods. The prominence of the taxonomic principle. Review of the notion of "dual opposition". R. Needham: from acolyte to critic to censor. A review of his troubled relation with structuralism. Right and Left: Essays in dual symbolic classification. Readings of R. Needham's defense of the tabular method in the presentation of Meru and Nyoro ethnography. Reading for next class: R. H. Barnes, Hierarchy without caste
The Needham / Dumont controversy
The flaws in R. Needham's "binary opposition" (in Reconaissances, Counterpoints and in Politethic opposition) and the absurdity of L. Dumont's "hierarchic opposition" ( Homo hiearachicus) as two possible outcomes of the ambiguity of the Durkheimean model. Neddham and Dumont reviewed by R. H. Barnes ( Hierarchy without caste) and J. C. Gomes da Silva (L'identité volée): misreadings of Aristote's Catagories and Organon, evocation of Porphiry's platonism in his neo-aristotean proposal, and of Thomas Aquinas' "hiearachic opposition". The forgotten categorical relations in Aristote: reversibility and ambiguity as essential to an understanding of the dynamics symbolic thought: Luc de Heusch's critical conception of "sacred royalty" in Africa ( Sacrifice dans le religions africaines), and J. C. Gomes da Silva's view on inversion and reversibility (and notes on dialogism from M. Baktine to J. Kristeva). Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind , chapter 1.
Lévi-Strauss in Great Britain, part 2
Seminar: Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind, chapter 1. Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind , chapters 2 and 3.
Lévi-Strauss in Great Britain, part 2 (continued)
Seminar: Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind, chapters 2 and 3. Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind , chapter 4
Lévi-Strauss in Great Britain, part 2 (continued)
Seminar: Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind, chapter 4. Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind , chapters 5 and 6
Lévi-Strauss in Great Britain, part 2 (continued)
Seminar: Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind, chapters 5 and 6. Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind , chapters 7 and 8
Lévi-Strauss in Great Britain, part 2 (continued)
Seminar: Reading of J. Goody's Domestication of the Savage mind, chapters 7 and 8.
Semiological models and cognitive models in Anthropology
Symbolism, literacy and cognition. Review of the Goody controversy. News perspectives in cognitive anthropology. Ethnography and non-verbal cognition: the work of Maurice Bloch, How We Think They Think Reading of Maurice Bloch, How We Think They Think Preparation of final essays - extended abstract
Conclusion
Review of the course's programme: main topics, main issues Preparation of the final essays - clarification and bibliography indications Preparation of the final essays