Cause Meaning Social Sciences by Ernest Gellner

Author:Ernest Gellner [Gellner, Ernest]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: aVe4EvA
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2006-08-11T20:00:00+00:00

Notes

1 Cf. Ronald Fletcher, ‘Functionalism as a Social Theory’, Sociological Review,

n.s. 4, July 1956, 31–46. 2 Cf. a forthcoming article by Mr Paul Stirling. 3 The doctrine that ritual and belief systems mirror the social organisation in

which they occur has wide currency amongst social anthropologists. It is, in fact, a very suggestive and illuminating idea, helpful in formulating questions for research and in organising material. As a formally maintained doctrine it has logical defects of which anthropologists may not be sufficiently aware.

Mainly: the idea of ‘reflection’ or ‘mirroring’ presupposes, as a minimum requirement, that there be a one-one correspondence between the two mutually reflecting systems. But neither system—neither social organisation, nor a system of ritual or belief—consists of easily separable, identifiable, countable ‘parts’. The principles of individuation of such parts are largely arbitrary. It follows that any anthropologist who wishes can always, as far as this condition goes, with some ingenuity or ruthlessness interpret any material so that it fits the ‘reflection’ thesis.

4 Cf. C.Lévi-Strauss, Les Structures Elémentaires de la Parenté, Paris, 1949, p.

27.

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