Levi-Bruhl, "Primitive Thinking": a summary

Lucien Levy-Bruhl - French ethnologist, anthropologist, philosopher. . He was born in Paris in 1857. The key theme of the works that Lucien Levy-Bruhl created was primitive thinking .

Biography

Lucien was born into a Jewish family. His father was a merchant, his mother a housewife. The second name Lucien acquired by marrying Alice L. Brühl. At the Sorbonne, he worked at the Department of the History of Philosophy of Modernity. также основал Институт этнологии в Парижском университете. Levi-Bruhl also founded the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Paris. His work began as a philosopher. His first works were devoted to the history of the formation of German thought. начал интересоваться антропологией. Subsequently, Levi-Bruhl began to be interested in anthropology. This was prompted by his acquaintance with the work of D. Fraser and the research of S. Qian (a Chinese historian).

Legal solidarity of L. Levy-Bruhl

The initial concept in all studies was "collective representation." заимствовал у Дюркгейма. This definition Levi-Bruhl borrowed from Durkheim. According to the latter, collective ideas are ideas, moral concepts, beliefs that a person receives not from his own life experience, but from education, public opinion, customs. The identification of the regularities of this aspect of social culture, the study of its manifestations in societies differing in the level of development are the main tasks that Levy-Bruhl put in his works . – первый труд, в котором философ пытается их решить. "Primitive thinking" is the first work in which the philosopher tries to solve them. The work was written in 1922.

Levy-Bruhl: "Primitive Thinking" (summary)

At the beginning of his work the author gives a detailed description of collective ideas. It indicates a number of characteristics by which they can be recognized. These criteria are inherent in all members of a particular social group. Collective representations:

1. Passed from generation to generation.
2. They are imposed on individuals, activating feelings of fear, respect, and worship, depending on the circumstances.
3. Do not depend on a particular individual.

The latter is conditioned not so much by the fact that representations are suggested by some collective subject, rather than by the fact that ideas manifest properties that can not be comprehended through the consideration of the individual directly. , язык, несмотря на то, что фактически он существует в сознании людей, которые говорят на нем, выступает в качестве несомненной социальной реальности. For example, as Levy-Bruhl points out, the language, in spite of the fact that it actually exists in the minds of people who speak it, acts as an undoubted social reality. It is based precisely on a complex of collective representations. Each person in the social group imposes itself on the language. Moreover, he precedes her appearance and experiences it.

Variety of cultures

It is they who are conditioned by the specificity of collective representations-that is how Levi-Bruhl believed . в работах философа являлся своего рода отправной точкой исследования. The primitive mentality in the works of the philosopher was a kind of starting point for research. The author believed that for an archaic (traditional) society, great value has an effective direction, collective feeling and feelings than mental activity in itself. критиковал Тэйлора за образ "дикаря-философа", постигающего мир интеллектуально. In this regard, Levy-Bruhl criticized Taylor for the image of the "savage philosopher" who comprehends the world intellectually. In his view, the patterns within which there are collective representations of "backward" peoples are absolutely different from modern ones. They are not separated from the sensual aspects, the emotions of archaic cultures.

Phenomenon of suggestion

He, along with the socio-psychological "infection" of fear, horror, hope, etc., during religious rituals plays an important role in archaic cultures. Among all the defining factors that Levy-Bruhl researched, the supernatural in primitive thought played a key role. An individual of archaic culture has an unshakable faith in mysterious forces and in interrelation with them. , "дикарь" не пытается найти объяснения явлениям окружающей среды. As emphasized by Levi-Bruhl , the "savage" does not try to find an explanation for the phenomena of the environment. They arise in it in a single complex of ideas about magical properties, the secret forces of nature, and not in the structural-analytical form in the form of its individual components. , направлено не на выявление объективных характеристик, на субъективно-чувственные методы освоения. Perception of the world by primitive cultures, Levi-Bruhl believed, is not directed at revealing objective characteristics, on subjective-sensory methods of development. In this regard, "primitive man" mixed in a dream, for example, real objects with images, people - with their illustrations, names, shadows. Primitive thinking is impenetrable for experience. It does not show sensitivity to it. Accordingly, experience is not able to disbelieve an archaic individual in his belief in mystical powers, witchcraft, etc.

Law of Communion

It takes the place of the laws of logical thinking and consists in the following. The object (animal, person) can simultaneously be yourself and someone else. In a traditional society, a person feels himself in mystical unity with his totem (eagle, parrot, etc.), with a forest soul and so on. Levi-Bruhl called this form of thinking a pre-logical, pre-ordained (preconceptions).

Nuances

Almost immediately after the publication of the work "Primitive Culture" Levi-Bruhl was subjected to versatile criticism. The author, in turn, felt the internal inconsistency of the concept. In this connection, he gradually softened the key thesis about the pre-logical form of thinking. During all subsequent years, he, with various reservations, almost excluded its opposition to logical laws.

Complexity of the problem

It is worth saying that knowledge and thinking in reality have different properties. The question, however, is how to explain them. Is it possible to talk about qualitatively different types of thinking about representatives of unequal cultures. Levi-Bruhl always pointed out that the existence of the pre-logical form is limited to collective representations. He stressed that practical tasks are carried out by primitive people rationally taking into account real conditions. This raises a fairly natural question. How can such a duality be present in a person when the syncretic form of his worldview is emphasized? It is also unclear the relationship between the representations of European and "primitive" cultures. Many experts consider the opinion of Levi-Bruhl that the content of the former is consistent with the laws of formal logic is erroneous. Otherwise, the sphere of religious beliefs of Europeans is excluded.

Mistakes of the concept

F. Boas - one of the founders of the psychological direction of cultural anthropology - believed that Levy-Bruhl's position was the result of an incorrect interpretation of ethnographic data. At the same time, he pointed out that it is inadmissible to draw conclusions about logic based on customs and traditional ideas. The psychologist from England Bartlett considered the comparison of "primitive" thinking with scientific standards the main mistake of Levi-Bruhl. Thus, the critic was able to identify the weakest link in the concept. He pointed out that in everyday modern life, human thinking is often inconsistent with the "logical type" of Levi-Bruhl.

conclusions

Studying the complex problem of the implementation of the thought process, the French philosopher used a rational-deterministic model of culture. Within its framework, it is proposed to search for and understand material (empirically-material) cause-effect relationships and organize this knowledge according to the principles of logical classification. In the course of thinking there is no insight, intuition. In it there is only a gradual transition from one position to another. In this model of modern thinking, positive science and rationalist philosophy prevail. In it there is a certain distance between the living variety of the artistic work or the historical text and formal logical constructions, according to the laws derived by the ancient Greeks. What was called the Levi-Bruhl mythological, pre-logical thinking, is an integral part of culture in general, as well as conceptual, deductive, rationalistic science is an essential component of European civilization. Thus, collective "primitive" representations are profoundly different from modern ones and are not equivalent to them. The main feature of the first is their mystical character. This term is used when expressing faith in actions, strengths, influences, inconspicuous for sensations and feelings, but, however, real.