Rossi, Ino - The Unconscious in The Anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss

The Unconscious in the Anthropology of Claude Lvi-Strauss Author(s): Ino Rossi Reviewed work(s): Source: American Anthropologist, New
Series, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Feb., 1973), pp. 20-48 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/672338 . Accessed: 06/08/2012 23:03
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The Unconscious in the Anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss

INO ROSSI
St. John's University
Levi-Strauss claims that the unconscious activity of mind is more important than the conscious one for understanding social phenomena and that the unconscious consists of an aggregate of forms, which are imposed on psychological and physical content. The real inspiration of Levi-Strauss' notion is the Kantian notion of mental constraints and the postulate of isomorphism of mental and physical laws The methodological usefulness of the unconscious as a principle of intelligibility is placed in evidence.
IN THE LAST TWO DECADES L viStrauss' structuralism has been the focal point of controversy among philosophers, linguists, anthropologists, and other social scientists. Some recent developmentsof the controversy give the impression that what was an open dialogue is turning into an attitude of mutual rejection. Phenomenologists seem to conclude that their position is irreconcilable with structuralism (Ricoeur 1967:11, 30). Some linguists assert that Levi-Strauss has had a unilateral contact with linguisticsand misinterprets specific the of structural linguistics contributions (Mounin 1970:200-205). Some empiricalanthropologistsseem intended to put an end to a long debate by concluding that structuralism is not a science but a bricolage whose structuralarrangements to be taken as an are expression of "personal whim" (MayburyLewis 1969:118-119), or an intellectual game for self-amusement (in Levi-Strauss 1971b:11). Earlieradmirersof Levi-Strauss have come to a disagreement with the master on many issues (for example, Leach 1970) or have been charged by Levi-Strausswith having misunderstoodhis work (as happened to Needham) (Levi-Strauss 1969a:xix). LeviStrauss finds that many of his critics raise objections so worthless that they do not deserve to be mentioned by name (LeviStrauss 1971a:564). Authoritative phenomenologists,such as Ricoeur, are told that 20
they cannot be taken seriously when they accuse him of abolishingthe notion of meaning (Ibid.:571). Sartre is serious enough to be given consideration,but the compromise he offers is defined by Levi-Strauss unacas ceptable dialectics--a fact which leaves him astonished (reveur) (Ibid.:616). Levi-Strauss submits the most tenacious of his adthe versaries, existentialists,to a caustic scrutiny and finds them involved in a selfadmirationwhich leads them into an ecstasy of self-contemplation; the atmosphere of their dialectic smoking room impedes their seeing beyond their local interests (Ibid.: 572). On the other side, when Levi-Straussis reminded that his English and American critics complain about the unverifiabilityof his theories, he makesthe gesture"of brushing away a fly" (1971c:40). They still do not understandthat the criterion of proving of something true or false, characteristic the natural sciences, is not applicablein human sciences. Social scientists deal with representations and, therefore, their task cannot be one of proving their truth or falsehood but only of understandingthem better and better, although never definitively (1971b:12). To this remark one can reply that the question of truth or falsity concerns the understandingof social phenomenaand not the phenomena themselves, and the question of the validity of Levi-Strauss'
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understanding of cultural phenomena has still to be faced and given an answer. I will return to this question at the end of this article. Is this polemic stage of the controversy going to lead to an impasseand perhapsto a breakingpoint? A careful reexaminationof and the originof the thinkingof L vi-Strauss of a clear understanding his intentions might prevent this possible outcome and help to foster an enriching dialogue among structuralists and social scientists of different epistemological and methodological persuasions. The purpose of this article is to clarify the historical and theoretical dimensionsof the fundamentalhypothesis of anthropological structuralism, that is, the notion that unconscious structuresunderlieculturalphenomena. I will also present a brief overview of some of the basic controversiessurrounding this hypothesis and will conclude with some considerationson its scientific merits. remarkson the criterion of Levi-Strauss' verifiabilitytakes us directly to the heart of the debate. On the one side, he is accusedby empirical anthropologists of not being a scientist and by phenomenologists and existentialists of excluding the conscious activity of man from his anthropological analysiswith the consequencethat the structures he discovers amount to the syntactic arrangement of "a discourse which tells nothing" (Ricoeur, in Levi-Strauss [1963b:653]; in L'HommeNu [1971a:571] Levi-Straussquotes Ricoeur without mentioning him by name). On the other side, Le6vi-Strauss accuses empirical anthropologists of using a scientific method still embedded with mechanism and empiricism (Ibid.:615) and scolds phenomenologistsand existentialists for giving exclusive attention to man, the unbearable and spoiled child who has until now impeded any serious work (Ibid.:614-615). In the past, LeviStrauss has suggested that phenomenology might be useful as a means of verification but not of discovery (1963c:31, 1966a: 253) and that empirical analysis is a subsidiary instrumentor preconditionfor struc-
turalanalysis(1966b:116). He has also made clear that while structural anthropology merely prepares for the advent of a truly scientific anthropology, it already possesses of the characteristics a true science (1971a: 133) and enablesthe social scientist to reach a level of intelligibility inaccessiblethrough an empiricaldescriptionof facts (Ibid.:614). Of course, phenomenologistsand empirical anthropologistscannot limit themselves to a subsidiary role and challenge LeviStrauss' scientific pretenses. Empirical anthropologists insist on the notion that science must be free from any ideological commitment and philosophicalassumptions, while Levi-Strauss describes his anthropology as a quasi-Kantian enterprise (1969b:10); for many social scientists, science must be based on scientific experimentation, while Levi-Straussclaims to discover unconscious infrastructures, which by their nature seem to elude any experimental verification. The problem is that many empiricalsocial scientists, who define themselves as "pure"scientists, in actualityknow only one notion of science, the one codified by FrancisBacon and introduced by Comte into the social sciences. Even some interpreters of structuralism follow the positivistic method in the neopositivisticversion of Nagel, Hempel, and Reichenbach (see Nutini 1970, 1971). Neither empirical anthropologistsnor neopositivistic interpreters of structuralismappear to realize that certain positivistic and behavioristic premises jeopardizetheir contention that the method they advocate is the only and universally valid scientific method. Perhaps anthropologists ought to be more cautious and realize that they cannot decide about the appropriatenessof a scientific method in terms of a prioristic criteria but only in terms of a careful definition of the phenomena under investigation.Unfortunately, too many empirical and behavioral social scientists have skirted the problem of the scientific definition of culturalphenomena; rather they take for granted that social phenomena are endowed with external and objective characteristics which are con-
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sidered to be a solid basis for scientific investigation (see, for example, Jarvie 1971 contested by Fabian 1971 and Rossi 1972a). L6vi-Strauss deserves credit for having justified the choice of his method by a systematic discussion about the symbolic nature of social phenomena. Even though not all of his conceptualizations are thoroughly clarified or unexceptionably established, a sound analysis and evaluation of works is impossible without a L6vi-Strauss' clear understandingof these conceptualizations. L6vi-Strauss' formulationshave raised the discussionon the scientific method to a sophisticated epistemological level from which the inadequacies of the positivistic method can be clearly seen; even though some writersfind structuralism be a more to subtle form of positivism (Aubenque 1971:353ff.), still it must be considered a partialstep away from it. own termiConsistent with Levi-Strauss' nology (1971a:614), I use the word epistemology to refer to the assumptionsconcerning the level of reality we know, the cognitive apparatus by which we know it, and the theoretical premises which justify the scientific proceduresused. I refer to the operational techniques used in conducting the investigation. Since his early works, L vi-Straussexplicitly asserts that the epistemological premises of his anthropology are based on the rejection of the immediate and spontaneous evidence as a criterion of truth. As a consequence, he has questioned the adequacy of the empiricistmethod insofaras it claims to reach reality only throughsensory perceptions,and rejects the phenomenological and existentialistmethods insofaras they maintainthat reality can be reachedthrough our conscious experience without offering any guaranteeagainst the illusionsof subjectivity (1965a:61-62).2 Levi-Strausscompares his own approach to the geological method and claimsthat his major sources of inspiration are Freud, Marx, and Saussure. These masters have shown him that true reality rather than being obvious, evades our efforts of detec-
tion (Idem). Consequently,the operationof understandingconsists of reducingapparent reality to its hidden dimension through a process of decoding (1966d:33). What is, then, the relation between rational and sensory knowledge? Marx and Rousseau have shown that knowledge in physics and social sciences is not based on sense perception, but on the construction of a model (1965a:61) through which we can interpret empirical reality and discover its unconscious infrastructure. L vi-Strauss'notion of unconscious cannot be reduced to an arbitrary epistemological idiosyncrasy, since he claims that this notion is present in a specific socio-anthropological tradition which is opposed to the empiricist mode of analysis. There has been a good deal of literatureon the issue of the intellectual antecedents of Levi-Strauss, but there is not alwaysagreementon the relative importance of the influence of particular thinkers on his works. Some of these intellectual influences have been denied by LeviStrauss in various private correspondences, while others have been admitted by him with some qualifications(1969b:11). Levi-Strauss does not belong to one specific anthropologicaltradition nor to a homogeneousgroupof traditions.Rather,he borrows some elements, and not necessarily the most important ones, from certain recent theoreticalperspectiveswhich are present in psychology (Gestalt, Freud), sociology and anthropology (Rousseau, Durkheim, Mauss, Marx), linguistics (Saussure, Troubetzkoy, Jakobson), philosophy (Kant, Rousseau), cybernetics (Wiener, Von Neumann, Shannon), etc. The elements which Levi-Strauss borrowsfrom these thinkersdo not make up a heterogeneous eclecticism but are organizedin a consistent and somewhat flexible epistemological and methodological perspective. However, the highly personal way by which Levi-Strauss has selected, systematized,and appliedthese elements has made it difficult for many social scientists to understand and even label his approach to socio-culturalphenomena.Perhaps one can assert without simplification
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Levi-Straussstates: "Philosophically I find myself more and more Kantian,not so much because of the particularcontent of Kant's doctrine (for the good peace of mind of some Levi-Straussian interpreters!), but rather for the specific way of posing the problem of knowledge. First of all, because anthropologyappearsto me as a philosophy of knowledge, a philosophy of concept; I think that anthropology can make progress only if it is situated at the level of the concept" (1963c:38). Elsewhere, LeviStrauss quotes Mauss' assertion that "the mental and the social component of social reality are undistinguishable" (1966c:22) and explains that the raw materialof social phenomena consists in the common aspects of mental structures and institutional schemata(1969a:95). Levi-Strauss' position is characterizedby the peculiar conception of the symbolic trained component of culture. Levi-Strauss, in philosophy at the Sorbonne, finds congenial the task of purifying and continuing some elements of Durkheimian thought, which philosophically was under the predominant influence of Kant (1945:518). In view both Durkheimand Mauss Levi-Strauss' insisted on the psychic nature of social phenomena, and Durkheim did not limit himself to stress "the mental side of social processes" but went so far as to conclude that they belong to the realm of ideals I (Ibid.:508-509). THE NOTIONOF UNCONSCIOUS Among the various deficiencies or contradictions of Durkheim's thinking LeviThe symbolic meaning of socio-cultural Strauss mentions his conceptualization of phenomena is made possible by their unconsocial phenomena. In L vi-Strauss'opinion, scious infrastructure. Durkheim was at his best when he stated Levi-Strauss has repeatedly refused to that intellectual activity, far from being the consider structuralismas a philosophy and reflection of social organization, is prehas denied havingor even being interestedin supposed by the latter, and thereforewas at one. However, he participatedcomfortably his worst when he proposed the opposite in philosophical roundtable discussions(see view of the primacy of the social over the Levi-Strauss 1963b) and does not dislike intellectual component of culture. Leviinterviewswith professionalphilosophers.It Strauss praises Bergson for having clearly is especiallyin these circumstances that L vi- perceived that the concepts of class and Strauss'philosophicaltrainingemerges as an opposition are immediate data of the underimportant theoretical component of his an- standing,which are used in the formationof thropologicalmethod. In one such interview, social order; in Livi-Strauss'view this conthat the most fundamentalnotions of LeviStrauss' structuralism are, at the epistemological theoretical level, the postulate of the unconscious meaning of cultural reality3 and, at the epistemologicalmethodological level, the notion of structure with the relatednotions of model and transformation. In this paper I am limiting my attention to those intellectual antecedents of L vi-Straussthat are importantfor clarifying these fundamental notions of structuralism. As early as 1955, Levi-Straussexplicitly mentioned as his sources of inspiration, Saussure,Marx, Rousseau, Freud, and, with some reservationsDurkheim(1965a:59-63). In explainingthe reasonfor not choosing the individual and its consciousness as the central perspective of his approach, LeviStrauss has very recently mentioned the same mastersonce again.Whatstructuralism wants to accomplish after Rousseau, Marx, Durkheim,Saussure, and Freud is to unveil to consciousnessan "object other" and more important than consciousnessitself (1971a: 563), that is, its unconscious infrastructure or the mechanisms and conditions of its functioning. Since I am discussing the influence of the intellectual antecedents of Levi-Straussfrom the point of view of his most fundamentalepistemologicalnotion, I follow a systematic rather than a historical method of exposition.
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ception constitutes "the foundations of a genuine sociological logic" (1967a:96-97).

In The Savage Mind, Levi-Strauss has
somewhat elaborated his idea of "sociologic" as the basis of sociology (1966a:76). He assertsthat "the universeis an object of thought"(Ibid.:3), and againstthe Naturalist school he maintainsthat naturalconditions, rather than being passively accepted, are defined, given meaning, and developed in specific directions. Man reduces natural reality to concepts which are organizedinto an unpredeterminedsystem, and this is the reason why facts are "not of a naturalbut a logical order" (1966a:95). Levi-Strauss clarifies the Durkheimianthesis of the social origin of logical thought by stating that between social structuresand the conceptual system there is a dialectical relationship rather than a causal relationship. The relationship between man and universe is the common substratumof the social and intellectual system, a substratum from which each one of these systems translatesspecific historicaland spacial modalities (Ibid.:214). One can see here elements of a dialectical view capableof avoidingthe shortcomingsof a causal and/or idealistic conception of culture. In a famous passage to which we shall return later, Levi-Straussexplains that the human mind mediates between infrastructure or praxis (man's activity) and superstructure or practices (cultural institutions) by elaboratinga conceptual system which is a synthesizing operator between ideas and facts; through this mediation, facts are turned into signs (1966a:131).4 It follows that since "men communicate by means of symbols and signs," all cultural domains are "pregnant with meaning," and the anthropologist must work with meaning (1966b: 115). Because social phenomena are made possible by the fundamental mediation of the conceptual schemata and are pregnant with meaning, their only suitable explanation must be dialectical.In an early theoretical essay, LAvi-Strauss peculiarly defines dialectic explanation in opposition to
mechanicexplanation, that is, as an explanation which consists in "rethinking (social phenomena) in their logical order." Durkheim advocates this type of sociological explanation since social phenomena are "objectivatedsystems of ideas."At the same time, Durkheimalso advocatesthe "methodical experiment" to study social facts as if they were "things." How can we apply both the dialectical and experimental method? Levi-Strauss solves this Durkheimian antinomy by sayingthat the objectified system of ideas are unconscious "or that unconscious psychical structuresunderliethem and make them possible"; "the unconscious teleology of mind" explains "how social phenomena may present the character of meaningful wholes and of structuralized ensembles"because of this basic fact, social phenomena present the character of "things," and at the same time can be treated as ideas to be rethought in their logical order (1945:518, 528, 534). Since it is a question of unconscious logical order, the anthropologistmust aim at discovering the mechanisms of an objectified (unconscious) thought on an ethnographicbasis (1963b:640, 1969b:10-11), that is, at finding out how the human mind works in the most different societies or "incarnated mental activities"(1963c:31). One question immediately arises: where should we search for the meaningthat L viStrauss defines as being the proper concern of social anthropology? Does the notion of unconscious structures and objectified thought imply that the meaning of which social actors are aware has to be totally rejectedas a spuriousor deceptive meaning? II
Conscious and unconscious meaning are both integral parts of social phenomena; evidence for the existence of unconscious meaning.
Levi-Straussrecognizes that social facts "are lived by man, and that subjectiveconsciousnessis as much a form of their reality as their objective characteristics"
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(1966b:113). In his view, however, the conscious level of social processes is the proper object of history, while anthropologyshould be concerned with its "unconsciousfoundations" (1963a:18). How does Levi-Strauss supportthe notion of an unconscious level of cultural phenomena and unconsciousteleology of mind? Postponing the discussion on Levi-Strauss' contention that these notions are based on "the main resultsof modernpsychology and linguistics"(1945:518), let us first focus our attention on some of the anthropological evidence he utilizes. Boas had alreadyshown that the structure of languageremains unknown to the speaker until a scientific grammar is introduced (1963a:19); LeviStrauss adds that even the linguistic knowledge of the scholar "always remains disassociated from his experience as a speaking agent" (Ibid.:57). Boas made clear that not only the forms of the phonetic systems but also single sounds are outside the consciousness of the speaker;for instance,a terminals does not convey the idea of plurality as a separate entity, but rather as a part of a sound complex. The speaker becomes conscious of single phonetic units only through purposeful analysis (Boas 1968:19-20). The use of language in general is so automatic that its basic notions rarely emerge into consciousness, while religious practices almost universallybecome a subject of reflection (Ibid.:64).
Levi-Straussalso comments that Tylor's definition of culture includes, among the other components, habits and unconscious reasons for practicing customs (1963a:18). Kroeber had demonstratedthat fashion apparently seems to follow an arbitraryevolution, but in reality it follows definite laws. Since we rarely notice why the style of fashion changes, the change must "depend on the unconscious activity of the mind";as a matter of fact, its laws cannot be discovered by merely empiricalobservationor intuition, but only by measuring fundamental relationships between the elements of custom (Ibid.:59). We shall see that Haudricourtwould, on the contrary, argue
that a structurewhich is statisticallydemonstrated does not necessarily mean that it is unconscious. In support of the notion of the unconscious dimension of culture, Levi-Strauss could also have referred to Edward Sapir whom he mentions when he discusses the relationship between language and culture (Ibid.:85, 96). Sapir clearly stated that our individualbehavior is influenced by an unconscious patterning of social behavior which we cannot consciously describe;however, while assertingthat the individualsare not aware of the significanceof their behavior, Sapir excluded the existence of a mysterious social mind which would find expression in individual minds (E. Sapir 1927:121-123). Levi-Strauss does not limit himself to authorities;he also appealto anthropological uses ethnologicalargumentsto show that the conscious or surface dimensionof a cultural institution can be adequately accounted for only in terms of its unconscious infrastructure. L vi-Strauss'discussionof the Murngin system offers a classic example of this view. Levi-Strauss argues that the Murngin marriagesystem originallyconsisted of four patrilinealgroups which later, intersectedby matrilineal moieties, becamean asymmetrical system of eight sections. This implied that an original system of generalizedexchange had to reproducetwin structuresto give the appearance of a system of restricted exchange. Since the generalizedsystem established reciprocal relationshipsbetween any number of partners,and the restrictivesystem between two partners or between a number of partners in multiples of two, these systems can be represented respectively by a three dimensional and a two dimensionalgeometric structure.How, then, can a three dimensional geometricalstructure take the appearance of a two dimensional structure? Cartographerssolve this problem by representing twice the geographicalareasat the edges of the map. The Murnginpeople in order to conceptualize a system both as a restricted and generalized exchange, unconsciously made analogous
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duplicationsin their kinship system (1969a: 189-192). Levi-Strauss argues that the dualistic organizations found in the Americas, Melanesiaand Indonesia are superficial distortions of more complex structures(1963a: 161). The explanations offered by the natives are not merely a part or reflection of their social organization, but may show a lack of awarenessof certain characteristics and contradict them; moreover,the explanations offered by membersof differentsocial strata are shown to contradict each other. Consequently, "the actual functioning of these societies is quite different from its superficial appearance" (Ibid.:130-131, 133).s Does this difference imply that the unconscious functioning is more genuine than the conscious functioning? III
The unconscious meaning is more important than the conscious one.
Levi-Strauss refers to Boas when he asserts that "all types of social phenomena (language,beliefs, techniques, and customs) have this in common, that their elaboration in the mind is at the level of unconscious thought" (1969a:108). Boas made the point that the classificatoryconcepts of primitives never rise into consciousnessand, therefore, must originate in unconscious mental processes (Boas 1968:63). Linguisticand other cultural facts are grouped together under certainideas and categorieswhich are unconscious. Our experience gives evidence of the unconscious origin of certain clusters of activities, such as table manners,habits, and automatic repetition of actions. For example, the danger of cutting the lips is easily given as the reason for not bringing the table knife to the mouth; however, this explanation is only a "secondaryrationalistic" explanation, since we know that the fork came into being later than the knife, and that in certain areas people use sharply pointed forks no less dangerous than the knife, while in other areas people use dull
knives. The conclusion is that we do not know the origin of this particular custom which may have been caused by entirely different reasons than those we give (Ibid.: 64-65). In Levi-Strauss' perspective, one could say that the unconscious reason or origin of cultural phenomenais more genuine and important than the conscious explanation. Freud and Marx are the other two of masters who have convinced Levi-Strauss the fundamentalimportance of the unconscious. From Freud he has learned that "what is not conscious is more important than what is conscious" (L vi-Strauss 1963b:648), and that "the true meaningis not the one we are aware of, but the one hidden behind it" (1963c:41). This belief has been reinforced by the Marxiancreed that "men are alwaysvictims of their own as well as other people's frauds"(Ibid.:41). Levi-Strauss' thinking can be clarified further if we consider its relationshipwith French socio-anthropologicaltradition. According to Levi-Strauss,Mauss constantly appealedto the unconscious as the common and specific character of social facts; "In magic, as in religion, as in linguistics, the unconscious ideas are the ones which act" (1966c:30). The "unconscious categories" for Mauss are not just one component of cultural phenomena, but rathertheir "determinants" (1966b:113). Levi-Strauss comments on Mauss'effort in connection with the work of the linguistic school of Prague. At the same time that Mauss wrote "The Gift," Troubetzkoy and Jakobson with the help of a new operational technique were able to distinguish mere phenomenological data, which evades scientific analysis, from their simpler infrastructureto which they owe all of their reality. It was unfortunate that Mauss did not apply his new discovery in the anthropological analysis of the ethnographicalmaterial (1966c:35). Durkheim and Maussin surveyingthe native categories of thought, substituted the conscious representations of the natives for those of the anthropologist,but in L vi-Strauss'opinion this important step was still inadequate,
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since conscious representations may be quite remote from unconscious reality (1963a: 282). Echoing Boas' formulation, Levi-Strauss assertsthat the conscious representationsof the nativesare "rationalizedinterpretations" of the unconscious categories (1966b:113) or, "a sort of 'dialectical average'among a multiplicity of unconscious system" (Ibid.: 117). Consequently,anthropologicalanalysis can be scientific only if moved to the level of the simpler unconscious infrastructure.6 A scientific definition of this infrastructure becomes a precondition for a sound scientific analysis.
The Unconscious
and Structural Linguistics
IV
The unconsciousactivity of mind imposes structures upon physical and psychic context. The aggregateof these structuresconstitutes the unconscious (Livi-Strauss 1963a:202-203). The term "unconscious" needs clarification, since it has been used to refer to social behavior which is "unresponsive, indiscriminating, conditional, subliminal, unattending, unsightless, unremembering,unlearned, unrecognizing,ignored and unavailable to awareness"(Machotka, in Bowman 1965:320). Besides, the philosopher Von Hartmann saw in the unconscious the primordialfoundation of reality, that is, "a mysterious and hidden power (which) guides to a definite end and goal, all the phenomena of the objectivereal world (nature), as well as that of the subjective-ideal (mind)" (Darnoi 1967:50). The notion that unconscious behavior influences our conscious behavior is even found with poets, physicians, essayists, mystics, and in the philosophies of Schopenhauerand Schelling (Whyte1962). notion of the unconsciousis Levi-Strauss' a product of his interpretation of certain elements he claims to borrow from structural linguistics, Freud, Kant and cybernetics. One may wonder what kind of systematic notion can emerge from such different sources.
Levi-Strauss gives credit to Jakobson and Troubetzkoyfor havingprovedthe existence of unconscious linguisticstructures(1963a: 33, 1966c:35), a contention that, as we shall see, has been questioned by more recent critics. The linguistic facts that Levi-Strauss mentions are mainly related to the phonological level of language.Modernlinguistics has discovered the reality of phonemes and distinctive features, and has shown that the same pairs of oppositions exist in different languages(1963a:20). Levi-Strauss explicitly states that these distinctive features have an objective existence from a psychological as well as physical point of view; in other words, they are not merely theoretical and methodological devices, as mathematical tools of analysis, but rather they provide a "picture of reality," as do the Mendelian genetic characteristics (1969a:109). In the last volume of Mythologiques, Levi-Strauss contradicts Sartre by asserting that the oppositions described by linguists are also present in biological and physical reality;an objective dialectics is inherent within the physicalworld (1971a:616). In Levi-Strauss'view, language is structured not only at the phonologicallevel, but also at the grammatical lexical level, and and even the structure of discourse "is not altogether random"(1963a:85, also 1960:33). Let us examine the argument that he develops from what he accepts as established linguisticfacts. (1) Following the linguisticviews of the Pragueschool, he conceptualizesphonological structuresas systems of relations,and the phoneme as "a bundle of distinctive features" (1963a:57). For this reason,language can be analyzed into constituent elements, which can be organized according to "certain structures of opposition and correlation"(1963a:86). (2) These relations are constitutive and determinants of language, since language owes all of its reality to its simple infrastrucconsists of small ture, and the infrastructure
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and constant relations (1966c:35). For the first time, modern phonemics has made possible a social science capable of formulating "necessary relations" (1963a:33), and anthropology should emulate its vestiges by trying to establish, like the naturalsciences, "certain abstract and measurablerelations, which constitute the basic nature of the phenomenaunderstudy" (1963a:59). (3) Then, Levi-Strauss, links this presumed linguistic evidence to the dynamism of human mind: "Language... is human reason, which has its reasons, and of which man knows nothing" (1966a:252). The laws of language "rigorously determine man's way of communicating and therefore, his way of thinking" (1963c:43). Linguistics reveals that the basic phenomena, which determinethe most generalforms of mental life, are to be found at the unconsciouslevel (1966c:31). It appears that Levi-Strauss makes two crucial assumptions in reaching such conclusions on the basis of the highly selective linguisticevidencehe uses. The first postulate is that the fundamental and objective phonemic realities, which consist of systems of relations, are "the product of unconscious thought processes" (1963a:58). Obviously, Levi-Strauss does not mean simply that we learn,more or less consciously, collective habits of behavior or linguisticpatterns,as it is impliedby Geza de Rohan-Csermack's interpretationof collective unconscious (Rohan-Csermack 1967:145). Instead, Levi-Strausssays that linguistic phenomena, as well as all other social phenomena, are "the projection, on the level of conscious and socialized thought, of universallaws which regulatethe unconscious activities of the mind" (LeviStrauss 1963a:59). " 'Collective consciousness' would in the final analysis,be no more than the expression, on the level of individual thought and behavior, of certain time and space modalities of the universallaws which make up the unconscious activity of
the brain" (Ibid.:92); since the brain is the basic mediatorand constraining influence on human thought (1963c:33), it is easy to conclude that the unconscious laws of language rigorously determine man's mode of thinking. Werewe to accept these two assumptions as self-evident, from the character of linguistic structures we could conclude that human mind has built-ininternalconstraints by which it structurespsychic and physical content; since we are unawareof this set of constraints or structures,they can properly be called the unconscious infrastructureof our psychic activity. Levi-Strauss draws on psychology and philosophy further to strengthenand clarify this notion.
Levi-Strauss and Freud's Notion of the Unconscious
There is no doubt that in his early works Levi-Strauss considersthe notion of the unconscious as a scientific discovery, since he accepts it as one of the "main results of modern psychology and linguistics" (1945:518) and as one of those "methodological instruments"offered by Gestaltand phonemics, which alone enablessociology to lay its own path (Ibid.:520). Freud'sconception of the human psyche is describedas an example of "experimental study of the facts" which "joins the philosopher's presentments" in attesting to what things happened and how they happened (1969a: 490); "Freud has shown me all the possibilities which are open to a scientific inof human phenomena" vestigation (1963c:42). Certain partial similarities and fundamental differencesbetween Levi-Strauss' and Freud's notions of the unconscious can be pointed out easily without claiming special expertise in psychoanalysis. We already know from the previousparagraph that Levithe mind" (Ibid.:65). Strauss shares with Freud the conviction The second basic assumption for Levi- that a genuine meaning lies behind the apStrauss'reasoningis that the" 'naturalbasis' parent one. At times, Levi-Strausshas perof the phonemic system" is "the structureof haps somewhat forced this notion by assert-
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ing that "no meaninghas to be accepted at its face value," that "the true meaning... is not that of which men are aware"(Ibid.:41), and that "conscious data are always erroneous or illusory" (1972a:76). In fact, an authoritativeinterpreterof Freud explicitly says, "Nor is it true that everythingunconscious is the 'real motor' of the mind, and everything conscious merely a relatively unimportantside issue" (Fenichel 1945:15). One soon realizes that the differences between Freud'sand L vi-Strauss' notions of the unconscious are greater than their similarities. Freud presented his theory of personality in the two major versions of conscious, preconscious, unconscious, and id, ego, and superego. Commentatorsseem to agree in characterizingthe id as unconscious, and ego and superego as partly conscious and partly unconscious, with some in disagreement relation to the superego.For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that Freud conceived the unconscious as a freely floating energy or set of impulses under pressure and striving for discharge. The material (content in Levi-Strauss' words) of the unconscious includes sensations, emotions, feelings, and also ideas and conceptions connected with the goal of averted impulses (Fenichel 1945:15, 17). Consequently, the unconscious is basically a "steam boiler of basic energies" of an instinctual nature (Allport 1967:145), its conceptual component being only a derivative one. Levi-Strauss a differentconception of has the unconscious. To him, the unconscious does not refer to emotional content, energy, or principle of activity, but only to a form (or aggregateof forms) empty of any content. Its function is to impose structurallaws upon psychic content, which by itself is inarticulate and originates elsewhere. The psychic content constitutes the preconscious or the individual lexicon of impulses,emotions, representations, and memories accumulated in one's personal life; the psychological lexicon becomes significantwhen it is transformedinto language,that is, when it is structured by the unconscious (1963a:
203). The conception of the unconscious as a structuring activity and the related emphasis on form over content bring into focus the root of the fundamentaldifference and between the structuralist psychoanalytic perspectives.' Psychoanalystsare interested in the question of the individualor collective origin of myth and in the historicalsequence conof events; on the contrary,L vi-Strauss siders these questions of marginal importance, since they deal with the stock of or representations materialof myth, which is of secondary interest in relationto the basic fact that its structural laws or symbolic function remain the same (Ibid.:204). LeviStraussinsists on this point once againin the
last volume of Mythologiques, when he
states that psychoanalysts claim to connect the structure of a collective or individual work to what they falsely call its origin.This approachamounts to reducingcertainorders of reality to their content, which is of a different nature and, therefore, cannot act from the outside on their form without implying a contradiction. On the contrary, authentic structuralismaims at seizing, first of all, the intrinsic properties of certain orders which do not express anything external to them (1971a:561). For Freud, historical reconstructionwas a precondition for the restructuringof the psychological personality, while for Levi-Straussthe consideration of structure is the first and selfintelligible question which offers a logical tool to make history intelligible. On the other hand, in his theory of anxiety Freud himself had suggested that "certainbasic phenomenafind their explanation in the permanent structure of the human mind, rather than its history."Then,
in Totem and Taboo, Freud showed a his-
torical concern with a wavering attitude between historical sociology and a more modern and scientifically solid attitude, which finds knowledgeof its past and future from the analysis of the present (1969a: 491-492). The basic concern of structuralism with structureand form over content solves many objections and misunderstandings about Lbvi-Strauss' presumedneglect for his-
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tory. Rather than neglect, we should speak of a structuralistconception of history or of bistory in terms of its underlying and constant structures. To sum up the analysis, the priority of form over content implies (1) priorityof the structural (synchronic) over the diachronic perspective, (2) a priority of collective and universalinvariantstructuresover individual constants, and (3) a consequent disinterest with the therapeutic aspect of psychoanalysis in favor of a concern for a theory of mind (1963b:648). Concerning this last point, I must emphasize a difference between Freud and Levi-Strauss which is already implicit in what I have said. Freud was primarilyinterested in the unconscious as an instinctual energy and in the conceptual component of psychic life only as its derivative, while Levi-Straussis interested in the permanent and logical structures of mind (1969a:143, believesthat anthro151). Since Levi-Strauss pology can make progressonly if it becomes concerned with "concept" and "understanding," he considers affectivity as the most obscure and incomprehensibleside of man and, therefore, totally inadequate as an explanatoryfactor in social sciences. Emotions are always a result and consequence of the power of the body and of the impotence of the mind. Intellect is the only way left for anthropology and psychology (1967a: 69-71). We can, therefore, conclude that Levi-Strauss' insistence in consideringFreud as one of his inspirers, is justified only insofar as he accepts the Freudianpostulate that what is unconscious is more important than what is conscious. In fact, the notion of the unconscious refers to affective motivation in the case of Freud and to logical After structures in the case of Levi-Strauss. all, Boas had already denied certain psychoanalytic interpretations of the unconscious (Boas 1920:320). Some commentators have listed various similarities between Levi-Strauss' and Freud's approach, such as the dynamic aspects of the unconscious,the processfrom the known to the unknown and from what is variableto its invariants,a combinationof a
theoretical approachwith a detailedobservation of the concrete, as well as the importance given to the symbolic component of culture (Santerre 1966:140). However, one wonders whether these generic characterizations adequately express the specificity of the Freudian approach; besides, it is precisely the question of the origin and function of symbolism which characterizesLeviStrauss'position and makesit different from the affective basis of Freudiansymbolism. If, then, Levi-Straussconceives the unconscious not as psychic content, but as a conceptual structure, we must turn our attention to what the term of conceptual structureimplies. Certainelementsborrowed by Levi-Strauss from Kantian philosophy and cybernetics help to clarify this notion.
Kant and the Unconscious as a Set of Mental Constraints or Categories
The insistence of Levi-Strausson structures and on the primacy of the intellect immediatelyrevealsthe affinity of his thinking with certainelements of the Kantianway of approachingthe problem of knowledge (1963c:37). In a 1963 roundtablediscussion with P. Ricoeur and others, Levi-Strauss admitted such affinity and defined his anthropology as a transpositionof the Kantian inquiry into the ethnological field; in fact, he wants to discover those "categories"or fundamental propertieswhich according to Kant always constrain the human mind (1963b:630-631, 1963c:29, 38). As late as 1972, L vi-Strauss has reiterated such affinity: "I have often claimed kinship with him (Kant)" (1972a:74). There is, however, the great difference that Kant proceeds by internal introspection and by studying the scientific thought of his own specific society, while Levi-Strauss wants to use an empirical approach and use material from the most contrasting societies in order to find a kind of common denominatorof any thinkingactivity (1969b: 10-11). While Levi-Strauss agreeswith P. Ricoeur that his Kantian notion of the unconscious refers to a mental activity which combines and categorizes, he also underliesRicoeur's
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statement that his notion of the unconscious does not have any connection with a "thinking subject"; the categories refer to the "given" laws and constraints of mind, that is, to the unconscious system of the basic mechanisms of any mental activity. We, therefore, understand why Levi-Straussis interested in those conditions by which systems of truth are mutually convertible and simultaneously acceptable to different subjects; since they are universallycommon and unconscious, these conditions have "the character of an autonomous object, independentof any subject" (Ibid.:11). This L vi-Straussian statement can be understood only within the context of his semiotic perspective.For Saussureand other structural linguists, the system has priority over its components, whose meaningderive from the position within the system. The subject himself is one of the elements of the system and, therefore, he gets meaningfrom the system instead of giving meaning to it. This is, of course, the fundamentalpoint of and phedisagreementbetween Levi-Strauss which has taken Levi-Strauss nomenologists, to task in the long "Finale"of L 'HommeNu (Levi-Strauss 1971a). Those anthropologists who might find Levi-Strauss' semi-Kantian and semiotic perspectivesdifficult to understandwould probably find it helpful to recall those passages where Durkheim expresses an interest in "relatingthe variableto the permanent"and in dealing with collective representationsor categories which are "permanentmolds for the mental life" (Durkheim1961:487, 488, 492). These assertionsbeara strikingsimilarnotion of constraints,the ity to Levi-Strauss' basic difference being that for Durkheimthe categories are external molders of mind because of their collective nature, while for Levi-Strauss they are more Kantian-like internal constraints built within the mind itself. This difference explains why LeviStraussrejects the primacyof the social over the mental life which is propounded in certainpassagesof Durkheim. Some commentators have been deemphasizing the Kantian aspect of LiviStrauss' thinking to underline the semiotic
and cybernetic component. No matter how correct this deemphasis might be, the fact still remains that in the last volume of
Mythologiques, L'Homme Nu, Levi-Strauss
once again expressed his perspectivein semiKantianterms. In fact, he assertsthat within the understandingis built an apparatusof oppositions which act on the occasion of empirical experiences; the conceptual apparatus extracts meaningfrom the concrete situation, which becomes an object of thought because it is bent to the imperatives of the formal organizationof mind (1971a: 539). This formulation closely echoes the words of Kant: "I maintain that the categories are nothing but the conditions of thought in a possible experience... They are fundamentalconcepts by which we think and have objects in generalfor appearances,
therefore a priori objective validity
.
. To
obtain any knowledge whatsoever.., .we must resort to experience;but is the a priori laws that alone can instruct us in regardto experience in general, and as to what it is that can be known as an object of experience" (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, in
Jones 1969:39). The following commentary of a popularcollege textbook might be more understandableto the anthropologicalaudience: "Both in perceivingthroughthe senses and in knowing through concepts, mind impartsto experience certain necessaryconditions which mind then finds as the universal structural framework which prevails throughout experience. Experience is the joint product of material elements which come to mind and formal elements which mind contributes" (Lamprecht 1955:364). As soon as we think we have pinpointed Levi-Strauss'thinking, his eclectic perspective evades us againwith the introductionof new elements. He reinforcesthe oppositional with component of the categoricalapparatus a biological and cybernetic notion of binarism.
The unconscious, cybernetic, and the biological perspective
unP. Ricoeur states that Lbvi-Strauss' conscious does not refer to a thinking sub-
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ject and it is "homologous with nature; it may perhaps be nature" (1969b:11). To reconcile this interpretationwith the somewhat Kantian perspective of Levi-Strauss, one must remember that Levi-Straussconsiders conceptual structures as an epiphenomenon of brainstructures(1967a:90) and mental processes subjected to social and biological constraints. According to him, a main difference between phenomenology and structuralismis that the latter studies phenomena not in "human minds," but in "societies, or 'incarnated mental activities' which are made concrete by their appearing in a certain space and time." Man is subjected to an ever growing biological and demographicdeterminismand, more fundamentally, man's relationships to the world are mediated by the instrument he uses to conceptualizethem. In this sense, the "structure of the brain" is the first constraint imposed on human mental functioning (1963c:31-33). According to Leach, our brain does not perceive all things as they actually are, but rather it reproducestransformations of structures which occur in nature and then responds to them; the brain must follow its geneticallyinheritedprogram of a computer in the fashion (1969:547-548). Leach's references to the computer are not merely incidental. In The Savage Mind and Totemism, Levi-Strauss adopted a perspective borrowed from Information Theory (1966a:19, 154, 268-269), preannounced as early as 1953 (Tax et al. 1953:323). Society is a machine for the exchange of communication; social phenomena are messages;the structure of language is a code used to convertmessages.As the Morse code is basedon the binaryuse of short and long dashes, so does the brainuse a binarycode. The contributionof structural linguistics seems to confirm this binary perspective. Troubetzkoy conceptualized the phoneme in terms of the contrastive function of sound, that is, in terms of sound contrasts which entail different meaning, and defined it as a bundle of distinctive features;the contrastbetween two pertinent
features or between distinctive or pertinent features is called opposition (Waterman 1963:69). Jakobson stressed the notion that distinctive features are in strict binary opposition to one another (Leroy 1967:74). In L'Homme Nu, Levi-Straussreinforces his binary perspectiveby observingthat the genetic code proceeds like language,that is by distinctive combination and opposition of a small number of elements. The discovery of the genetic code givesan objective reality to the principle of discontinuity, which is at work within the products of nature as well as in the mind, in order to restrict the unlimited range of possibilities seemed to exhibit (1971a:605). Levi-Strauss an ingenious capacity for discovering the convergency of Kantian, linguistic, cybernetic, and genetic evidence in supportof his notion of mental binary constraints. But, how can he infer the existence of mental constraintsor binary working of mind from a presumedbinaryfunctioningof the brain? Along with Jakobson and many others, L6vi-Strauss wholeheartedly accepted the explanprinciplethat the most parsimonious ation is the one closest to the truth. He realizes that this principle rests "upon the identity postulated between the laws of the universeand those of the humanmind," and raises a metaphysical problem. Levi-Strauss advises Benveniste to put aside the metaphysical problem, and emphasizesthe scientific power of this principle which enables the social scientist to avoid pragmatism, formalism, and neo-positivism (1963a:89, 90). Precisely to avoid the empiricism of some contemporarysociologistsas well as an outmoded idealism, since 1949 Levi-Strauss had endorsed the basic premise that "the laws of thought 'primitive or civilized' are the same as those which are expressed in physical reality and in social reality, which is itself only one of its aspects" (1969a:451). Is L6vi-Straussadvocatinga physical reductionism or just an isomorphism of mental, social, and physical laws (L6viStrauss1971a:561, 616, 619)? If the latter, is the isomorphichypothesis a philosophical or a scientific hypothesis?
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V EVALUATION Since Levi-Strauss invokes linguistic, psychological, and biological disciplines to support his notion of unconscious, only a review of contemporary research in these disciplinescan reveal whether his notion has the credibility of a scientific truth or at least of a scientific hypothesis. I do not pretend to review all the basic literature and much less to resolve issues which are at the core of the most fundamental controversies in these various disciplines. I merely point out the main controversialaspects of Levi-Strauss' hypothesis and ascertain its scientific potential on the basis of its usefulness as a working hypothesis in contemporaryscientific research.
Psychological Issues
As far as the Freudian aspect of L viStrauss' notion of the unconscious is concerned, one might raise questions about Levi-Strauss'modification of the Freudian notion and about its explanatoryusefulness. In answeringthe first question, one must consider whether Levi-Strauss'intellectualization of the Freudianunconscious can be justified in terms of psychologicalevidence. This is hardly the case, if such a theoretical position claims that the intellectualor cognitive component is the independent and explaining variable of psychic life in its totality. Binet already noted that "thought and emotions (conscious and unconscious) are pervasivelytied together, and even systematic introspection cannot dissolvethem" (Wolf 1969:233). Contemporary psychologists assert that to reduce conscious phenomena to logical and cognitive components is a serious mistake (Collier 1964). One could reply that L vi-Strauss is not interested in the totality of psychic dynamism, but mainly in its process of categorization. Yet, certain psychologicalstudies revealthat motivationalelements do influence even this process(Bruner,in Jahoda 1970:44). Jahoda suggests that Livi-Strauss might simply
intend to use categorical elements as a heuristic device. Levi-Strauss' procedure would be acceptable in this sense, but one wonders whether this interpretationis comassertionthat the patible with Levi-Strauss' structures formulated by anthropologistsin psychological terms are a tentative approximation of organic and physical realities (1971a:616). Moreover,not everyone would agreeon a structuralist interpretation of Freud which would exclude his historical perspective. Green, for instance, clearly stated that there is both a historical and a structuralistcomponent in psychoanalytic thought; LeviStrauss is correct in assertingthat historical knowledge is reducible to structure in the sense that any knowledgeis subjectedto the laws of thought, but still there exists a knowledge which is not knowledge of conscience and, therefore, history is present of structure (Green independently 1963:661). Once again, L vi-Strauss'position can be interpreted simply to assert a methodological priority of structure over event, as a startingpoint of analysisand as a tool of intelligibility. In fact, when L viStrauss agrees with Piaget that structures have an origin, he immediatelyadds that the state previousto a structuremust itself be a structure. History, then, is produced by a transformationof structuresby other structures, so that the structureremainsthe first datum (1971a:560-561). In this sense, the question is one of a methodologicalattitude and not of a logical reductionism;history is not excluded but rather made intelligible throughthe notion of structure. However, Levi-Strauss' epistemological perspective would seem to be incompatible with the conception of history as a set of contingencies (Diamond 1964:44), since it maintains that historical phenomena are adequately accounted for only when we discover laws which give reason for their necessary connection (1969a:22-23); the necessary connection is given, of course, by their infrastructure,that is, the underlying universaland unconsciousmental structures. In actuality, the two perspectives can be
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considered complementaryto each other in the sense that a thorough examination of historical contingencies can lead to the discovery of structuralcontinuities, unless one maintains a programmatic exclusion or meaninglessness of structural continuities. The difference between these two epistemological positions has a certainparallelin the difference between Sapir's contention that the structure of culture is a product of mind, and Boas' contention that the form is not a product of the mental dynamism of the individual but "the result of idiosyncratic historical factors" (Modjeska1968:345). One might arguethat Sapir differed from Levi-Strausswhen he temporarily held that the structure of culture is a productof consciousness(Idem). In fact, this seems to leave room for free decisions and historical contingencies, concontention that history traryto Levi-Strauss' is the product of the unconsciousworkingof the mind. In the "Finale" of L'HommeNu, has Levi-Strauss clarified his thought in that he does not exclude the role of freedom in the historicaland cultural development,but instead moves his analysis to the fundamental level of the basic structuralmechanisms which simultaneouslypermitand at the same time limit the actualizationsof man's active choices (1971a:612-614). If we consider now the question of the scientific merit of the primacy given by Freud and Levi-Straussto the unconscious rather than to the conscious level of functioning, we immediately face one of the most controversial issues in contemporary social sciences. The negativereactionagainst the primacy, or even the existence, of unconscious psychic forces has been expressed in variousforms and degreesof intensity. In the opinion of some authors,psychoanalytic premiseshave assumedthe status of dogma, since psychoanalytically oriented psychologists refuse to examine the large body of discrepant data and, therefore, impede any scientific progress (Millar1970). Some experimental psychologists maintain that there is no convincingempiricalsupport for the existence of unconscious motivation
(Eysenck 1964:265) and even argue that validempiricalsupporthardlyseems possible because of the difficulty in operationalizing Freudian concepts. Others find that the Freudian postulate is not a parsimonious principle,since it implies too many assumptions which are not at all needed if one would adopt the perspectiveof social learning theory (Bandura1969:592), a perspective which would avoid apparentcontradictions inherent in psychoanalytic explanations (Banduraand Walters1965:210). It is argued also that a more parsimoniousand meaningful explanation would come from the use of conscious and intentional factors instead of unconscious processes (Papageorgis 1965); others assert that intentional processes are not only more parsimonious scientific principles,but must be considered as the ultimate laws of human behavior (Knowles 1966). In light of this position we are not surprisedto find Sartrerejectingthe Freudianunconscious(Conkling1968). In a sense, the objection of the unparsimoniouscharacter of the unconscious might seem more serious than that of its untestability,since it can be arguedthat it is arbitraryto demandexperimentaltestability for any psychological or sociological construct. However, psychologists of different theoretical orientations are ready to defend the notion of unconsciousin termsof empirical evidence and of its scientific usefulness. Binet already asserted that "there are very great portions of our psychic life that are by their very nature inaccessible to consciousness" (Binet 1911). Morepsychoanalytically oriented psychologists are ready to cite clinical and experimental evidence to support the theory of unconscious motivation (Kisker 1964:117ff.). Herron, for instance, offers a systematic review of the literature on the unconscious and shows that while some of the meaningsattachedto the notion of unconsciousare ambiguous,the "behavior which is undiscriminating,subliminal, unremembered, insightless, uncommunicable, or repressed,seems to providevalid evidence for inferring the existence of a dynamic psychological unconscious" (Herron 1962).
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The contemporary psychologist Irving Sarnoff, among others, has offered guidelines for theoretically and methodologically sound experimental tests of Freud's hypothesis and has expressed the conviction that "Freud'stheory is surely as worthy as other psychological theories for evaluation by methods that most completely satisfy the logical requirements of scientifically adequate evidence" (Sarnoff 1971:vii). G. W. Allport, a psychologist of eclectic orientation, asserts: "Like other writersI have been critical of Freud'sdepreciationof the role of consciousness,but there is a residualtruth in his formulation-especially in accountingfor neurotic trends in personality that are often due to unconsciousmotives and unconscious conflicts" (Allport 1967:150). This qualified support of a "residual truth" of Freudian theory is outdone by a seemingly more generousbacking of J. Piaget, author of the "excellent small book" on structuralism(to quote Levi-Strauss1971a:560), who asserts that psychogenetic studies have shown that "the mechanisms on which the individual subject acts of intelligence depend, are not in any way contained by his consciousness, yet they cannot be explained except in terms of structures" (Piaget 1970:138). A stronger view is held by Fromm, who considers Freud's theory of unconscious as the continuation of the work of Copernicus, Darwin, and Marx, all of whom attacked man's illusion about his own place in the cosmos, in nature, and in society; Freud destroys the myth of conscience as the ultimate and unique datum of humanexperience (Arnaud1971:256). As we can see, both critics and supporters differ in the degreeof criticismor supportof the Freudian postulate. One conclusion appearsto be warranted.The opposition of many psychologists to the preeminence or even to the existence of the unconscious prevents its acceptance as a scientific truth. On the other side, the central role that this hypothesis plays in the works of many psychologists seems to warrantits status as a scientific hypothesis. Moreover, the presumed intelligibility that Lbvi-Strauss'
metaempirical analysis has brought upon previously scarcely understood cultural phenomena would further support this conclusion.
Linguistic Issues
A thorough examination of L vi-Strauss' use of linguisticsis beyond the scope of this essay. For the convenience of the reader,I mention a few points directly connected with the question of the linguisticstructures, their binaryand unconsciouscharacter. Levi-Straussis not the first to explain linguistic facts in terms of mental processes. We have seen that Boas, for instance,argues that the presence of certain grammatical concepts and classifications of concepts in all languagesis the product of the unity of fundamental psychological processes; since they are unconscious they must originate in unconsciousor "instinctive"processesof the mind (Boas 1968:63, 67). Later on, Boas attributedthe unconscious form of language not to the unconscious psychoanalytically understood, but to historicalfactors (1920, see in Modjeska1968:345). Sapirshifted his attention from the conscious and accidental historical factors to the unconsciouspatternings of human mind and experience, and to an "innate striving for formal elaboration and expression" (Sapir, in Modjeska 1968:345-347; for additional material on Boas and Sapir, see Hymes 1964 and Boas 1964).8 Levi-Straussaccepts this notion, and under the influence of Jakobsonhe emphasizes that phonologicalstructurespresenta binary and unconscious character.Chomsky maintains that Levi-Strauss erroneously puts emphasison the formalaspect of phonological structures rather than on the fact that few absolute features seem to provide the basis for organizing phonologicalsystems; all the structural pattern of phonemes is an epiphenomenon, while the important phenomenon to reckon with is the system of rules of these patterns (Chomsky LQvi-Strauss' insistence 1968:65-66). Given that culture does not consist only of forms
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of communicationbut also of rules of communication (1963a:296), one might wonder whether Chomsky'scriticism is ultimately a question of semantics or of different emphasis. There is no question that a great deal of Levi-Strauss'use of linguistic method consists in the application of the oppositional method (1963a, Ch. 12). N. Chomskyand M. Halle have defended their own adaptationof the Jakobsonian notion of distinctive features, since, among other things, it enables one to build a universal phonetic theory (Chomskyand Halle 1965:120). Sebeok expresses the opinion that the Jakobsonian notion of sound structures, based on the theory of universalfeatures, is much ahead of any other kind of previous attempts (Sebeok 1968:4), and Bondarkocategorically assertsthat "without any doubt the most economic and systematic description of phonemes is in terms of distinctivefeatures. At the present time no one will attempt to deny the reality and significanceof distinctive features"(Bondarko1969:1). On the contrary,others doubt whetherall phonemic systems can be described adequately in terms of Jakobsoniandistinctive features (see Scheffler 1966:73), while others, in denying that auditoryJakobsonian features can provide a universalframework at the articulatory level and at the systematic phonemic level, make the suggestion that phonologists had "better burn their phonetic books and turn to a genuine abstract framework"(Fudge 1967:23-26). In the words of N. Chomsky and M. Halle, "each feature correspondsto a pairof opposed categories" (1965:121). All linguists agree in using phonological oppositions in linguisticanalysiseven when they do not use the concept of opposition, but they are far from accepting the idea that the oppositions are always binary (Mounin 1972). The rigorous binarism of Jakobson and of the early Levi-Strauss attracteda has widespread criticism since a three valued dimensionality may be a more satisfactory alternative (Scheffler 1966:73); Jakobson himself has introduced in the binaryscheme
a neutral and a mixed term (Barthes 1962:121). More recently, some linguists have argued that the binary principle is in conflict with the criterionof simplicityproposed by Halleand that multivaluedfeatures may better fit the data without introducing complications(Coubreras 1969:1). While Levi-Strauss' binarismcontinues to find wider and wider application (for a Russian example, see Meletinsky and Segal 1971:99, 114), anthropological literature abounds with criticismsagainst the assumption of the binary dimensionality not only of phonologicalstructuresand of the brain, but also of cultural phenomena (see Leach 1970:88ff., among others). In the words of a contemporarylinguist from Budapest,the hypothesis of binary semanticoppositionsis untenable since semantic oppositions give threefold, fourfold oppositions, etc. (Tarnoczi 1970:82). Has Levi-Strausssoftened his position after so many criticisms?In Mythologique Four, he still uses the notion of binary operator (1971a:499, 500, 501, 518) and binarism (Ibid.:498, 621). Moreover, LeviStrauss supports his basic binarism with recent empiricalresearchon the oppositional and binary character of visual perception (Ibid.:619). Linguists assert that feature analysis has been demonstrated for visual perception, even though little researchhas been done on aural perception (Lehman 1971:273). Levi-Straussfinds support for the Jakobson and Troubetzkoy'sviews even from the molecularstructureof the genetic code, which is ultimately composed of a finite set of discreteunits (1971a:612). At the same time, Levi-Straussseems to adopt a less rigidattitude when, for instance, he suggests a possible alternativeinterpretation to binarismin terms of triadic oppositions (Ibid.:501) or recognizes the importance of the neutral term in his explanation of "mana" (1966c:50). For a long time, Levi-Strauss' notion of "opposition" has been criticized because it encompasses the much largercategoriesof "difference";however, in asserting that the apprehensionof the "other" as an opposition is an absolute
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truth, L6vi-Strausshas recently explained damentalfailure of Jakobson consists in not that the world is essentially a "disparity" havingconnected the notion of oppositionto and that myth dissects the world by means that of function. For instance,in Sanskritthe of distinctions, contrasts, and oppositions simple p and aspiratedp are two phonemes (Ibid.:607). We can conclude that L6vi- because they have the function of distinStraussadopts a flexible binarismintegrated guishing two different meanings, while in with a tridimensionality(Ibid.:617). In the English they do not have this function and, ultimate analysis, binarismis used as a parsi- therefore, their opposition is not distinctive. monious hypothesis to be used insofar as it Since Levi-Straussfollowed Jakobson, L6viworks without excludinga multidimensional Strauss has made the same mistake of not approachwhen the latter fits the data better. looking for the function of his oppositions It is usually agreed that L6vi-Strauss' in the cultural domain; consequently, he basic methodological perspective is derived lacks a criterion to assert that his differfrom the linguistic school of Prague. Yet, ences are relevant. L6vi-Straussmight be Mounin has recently offered a drastic criti- anthropologicallyright, but he certainlyuses cism of the linguisticfoundationsclaimedby mistaken linguistic figures (Mounin 1972). L6vi-Strauss.Of the four basic operations Some of the linguists I have consulted agree attributed by Levi-Strauss Troubetzkoy's with Mounin'scriticisms,while others argue to structural method (insistence on relation- that Mounin follows the linguisticsschool of ship, the notion of system, the notion of Martinet and is unfair to Jakobson; moregenerallaws and the shift to the study of the over, his understandingof Saussurewould unconscious infrastructure: 1963a:33), reflect the interpretation of the French Mounin asserts that the second and third academic circles (Rey 1972); still others notions originally came from Saussure and disagree with Mounin and assert that L6vinot from Troubetzkoy,9 and the first and Strauss has worked in an appropriate, second notions are not two but one notion; phonological frameworkand has shown the moreover,since linguistshave alwaysstudied function of his oppositions (Durbin 1972). habitual and not conscious processes,' the As far as Levi-Straussis concerned, he fourth notion and the connection between does not seem to take the credentials of Freud and Troubetzkoy is a product of some of his critics too seriously and leaves misreading;the remainingtwo the solution of linguistic disputes and interL6vi-Strauss' notions of structure and opposition which pretations to linguistsI1 The ethnographic L6vi-Strauss would have borrowed from evidence and ethnological conclusions structuralphonology are not at all specifical- reached in his long career would seem to ly linguistic notions, as Troubetzkoy and excuse him from supportinghis basic hypoSaussurethemselves had already seen (Mou- thesis in terms of linguisticand, we shall see, nin 1970:201-203). Mounin's radical criti- of psychological arguments. In a sense, que, which is directed to many other pre- Levi-Strauss' contacts with linguistics or sumed misperceptionsof L6vi-Strauss, might psychology can be interpreted more as puzzle those anthropologistswho have been fortuitous circumstances which stimulated trained to take L6vi-Strauss'linguistic cre- the formulation of his perspective than dentialsseriously. as influences to be taken in the literal The readerhas to realizethat a greatpart sense of the word. The question of of Mounin'scritique comes from his opposi- whether the notions of structure, opposition to Jakobsonianlinguistics.For instance, tion, and unconscious infrastructure are he disagrees with Jakobson's belief that derived from structural linguistics or some there exists a kind of Mendeleieff's univer- other linguistic school would seem to be a sal table of phonological traits, a belief marginalhistoricalquestion for the purpose work. The conwhich, according to Mounin, is shared by of interpretingLevi-Strauss' few linguists. In Mounin'sview, anotherfun- tention that these notions do not have any
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linguistic support, combined with the thin similarity with psychoanalytic notions, seems to make of L6vi-Strauss'notion of unconscious a somewhat Kantian and a basically cybernetic notion. Haudricourt asserts that linguistic phonological infrastructureshave statisticalvalue but that their unconscious characterhas different degrees and, at certain times and places, they are clearly conscious both for internal and external reasons (Haudricourt1970:606-608). If it is true that linguistics is interested in arriving"at the structure which lies behind and not in the behavior of language-users" mere "game-playing"(Fry 1971:6), it also seems true that this structure can be adequately conceived in statisticalterms. Since L6vi-Strauss asserts that he has derivedhis linguisticinspirationmainly from the phonetic school of Prague(or Jakobson, as the case might be), I will bypass the assertion of the discussion on L6vi-Strauss' structuralcharacterof languageat the grammatical level; the structural study of the and grammatical, especiallysemanticlevel of language,is less advanced,and the opinions of linguists are even more sharply divided than they are in relation to the structural quality of the phonological level. As an example, we can turn our attention once more to the linguist from Budapest, who assertsthat "the structureis the product of a theory imposed a priori to the analyzed object" and that the attempts to unveil the semantic structure of language will never give more than conceptual structure rather than formal structure, which is the specific goal of linguistics; to suppose that under a heterogeneous linguistic system there exists a hidden coherent substructureis to invoke a third level of abstractionand cultivatea pure illusion (Tarnoczi1970:81, 82). In this linguisticcontext, one more aspect of L6vi-Strauss' position would seem to deserve consideration. Given L6vi-Strauss' assertionthat logical structuresare a projection of mind, one might wonder whetherthe contemporary debate on the supposed innatism of linguistic structuresmight be relevant here. Strictly speaking it is not.
Chomskyassertsthat "it is perfectly possible that a particular grammar is acquired by differentiation of a mixed innate scheme, rather than by slow growth of new items, patterns or associations" (1966:19). Piaget, unhowever, rightly states that L vi-Strauss' conscious activity is not the "innatereason" of Chomsky, but a system of schemata intercalatedbetween infrastructures and superstructures (1970:111). In other words, there are no innate rules but a mind which, through a dissectingand combiningactivity, imposes structuresto empiricalfacts. Everything is governed by the mind through generaloperationswithout a need of specialized and innate mechanisms (Sperber 1968:234-237). Levi-Straussis likely to puzzle his admirers with his recent shift away from (or perhaps clarification of) the notion of immutable and universal structures (1969a: 491) to the notion of absolute structuresas "generativematrices by successive deformations" (1971a:33). Levi-Strausshas made this recent statement under the pressureof Piaget, who considers psychological reality as a permanentconstruction rather than as an accumulationof alreadymade structures. Levi-Strauss comments that he has never conceived human nature as a set of totally set up and immutablestructures,but rather structureswhich, even as matricesgenerating though they derive from the same complex, do change duringthe life of individualsand throughout societies (Ibid.:561). While this clarificationof the notion of structuremight it puzzle some structuralists, seems to differentiate Levi-Strauss'position from the innatist position. I may dispense, therefore, with the task of discussing the enormous literatureon the innatist controversyspearheaded by Chomsky and Lenneberg, to name just two prominent authors (for a recent review, see Wardlaugh 1971), and on the question of innate mappingmechanism and LanguageAcquisition Device (see Von RafflerEngel 1970).12
Neurophysiological research and the unconscious.
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referenceto the structureof Levi-Strauss' the brain as the natural basis of the phonemic system (1963a:92, 94) is in harmonywith the markedinterest of recent phonetics in the neurophysiological processes. Earlier,Jakobsonhad emphasizedthe acoustic aspect of distinctive features, but lately he has turned his attention to their articulatoryaspect; since what is happening in the language has a neurophysiological counterpart in the brain, the language generator, the attention is directed to the brain with the hope of discoveringthe underlying mechanisms of speech production (Kim 1971:35). Unfortunately,phonologists must rely on neurologistswho do not know much about linguisticsand who have not yet turned out much material in this area in general and, to Jakobson's own admission, on the problems of aphasia in particular (Tikofsky 1970:23). It is held that the linguistic system is a patterningimposed by the brain on sensory and motor activity; the brainuses the store of informationabout the system to encode speech to be sent out and to decode speech which comes in. However, we do not have a direct access to the patterns of the brain's neural activity and, therefore, we have to rely on the study of the correlation between the patterns of phonetic and linguistic behavioron the one side, and the patternsvisible in physiological, acoustic, and perceptual data on the other side (Fry 1971:8-9). Some scholarsare confident that we will eventually know what in the brain gives man his capacity for language, even though now it is too early to tell (Lenneberg 1971:20). As of now, it seems clear that the features do not correspond one to one to particular muscles, and the question of the physiologicalbasisof phonological features is a matter of speculation (Lieberman 1970:320). We, therefore, can conclude that Levi-Strauss' referenceto the brain for the purpose of explainingphonological structure has some scientific verisimility among some contemporary phonologists, even though the specific operationalization of the hypothesis demands a great deal more research.
In connection with Levi-Strauss' insistence on the brain, we must clarify the question of L vi-Strauss' supposedbiological reductionism. It seems that already in The Savage Mind Levi-Straussavoided the reductionist shortcoming when he asserted that the unconscious teleology rests on the interplay of psychologicalmechanismswith the biological mechanisms of the brain, lesions, and internal secretions(1966a:252).
In Mythologiques Four, Levi-Strauss ex-
plicitly intends to avoid a reductionistposition, since he declares that structuralismis interestedin structuresconceivedas intrinsic properties of certain orders and not as expressions of anything external to them. If one absolutely wants to relate structuresto something external, we must resort to cerebralorganizationconceivedas a network of which ideological systems translate only some properties in terms of a particular structure (1971a:561). Structuralist ideas are psychologicalformulations,which might be nothing else but tentativeapproximations of organic and physical truths (Ibid.:616) brought to the surface of the conscious (Ibid.:619). In the context of this same passageof The SavageMind, these assertions do not imply a direct and exclusive derivation of mental from biological structures, but rather a difference between brain and ideological structures, organic and psychic truths, mind and body; all that is affirmedis their parallel or isomorphic structure, and the basic unity of mind and body in opposition to the old dualism(Levi-Strauss 1972b). As Green observes, chemical combinations are unlimited in number (1963:651), and mental structuresrealize only a few of these combinations, as a product, we should add, of the interaction of the unconscious teleology of mind (itself an interplayof psychological and biological processes) with physicalreality. While discussing neurophysiological research, I briefly mention whether it has brought any evidence to bear on the question of the conscious versusthe unconscious level of mental functioning. Recent research has shown that consciousnessis a measurable
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state of the neuralsystem and that it is the most important factor in giving informational value to sensory and motor messages (Bergstr6m1967:442). The biologist R. W. Sperry, who has tackled this problem in a series of studies, notices that most contemporary behavioralscientists do not have any place for conscious experience in brain processes and resist the idea that the events of the brain electro-physico-chemical are influenced by conscious forces; according to them, a complete explanationof brain functions is possible without referring to conscious mental states; at most, consciousness is considered an inner aspect of the brain process, an epiphenomenon, an impotent by-product, or an artifact of semantics, and, finally, a pseudoproblem. Yet, Sperry is convinced on the basis of his own research that experienced conscious phenomena have a causal influence on cerebralexcitation and are an essential part of brain processes.The influence is reciprocal in the sense that subjectivemental states governthe flow of the nerve impulse traffic and, at the same time, the conscious properties of cerebral patterns directly depend on the action of the neuralcomponent;it is, however, clear that conscious phenomena are in a position of higher command. Sperry'sinterpretationof his own neurological researchhas also somethingto say on the question of biological reductionism. He excludes a mere materialisticposition, since he admits the existence of powerful mental forms, which transcend material forces in the functioning of the brain; he excludes also a merely mentalistic position, since mental forces cannot exist apart from the brain processes of which they are a direct property (Sperry 1969:532-534). This position seems to offer an appropriateinterpretative framework to Levi-Strauss'perspective, which, if it is examined in its totality would seem to make room for both mental and biological processes, notwithstanding the seemingly reductionist flavor of certain of his formulations(see 1967a:90).13
VII
Let us now consider the unconscious as a theory of mind and as a methodological hypothesis. A Moderate Position
The previous discussion shows that if Levi-Strauss'notion of binary and unconscious working of mind is not a mere a prioristic and arbitrary speculation, its scientific and parsimoniousvalue is far from having universalscientific support. It is perhaps because of this that, when directly asked, Levi-Strauss presentsa moderateversion of his notion of unconscious.Recently, to the question of whether he considersthe unconscious as a postulate, a reality, or a principle of intelligibility, Levi-Straussreplied that it is up to the psychologists to decide on this matter. He declares himself satisfied with the fact that there are things going on in the brain'sprocesseswithout the awareness of the self.14 Apparently the statement can be interpreted to mean that even if current linguistic, psychological,and neurophysiologicalresearchwould seriously question, and possibly disprove,the preeminence of the unconscious level of mental functioning over the conscious one, his own enterprise would still be warrantedby the existence of at least some unconscious processessomehow connected with the functioning of the brain (see also his even more radical departurefrom previouspositions in 1971d; see note 6). After all, he L6vi-Strauss objects only to givingexclusive attention to the person and to conscious intentionality (1971a:615), and perhapshis overallemphasis on the unconscious processes must be interpreted more as a methodological reaction than as an ontological position. One realizes, however, the importanceof the ontological perspective in L6vi-Strauss' works. He wants to make of anthropologya scientific discipline since he wants to discover "a number of rigorous relations as
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those which regulatenaturalsciences."However, to succeed in this, Levi-Straussmust formulate philosophical hypotheses and postulates; "I formulate them, and I am aware of it: may be the difference which separatesme from my colleagueethnologists is my greaterawarenessof how much I have to sacrifice to philosophy" (1963c:36). Ultimately, much of the criticismof "empirical" anthropology to structuralism is a question of choosing between structuralist and positivistic or behavioristassumptions.
The Unconscious as Theory of Mind and of Culture
As a psychological theory, Levi-Strauss' notion of unconscious has been attacked for its ontological or ideological character.The question is whether we must conceive structures and models as ontological realities or just as methodological heuristic tools. LeviStrauss has expressively argued for the second interpretation(1965c:18), but all his epistemological and theoretical discourse also clearly implies their ontological conception. Thishas been explicitly stated in the Finale of L'HommeNu (1971a). Some authorseasily conclude to a dichotomy or contradiction between the ontological ideology and epistemologicalideology of Levi-Strauss(for an example of such presumed contradiction, see Nutini 1971), while the point can easily be made that Levi-Strauss' ontological premisesmight turn out to show the plausibility of his epistemological and methodological views, as some recent developments in physics might lead one to believe (Rossi 1972b). However, not the discoveryof binaryneurologicalprocesses correlatedwith phonetic or perceptual processes, nor the discovery of ultimate structural components of physical reality, seem sufficient to prove by themselves the existence of universal mental structures without falling into a neurologicalor physiological reductionism. Moreover, even assuming that we could prove definitely the
existence of linguisticand mental structures, how could we consider them as the only adequate explanation of universal cultural structureswithout falling into a psychological reductionism? How far Levi-Strauss from such a form is of reductionism is shown by the care with which he avoids a merely mentalistic or materialistic explanation.He rejectsthe accusation of idealism(1969b:9, 1972b) as well as the notion that culturalinstitutionsoriginate directly from their infrastructure, elaboby rating a theory of superstructurewhich is missingin Marx;between man'sactivity and cultural institutions there exists the mediation of a conceptualscheme, or the dialectic of superstructure, which sets up facts in contrasting pairs and turns them into signs; in this way, it is elaborateda system which is "a synthesizing operator between ideas and facts" (1966a:130-131). This does not imply that ideology gives rise to social relations (Ibid.:117) or that social categoriesare a result of social structure,as Durkheimstates; rather,social structureand ideology in a process of mutual adjustment translate certain historicaland local modalitiesof the relation between man and world, which are their common substratum (Ibid.:214). This view can be considereda satisfactorybeginningof a theory of culture, which accounts for the specificity of the symbolic element and integrates the individual (biological and psychological),cultural, and historicalvariables in a unified framework.Once again, a global interpretation of Levi-Strauss'position is the only appropriatecontext for a right interpretation of apparently reductionist passagesof his notion of culture(see, for instance, 1969a:xxx).
The Unconscious as Methodological Hypothesis
Were we to dismiss the notion of unconscious as an ontological position, as some structuralistsare seemingly inclined to do, the unconscious would still retain great
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importance and relevanceas a methodological hypothesis and principleof intelligibility. "If, as we believe to be the case, the unconscious activity of the mind consists in imposing form upon content, and if these forms are fundamentally the same for all minds.., .it is necessary and sufficient to grasp the unconscious structure underlying each institution and each custom, in orderto obtain a principle of interpretationvalid for other institutions and other customs" (1963a:21). In this sense, the unconscious becomes a methodologicaldevice which enables one to give a unifying intelligibility to apparently heterogeneous and incoherent social phenomena; however, its scientific value can be perceived only if we divest ourselvesof the positivistic perspectiveand we understandit in terms of (1) the structuralist epistemological premises, (2) the scientific definition of the symbolic character of cultural phenomena, (3) the methodologicaladvantages of this hypothesis. Since I have already illustratedthe first two points, let us briefly discussthe last one. Levi-Straussdoes not avoid the problem of how to validate the analysis made by the ethnographer. As Mauss did before him, Levi-Strauss conceives anthropological interpretationas an intersection of two subjectivities (1969b:13); as suggestedby Rousseau (Levi-Strauss 1967a:101), through a processof identificationwe relivethe experience of the protagonistsand, in so doing, we bring to light an object which is objectively very remote and subjectivelyvery concrete. Levi-Strauss accepts such understandingand empathy as a supplementaryform of proof, or as a guaranteeratherthan a proof. However, we can never really identify with the "other" or we will never know whether the "other" makes of his social experience the same synthesis as the observer.At the end of fieldwork, the anthropologist will not meet himself or the "other," but by superposing himself on the "other" he will reveal the more universaland more real facts of general functioning, at the condition that he has carried the analysis up to the unconscious
categories (1966b:113-114). Once we have discoveredthe unconscious we have reached the basic mechanismswhich are common to "us" and to "others,"and thereforewe have establisheda real communicationand mediation between us and them (1966c:31). Of course, this would bring a solution not only to the problem of communicationbetween people of the same culture, but also between the anthropologistand the natives of a different culture. One might be tempted to characterize this thinking as a sheer and gratuitous speculation, but if we conceive anthropologicalanalysis as an understanding of mental representationsby the use of our own mental activity, we can see that our understanding is validated only when we discover the universalmental categories or, in Levi-Strauss' terms, the logical structures underlying both observable cultural phenomena and our own psychic activity;this is the reason why the structuralistis interested not in the particularmodalities of culture and in the content of mental activities, but in their underlying,binary and constraining categories. Perhapswe can push our analysis a little further. Levi-Straussasserts that structuralism has the ambition of launchinga bridge between sensory and intelligible knowledge rather than sacrificingone at the expense of the other (1971a:618). The unconsciouscan be considereda bridge between sensory and rational knowledge in the sense that the unconscious mechanisms of mind are the real foundation and condition of both experiential and rational conscious processes remarkson the role of the (see Levi-Strauss' unconsciouslinguisticcode as a precondition for the enunciation of conscious discourse
Ibid.:612-613). Does Livi-Strauss'Notion of Unconscious Exclude Conscious Intentionality and the Relevance of Phenomenological Analysis?
There is one last puzzling issue which appearsto be a serious obstacle in the way of accepting structuralism as a sound
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methodological approach. What is the relationship between the unconsciousinfrastructure and the conscious superstructure? The quarrel of the existentialists, phenomenologists, and dialecticiansis with Levi-Strauss' explicit bypassing, if not rejection, of the conscious level of meaning in order to discover its unconscious foundation. It would does be simplistic to assert that Levi-Strauss not recognize any value to conscious intentionality, as one often gets the impression from certain interpreters.Besides recognizing the genuineness of the conscious component of reality (see Rossi 1973), LeviStrauss has repeatedly recognized also its methodologicalrelevanceas a supplementary form of proof or verification (1963c:31, 1966a:253, 1966b:110-113). Levi-Strauss has clearly asserted that meaningis not only intentional, since the receiverof the message has to perceive it and understandit, and in doing so he casts it in his own mold (1965b:126). The preoccupation with the unconscious is a preoccupation with discoveringthe basicstructures,which are common to the mental mold of the sender and of the receiver of the message, and which enable a genuine intersection of two intentionalities. In this sense, the unconscious is the only guaranteeof objectivity of phenomenological analysis itself and the intrinsic link which would make of phenomenology an essential complement of structural analysis rather than its mere external verification (see Rossi 1972a). Obviously, Levi-Straussis not interested in elaboratingsuch theoretical methodological integration.The epistemologicalthrust of his latest effort is aimed at reinstating and partially clarifying his position, and in rebuffing existentialist (1971a:614) and phenomenological critiques (Ibid.:571). LeviStrauss states that what we call progressof conscience is a processof interiorizationof a rationalitywhich preexistsin two forms, one immanent in the universe and enabling thought to reach reality, and the other present in the objective thought, which functions rationally and autonomously before subjugating and making subjective this
encompassingrationality. The greatmerit of structuralism consists in finding the unity and coherence existing behind social phenomena not only by focusing on the relationship between facts rather than on facts themselves, but also by reintegratingman One can understandthe reasonfor stressing the intrinsic intelligibilityof reality and the essential link of man with nature, but would also like to see made an attempt to relatethe conscious level of humanfunctioning to its unconsciousstructures.In all fairness, Levi-Strauss'latest emphasis on the proportionalitybetween mind and the reality which becomes known, and on the isomorphism of mental and cerebral apparatuses,still leaves room for phenomenoland ogical analysisas a preliminary verifying phase of structural analysis. In fact, he is against relegating the object of sciences "entirely" to the level where the subject perceives it (Ibid.:570) and against making of man an object of "exclusive attention" (Ibid.:615). Levi-Strausshimself seems to use phenomenology as a kind of verification of his own structural analysis when he asserts that structuralismbrings to the surface of conscience deep and organic truth, and "only those who practice it know by intimate experience the impression of fullness given by its practice, a practice by which mind experiences a true communication with the body" (Ibid.:619). VII CONCLUSION Perhaps three conclusive remarksare in order. Empirically minded social scientists should start reflecting on their own epistemological premises and realize after the advent of psychoanalysisand ethnosemantic school of anthropology that we might gain further insight into the symbolic level of culture by moving the analysis to its unconscious infrastructure. The fact that they for might be unprepared this type of analysis does not abolishthe possibilitythat intuitive analysis might still have an importantrole in
into nature (Ibid.:614).
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social sciences. As far as their preoccupation with verification is concerned, they should take notice of Levi-Strauss' remarks that the criteria of verifiability of physical sciences are not applicable in the human sciences (1971b:12), and that structuralism, even though recognizes its "pre-scientific" stage, has its own internal (1971c:40) and external criteria of validity (1965b:126). Second, those structuralists who believe in the scientific potential of L6vi-Strauss' notions (see Nutini 1971) should start working on their methodological implementation. Finally, structuralists and phenomenologists should begin to look more seriously at possible points of complementarities between their respective perspectives with the goal of formulating a more adequate theoretical and methodological perspective. They have the legitimate right of choosing for their analysis either the conscious or the unconscious level of meaning, but the very point of their differences might well be changed from what seems an apparent mutual rejection into a connecting link between two levels of reality and two relative methodological perspectives. This, after all, does not seem to be alien from the programmatic integration of essence and form, method and reality advocated by Levi-Strauss himself (1967a: 91).
3 For the fundamental importance of the notion of unconscious in Levi-Strauss' structuralism see Y. Simonis (1968: Ch. 3 and 1973). 4Levi-Strauss has characterized his interest in the basic mental structures as a "psycho-logic" (Levi-Strauss 1972a:74); however, since they mediate between infrastructure and superstructure they lay the foundation of sociology or "socio-logic" Barthes clearly (Levi-Strauss 1966a:76). explained why Levi-Strauss' socio-logic has to be understood as a semiology or sociology of signs rather than as the traditional sociology of symbols (Barthes 1962:119-120). On the cybernetic conceptualization of social phenomena as messages, see among other Levi-Strauss passages (1966a: 267-268, Wilden 1972). On the structuralist notion of meaning as opposed to the pheno menological notion, see Levi-Strauss (1963b, 1971a:570ff.). 5sDavid Sapir (1972) has made the comment that Levi-Strauss readily uses native ideas in explaining myths, while he ignores them when they are not suited for his purposes. It is D. Sapir's contention that a "fine-grained" analysis necessitates such conscious "meta-information." 6However, Simonis has called my attention to a recent text where Levi-Strauss states: "After all, if customs of neighboring people reveal relations of symmetry, one does not have to look for a cause in a somewhat mysterious law of nature or mind. This geometric perfection presently sums up more or less conscious but innumerable efforts accumulated by history and all aimed
NOTES
1An earlier and shorter version of this paper was presented at the symposium on "The Unconscious in Levi-Strauss' Anthropology," organized and chaired by the author, at the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Diego, California, on November 20, 1970. I acknowledge the helpful suggestions and comments that I have received on the shorter version of this paper from Pierre Maranda, Bob Scholte, Yvan Simonis, Stephen A. Tyler, and on the longer version of the paper from Georges Mounin and David Sapir. 21 fully discuss the epistemological and methodological foundations of the structuralist method in the Introduction to Structuralism in Perspective, which I have edited (Rossi 1973).
rightly remarks that this passage "seems to indicate a certain prudence (or a certain evolution!) of the author (Levi-Strauss) in his thesis on the unconscious and the human mind" (Simonis 1972). See also Levi-Strauss 1965c. 7The precedence given to form over content (1963a:202) has to be interpreted not as a formalistic opposition of form against content, which Levi-Strauss rightly rejects in his critique of Propp (Levi-Strauss 1960). David Sapir rightly observes that at least in the Mythologiques, "the structure of content as expressed in a dialectic defines the overall form" (D. Sapir 1972). LeviStrauss has very recently reiterated the basic difference between structuralism and psychoanalysis by asserting that "for psychoanalysts the final explanation is found in content, not in 'form' " (1972a: 76).
at the same end ..."
(1971d:177).
Simonis
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8G. Mounin asserts that the notion of unconscious is important in Jakobson but that, contrary to what Levi-Strauss asserts, is strongly rejected by Troubetzkoy (Mounin 1970:202). 91In Mounin's opinion, in 1945 LeviStrauss was unaware that Troubetzkoy owed the notion of unconscious to Saussure because he had n'ot read Saussure and knew linguistics only through Jakobson who early differentiated himself from Saussure and Troubetzkoy (Mounin 1972). 10 One can perhaps object that this is not the case, for instance, with Boas and E. Sapir. 1 This is the impression I received in a conversation on these issues with LeviStrauss on the occasion of his recent visit in the United States (March 28, 1972). 12 After all, the technical controversies among contemporary linguists do not directly affect Levi-Strauss' level of analysis. Very recently, when Levi-Strauss was asked whether the development of linguistics after Jakobson has influenced his works, he replied that from his point of view these changes are not so important since he took from linguistics "only few basic ideas and used them in a much looser way than linguists do." In this sense, the difference brought about by the recent developments in linguistics in general, and by Chomsky in particular, are not important for his type of analysis. As a matter of fact, if he were to give a new title to The Elementary Structures of Kinship he might retitle it "Introduction to Generative Anthropology" since this work has discovered a set of rules which generate many types of social exchanges (remarks made in a discussion with the students of Barnard College, March 30, 1972). 13In a recent public lecture, Levi-Strauss replied to the objection of mentalism or often addressed to him, Hegelianism especially in this country. He asserted that the structures he discovered in the ethnographic material are not only the result of mental constraints, but also of the external determinism of techno-economic, ecological, and concrete social conditions. We do not know the basic mental constraints a priori, but rather we can discover them only a posteriori, through a careful study of the concrete data. As far as the issue of reductionism is concerned, one gets the impression that for Levi-Strauss it is a pseudoproblem which
stems from a mistaken dualistic
body as two separate entities is a questionable metaphysical position and a form of Cartesianism. In nature, as in the brain and in the mind, there is the same structural code, so that structural analysis is possible since the same operation goes on at all three levels of reality. In Levi-Strauss' words, this conception would bring back the unity of mind and body (see Levi-Strauss 1972b). Similarly, the question of whether mind is the same as brain or its epiphenomenon would seem to be an incorrect question, from Levi-Strauss' point of view. It would seem that for him their homologous structural functioning is sufficient to establish their unity. 14Personal communication from LeviStrauss on the occasion of the symposium on "The Unconscious in Lvi-Strauss' Anthropology" (see note 1). REFERENCES CITED Allport, G. W. 1967 Pattern and Growth in Personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Arnaud, L. 1971 Review of La Crise de la Psychanalyse, by E. Fromm; Marx et Freud, by R. Kalivoda. L'Homme et la Societe 122:255-258. Aubenque, P. 1971 Language, Structures, Societe: Resur le Structuralisme. marques Archives de Philosophie 34(3):353-371. Bandura, A. 1969 Principles of Behavior Modification. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Bandura, A., and R. H. Walters 1965 Social Learning and Personality Development. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Barthes, R. 1962 A Propos de Deux Ouvrages Recents de Claude Levi-Strauss. Information sur les Sciences Sociales VI(4):114-122. Bergstrom, R. M. 1967 Neural Macrostates. Synthese 17(4):425-443. Binet, A. 1911 Qu'est-ge qu'une emotion. Qu'estye qu'un acte intellectuel? L'Ann~e Psychologique 17:1-47. Boas, F. 1920 The Methods of Ethnology. American Anthropologist 22:311-321.
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1964 Linguistics and Ethnology. In Language in Culture and Society. Dell Hymes, Ed. New York: Harper and Row. pp. 15-26. 1968 [1911]Introduction to Handbook of American Indian Languages. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Bondarko, L. V. 1969 The Syllable Structure of Speech and Distinctive Features of Phonemes. Phonetica 20:1-40. Bowman, C. C. 1965 Review of The Unconscious in Social Relations, by O. Machotka. American Review Sociological 30(2):320. Chomsky, N. 1966 Cartesian Linguistics. New York: Harper and Row. 1968 Language and Mind. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Chomsky, N., and M. Halle 1965 Some Controversial Questions in Phonological Theory. Journal of Linguistics 6(2):97-138. Collier, R. M. 1964 A Figure-Ground Model Replacing the Conscious-Unconscious Dichotomy. Journal of Individual Psychology 20(1):3-16. Conkling, M. 1968 Sartre's Refutation of the Freudian Unconscious. Review of Existential and Psychiatry Psychology 8(2):86-101. Coubreras, H. 1969 Simplicity, Descriptive Adequacy, and Binary Features. Language 45:1-8. Darnoi, D. N. Kenedy 1967 The Unconscious and Edward von Hartmann. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Diamond, S. 1964 What History Is. In Process and Pattern in Culture. R. A. Manners, Ed. Chicago: Aldine. pp. 29-44. Durbin, M. 1972 Personal communication. Durkheim, E. 1961 [1912] The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York: Collier Books. Eysenck, H. J. 1964 The Dynamics of Anxiety and Hysteria. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Fabian, J. 1971 On Professional Ethics and Epistemological Foundations. Current Anthropology 12(2):230-231.
Fenichel, O. 1945 The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis. New York: Norton and Co. Fry, D. B. 1971 Future Phoneticians. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 1(1):2-10. Fudge, E. C. 1967 The Nature of Phonological Journal of Linguistics Primes. 3(1):1-36. Green, A. 1963 La Psychanalyse devant l'opposition de l'histoire et de la structure. Critique 19(194):648-662. Haudricourt, A. G. 1970 Sur le degre d'inconscience des infrastructures. In Echanges et Communications, Vol. 1. J. Pouillon and P. Maranda, Eds. The Hague: Mouton. p. 606-608. Herron, W. G. 1962 The Evidence for the Unconscious. Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Review 49(1):70-92. Hymes, D. 1964 Introduction. In Language in Culture and Society. Dell Hymes, Ed. New York: Harper and Row. pp. 3-14. Jahoda, G. 1970 A Psychologist's Perspective. In Socialization: The Approach from Social Anthropology. G. Jahoda, Ed. London: Tavistock. pp. 33-49. Jarvie, I. C. 1971 Reply to Fabian's Discussion "On Professional Ethics and Epistemological Foundations." Current Anthropology 12(2):231-232. Jones, W. J. 1969 A History of Western Philosophy, Vol. 4. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Kim, Chin Wu 1971 A New Direction in Phonetics. Language Sciences 16:35-40. Kisker, G. W. 1964 The Disorganized Personality. New York: McGraw Hill. Knowles, M. 1966 The Explanatory Role of Unconscious Determinants in Psychoanalytic Australian Theory. Psychologist 1(1):87-88. Lamprecht, S. P. 1955 Our Philosophical Traditions. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Leach, E. 1967 The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism. London: Tavistock.
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The Unconscious in the Anthropology of Claude Lvi-Strauss Author(s): Ino Rossi Reviewed work(s): Source: American Anthropologist, New

The Unconscious in the Anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

ception constitutes "the foundations of a genuine sociological logic" (1967a:96-97).

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRA USS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRA USS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

LEVI-STRA USS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

at the same end ..."

LEVI-STRA USS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

L~vi-Strauss asserted that to set mind and

LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS

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