Cognizing "Cognized Models" Author(s): Eric R. Wolf Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 101, No. 1 (Mar.

, 1999), pp. 19-22 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/683338 Accessed: 20/09/2010 14:10
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ERICR. WOLF City Universityof New York New York, NY 10031

Models" "Cognized Cognizing

organicandecological functionsin acknowledgedthathis earliereffortshad overemphasized In his laterworkRappaport and set of culturalphenomena.He then distancedhimself from both idealismand reductivematerialism the explanation to forfunctionalism from he shifted Specifically, ritual. and understandings cultural of complexities the out to understand implicitly was his analysis Ultimately norms. cultural to in relation its language and ritual malismin an effortto understand and in termsof what Althusserwould arrangement the partas a constituentof an overarching understanding structural, did Rappaport causality."Althoughhis work benefitedfrom this shift from functionto structure, have called 'sstructural ultimust essayed not use it to explore the political dimension.However,a holistic ecology such as the one Rappaport caustructural ecology, ritualpolitical models, matelyembraceboth politicalecology and historicalecology. [cognized

sality]

is a greatprivilegeto take partin this reflectionon to the anthropological contribution Roy Rappaport's his career,he spoketo thebasic Throughout enterprise. issues thatbeset ourdiscipline.His discussionsandclarifications are especially importantfor us at this moment, and methodologies when many of our guidingparadigms areup for grabs. In these comments,I focus especially on Rappaport's and "cognized"models, and their implica"operational" modelis one "whichthe anthropolotions.The operational of gist constructsthroughobservationand measurement He relationships. material and events, entities, empirical takes this model to represent,for analytic purposes,the physicalworldof the grouphe is studying"(1984:237).It and serves anthropological by anthropologists is produced purposes:"As far as the actors are concernedit has no function.Indeed,it does not exist"(p. 238). Yet for the anthropologistit defines "reality"(p. 239). The cognized model,on the otherhand,"isthe modelof the environment conceivedby the peoplewho act in it"(p. 238). It It
has a functionfor the actors;it guidestheiraction.Since thisis concemed to discover what the the case, we are particularly relationpeople under study believe to be the fundamental ships amongthe entitiesthatthey thinkare partof theirenvichanges ronment,andwhatthey taketo be "signs,"indicating in these entities and relationships,which demandaction on theirpart.... [pp.238-239]

Elementsof each model may appearin the other,but the two models "neednot always be isomorphicor identical" and,from (p. 238). Yet the two modelsmay be compared; the perspectiveof the anthropologicalobserver/analyst, aboutthe cognizedmodelis "theextent whatis interesting

to the mateto which it elicits behaviorthatis appropriate rial situationof the actors"(p. 239, emphasisremovedW signalsfor usefulacthatis, the extentto whichit furnishes tion. at that Like many ecologicallyorientedanthropologists time, such as the young Marshall Sahlins, Rappaport hoped to find secure material,biological, or ecological groundingfor culturalfeatures.Nevertheless,his concepto think of culavoided the temptation tual formulations causes of material as meremystifications turalphenomena thatculThey embodiedthe recognition andrelationships. descripturalphenomena "cognizedmodels" required tions and explanationsin their own right.Even so, these soon came underheavy morecarefullyphrasedarguments attack.Especiallycriticalwas Sahlins, who had reversed his earlier views and now argued that Rappaporthad adopteda style of matenalismthat"allowsitself to ignore orthe distinctivequalityof humanactionas meaningfully ganized that it may proceedto organizemeaningas an instrumentalmystification of natural reason" (Sahlins 1984:331).In makingthis 1976:298;quotedin Rappaport an all-or-none attackSahlinsfolloweda modeof proposing solutionto the questionsposed, and then demandingunto views that he himself had deconditional surrender nouncednot verylong before. response(1984:333-334) was perhapsunRappaport's thathis earliereffortshad inexpected.He acknowledged organicand ecological functionsin deed overemphasized But he did not give phenomena. of cultural the explanation to the neoreturn anthropology that demand Sahlins's in to in its members incarcerates view thateach culture Kantian the to argued, a pnson-houseof distinctivemeanings.He

1999, AmericanAnthropologicalAssociation AmericanAnthropologist101(1):19-22. Copyright(C)

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contrary, that we should move beyond culturallyspecif1c meaningsto consider in comparativeterms the different kinds of understandings of the cognized world that those meaningssupport. He did so by developingformalmodels of culturalunderstanding and of ritual.This move carries importancefor us today, because it holds the promise of getting us across the present divide between "scientists" and"poets." Rappaport's move involved two strategies.One was to develop a morphologyof "cognized models";the other was to assign a key functionto ritualin activatingthese of cognition.Concognitions.Consider,first,his treatment thatfotraryto primarily symbolicor semioticapproaches cus on tropesin orderto define the symbolicconfiguration of metaphors,metonyms, synecdoches, and ironies in a culture,Rappaport proposedthatcognized models exhibandhe ited a formalarchitecture of levels anddistinctions, mightlook like. He triedto show whatsuchan architecture representation of levels did so by offering a hierarchical that anddistinctions in the severalordersof understandings of cognized models. could be recognizedin the structure kindsof underThese levels arranged andrankeddifferent standings or propositions accordingto the degreeto which instrumental, they were denotative, specificallyreferential, generalandlackandempirically testable,or, alternatively, (ThisconvergeswithMaurice ing in specificreferentiality. [1989] thatcognitionthatis Bloch's morerecentargument close to experience and learned throughcontact with it needs to be distinguishedfrom ideology, discourses, and performances thatresemblecognitionbut in fact deny it and subsumeit underthe aegis of untestabletranscenformalmodelingof cognidentalschemata.)Rappaport's tion has the important virtueof recognizingthat symbols alikein valueandeffiarenot structurally andfunctionally and cacy, but differ in theirimplicationsboth structurally functionallyaccordingto wherethey are positionedin the hierarchy of cognition. which The first such level or orderof understandings, edifice, Rappaport placed at the apex of his hierarchical consistedof "ultimate sacredpropositions" in theMaring concerning ancestral spircase, conceptual understandings its. These understandings are conveyed in metaphorsof the utmostgeneralitythatare at the same time low in speaboutthe world.They cific and instrumental information yet these meaningsarenotrefconvey or suggestmeaning; erentialbut ultimatelysignify only themselves(see 1979: they are 156). Because they aregeneralandnonreferential "cryptic," ambiguous,or even "withoutsense" (p. 156). Yet, Rappaport argues,"thevery qualitiesof suchpropositions thatlead positiviststo take themto be withoutsense, or even nonsensical,are those that make them adaptively valid"(p. 156). Since they arefull of meaningbut"without sense,"theycan "sanctify, whichis to say certify,theentire withwhichpeople systemof understandings in accordance conducttheir lives" (p. 119). In consequence,Rappaport

. . byields the can entertain the idea that"theunfalsiE1able unquestionable, which transformsthe dubious,the arbitrary,and the conventional into the correct,the necessary, to manycritics,thisperandthe natural" (p. 217). Contrary and the spective insists that"themap is not the territory," "realcognized model is not isomorphicwith operational ity." Culturally cognized models may be adaptiveor hubut they manlyconstructive (the two are not isomorphic), as well as hucan also be or become grossly nonadaptive manlydestructive. We arenot in Dr. Pangloss'sgarden. comprised A second level or order of understandings concerning the fundacosmologicalaxioms,"assumptions to mentalstructure of the universeor, to put it differently, refer to the paradigmatic relationshipsin accordanceto (p. 118). In the Maring which the cosmos is constructed" case suchcosmologicalaxiomsconnectedclassesof spirits with qualitiesof the physical and social world, and with modesof actionin the worldthey inform.Theydifferfrom ultimate sacred postulates.These are "not fully of this in the face of moralworld"andcan thusremainunchanged change. Cosmologicalaxioms can and do change in reorhistorical cirsponseto external changesin environment cumstances. A third level in the hierarchicalorderingof understandingsconsists of the "specificrules . . . governingthe conductof relationsamong the persons,qualities,conditions, and states of affairswhose oppositionsare decreed by cosmologicalaxioms"(pp. 119-120). These rules are of everyday expressedbothin ritualandin the transactions (p. 120).The life, and"transform cosmologyinto conduct" understandings surrounding theserulesareeven moreflexible thanthose surrounding cosmologicalaxioms and can changewithoutchallenging the axiomsthemselves. deals primarilywith A fourthlevel of understandings of indicadigital information, the receiptand distribution tions of material andsocialconditionsissuingfromthe immediateeverydayworld.Finally, a fifth and highly comorders secular knowledge plex level of understandings about the evewday world. This fifth level largely deals the withthe kindof categoriesof knowledgethatinterested componential analystsin the fifties andearlysixties. Developingformalmodels of ordersof understandings in culturallycognized worlds representsone strategyof Rappaport's argumentation. He then connectedthis to a in the proposisecondline of argument, thistime grounded tion that ritualhas a special role to play in that ordering. Rereading Rappaport' s workon ritualmademe aware,as I had not been before,of the similaritybetweenhis type of argument andthatadoptedearlierby MarcelMaussin The of Gift. Mauss was quite cognizantthat the transactions reciprocity in giftingwereembeddedin otheractivitiesand institutions; thus,he was one of the few writerswho recognized thatthe potlatchesof the NorthwestCoast were not merelycompetitivegiveawaysbut were embeddedin "towith the dead, tal institutions"-in thatcase, transactions

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transfers of "soul-stuff"between groups,claims to legitimate descent and succession, and modes of warfare.In Rappaport's words,"Maring liturgical order,andliturgical orders generally, seem far richer in understanding and meaningthansocial, political,or ecologicalregulation obviously requires" (p. 116). Yet bothMaussandRappaport deem it appropriate andrewarding to abstract formalstructures from the wider plexus of elements and relations. Mauss's focus was the structure of reciprocityand its effects exhibitedin the gift, while Rappaport soughtto delineatethe regulatory effects of "thestructure of ritual" (pp. 174-175). The Rappaportian model of ritualis a logical construct: "there is at the heartof rituala relationship thathas certain logically necessaryentailments. Certainmeaningsand effects are intrinsicto the very structure of ritual,and ritual thus may impose, or seem to impose . . . Iogicalnecessity upon the vagrantaffairsof the world"(p. 173). His portrayal of the role of ritual is not intendedto be "finalcausal" thatis, to locatecause in the functional contributions made by particularelements to the operationof specific systems. It is, rather, "formal-causal" (see discussion in Rappaport 1984:357-361). He definesritual"asthe performance of moreor less invariant sequencesof formal acts and utterances not encodedby the performers" (Rappaport1979:175), then strives to exhibit how its various featuresare boundtogetherthroughlogically intrinsicenchainment into "aconcatenation" (1979:175). To summarizebriefly, albeit muchtoo simply,ritualis formal stylized, repetitive, stereotyped, "eanzest"(p. 177)-even whenit trafficsin humorandbanter. It is notably resistantto variation;its formalityis taken to be a measureof the efficacy imputedto it. The messages conveyed by ritual combine both "indexical"inforlllation aboutthe participants and theirconditionsin the here and now and "canonical"messages about "the enduringaspects of nature,society, or cosmos" (p. 182) that are encodedin the seeminglyinvariant aspectsof the ritualorder. When people take partin ritualperformance, bodily and vocally, they signal indexically that they assent to the authority relationsstipulatedby the ritualand bow to the canonicalmessages aboutthe enduring orderin which humansshouldfind theirplace.The performance itself represents that orderand remindsthe participants of it, but it does morethanthat:it createsor re-creates the social and moralcontractlaid down by thatorder.Becausethatorder is its own ultimatesignified,finally,its canonicalinvocation in ritualtends to emphasizeits overarching, transcendent "wholeness" ratherthansegmentalinterestsandconcerns.Thattranscendent wholeness,in turn,is guaranteed, legitimized,andrendered morecertainby "theultimatesacredpostulates." These may be neitherverifiable norfalsifiable but conveyed to the ritualactorsthroughthe words attributed to gods or ancestors.

Rappaport's understanding of the causal effects of this structureas "formal-causal" (1984:357-361) resembles Louis Althusser'sarguments (Althusser andBalibar1970: 18S187) for a "structural causality."Althusserdefined this mode of causality as the effects of a combination, structure, or "concatenation" of multiplefeatures, whichin concertrenderpossible or probablesome kinds of action while limiting or inhibitingothers.Such a notion differs sharplyfrom Cartesian conceptsof linearcausalityof determinate cause anddeterminate effect, anddiffersas well from Germanidealistand neoidealistnotionsof causality whereinnerspiritual drivingforces produceexpressiveeffects. A formalstructural-causal conceptof this type could be specificallyhelpfulin dealing with the complexitiesof anthropological subjectmatterby allowingus to visualize how multipleinteracting causes can generate a field of potentialconsequencesandrelationships. It is entirelyappropriateto be interested in particular elementsandparticular systems, including symbolic elements and systems of meaning,logically or dialogicallyestablished. But thereis also a real need for an etic strategythat can analytically identify theoreticallyinteresting and productiveformal "structures," whetherthese be structures of energeticexchanges,reciprocalrelations,kinship,ritual,or myth. Indeed, without such analysis, who needs anthropology? Rappaport's thinkinghas greatlycontnbutedto that project. Yet a fundamental issue is posed by the notionof "ultimatesacredpostulates," which Rappaport left unresolved. Rappaport tells us that these postulatesare "deeperthan logic andbeyondlogic's reach. . . devoidof material terms . . . eternalverities" (1979:119).Theirmainroleis to frame cognition, without, however, committingthemselves to any particular arrangement of axioms, rules, and categories. "Being devoid of explicit social content they can sanctify everything, including change, while remaining irrevocablycommittedto nothing"(p. 119). Rappaport's contribution in this regard is his multilevel,multitiered understanding of "cognizedmodels,"his comprehension that not all the understandings makingup those models carry equivalent semioticvalue. In this thereis an apparent paradoxand a concomitant difficulty. These ultimate propositions do not present themselvesunproblematically eitherto the anthropologist or to the people in question.As fieldworkers and analysts we construct them out of our protocolson participant-observation andreports; we abstract themfromthehubbub of the life thatsurrounds us in the field. But formingpartof thatlife they arealso implicatedin it andin its web of culturalknowledgeandcommunication, whichincludesliturgies. Clearly,the ultimatepropositionsmay endureover very long spans of time, even as theirfunctionalconnectionsto the restof life changes.In Mesoamerica, for example, we see the persistenceof sacredparadigms of space and time in the shaping of Mesoamericanist calendars,

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arevariouslydeployedto different even as these calendars politicalends. In the Europeof the MiddleAges andthereafter, as the FrenchhistorianGeorges Duby has demonof society strated(1980), the same medieval tripartition was variouslyconjupriests,andcultivators into warriors, gated over the centuriesto answerto changingeconomic andpoliticalinterests. Sahlins'slectureon by Marshall Yet I am not persuaded of Westerncosmology" (1996), "the native anthropology of the sacredpostulates" in which he traces the "ultimate neoliberalfree marketall the way backto the biblicalstory of Adam's sin and fall. For Sahlins, the cosmological structure he there identifiesowes the enduringcontinuity of its effects entirelyto the force of its formal structural properties.He accordsno significanceto the relationsof versionof the to keep the Augustinian powerthatoperated to in place,anddismissesas irrelevant structural paradigm the millennialpowercontests an accountof this continuity over which religiousregimewouldprevailin Clwistendom (see Bargatzky1996). Sahlins thus does not considerthe possibility that the ultimatesacredpropositionabout human sinfulnessmay so long endurebecause it legitimates oppressionby tyrantscarnedout in the name of upholding sin. virtueandcurtailing I find it unlikely that such ultimatesacredpropositions endurethroughthe ages only by dint of theirlogical integrationand aestheticelegance. Logics and aestheticsare certainlyat work in shapingcognized models, but I question whethertheirimputedsacrednesscan persistover the centurieswithoutinvolvementin the workingsof power. andcensoraresubjectto surveillance Sacredpropositions by the administraship, or to promotionand sponsorship tors of power and knowledgewho commandthe "discurairangements andinstitutional apparatuses, sive procedures, of thatknowledge'" (Lindstrom thatregulatethe 'practice 1990:15). Such grids of power functioneven in societies that yet by little economic differentiation characterized produce elites of influentials chosen on metaphysical/moral grounds.Thus, RaymondKelly (1993) shows PapuaNew Guineaselect how the Etoro of southwestern on the basis of culturalcriteria an elite of spirit-mediums that accord with Etoro ultimate sacred postulates; in areputin a posiachievingthatstatus,the elite personages theirrange thatunderwrote tion to sustainthe very criteria of influencein the firstplace. thatsuchan elite At the same time,thereis no guarantee will forever replicatethe same discourses and performhow leadersof ances. FredrikBarth(1987) demonstrates initiationrituals among the differentlocal groups of the variMountainOk of New Guineaproducesubtraditional anddiscoursewithinan overarching abilityin performance of historically relatedideas andsymbols.Barth framework

as the "Renaissance charactenzes thesentualimpresanos of nearlythe totalityof giantsof theirsociety,masters lore" of all its sacred culture andcontrollers theirgroup's (p.73). ocintomultiple differentiation of a society Continuing thereperandclassesis likelyto expand cupational groups toire of cognized models even further,sometimesresults. though by no meansalways withtrarlsforrnative "idolatries," "usurpations," At thatpointthe nonadaptive may exconatedby Rappaport and "oversanctifications" work to inhibitchange,not becausethey are morally will inevitato power" "speaking truth wrong butbecause ox. This is why a holisticecology bly goresomebody's ecolmustbecome political advocated suchas Rappaport mustbe both ecology,andindeed ogy as well as historical atonce. References Cited
Althusser,Louis, and EtienneBalibar Books. 1970 ReadingCapital.New York:Pantheon Bargatzky,Thomas 17:416417. 1996 Comment.CurrentAnthropology Barth,Fredrik 1987 Cosmologies in the Making:A GenerativeApproach to CulturalVariationin Inner New Guinea. Cambridge: UniversityPress. Cambridge Bloch, Maurice 1989 From Cognition to Ideology. In Ritual, History and Power: Selected Papers in Anthropology.Pp. 106 136. NJ:AthlonePress. LondonandAtlanticHighlands, Duby, Georges Chicago: FeudalSociety Imagined. 1980 The ThreeOrders: Universityof ChicagoPress. Kelly, RaymondC. of a HierarThe Fabrication Inequality: 1993 Constructing chy of Virtueamong the Etoro.Ann Arbor:Univer-sityof MichiganPress. Lindstrom,Lamont 1990 Knowledge and Power in a South Pacific Society. Washington, DC and London: Smithsonian Institution Press. Mauss, Marcel 1954 The Gift. Glencoe,IL:The FreePress. Rappaport, Roy A. 1979 Ecology, Meaning, and Religion. Richmond, CA: NorthAtlanticBooks. 1984 Pigs for the Ancestors:Ritualin the Ecology of a New Guinea People. New, enlargededition. New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress. Sahlins,Marshall and Eclectic 1976 Comment on A. H. Berger, "Structural CriMaterialist Revisions of MarxistStrategy:A Cultural Anthropology17:298-300. tique."Current 1996 The Sadnessof Sweetness:The Native Anthropology 17:395415. of WesternCosmology.CurrentAnthropology