On Lévi Strauss Concept of Structure.

On Lévi-Strauss' Concept of Structure
Author(s): Nathan Rotenstreich

Source: The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Mar., 1972), pp. 489-526
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CRITICAL STUDIES
*
ON L?VI-STRAUSS' CONCEPT OF STRUCTURE
NATHAN ROTENSTREICH
A. WHOLES AND STRUCTURES
Structure is a version of "form" provided that "form" is not

understood as an external shape or appearance but as an order
determining the meaning and the position of its components.

Structure is a scheme of relations between components and events.
As such it is a variation
of the concept of Gestalt, which can be
taken in this context as the background concept of the more
elaborate one of structure. To make this clearer let us refer to
Max Wertheimer's presentation of the nature of Gestalt as a whole
the behaviour is not determined
of which by the individual
elements composing the whole, but by the intrinsic nature of the
whole.1 The assumption is that there are intrinsic natures to
wholes, and an illustration is a Beethoven symphony, where it
would be possible to select one part of the whole and work from
that towards an idea of a structural principle motivating and
determining the whole.2
Claude is aware of his affinity
L?vi-Strauss with the thrust of
the Gestalt school. He suggests that he only adds the discipline
of sociology or anthropology to those guided by the concept of
Gestalt.3 The structure is made of several elements, none of
which can undergo a change without effecting in all
changes
*
The paper is based on discussions held at the Center for the Study
of Democratic Institutions, Santa Barbara, California.
1
Quoted from his "Gestalt Theory," in A Source Book of Psychology,
ed. Willis D. Ellis (New York: Humanities Press, 1950), p. 2.
2
"The General Theoretical Situation," ibid., p. 11.
3
Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1963), p. 325.
490 NATHAN ROTENSTREICH
other elements.4 Yet one additional aspect has to be emphasized,

that of possible prediction applied to a structure. The presence
of the properties comprised in a structure makes it possible, accord
ing to him, to predict how the model will react if one or more of
its elements are submitted to certain modifications.5
An additional term used by L?vi-Strauss is that of "order" or
"order of order": The concept of the interrelationships between
the levels to which structural analysis can be applied. Order of
orders is comprised of formal properties of the whole made up of
sub-wholes, each of which corresponds to a given structural
level.6
A furtherstep is taken when specific structures or orders are

as exhibiting the basic features of orders. The struc
presented
tures listed, at least, as illustrations are kinships, political ideol
ogies, mythologies, ritual, art, code of etiquette and even
cooking.7 The discernment of these structures and their com
parative analysis, which takes into account the distribution of them

both historically and geographically, is indeed the subject-matter
of structural anthropology.8
The implication seems to be twofold: first, that societies
are structures; second, that these structures are sub
and,
divided into secondary structures, the latter lending themselves to
a description or definition with regard to a certain common core,
like kinship, myth, etc. Thus "the order of orders" calls for an
investigation of orders to be defined by the concept of structure
on the one hand and by certain "material" specific meanings like
etc., on the other. What keeps the structures together
kinship,
is both their inner cohesiveness as an order of elements and the
organizing principle of certain meanings into different structures.
Human awareness itself is not placed in a position apart from
these different structures. Human consciousness is essentially
part of a structure and is shaped by the interaction of its different
ingredients. One may discern here an anti-Cartesian trend char

acteristic of structuralism. Interestingly enough, the integration
4
Op. cit., p. 279.
5
Loc. cit.
6
Ibid., p. 33.
7
Ibid., p. 46.
8
Ibid., p. 85.
ON LEVI-STRAUSS7 CONCEPT OF STRUCTURE 491
of consciousness in the structures is justified by underlining the

fact that only through structures do we not reduce social facts to
scattered fragments. Social facts are lived by men, and con
sciousness is as much a form of their reality as are their objective
characteristics.9
Structures are viewed as invariants of human life and society.

Here we have to distinguish between structures as such, like
or the economic which are com
kinship exchange, necessary
ponents of human life; and the various and different expressions

of these structures in
empirically societies encountered. The
necessary aspect is the subject-matter of human knowledge proper,
or the subject matter of science, since science is based on the dis
tinction between the contingent and the necessary. The con
tingent comprises the events and the variations, while the neces
sary connotes structures in their basic systematic forms.10
To be sure, this statement calls for an exploration of the
concept of necessity used here; whether the necessity, e.g., of
family structures in social existence occupies the same logical and
metaphysical position as the necessity of the law of gravitation.
L?vi-Strauss seems not to be concerned with these differences
when he points to the analogy between structures and laws. He
considers it justified to move further and to assume not only
formal invariants qua structures but also material invariants in
terms of materially meaningful structures.
It appears that for L?vi-Strauss the fundamental or even
primary human experience is that of grasping oppositions. These
are called "binary oppositions," and they are referred to as
"certain incompatibilities which are consciously maintained a
lx by
special group and which possess a normative value." The
assumption seems to be that the rational grasp of the world
expresses itself in noticing oppositions; and by the same token
these oppositions can be rendered as human behaviour,
guiding
as would be the case in the opposition between sacred and profane.
There are several attempts to list these oppositions,
though one
9
Claude L?vi-Strauss: The Scope of Anthropology, translated by Sherry
Ortherand and Robert A. Pane (London: Jonathan Cape, 1967), p. 14.
10
Claude L?vi-Strauss: The Savage Mind (La Pens?e (Chi
Sauvage)
cago: of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 21.
11University
Structural Anthropology, p. 87.
wonders whether we
a full list of them in any of the
do find
writings. Some of the examples are the oppositions between hot
food and cold food; milky drink and alcoholic drink; fresh fruit
and fermented fruit.12 Other examples are taken from the scope
of human life, like men and women; the right hand and the left
hand;13 birth and death; individual and collective.14 Leach
presents an even more

comprehensive list of binary oppositions,
including this world and the other world, culture and nature.15
There is in L?vi-Strauss a to present the data of the
tendency
world as structured in oppositions, as: two seasons, two sexes,
two societies, etc. He suggests a connection, though he does not
elaborate the methodological grounding of it, between the binary
oppositions in the descriptive sense and that opposition in the

normative sense. He about season and bad season,
speaks good
and points to the connection between good season and the male.
There are difficulties and contradictions encountered here, as he
points out, since in that interpretation not only power and
efficacy but sterility as well would have to be attributed to the
profane and female element.1'
Be this as it may, we
have to reiterate that what we find here
are only suggestions and variations on the main theme of opposi
tions grasped and expressed in activities of societies and in their
structures. In addition, there is an intimation of the connection
between the factual and the normative, indicating that in these
respective structures there is no clear-cut distinction between "is"
and "ought." Yet a full logical and methodological elaboration
is missing.
The following are the questions which have to be asked in
this context: What makes the awareness of opposites into the
primordial mode of conceptualization, if we may use this term,

of man's relation to the world; and what
explains that precisely
the opposites are the organizing kernels of the different structures ?
The philosophical reasoning behind this assumption is not clear
in L?vi-Strauss; that is to say, he does not elaborate the possibility
12
Loe. cit.
13
The of Anthropology,
Scope p. 12.
14
TheSavage Mind, p. 80.
15
E. Leach, L?vi-Strauss (London: Fontana Books, 1969), pp. 85, 69.
16
The Savage Mind, p. 92.
ON L?VI-STRAUSS7 CONCEPT OF STRUCTURE 493
that "the minimum of reasoning" is implied when opposites are

the fundamentum divisionis in the field of perception and con
ception. To elaborate this would lead L?vi-Strauss to a broader
view of the structure of knowledge and conception than he
presents and possibly attempts to present.
On a more concrete level, there are several
suggestions which
have to be mentioned at this point. L?vi-Strauss presupposes, in
his analysis of structures and the opposites comprised in struc
tures, the duality "man and world." After all, even when it is
assumed that man and world are embraced in the selfsame totality,
the aspect of embracing does not do away with the aspects of the
difference in terms of the respective meaning of the partners?man
and world. When he says "This is reciprocity of in
17 perspectives,
which man and the world mirror each other," he makes a state
ment which points precisely to the difference between the distinct
members in the totality, i.e., man and world. This totalized
duality, if we may use this description, is in L?vi-Strauss'
explicit
presentation of the difference between religion and magic: "... it
can, in a sense, be said that religion consists in the humanization
of natural laws and magic in a naturalization of human laws?the
treatment of certain human actions as if they were an integral
. . ."
part of the physical determinism. The distinction between
man and world or nature, and the distinction between directed
ness towards man on the one hand and towards nature on the
other, at least, in all the further distinctions

is presupposed, and
oppositions comprehend or put forward.
The perception of nature in its relation to man emerges as a
primary datum of all structures. Man's

perception in turn is
to be taken as an activity?and man
is never merely a
passive
observer and spectator. This indeed is to some extent already
implied in the view that the primary perception of the world is in
terms of oppositions. To grasp oppositions is to exercise an
activity of selection, segregation and even evaluation, as the dis

tinction between sacred and profane indicates. This active ap
proach is expressed by L?vi-Strauss in the tendency to put into
thinking as against perception, since perception would

prominence
17
Op. cit., p. 222.
18
Ibid., p. 221.
imply man's exposure to impressions, whilst thinking implies

systematization, though that systematization in turn is implement
ed in various L?vi-Strauss seems to assume or to
ways.19 pre
suppose human activity within the duality between man and

world; both the duality and the activity are fundamental data.
Human activity presupposes?and here again the philosophical
assumption is taken for granted and not elaborated?the openness
of the world as the arena of action; and this openness in turn
enables the systematization of the structuring in various and
continuous ways and modes.
Thus we may sum up: structuring occurs vis-?-vis different

pairs of opposites. The primary pair is man and world or man
and nature. The awareness of the opposites is in itself a structur
ing qua perception of order, and the various ways of bringing
together the pairs of opposites is in turn an additional structure.
We do not start out with scattered concepts: we start with
structures and move to further structures. We start with order
and move from another order or to an order of orders.
There is a structure to the relation between these orders or
structures. This "structure of structures" is not just a static
relation of i.e. beside or even
coexistence, language kinship, etc.,
not one of subordination a narrow structure such as rites
whereby
is comprised in or is secondary to a wider structure such as society.
II
Let us move now

to an analysis of the relations pertaining
between different structures. This analysis will in turn bring
into prominence an additional aspect of invariability in the sum
total of human activity and existence.
Language occupies a preponderant position for L?vi-Strauss.
He himself points to the lesson he learned from linguistics and
views his approach as an extension to another field of structural
linguistics associated with Jacobson.20 This corresponds to the
previously mentioned extension of the concept of Gestalt not com

in the original Gestalt theory. Using a different termi
prised
19
Op. cit., pp. 94-95.
20
ON L?VI-STRAUSS' CONCEPT OF STRUCTURE 495
nology, L?vi-Strauss speaks about language as a totalizing entity

or totalization.21
The prominent position of language can be explained by at

least two interrelated considerations: First, language is the
primary manifestation of human or human activity
creativity
versus the world. the line of
Anthropologically speaking,
demarcation between culture and nature
is not in tool-making but
in articulate speech. Thus the position of language as the
differentia specifica of man justifies turning language into a model
of structures prevalent in human existence.22 Second, Language
operates not on the level of consciousness but on the level of un
consciousness. "... an totalization . . .which has its
unreflecting
23
reasons and of which man knows nothing."
There is probably an affinity between the unconscious char
acter of linguistic reactivity and its position as a constant factor
in social existence: is ... a with
"Language general phenomenon
24
a very relative, but nevertheless very great, Lan
stability."
guage does not
just flame up; it creates an order of its own; and
that order is present not only in the comprehensive structures of
linguistic units, but also with regard to the continuity over genera
tions of men. The meaningful order which endures in time is an
essential feature of language. Though we do not find this for
mulation in L?vi-Strauss, we may be entitled to say that language
as a created order endowed with becomes a kind of
stability
nature.
parallel
The position of language indicated before is enhanced by the
material texture of it. Language is the sum-total of symbols and
sounds, the two being understood as indications for
standing
something else. The indications present objects but do not
resemble the objects represented: "The essential feature of lan
guage?as Ferdinand de Saussure so showed?is
emphatically
as a system of signs which have no material with
25 relationship
what they are intended to signify." And this view is reenforced
21
22
Conversations with Claude L?vi-Strauss, ed. C. Charbonnier (Lon
don: Jonathan Cape, 1969), p. 149.
23
24
Conversations, pp. 60-61.
25
Ibid., p. 108.
by the reference to Pierce's celebrated definition, according to

26
which a sign is "that which replaces something for someone."
"The choice of the sign may be arbitrary, but it retains an in
herent value . . . which becomes associated with its semantic
27
function and modulates." Eventually the scope of science is
enlarged and structuralism goes beyond language proper, as
sounds permeated with meaning. The broader concept intro
duced is that of message or communication. Traffic regulations
using the colours green and red use signs to convey a message.
Generally speaking, messages are vehicles of communication.
Communication becomes here the genus; signs are the instru
ments and language proper is just ones species of the genus.
Social existence is based on a whole complex of forms of com
munication.28
To communicate is not only to transmit information; it com

prises different domains of sharing as well. Starting with com
munication as an of we move to an
exchange ideas, enlarged
version of communication as an in that
exchange general,
exchange being accomplished or performed according to certain

rules. Thus we speak about languages or exchange systems in
different contexts : mythical language ; the oral and gestical signs,
of which ritual is composed; marriage rules; kinship systems;
customary laws; and certain terms and conditions of economic
This of or communication
exchange.29 omnipresence language
leads to the description of the subject-matter and direction of
anthropological research: "If men communicate by means of
symbols and signs, then, for anthropology, which is a conversa

tion of men with men, everything is symbol and sign, when it
30
acts as intermediary between two subjects."
The contact between subjects depends on the
intermediary
of signs. There are no subjects outside the systems of signs, and
here again we encounter the anti-Cartesian trend of structuralism
which does not provide for the independent position of the cogito,
26
The Scope of Anthropology, p. 18.
27
28
Ibid., p. 357.
29
30
Ibid., p. 20.
ON L?VI-STRAUSS' CONCEPT OF STRUCTURE 497
since the subject is essentially and ab initio involved in structures

of communication.
Methodologically speaking, the shift to the notion of com

munication provides the advantage of presenting an overriding
concept for the different disciplines of the social sciences, or for
what is called "consolidation" of these disciplines. Moreover,
since we are concerned with of we are
systems communications,
concerned with the study of rules and have little concern with the
nature of the partners.31 The disregard for the partners and the
preponderance of the rules is, as it were, the anthropological
expression of the anti-Cartesian trend.
The programmatic objective of the theory is to explore the
necessary of human existence as the con
components against
tingent components. We realize now that the most necessary of

all is the component of communication. Whatever occurs empir
ically between human beings occurs in the context of communica

tion. An additional methodological advantage seems to lie in
the fact that there are only limited modes of communication?
though there is no attempt for a kind of transcendental deduction
of those modes of communication.
In societies, communication occurs; and this seems to be
just a fact, on three different levels: communication of women,
communication of goods and services, and communication of
messages. There is naturally a correspondence between these
modes of communication and the respective scholarly disciplines:
kinship studies deal with marriage; economics deal with goods
and services; while linguistics deal with messages.32 These modes
of communication can be viewed also as forms of exchange which
are interrelated. Since we deal with different expressions of com
munication in general and interrelation between the different sub
headings or particular modes of communication, it is legitimate
to seek what is called as a terminus technicus "homologies"
between these modes of communication.
is to put The task
forward the formal characteristics of each type of communication
considered independently, and to deal with the transformations
31
32
Ibid., p. 296.
which make possible the transition from one mode of communica

tion to another mode.33
There is thus a factual and a structural interrelation between

these modes of communication. From the factual point of view
it can be shown in many cases that the system of marriage is not
independent of the system of exchange of goods, since marriages

are sometimes between families or tribes because of
performed
economic considerations. This is to show that, factually speak
ing, in many cases there can be no clear-cut separation between
modes of communication. But, secondly, there is a structural
intersection between these various modes, since there prevails an
analogy or what is called homology between all these different

modes of communication. Exchange, that is to
say exchange
between families, exchange of goods and exchange of informa
tion and messages, is the structural common feature of all modes
of communication. Thus is not only grounded
the intersection in
empirical considerations in the but also
possibilities inherent in
these modes of communication to enter into relations of mutual
exchangeability. This seems to be a rather important point,
since what is attempted here is an exploration of the interrelation
between the empirical reasoning and the systematic structure, the
intimation being that empirical considerations do not stand alone
and have their fundamental grounding in the structures them
selves. There is a correspondence between the empirical level
and the structural level.
Once the affinity between modes of communication is made
prominent, the tendency is to obliterate the differences between

them, e.g. the difference between exchange of words and exchange
of goods, let alone between human beings. L?vi-Strauss seems to
be aware of these striking differences with regard to the sub
stantive aspect of communication, if we may use this expression.
But just the same he is rather quick in pointing out the structural
between one level of communication and another:
homology
". . . These results can be achieved only by treating marriage
and kinship as a kind of language. . . .
regulations systems
That the women of the group, who are circulated between clans,
33
Op. cit., p. 83.
CONCEPTOF STRUCTURE
ON L?VI-STRAUSS7 499
lineages, or families in place of words of the group, which are

circulated between individuals, does not at all change the fact
that the essential aspect of the phenomenon is identical in both
34
cases."
Let us recall what has previously been said?that the

emphasis is laid on the rules and not on the partners. Hence we
encounter here a disregard for the substantive difference between
e.g. women and words. The difference stressed is that of
circulation between individuals against as circulation between
groups, since again the emphasis is on the process of circulation
and its rules and not on those who are circulated. Structuralism
amounts here to a kind of reductionism to rules as against
partners. The difference?and after all this difference is grasped

even when it cannot be listed as a
"binary opposition"?between
words and humanbeings is not taken into account.
The affinity between the different structures is rendered in the
concept of transformation or permutation, which in turn is the
concomitant concept of that of communication. Once more,
language is taken as a model; the concept of transformation is
extricated from language. Language has to be guided by rules,
and thus has to be cohesive. This cohesiveness, though it is
inaccessible to observation in an isolated system, will be revealed
in the study of transformations.35 Signs and symbols can only
function in so far as they belong to systems. The property
of a system of signs is to be transformable or, in other words,
translatable.36
The concept of transformation as a guiding principle of social

observation is derived from an additional source beyond that of
translation and
its application to language. To comprehend a
social reality is to translate to our own way of understanding the
rules pertaining to the reality which is the subject-matter of our
investigation. When we consider systems of belief or of social
organization, the question we ask ourselves is: "What does all
this mean or signify?," and the answer to this question forces
34
35
The Scope, p. 31.
36
Loe. cit.
us to translate the subject-matter of our investigation into lan

guage rules originally stated in a different code,37 which is in this
case our own code. Again, the question of translatability provides
the difference between language proper and poetry, since poetry
cannot be translated except at the cost of serious distortions, while
the mythical value of
the myth is preserved even in the worst
translation.38 Ultimately
we come here to the statement ?f an
overriding methodical principle: "... For any given model there
should be a possibility of ordering a series of transformations,
39
resulting in a group of models of the same type."
From this consideration, the homology leading to the possi
bility of translation from one level of communication to another
one is warranted. L?vi-Strauss goes further and considers the
transmutations within one level of communication, i.e., the pos
sible transformations between
different, or what appear to be
different, myths, in one system of mythology (the Greek one, for
instance) and even a transmutation from one mythology to another
mythology (e.g. Greek

Indian). andHe attempts to construct
a table of possible permutations between the terms and the empir
ical phenomenon studied; for instance, the OEdipus myth is only
one possible combination of the terms among other possible com
binations; or else the Orpheus-Eurydice myth is a structural per
mutation of the Demeter-Persephone myth.
The essence of structuralism can be summed up in the follow
ing There are wholes of action and behavior. With

points:
respect to human-social existence, these wholes are language,
kinship and economics. The affinity between these structures
inheres not only in their formal character as structure but also
in the material character of the activity running through these
structures, i.e., communication.
Since communication is a way of using symbols, and symbols

are primarily linguistic, there is an affinity between all modes of
structures and language. This affinity provides for the exchange
or translation from one structure to the other?thus warranting
as it were, the common core of the different
operationally,
37
cit., p. 18.
38 Op.
39
Ibid., p. 279.
structures. Along with the transmutation between different struc

tures, there are transmutations within
the respective structures;
and this way of investigation applies mainly to the myths. Sug
gested is a repository of mythic themes, the latter being rather
limited in their content. The emphasis on structure is one on
organization. The emphasis on exchange within the structures

and the exchange among the structures exhibits a kind of formal
or formalistic undertone inherent in human creativity.
Preference is thus given to the formal aspects of the domains
investigated. This formal or even formalistic aspect is inherent
in human creativity. L?vi-Strauss is aware of the?only?
methodical character of the ideas employed in the investigation
of structures when he says that a concretesociety can never be
40
reduced to its structure; or when he puts it even into a stronger
formulation that the term "social structure" has nothing to do
with empirical reality but with models which are built after it.41
But in the sanie context he speaks about "raw materials" out of
which models making up the social structure are built; and we
come back again to the question of the partners, since to some
extent the partners forming what is called "social relations" are
the raw material. But in the programmatic presentation itself
it is clear that social structure has to be viewed as a method to be
applied to any kind of social studies, similar to the structural
analysis current in other disciplines.
The distinction implied here is one between a model and
and seems to be just a reformulation of Max Weber's
reality
concept of the Ideal Type applied to investigations conducted by
social sciences. Though L?vi-Strauss sees it mandatory for the
sake of the conception of the real to remove the lived (v?cu), he
still implies in this theory that there is an affinity between the
inherent structure of the expressions of human creativity and the
deliberate use of the
structurist method as presenting models
applied to human creativity. There is a lesser gap, to put it in
comparative terms, between social reality and the model than is
assumed in the notion of the Ideal Type. Social reality studied is
not a pure embodiment of one model, nor does it correspond
40
cit., p. 327.
41 Op.
Ibid., p. 279.
42
exactly to one or to the other
type theoretically discerned;
nevertheless, the formalism implied and operating in real human
life is reiterated on the level of the method. The operation of
formalism in human life seems to be essentially unconscious ;
while the presentation of structures as a method and as a model
is obviously deliberate and conscious.
At this juncture we have to go beyond the concept of structure
in the limited sense of the term to some of the implied notions
related to human nature and motivations of human behaviour.
Structuralism ceases to be a theory of social research and of social
action and becomes, willy-nilly, a kind of anthro
philosophical
pology engaged not only in a methodological investigation but
assuming a between investigation and the to-be
harmony
investigated human creativity.43
B. STRUCTURES AND HUMAN NATURE
III
L?vi-Strauss is an anthropologist in the empirical sense,

concerned with the exploration of societies and cultures. As such,
his concern with the subject-matter needs no further justification
by way of extracting the lesson to be learned from the anthropo
logical studies. But the fact is that L?vi-Strauss makes some
scattered or systematic incursions into a field related to, but going
beyond, that of his empirical studies. He points out some funda

mental issues of a methodological character or of a substantive
character, the latter carrying a philosophical innuendo. It is
with these facets of L?vi-Strauss' presentation that we are con
cerned now.
Let us start with L?vi-Strauss' own comment on the method

he employs in his
exploration and analysis of the anthropological
data. Structures discerned in the data are guiding the immanent
meaning of the data. Structures are a guiding tool to be used in
42
43
Consult on L?vi-Strauss' theory of human mind in general Eug?ne
Fleishmann, "L'esprit humain selon Claude L?vi-Strauss," Archives Euro
p?enne de Sociologie, VII/I (1966), 27 ff.
order to point to the data. He assumes that unless we approach

the data with a conceptual framework, the data themselves could
not be discerned or identified.44
It is not accidental that he points to structures as the neces
sary component in the sum-total of social reality. He implicitly
rejects the view that a discipline concerned with social data is or
can be idiographic, i.e., that it can be an exploration of the partic
ular or singular events as they come and go. The dichotomy of
and nomothetic?or Verstehen and Erkl?ren, as the
idiographic
dichotomies were elaborated in the nineteenth and twentieth
century philosophy of humanities (Geisteswissenschaften)?is

replaced by the view that there is more of a similarity between the
study of social phenomena and the study of natural events than

some schools assumed; in both areas the phenomena studied are
comprehended in networks of relationships. In the area of social

studies, the interrelationship between becoming and the charac
teristic features of that which becomes is stressed; and this, in
turn, corresponds to the interrelation between structures and
events. A corollary to this methodological approach is to be
found in the rejection of the method of induction using methods
borrowed the logic of John Stuart Mill:45
from we do not arrive
at the formulation of the generic concept of structure and at the
formulation of certain recurring structures organizing the
of a conclusion based on induction,
phenomena by way listing
different phenomena and trying to find post factum the common
denominator of all of them or of the bulk of them. We approach
the phenomena with the view or the presupposition that there are
structures, and we discern the structures in the phenomena at
stake.
Yet L?vi-Strauss apparently does not take the view that the
of the concept of structure is a pragmatic or
presupposition
methodological assumption only, put of
forward for the sake
Structures correspond to or express the built-in
exploration.
character of thinking and language as the major expression of
We know about the structure before we know the
thinking.
empirical phenomena dispersed in time or dealt with in remote
44
45
Ibid., p. 33.
societies since structures are inherent in the nature of our

very
approach to the world.

Though expression I am going the to
propose at this juncture cannot be found in L?vi-Strauss, it seems
to be appropriate to suggest that he presupposes here a kind of
phenomenological awareness of structures, this awareness being
implied in that of the interrelation between man and world. This
is not meant to imply that the awareness is a conscious one,
accompanied by self-reflection ; the contrary is the case. Yet the
implicit structure and the implicit awareness of structures ac

company all activities and formulations.
The exploration of the primitive societies and of the savage
mind has its additional
justification existing in the relation between
structures and the primitive society and the mind of its members.
Characteristic of the savage mind is its "intransigent refusal . . .
46
to allow anything human (or even living) to remain alien to it."
In this sense, we may say that the savage mind finds its expression
in a grasp of comprehensive totalities, bringing together different
fields of activity and linking what might go by the name nature on
the one hand and culture on the other. The savage mind is a
mode par excellence of awareness of grasping totalities.
In so far as the modern scientific attitude or the scientific
spirit is engaged in the investigation of structures, it has to be

viewed as continuing the mind of the savage societies. It presents
also tools and concepts to enable us to articulate the structures
inherent in the savage mind; the assumption is that the savage
mind lacks that self-reflection. But L?vi-Strauss goes further
than this. According to him, the scientific spirit in its most
modern form will have contributed to legitimize the principles of
savage thought and to re-establish it in its rightful place.47 Now,
one wonders what this legitimization is about: is it to show that
the savage thought is a structure, and thus an expression of human
creativity; or is it to show that it has, comparatively speaking

vis-?-vis the modern mind or thought, a superior position? This
ambivalence is expressed somehow emphatically in the Inaugural
Lecture on the assumption of the Chair at the College de France:
there L?vi-Strauss says that he assumes the position of being the
46
47
Ibid., p. 269.
witness to or for the primitive societies. To be a witness is to

bring evidence, to present points, and even to argue for. But he
precedes the statement about being a witness by saying that he
will be their pupil.48 And one wonders what is the status of a
pupil. Is he taught by the master things which have a normative
position for him now, or is he brought by the master to see broad
horizons of reality and creativity? Be it as it may, there is more
here than a detached interest in a subject-matter; there is an
indication of an involvement or engagement.
There seems to be an additional attraction, of a broader or
more philosophical motivation, in the concern with the primitive
societies and their creations. Though L?vi-Strauss makes the
rhythm of opposites the running thread of creative expression,
underneath these binary opposites a
is duality between spontaneity
and rule or or even constraint. In one of his
restraint, articles,49
L?vi-Strauss characterizes the area of myth as the one where the
mind is engaged in the most free fashion in its own creative
spontaneity. It therefore interested him, he says, to explore
whether or not in this area the mind is obeying rules and
precisely
laws. It was clear that rules and laws are obeyed in the area of
marriage and kinship; now he found that there are rules even in
myth-poetic activity. Hence, he draws the conclusion that, since

the mind is determined even in this area, it is bound to be even
more determined in other areas.
This sounds like a kind of a fortiori argument: the thrust

toward creativity is characteristic of the manifestation of the
mind. But that is essentially
thrust expressed within certain
boundaries. If this
interaction between expansive creativity and
boundaries is to be found in the domain of the myth, then we can
conclude that there is no manifestation which is free from this
interaction. The is that there is such an interaction;
assumption
and this assumption again can be viewed as
phenomenologically
present and empirically warranted or embodied in kinship sys
tems, etc. The appearance of the selfsame interaction in the area
of myth is the crucial empirical confirmation of the phenomeno
48
The Scope, p. 253.
49
"R?ponse ? quelques questions," Esprit, 31e ann?e (November 1963),
p. 630.
logical thesis. Actually, what L?vi-Strauss seems to be implying

here is that the inter-action which Kant, or Cassierer following
Kant, took to be characteristic
of reason, is characteristic of the
mind, mind
(both esprit and pens?e) being the sum-total of the
agents of human creativity and their expression. There is implied,
and again one has to recall Kant, a creativity spontaneously
ordered; and only the assumption of that creativity enables L?vi
Strauss to speak about a logical order of what myths seek to
explain.50 Logic, in turn, consists of the establishment of neces
sary connections.51
Logic is inherent in creativity. Creativity takes place within

necessary connections, be they of a syllogistic character in the
Aristotelian sense, or of the binary character explored by L?vi
Strauss in his anthropological interpretations. The philosophical
anthropological conclusion which we have to derive from this
analysis is the notion of the primacy of thinking as characteristic
of man. L?vi-Strauss does not escape this conclusion, though he
may present it in an empirical and thus a societal context. The
natural in totemism, he says, are chosen not because
species
52
they are "good to eat" but because are "good to think."
they
Whether the concept of the primacy of thinking can leave us in
the system as it is presented or not is one of the questions we shall
concern ourselves with
presently.
Thinking as the primary activity of men and discerning of

structures as symbolic orders of signs enabling their mutual
exchangeability?these two features of the empirical anthro
pological theory of L?vi-Strauss seem to be the substrate for his
theory as to the universality of human nature. L?vi-Strauss takes

the view that the invariance present on the empirical level points
to the universality on the fundamental level, that of human
nature.53
One wonders whether is an empirical-factual

there reason for
the assumption that anthropology is concerned with invariants
discerned empirically in primitive societies; and why it should
50
51
Ibid., p. 35.
52
Totemism, tr. R. Needham, with an Introduction by Roger C. Poole
(Penguin53 Books, 1969), p. 162.

have a special "familiy resemblance" to the problem of universality

of human essence. The bringing together of the anthropological
findings with the philosophical question seems to be a philo
sophical decision based on phenomenological findings about think

ing as the primary human activity which takes different shapes in
different symbolic structures. Even the position attributed to
language as the defining feature of human essence, as conceived

von Humboldt, cannot be taken as a position
by Wilhelm arrived
at by way of induction. The assignment of this position is based
on viewing, e.g., the parallelism between linguistic articulation
and the discursive character
of thinking or that between under
standing referring to meanings
and bestowing meanings on
sounds, etc. This exploration, which is not based on induction,
can be based on what the phenomenologists call "Ideation."
IV
Thefinal goal is to arrive at certain universal forms of

thought and morality, and the most prominent universal phenom
enon is the incest taboo.54 There is a relation between structures
and the incest taboo, because human kinship is involved in that
taboo. What is occupying the position of truly elementary units
are not isolated families but relations between them.55 The
understanding of the relations between members of the same
family emerges now as the logical and formal conditions of the
incest prohibition. In another statement, the incest taboo is
presented as the logical, or perhaps moral, condition of the very
kinship relation, since that relation is a direct result of the
of an incest taboo." ...
universal presence in human society a
man must obtain a woman from another man who gives him a
56
daughter or a sister." Nevertheless it is difficult to understand
how the fact that a man must obtain a woman from another man,
or that a man is not the father of his wife?how these engender
the incest taboo. Truly, the incest taboo makes it impossible for
the unit of a kinship to consist of one familiy, since it must always
54
cit., pp. 41 and 51.
55 Op.
Ibid., p. 51.
56
Ibid., p. 46.
link two families or two consaguinous groups.57 But just the

same, it does not follow that the incest prohibition establishes the
kinship system.
Again, a natural, as it were, coincidence is assumed here
between the universality of the incest taboo and the universality
of human nature; and since we speak about prohibitions, we
have to imply human awareness and not only factual features of
human nature. How this coincidence comes about is not explain
ed, and one wonders whether a stringent structuralist position can
indeed explain that coincidence at all. Structuralism assumes that
human consciousness is involved in structures and that there is no
consciousness outside the structures?as the anti
particular
Cartesian trend would again indicate. Yet precisely here, vis
?-vis the phenomenon of the incest prohibition, we come across
an awareness which shapes the structures and is not
initially
immersed in them. To entertain the notion of the prohibition of
the incest is to think about relations in terms of those permitted
and those forbidden. If it is said that the incest prohibition is the
basis of human in a sense,58 then the awareness of
society clearly
prohibitions occupies a primary position; and we encounter here

an inter-action between features of kinship and normative com
mands in which there is no way to separate the two. Be that as
it may, we are bound to conclude that to think about relations is
not to be part of the relations thought about. Moreover, to move
from the awareness of relations to an imperative of prohibiting
certain relations is a step which
presupposes thinking. That
thinking in turn shapes structures, but is not an outcome, let
alone an ingredient, of any of these structures. L?vi-Strauss does
not face here the psycho-analytic theory of the roots of the incest
taboo?and here
it is immaterial, for the sake of fundamental con
siderations, or
whether not that is founded.
theory empirically
The psychoanalytic theory suggested that there are incestuous
desires and that the incest taboo suppresses these desires. This
that not a network of relations entertained but a
theory suggests
revulsion of the desires of the sons drives them beyond the
limited family unit. The important point is that the incest taboo
57
Op. cit., p. 72.
58
Ibid., p. 32.
is not based on the structure of the family or of kinship, but

has to be imposed on the desires?or else that the imposition itself
has its roots in the repressed desires. One may say that the incest
taboo presupposes by way of a feeling or Weltgef?hl or by way
of an act of reflection of a genealogical
a distinction and moral
character between of life and one's share in it, let us
the source
say parents and siblings, and one's own activity and involvement
in reproducing life. This factual distinction is implied or pre
supposed in the incest prohibition. The step taken in the direc
tion of the incest taboo is the step from awareness of facts to a
prohibition forbidding the turning of the source of life com
monly shared into a partner in the procreation of life. This is an

act of thinking, an additional act of thinking which presupposes
the awareness of the relations and goes beyond this awareness.
L?vi-Strauss cannotescape the problem of the transition from the
"is" to the "ought," and there is no factual justification for such a
transition, however worded. This transition always implies an
act of thinking, and it might be one of the anthropologist's tasks
to explain the ways thinking operates; that it to say, to explain
when self-reflective thinking emerges, and when it is thinking
lacking self-reflection.
All this amounts virtually to a conclusion that structuralism
may be viewed as an attempt to present the universality of struc
tures as exhibiting the universality of human nature. But one
may wonder whether the only exhibition of the universality of
human nature is to be found in structures; perhaps there are
additional universal human traits related to the detached charac
ter of thinking. Thinking may entertain different meanings and
is not essentially confined to meanings interwoven in symbolic
structures. It may be autonomous to the extent of being a struc
tures-shaping factor.
A parallel systematic difficulty emerges vis-?-vis the symbolic
character of the structures. Structures are by definition sym
bolic forms implying signs and signification. The operational
manifestation of that character of structures is the mutual ex
changeability between the major structures. This theory of

structures is based on a certain, let us say, limited interpretation
of symbols and symbolic forms. A symbol is a sign and a message
in L?vi-Strauss' reading of the nature symbols. For the sign to
operate there has to be a receiver of the sign and there has to be

a is a borderline case
message conveyed. Fundamentally, poetry
because it is a language or a linguistic mode that is not ex
changeable, since poetry is non-translatable. In addition, abstract

painting is considered
by L?vi-Strauss as a kind of decadence or
disintegration because it does not convey a message. not

By
referring to objects it ceases to be a sign.
This seems to be a very severe limitation imposed on the
concept of symbols. First, let us make some factual observations:
granting that poetry cannot be translated in the strict sense of the

term, there are different modes of translation in addition to the
literal one. There is a kind of "empathie" re-wording, and very
great works of poetry were and are translated in this fashion. To
some extent, the Shakespeare renaissance in nineteenth-century
Germany?so closely tied up with the translations by Schlegel
and Tieck?is a case in point. has a receiver, either the
Poetry
poet himself or the public. Poetry engenders a grasp of mean
ings, perhaps more than one meaning. It embodies one mode of
conveying meanings through a field of association, or precisely
by not being unequivocal. Language with a referential character
can be by definition more univocal than language lacking the
reference. But what L?vi-Strauss considers to be a borderline
a deterioration?abstract as
case?poetry?and art?might just
well be a manifestation of the potentiality inherent in creativity,
that is to say, bringing about insulated worlds of art or wholes
whose meanings are enclosed in themselves and are not "porous"
(not pointing to the objects referred to). This is the case with
abstract painting's being non-representational: it does not signify,
but creates its own realm of objects; or, the pointing itself is its
own reference. Somehow L?vi-Strauss lets thinking stop with
the referential and does not let this symbolism run its
symbolism
course by way of abstracting from its referential character.
This amounts to the conclusion that L?vi-Strauss takes care
only of what Edward S apir has called referential symbolism.

But perhaps, and this is a very important point for an anthro
engaged in empirical research, precisely referential sym
pologist
bolism is already an abstraction, and thus a later stage in the
of symbolism. Those who assume that language,
development
m our sense, is rooted in cries or in eruption of emotional tensions,
have language as a subsequent

to see referential development of the
language symbolism. There is no anthropological or philo
sophical reason to assume that once reaching the stage of refer
ential symbolism, symbolism ceases to operate; or that the non
referential symbolism has to be evaluated
by the yardstick of the
referential symbolism. We thatmay assume
beyond or perhaps
above the expression of emotional tensions there is an expression
of designing and shaping, as is the case with abstract painting.
Karl B?hler 's theory of language has to be considered in this
context, and one does not find in L?vi-Strauss an attempt to come
to grips with the theory of Cassirer, which, at this point, is related
to Karl B?hler 's theory of language.
Making referential symbolism into the yardstick and standard
of evaluation is related to L?vi-Strauss' theory or critique of
modern culture. We shall deal now with this topic. All in all
we may say that L?vi-Strauss presents a two-fold view: (a) modern
society and civilization, compared with primitive society,
represents a decline; and (b) since disorder is inherent in modern
society, society drifts or is moved toward more than a decline,
toward the Untergang des Abendlandes.
There is a nostalgic aspect of some sort with regard to pre
abstract art, and that nostalgic aspect exhibits possibly the tinge
of nostalgia in the system in general. In the pre-abstract art,
according to L?vi-Strauss, an inter-connection of facets was
presented or, to use the technical term, a structure was made

visible: the works of art allowed a person to re-live the relation
ship between sea and land. A port was a human settlement not
completely destroyed; and, generally speaking, there was a
natural relationship between geology, geography and vegetation.59
L?vi-Strauss is aware of the difference between the anthropological
interest in remote societies and the interest in one's own society.
A distinction is present between respect for societies very different
from our own and an active participation in the transformation
of our own society.60 Understanding other societies, we are
struck by certain contradictions observed by us; yet, witnessing
certain decisions or modes of behaviour in our own society, we
59
cit., p. 97.
60 Op.
are filled with indignation and disgust. Moreover, that value

judgement applies to our own society, but does not apply to the
remote societies.61 Yet this is not the whole story. L?vi-Strauss
is engaged in an evaluation by way of comparison between the
structure of primitive societies and the structure?or rather the
absence of it?of modern societies. Since he is engaged in a
comparison, both methodologically and normatively, he applies

a standard: either a single one or a multi-facted one, but just the
same a standard. In this comparison, the primitive society ranks
higher than modern since it conforms more to the
society
universality of human nature than is the case with modern
society. What are these
standards? The primitive societies, the
subject matter of anthropology, are non-civilized, without a system
of writing, and are pre- or non-industrial; yet behind these
qualifying negative expressions a positive reality is hidden: these
societies are to a far greater degree than the others based on
personal relationships, on concrete relations between individuals.62

It is thus clear that the factor of personal relations emerges as the
standard of comparison justifying the attribution of superiority to
primitive over the modern one. Modern society is

society
impregnated with what might be called objective creations or
objectivizations which stand up against the personal relations

characteristic of primitive society. Primitive society, based on
personal relations, lacks social stratification and gaps between

classes of people; and, what is even more important, it is based on
unanimity in the participation in the social process. Since L?vi

Strauss is conscious of Rousseau's influence upon him, we may
put it in Rousseau's terms: primitive society is based on a kind of
harmolny between the will of the all and the general will. The
of the absence of or the division within a
aspect inequality society
is related to the fact that primitive societies are struc
basically
tures, while modern culture destroys structure and mistakes place
because of its propensity for domination of nature.63
An even further link is asserted between the thrust towards
the domination of nature and the propensity for the domination
61
Conversations, pp. 13-14.
62
63
Conversations, p. 34.
of man man. In order to establish the ascendence over nature,

by
man had to subjugate man and treat one section of mankind as an
object. This being so, we can no longer give a simple unequi

vocal answer to the questions raised by the concept of progress.64
Leach an even and more moralistic statement
quotes stronger
about placing the world before life, life before man, and the
respect for others before self-interest.65
called primitive we observe a collective

In societies participa
tion in culture, in religious ceremonies and in the life of the
community in general. All these are thought to be expressions of
the unanimity and supportive of that unanimity. When we use
political terminology, we say that there must be no minority:

"The society tries to go on functioning like a clock in which all the
parts of the mechanism work together farmoniously, and not like
those machines which seem to conceal
antagonism at the a latent
very center of their mechanism?the antagonism between the
66
source of heat and the cooling device." There is an implicit or
explicit interconnection between domination of man by man and
the disappearance of unanimity or else emergence of minorities
in a society. Both are just aspects of disorder, and are called
"entropy." The term entropy, as applied here, has its explana
tion in the way modern societies are characterized: they are
engaged in a perpetual change; they are "hot" societies involved
in a process which leads to dissolution in heat. L?vi-Strauss used
a thermo-dynamic term for what Durkheim called anomie, being
a state of society in which the norms of conduct are disappearing
and disorientation revails.
This distinction between
the primitive and the modern
societies is amplified
by the term versus culture." About
"society
primitive peoples, it is said that they produce very little order by
means of their culture, and indeed they produce very little
entropy. Civilized people, on the other hand, produce a great
deal of order in their cultures. This is shown by mechanization
and by the great achievements of civilization. But just the same,
civilized peoples produce a great deal of entropy in their cultures
64
cit., p. 31.
65 Op.
E. Leach, op. cit., p. 37.
66
Conversations, pp. 45, 41.
in the form of social conflicts and political struggles.67 All in all,

the shift from society to culture or to industrial civilization has a
de-humanizing effect.68 It is not only the case that our modern
societies make extensive use of the steam-engine; structurally,
they resemble a steam engine in that they work on the basis of
a difference in potential, which finds concrete expression in differ
ent forms of social hierarchy.69
All this sounds
very suggestive. Yet we have to pause and
as to the inner consistency of the view and its adequacy.
ponder
Speaking about consistency, we encounter a difficulty: L?vi
Strauss tries to discern the invariants of societies and their
corresponding invariants in humanIf there are universal

nature.
human traits that are essential
traits, how
human can the historical
process suppress them or even make them disappear? Is it not a
characteristic feature of essence that it prevails over appearance?
This would suggest that structures would have the upper hand
when they clash with contingencies. Do not contingencies,
capable of suppressing structures, become essences themselves;
or does?or does not?the distinction between essence and con
tingencies cease a meaningful

to be distinction and become, at
most, a verbal one? Since L?vi-Strauss tends to assume a
harmony between universal human essence and the structures

encountered on the level of the subject-matter of anthropology, he
is somehow driven to the conclusion that once these structures
disappear or are swept away by the entropy of modern societies,
structures in general disappear. This seems to be a logical or
methodological leap.
To be sure, if the view is presented as a reminder against the
simple-minded version of the
ideology idea of of historical
progress, then it is a very valuable warning indeed. Since what
L?vi-Strauss is presenting is a view that stresses historical reality
and historical process as a way of becoming what historical
reality is, there is a loss. In this particular characterization, the
order, where things are together, is lost. Taking
predetermined
advantage of a well-known formulation, we may say that L?vi
67
cit., p. 41.
68 Op.
Ibid., p. 42.
69
Ibid., p. 33.
Strauss presents his own version, and a very rich one indeed, of
the distinction between status and contract?primitive societies
being based on status, the modern ones on contract. But he

seems to exclude a priori the possibility of creating an order, that
is to say, of not drifting into anomie or entropy when individuals
stand alone in the first place and try to establish a community or
participation from that position. The predetermined community

is lost, but the perpetual possibility of bringing about a com
munity through acts of deliberation is an open possibility, always
a possibility and always open because the very relation to open
ness never brings about an ultimate and final achievement. The
given is lost and the created or the to be created emerges.
The norm of individuality and its correlate as the norm of
freedom are one-sided
norms as those of equality and of unanimity
are one-sided. For maintaining a given collectivity men payed
the price of absence of individuality as a fact and as a norm; for
the emergence of individuality as a fact and as a norm men paid
with the lack of a primary community and of a possible clash
between different norms?as the clash between the norm of free
dom and that of equality would exemplify. The conceptual and
factual error implied at this point in L?vi-Strauss' conception is
due to his tendency to identify universal human nature with a
particular historical manifestation of human

creativity, instead
of identifying it with the whole gamut of historical creativity.
The gamut is less harmonious, and its identification with human
nature makes the view even less harmonious; but perhaps we pay
with the loss of harmony for achieving a more adequate systematic
position.
Absolutism in terms of human nature and relativism in terms
of the historical amplitude seems to be a more systematic and
sounder position than that which assumes the conformity between
universal human nature and a certain concrete manifestation of
it in a certain societal i.e. that of the primitive
shape, society.
The shift from
society to culture, in L?vi-Strauss' wording,
amounts to a shift from structures to objectivity and objectifica
tion. This seems to be plausible; but, nevertheless, it calls for a
certain qualification. To be sure, the modern scientific world
view emerged through the medium of a polemic against the tradi
tional world-view, worded in Biblical terms or else in a com
bination between the Biblical and the Aristotelian notions. Hence

the anti-traditional trend is inherent in the historical presuppose
tions of the scientific world-outlook. Moreover, since the modern
scientific world-outlook
recognizes the authority of reason on one
hand and
experimentation on the other, this double authority
defies any possibility of a predetermined reliance on traditions and
world-views carried over through generations.
There is an additional aspect to this. The principle of
objectivity is tantamount to the principle of giving an account

of the state of affairs as it is. Hence this principle implies the
emancipation of the world-view from the involvement with "sub
jective" consciousness and its integrated position within the
structures. Objectivity puts the involvement of the subject in
"brackets" and thus, indeed, destroys the structure of involvement
between man and the world. The concept of presupposition as
applied by Kant to modern science does not mean a structure of

involvement between consciousness andthe world; it means the
dependence of the statements related to nature on assumptions
and functions related to the unity of consciousness in the tran
scendental, and thus sense.
logical,
This short restatement warrants L?vi-Strauss' view that
modern society related to the modern world-outlook undermines
the traditional structure. But L?vi-Strauss seems to be oblivious
at this point to the fact that a new concept of structure emerges
in the modern world-view; a structure centered around
namely
the concept of objectivity. The structure is the world or nature
in its totality, and hypothetical principles like, for instance, the
of causality. They bring about or articulate universal
principle
networks of relationships and thus establish structures. It might
be considereda one-sided view to take the exchangeable struc
tures of the primitive world-outlook not only as an historical fact
but also as models for what structures are or have to be.
essentially
L?vi-Strauss seems to be involved again in a kind of hypostatic
reasoning, making structures empirically encountered into models
or Platonic ideas. This leads him to the conclusion that since
traditional structures got lost en route and there is no involvement
of consciousness in nature, structures are absent. this
Against
view we have to maintain: as universal human nature is to some
extent involved in history, and to some extent is kept apart from

it, so structures have their manifestation in history but are not

identical with any particular historical embodiments, there is
no total merger between the idea of structure and the structures
empirically studied or embodied.
Basically L?vi-Strauss believes that modern culture is accom
panied by the suppression of human relations in society, sacrific
ing them for the sake of objectivity. Here again he seems to
point to a very serious phenomenon indeed. Yet one may wonder

whether he has his finger on what is the essential issue at stake.
The principle of objectivity is related to the principle of freedom:
only a free man can be engaged in an objective pursuit of research
and in an attempt to find out what the structure of the universe is.
The dialectic of the relationship between the principle of freedom
and the principle of objectivity seems to lie in the invasion of the
principle of objectivity into the area of the human individuals

who as such entertain freedom exhibited in their intentionality
toward objectivity. This invasion makes, or may make, the free
human individuals into objects; and thus a contradiction emerges
between the position of being an object and that of a subject whose
essential feature is freedom. The modern world-outlook did not
find a universally acceptable resolution of this dialectic dilemma
inherent in it. The paradox of assuming that human beings are
objectively free although they are not objects might be one way of
resolving the dilemma; but there are, as we know, no universally
acceptable solutions. There are only universally
philosophical
envisaged philosophical problems, and the modern world-outlook
articulates or puts into prominence precisely that philosophical
problem.
It could be argued that the philosophical and human problem
of modern society and modern world-outlook lies precisely in the
tendency to build a structure which would entail both existence

based on freedom and knowledge and the intent to be ruled by the
principle of objectivity. Here the problem would be overstructur
ing (structure of knowledge as the exclusive structure) rather than

the destruction of structures; the different levels of intervention
in human life and the attempts to control and manipulate human
responses would be an indication of this overstructuring.
L?vi-Strauss' sketchy philosophy of history or of culture seems
to presuppose a preference for the primitive. This preference
expresses itself in his two correlated notions, namely, the notion

of the unconsciousness and that of history. Let us turn now to
an examination of these notions.
L?vi-Strauss takes his model language,from linguistics; and

in his eyes, is a kind of structural phenomenon par excellence.
One of the features of language is its operation on the level of
unconsciousness : "... structural linguistics shifts from the study
of conscious linguistic phenomena to the study of unconscious
infrastructure." In another context he about "unconscious
speaks
this is rather a vague expression, but it may serve as
thought";
a clue to the notion of unconsciousness as it is applied in his
Further still: ". . . the unconscious of the
writings. activity
mind consists in imposing forms upon content, and . . . these
forms are fundamentally the same for all minds, ancient and
modern, and civilized. ... It is necessary and sufficient
primitive
to grasp the unconscious structure underlying each institution
and each custom, in order to obtain a principle of interpretation
70
valid for other institutions and other customs."
There is a qualification here to the extent that, since the
unconscious forms on all levels of culture, one
operate may
wonder how this view can be made consonant with that stressing
the disruption of structures of modern characteristic
society.
But dealt withtopic in the that
preceding context, we
having
may notice that, according to the view presented here, the essen
tial feature of the formative impact of a structure is that it operates
is it so? One can hardly find an explana
unconsciously. Why
tion, except when one takes the model of the primitive society as
studied by L?vi-Strauss as a binding model. L?vi-Strauss himself
does not seem to cling to his presentation when he says that "at
the present time people are trying deliberately and systematically
to invent new forms, and that in [his] view is precisely the sign
71
of a state of crisis." This statement seems to be more con
sonant with the thrust of L?vi-Strauss' general position than the

view quoted before.
The usage of the concept or the term "unconscious" might
be misleading because of the impact that pychoanalysis, at least its
70
Structural Anthropology, pp. 21, 33, 56.
71
Freudian version, has on the present-day jargon. Lack of

awareness is not the most significant aspect or facet in the
Freudian of unconsciousness. Unconsciousness is reserv
concept
ed for a certain factor in human behaviour, namely the instincts
or the urges of the Id. The point is that the unconscious
represents instinctual or repressed instinctual impulses.
impulses
Since L?vi-Strauss refers to the unconscious formation or un
conscious thinking, and not to unconscious drives and urges
aiming at a libidinal satisfaction, one wonders whether the
of unconscious and conscious is as fundamental as it
dichotomy
appears to be in this context.
The dichotomy of unconscious versus conscious has somehow
its corollary in the dichotomy of anthropology and history. By
and large, the concept of is used in the sense of the study
history
of the course of events in time; it is that aspect of history which
goes by the name of historia rerum gestarum. But L?vi-Strauss
goes further in suggesting the difference between ethnography
and history on the one hand, and social anthropology and sociology
on the other: the former aim at gathering data, while the latter
deal with models constructed from these data. And here he
seems some of the distinctions
to follow present in Max Weber.
One at this point a reservation with
hears regard to history,
since historical research is concerned with individual data and
as such tends to be idiographic. As against those who have seen
in the character of historical research an independent significance
and even an advantage (Dilthey would be the prominent repre
sentative of the view), L?vi-Strauss is inclined to see in research
that approaches the data without applying to them models?and
structures are indeed models?a
disadvantage. Yet he moves
toward a dissociation history, an
from one may discern several
reasons behind the anti-historical position which eventually
emerges out of L?vi-Strauss' writings. In speaking about an
anti-historical position, we have to refer to history more as a
course of events in time than as a study of these events, i.e.
as res gestae. First he says that history is a vague term,
history
or that the field of history cannot be dilineated: "What was said
72
yesterday is history, what was said a minute ago is history."
72
Op. cit., p. 12.
Provided that the interpretation suggested here is correct, we may

say that history is just the course of events in time, and time as
such does not delineate any meaningful contexts or patterns of
events in it. To delineate these patterns we have to go beyond
events, that is to say, we have to go to structures; these are not
just events in time, since
they presuppose the formative quality
of the mind. That formative quality seems to refer to events
but is not of the order of events.
Since the formative capacity of the mind is operating primarily
unconsciously, L?vi-Strauss seems to draw the line of demarcation
between history and anthropology, both in the sense of the course
of events and in that of the study of the course of events.
The dichotomy between conscious and unconscious takes a
somewhat different direction. The anthropologist, this is how
it is stated now, goes forward, seeking to attain through the
conscious (of which he is always aware) more and more of the
unconscious; whereas the historian so to back
advances, speak,
ward, keeping eye fixed on concrete

his and specific activities
from which he withdraws only to consider them from a more com
plete and richer perspective.73 L?vi-Strauss quotes Marx's saying

about men who make their own history but do not know that
they are making it: he interprets that saying as implying his
own distinction between the conscious and unconscious. Even
tually this saying justifies first history and second anthro
pology. Yet at the same time the attempt is made to show that
the two approaches are inseparable. One wonders why and
whether the distinction between the unconscious and the conscious
corresponds that neatly to the distinction between anthropology

and history, as it is intimated in these statements.
Granting that primitive societies are principally motivated
by unconscious formations, does it follow that historical societies
cannot be or are not motivated by unconscious formative opera
tions? If our historical concern is with the understanding of
phenomena, and we are led in our research to assume that certain
historical events cannot be explained by other than unconscious
formative intervention, why are we bound to assume that the
explanation of the unconsciousness is essentially inapplicable in
73
Op. cit., p. 24.
ON L?VI-STRAUSS7
CONCEPTOF STRUCTURE 521
historical research? Granting that history moves away from

traditional structures, does it also move away from human nature
to the extent that human nature is no longer motivated, at least
partially, by unconscious operations of the mind? Do we have
to assume, for instance, that an historical is aware
agent always
of the motivation and objectives of his actions? Do we have to
assume that the historical experience of France versus Germany on
the collective level is always consciously present in the minds of
those who decide on actions of France vis-?-vis Germany? Or do
we rather have to assume that the historical is taken
experience
for granted and that it motivates the actions without being neces
sarily spelled out, or without the historical agents spelling out

the different ingredients of that experience? We can sum up by
saying that the dichotomy of the conscious and unconscious is not
as sharp as it is presented L?vi-Strauss.
by
The view taken is that the open historical
entering into
time, that
stepping out from the patterns of tradition, carries
with it a move toward deliberation, reflection, self-aware deci
sions, and the like. L?vi-Strauss seems to look
nostalgically
backward to situations where all these selfconscious activities were
absent. Yet since in his view thinking is the predominant human
activity, one may wonder whether the shift from to
thinking
thinking of thinking, or the move from unconscious to
thinking
conscious thinking, is that dramatic or catastrophic. The shift
from the Id to the I might be dramatic, but not the move from
thinking to thinking of thinking. Thinking is not necessarily
tied up with this or that content. It moves around, and thus it
may think of itself. Spinoza's notion of the infinite series of the
idea of the idea might be a philosophical description to be con
sidered at this juncture.
The distinction betweenthinking lacking self-awareness and
thinking accompanied by self-awareness looms large in the
presentation of L?vi-Strauss; this distinction in turn has its im
pact on his evaluation of history qua the course of historical events
given to rise to historical consciousness.
should not, then, We
draw a distinction between no "societies with
and
history"
"societies which have histories." In fact, every human society
has a history, and they all go equally far back, since all history
dates from the birth of mankind. But whereas so-called primitive
societies are surrounded by the substance of history and try to

remain to it, modern societies interiorize
history, as
impervious
it were, and turn it into the motive power of their development.74
The interiorization of history amounts essentially to aware
ness of change as the accompanying notion and even as the prin
ciple of existence and activity. To be surrounded by the sub
stance of history amounts supposedly to dwelling in time yet
lacking the awareness that dwelling in time is tantamount to
change. The relative changelack in the "cold"

of societies
explains the difference in the mode of historical consciousness per

taining to primitive societies on the one hand and to the post
primitive societies on the other.
Indeed this is an important point. Yet one may wonder
whether the juxtaposition presented is as sharp as it is stated by
L?vi-Strauss. The facticity of existing in time is bound to be
present both on the level of primitive societies and on that of

ones. To live in time amounts to an existence
post-primitive
which is somehow aware that life does not begin with those living
presently. This awareness or generated
is nourished by the con
tinuous existence of language and by the turnover of generations
which come and go. While the experience of language appro
from the ancestors may nourish awareness of continuity
priated
and thus of endurance, the experience of the changing of genera
tions, rooted as it is in the biological rhythm of existence, may
nourish awareness of the mode of change characteristic of exist
ence in time, and hence eventually of existence in history.75
There is essentially no dwelling in time and history which
lacks totally the awareness of both continuity and change. On
this, L?vi-Strauss seems to be right: the interaction and the
unstable equilibrium between these directions of awareness may
and do shift in different historical eras and thus in different
cultures. This shifting equilibrium is part of the historical
change and thus calls for a kind of meta-awareness of history.
Modern society and modern culture are prone to emphasize?and
perhaps overemphasize?the aspect of change, making change
74
75
Consult the present author's article: "The Ontological Status of
History," The American Philosophical Quarterly, January 1972.

itself into a norm of existence and behaviour. If L?vi-Strauss

means to say that internalization of history amounts to a mode
of consciousness that makes change into a norm and thus pursues
change for its own sake, here again he is probably right. The
qualification which is called forth relates to the dichotomy "hot"

and "cold" and to the place of history proper in post-modern
societies. The reason for this exclusive, as it were, affinity
between history and modernity lies in the attempt to say that
change destroys structures: wherever there is an overemphasis

on change, there is an overemphasis on history. What seems to
be lacking in this statement is the assertion logic that the of
historical existence brings about
pendulum of emphasis
the
vis-?-vis time, i.e. duration
and change. It it does not bring
about the pendulum, at least it lends itself to the interpretation
which stresses the continuity aspect and, as now, the change
aspect. There is more of a binary opposition in historical time

than is assumed by L?vi-Strauss.
Related to this analysis of continuity versus change is the
analysis of the emergence of writing as the major tool of the

"historical civilization." The precondition of totalization of
and utilization of past experience is, we feel more
knowledge
or less intuitively, the source of our civilization. For the sake
of this truly major cultural
acquisition Writingis writing.
refers to "reserve stock." Human beings stop living from day to
day, as they did when they depended
on hunting and or on the
gathering of fruit. When civilization moves to accumulated expe
rience of many generations which was handed dawn from one to
the other, an effective tool for preserving
it needs that accumulated
experience. The major changes in human civilization, including
the domestication of animals, presuppose long periods of time,
and great, prolonged and concentrated experimentation. All this
accumulated experience has to be preserved and thus calls for the
invention of writing.76 In addition to the previously made
distinctions between history and anthropology, a new feature
comes to the forefront, since the anthropologist is understood as
above all interested in unwritten data, being principally con
76
cerned with things which men ordinarily think of recording on

stone or on
paper.77
Writing is not an invention related to the change which

occurred in the time-horizon of man along the line of the shift
from primitive to modern society. Writing is related to the
sense of continuity and accumulation implied in that continuity.
Information accumulated across the generations cannot be pre
served just by being stocked in an individual's memory.
Accumulation carries over past experience, past treasures of
literature and wisdom. These do not belong to the given and
immediate surroundings of the present, but are deemed significant
for the present. Hence we encounter in writing a situation
whereby generations both meet and remain separated. The

application of writing exhibits both the rhythm of change and
the rhythm of continuity characteristic of historical time and of
historical with reference
consciousness to time. Here, the insight
of L?vi-Strauss excedes his explicit theory.
Thinking as a predominant human quality has its conse
quences in the scope of the relationship between man and nature.
These consequences, in turn, have their impact on the momentum
of history which cannot be detached from the changing pattern
of the relationship between man and nature. In this context
the kinship structure is again a case in point. A family in the
biological sense is ubiquitous in human society. But what gives
it its socio-cultural character is not what it retains from nature but
that in which it diverges from nature. And indeed it is said in
very explicit words: "A kinship system does not consist in the
objective ties of descent or consanguinity between individuals.
It exists only in human consciousness; it is an arbitrary system
of representations, not the spontaneous development of a real
78
situation."
To be sure, we can take exception to the terminology used

here, since we ask whether
spontaneous is synonymous with
arbitrary, and further, what is a "real situation"? Leaving aside
these issues, we may assume that the conception presented here
attempts to shift the emphasis from the intervention in nature
77
78
Ibid., p. 50.
by human beings to the interpretation of nature by human con

sciousness. Human consciousness forms nature, and
turning
molding the biological substrate into structures of kinship. This

formation by consciousness expresses itself eventually in institu
tions?and is an institution. Thus consciousness as
kinship
viewed here
by L?vi-Strauss and perhaps malgr? soi is eventually
endowed withan objectifying capacity. The acts of interpreta
tion accompanied by acts of transformation are two most pro
minent and interrelated modes of acts?cooking is obviously not
the production of food but the transformation of materials. Thus
we come back to the position of consciousness; and no argument
in terms of the distinction between the conscious and the uncon
scious can
undo that fundamental position of consciousness,
despite the attempt to integrate it in structures.
There is a prevailing controversy as to L?vi-Strauss' rela
tionships to Marx
and to Hegel. This was generated by his rather
frequent to Marx
references and by his employment of the term
dialectic, which is rather vague. There is no need to go into this
controversy once we see the significance of the statement on the
relationship of consciousness as being to nature

formative and
'
interpretative and not as being productive. To use Marx s language,
for L?vi-Strauss the first historical deeds are interpretation and
transformation?and not, as for Marx, economic If
production.
this is so, then we may understand the remark of L?vi-Strauss
that we may accept the Marxist position for that which occurred in
Western Europe since the fourteenth century up to the present
moment. But he does not believe that this position could be
applied to all phases of human development.79

However, we may see a suitable distinction between the
Marxist view which explains human development through the
process of clashes between classes and the philosophical-anthro
position which takes production as the discerning
pological
feature of man. If we make this distinction, we may look on both
and transformation and on production as expres
interpretation
sions of consciousness. Both are rooted in consciousness and
79
Les Lettres Fran?aises, No. 1165, January 1967. Quoted by:
Urs Jaeggi, Ordnung und Chaos, Der Strukturalismus als Methode und Mode
(Frankfurt a/M: Suhrkamp, 1968), p. 24.
lack, therefore, the independent self-sufficient character. They

may even clash, both being present in the same situation and era
of human history. The stress on consciousness allows for a
variety of expressions in terms of human acts, as it does in terms
of structures of human behaviour and orders of actions.
We thus come back to the fundamental philosophical point;
namely, whether human nature can be identified with a certain
manifestation of that nature in historical development or not.
The empirical seems to be related to the constant and the trans
empirical; but they are not identical, neither nor as a
factually
matter of principle.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

On Lévi Strauss Concept of Structure.

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On Lévi Strauss Concept of Structure.

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On Lévi-Strauss' Concept of Structure

Author(s): Nathan Rotenstreich

A. WHOLES AND STRUCTURES

Structure is a version of "form" provided that "form" is not

determining the meaning and the position of its components.

other elements.4 Yet one additional aspect has to be emphasized,

A furtherstep is taken when specific structures or orders are

parative analysis, which takes into account the distribution of them

part of a structure and is shaped by the interaction of its different

ingredients. One may discern here an anti-Cartesian trend char

of consciousness in the structures is justified by underlining the

Structures are viewed as invariants of human life and society.

ponents of human life; and the various and different expressions

presents an even more

oppositions in the descriptive sense and that opposition in the

primordial mode of conceptualization, if we may use this term,

that "the minimum of reasoning" is implied when opposites are

other, at least, in all the further distinctions

primary datum of all structures. Man's

activity of selection, segregation and even evaluation, as the dis

proach is expressed by L?vi-Strauss in the tendency to put into

thinking as against perception, since perception would

imply man's exposure to impressions, whilst thinking implies

suppose human activity within the duality between man and

Thus we may sum up: structuring occurs vis-?-vis different

Let us move now

linguistics associated with Jacobson.20 This corresponds to the

previously mentioned extension of the concept of Gestalt not com

nology, L?vi-Strauss speaks about language as a totalizing entity

The prominent position of language can be explained by at

by the reference to Pierce's celebrated definition, according to

To communicate is not only to transmit information; it com

exchange being accomplished or performed according to certain

anthropological research: "If men communicate by means of

symbols and signs, then, for anthropology, which is a conversa

since the subject is essentially and ab initio involved in structures

Methodologically speaking, the shift to the notion of com

tingent components. We realize now that the most necessary of

ically between human beings occurs in the context of communica

which make possible the transition from one mode of communica

There is thus a factual and a structural interrelation between

independent of the system of exchange of goods, since marriages

analogy or what is called homology between all these different

prominent, the tendency is to obliterate the differences between

lineages, or families in place of words of the group, which are

Let us recall what has previously been said?that the

partners. The difference?and after all this difference is grasped

The concept of transformation as a guiding principle of social

us to translate the subject-matter of our investigation into lan

mythology (e.g. Greek

ing There are wholes of action and behavior. With

Since communication is a way of using symbols, and symbols

structures. Along with the transmutation between different struc

organization. The emphasis on exchange within the structures

B. STRUCTURES AND HUMAN NATURE

L?vi-Strauss is an anthropologist in the empirical sense,

beyond, that of his empirical studies. He points out some funda

Let us start with L?vi-Strauss' own comment on the method

order to point to the data. He assumes that unless we approach

century philosophy of humanities (Geisteswissenschaften)?is

study of social phenomena and the study of natural events than

comprehended in networks of relationships. In the area of social

societies since structures are inherent in the nature of our