american anthropologist volume 69 issue 3-4 1967 [doi 10.1525%2faa.1967.69.3-4.02a00230] rodney...

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  • 7/29/2019 American Anthropologist Volume 69 Issue 3-4 1967 [Doi 10.1525%2Faa.1967.69.3-4.02a00230] Rodney Needham

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    Book ReviewsGENERAL

    Pnlarily and Analogy: Two Types o Arguinen!atimtin Early Greek ThoGght. G. E. R. LLOYD. am -bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966. v, 503pp., bibliography, general index, index of passagesquoted or referred to. $16.50.Rmhed by RODNEY EEDHAM,University of Oxford

    Th is splendid work of scho larship is of direct andindispensable relevance to those who consider socialanthropology t o be essentially a kind of empiricalphilosophy rather than a comparative sociology or abranch of social science. It deals, th at is, with ele-mentary and fundamental operations of thought-opposition and analogy-and can thus be related toa distinguished intellectual tra ditio n to which socialanthropology is heir. This line of research includesDurkheim on the genesis of categories, Durkheimand Mauss on space, Hubert and Mauss on time,Hertz on polarity, Van G ennep on transition, LBvy-Bruhl on primitive logic, Mauss on the person,Evans-Pritchard on causation, Dumezil on diarchy,Dumont on the individual, and other scholars simi-larly interested in the st udy of properties of the hu-man mind a s exhibited in collective representations.An initial and encouraging point of connection be-tween this trad ition and Lloyds book is t ha t Lloyd(who, like Meyer Fortes, is a Fellow of Kings, fwhich college Edm und Leach is Provost) early in hisargument makes a survey of some comparativeevidence taken largely from t he works of anthropolo-gists. I n this typically rigorous prod uct of classicallearning, prominence is given to such fam iliar namesas Durkheim, Mauss, Hertz, LCvy-Bruhl, Nimu-endajd, and Evans-Pritchard; the peoples in ques-tion are not only th e citizens of a ncient Greece, bu talso the Winnebago, Timbira, Miwok, Purum, andMeru. The author draws attention to a feature ofprimitive dualist beliefs that he finds particularlyrelevant t o the understanding of some Greek theoriesof opposites: th is is th e use of pairs of opposites tosymbolize certain important religious or spiritualdistinctions., T he re follow several pages de voted toHertzs essay on the right hand, and from these theargument flows directly into a consideration ofreligious polarity (Hertzs term) in early Greekthought. Some readers will already have foundthemselves much instructed by Lloyds exploitationof Hertzs ideas in hispapers (not listed in th e bibliog-raph y), Right and Left in Greek Philosophy(Journal n j Hellenic Sludies 82, 196256-66) andThe Hot and the Cold, the Dry and the Wet inGreek Philosophy (Journal of Hellenic Studies 84,1964:92-106). I n th e present work the investiga tion

    is carried much farther, with fascinating detail andin a clear an d unpretentious style. Eve ry reference isscrupulously provided for the classicist, but the com-paratively few passages in Greek are trans lated forothers.It would be impossible to summarize this longdisquisition, and i t m ust suffice to rep ort t ha t Lloydexamines the modes of argument and forms of ex-planation used in early Greek though t. Most of thesebelong to one or the other of two simple logicaltypes: in one (opposition), things are classified orexplained by being related to a pair of oppositeprinciples; in the other (analogy), they arelikened or assimilated to something else. Lloyd setsout not only to elucidate the use and development ofthese modes of argum entation, but he hopes also tothrow light on the broader issues connected withinformal or archaic logic. It is this aspect of hisstud y th at makes it of quite unusual theoretical in-terest.Social anthropologists, together with thei r intellec-tual predecessors and congeners, hav e managed to doan impressive amount of useful work on primitiveclassification and on what may well be called in-formal logic in an anthropological context as well,but they have usually been hampered by three fac-tors: (a) an insu5cient range of established facts;(b) an absenc e of philosophical capac ity or inclina-tion on the part of the peoples studied; and (c) alack of lit er ary evidences and hence of any real his-tor y of ideas. N one of these cond itions is an absolutcbar, admittedly, for Evans-Pritchard and laterethn ogra phe rs of th e quality of Tu rne r, Beidelman,an d RiKby have indeed been able t o supply m inutelydetailed evidence on classification, Griaule has founda genuine philosopher among the Dogon, and histori-cal indications can be found in cultu res peripheral togreat civilizations in Cambodia (see the superlativework of Eveline Porte-Maspero), Indonesia, andCentral America. But in general the conclusionholds that the social anthropologist relatively soonreaches the limits of analysis. B ut Lloyd, by con trast,can take as his evidence the su m of G reek literatu refrom the period from Homer to Aristotle as it hascome down to us; his subjects and informants arethemselves renowned philosophers, and he can traceover centuries the development of the notions withwhich he and the anthropologist are concerned incommon, The result is an impressive scholarlymodel that demonstrates what, in certain respects,social anthropologists might aim eventually toachieve in their own field of evidence.I n other respects, as is only to be looked for, it isthe social anthropologists who may have somethingto impart to the classicist. For example, some of

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  • 7/29/2019 American Anthropologist Volume 69 Issue 3-4 1967 [Doi 10.1525%2Faa.1967.69.3-4.02a00230] Rodney Needham

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    Book Reviews 385Lloyds material is of a symbolic kind, not rationalor empirical, yet h e makes no clear and constant dis-tinction between the logical and the symbolic suchBS the ethnographer is habituated to draw. Aristotlesays that there is no contrary to red or yellow orsuc h colours (Categories, 10b12; trans. Ackrill); nlogic this is true, but in symbolism it is not. Lloydmakes a flattering enough use of ethnographic d ata ,but a wider and closer-directed survey could haveIxcn even more useful as a demonstration of theradical nature and general significance of the modesof thought in question. It could be contended, also,that the part on analogy is not as rigorous o r a s in-structive as it might be (i.e., for t he comparatisfe,not just for the stude nt of early G reek argumenta-tion) because of a ra the r lax definition of t he con-cept.But these minor observations are in no way in-tended t o detra ct from the very high value of Lloydswork, for which one k i d of social anthropologist a tleast can feel only the deepest admiration. Anyoneconcerned with t he rationa le of cert ain forms of socialorganization (moieties, prescriptive alliance), orwit h problems a bou t cultural categories of experi-ence, cannot fail to profit from it. One may hope,too, tha t its publication m ay lead to a more effectivecollaboration between scholars in different subjects,eventually to supersede the mere collocation of dis-par ate topics th at the 19th century has bequeathed,or university administrations hav e jumbled together,under the heading (so far unjustified) of anthropol-ogy. It is by such collaboration as Lloyd displays,a t any rate, th at we may dream of a universal disci-pline, an empirical philosophy (whether or not it isto retain the awkward and rather absurd title ofsocial anthropology), that will give a proper ac-count of human understanding..4rr Itatlroduction to Man and H i s Development.DAVIDRODNICK.New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts (Division of Meredith Publishing Com-/)a ny) , 1966. xiv, 433 pp., selected bibliography,index, map. $3.95 (paper).

    Rmnued by CARLETONOON,Gloircestn, Massathwdts

    David Rodnick teaches social science at Midwes-tern University, a coeducational institution with anenrollmen t of 2,710. H e has written this 9i-by-6-inchpaperback for his own students and for those ofother teachers faced with wide interdisciplinaryassignments. By training an anthropologist, he hascas t his work in a n anthropological frame, bu t it alsocovers, and more extensively, sociology, economics,political science, the hi story of technology an dscience, and global history. It thus constitutes asocial history of mankind w ith projections in to thefuture. Other anthropologists may look in vain forformal coverage of the cultures an d physical tra itsof the Australian aborigines, Melanesians, Polyne-sians, Rushmen, Pygmies, American Indians, and

    Eskimos. Instea d the authors emphasis is focused onthe m ain line of cult ura l change.The book is divided into three parts, entitled:Where We Came From, W ho We Are, andWhere We Are Going. P ar t I embraces prehistorythrough the Neolithic; seven regional studies of whathe calls The Primary Civilization-Sumer,Egypt, the Indus Valley, Crete, Anatolia, Syria-Lebanon-Palestine, and China-the spre ad of civil-ization from these regions to the barbarian fringesof t he Old World; t he civilizations of Greece andRome ; and one half-page (p. 120) on the high civili-zations of the New World.Part 11,subtitled P rimary Civilization Advancesto th e Beginnings of Secondary Civilization, st ar tswith th e technology of Greece an d Ro me and pro-ceeds through the Dark Ages to the invention anduse of gunpowder, Hindu numerals, the concept ofzero, and printing, to 17th-century industry, thesteam engine, the Industrial Revolution, the Euro-pean factory system, th e rise of manage rs and ent re-preneurs, Bth-century corporations, and the de-velopment by scientists of a culture of their own.The coverage then expands geographically to in-d u de peasant cultures, modern African history, ac-culturation in India, China, and Japan, and the riseof communism and the Soviet Union.P a r t 111, c o m b i i g con temporary socia l h is to rywith prediction, is subtitled The Age of Automa-tion Begins. Among its subjects are the role of theautomobile in modern life; the im pa ct of au tom atio non society; the agricultural revolution; the rise ofmetropolitan centers; the need for more researchand new values; and what needs to be done to im-prove education and to educate nearly everybody,the importance of fostering creative and innovativepersons, and the narrowing of class distinctions i nt oa more perfect society that can roll on for millions ofyears.Seventeen selected bibliographies designate, forthe most part, well-known and readily accessibletrad e books by em inent professional authors. Rod-nicks own erudition is extraordinary, his style clear,objective, and devoid of banalities and technicali-ties. At moments he approaches lyricism. I foundmyself reading the book with absorption, particu-larly those nonanthropological parts with which Iam relatively unfamiliar.Aside from t he lack of ethnographic detail, whichwould clog his literary stream, I find several otherlacunas. His treatme nt of the contributions tocivilization of th e Arabs and t he American In dia ns issketchy, and he has bypassed the role of genetics inthe creation of both the present and the futureworld. A few trivial mistakes inevitably appear:Kermanshah is in Iran, not Ira q (p. 41); Carthage isnot now Berber, nor was it ever (p. 106);the low-land May a live in Peten, not Petan (p. 120).Rodnicks tent ative prediction tha t the ea rth ma ybe able to contain 34 billion inhabitants (p. 415),who will be agreeably nourished by synthetic food-