Anthropological debates on rationality and modes of thought

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This essay is based on Steven Lukes work ?Some Problems about Rationality' and Robin Horton's work ?African Traditional Thought and Western Science'. The anthropological debate on the rationality of the primitive mode of thought is linked with a problem of method for anthropologists. How can an anthropologist face a belief that seems to be irrational? Is the purpose of an anthropological study to give a judgment on the rationality of a belief or a mode of thought? If yes which criteria can be used to make the study in a scientific way? We have to question the anthropological approach of one of the main anthropological questions: did primitive people have alternative standards of rationality?

Extraits

[...] We find here the same advice as developed by Lukes with rational I criteria. So, both authors agree on a kind of relativist point of view: anthropologists have to study according to universal criteria and to find their equivalent in other idioms, but also have to focus on culture specific phenomenon. We could say the second part of Horton's work describe the closed and open predicaments as the main basis of rational II criteria , that is to say that for him even ways of thinking are context dependent. [...]

[...] - Symbolist anthropologists argue that a belief doesn't have to be valid to be studied; the point is that it is always relevant because it expresses a mode of thought. - A second answer would be that we can study modern and primitive beliefs with the same criteria's, and those criteria's put on evidence that primitive's mode of thought is incomprehensible for western anthropologists. - The third answer can be called intellectualist: it is hold by Tylor Frazer and Horton and postulates that both primitives and western people try to give explanations of a phenomenon. [...]

[...] Then in both societies the theoretical activities is complementary to the common sense theories. Theory places things in a causal context wider than that provided by common sense'' which means that the theory give more causal connections to understand things. Common sense is used in everyday life in simple situations whereas theory is necessary in much more complex contexts. Horton's theory seems useful to give a precise answer to the problem and succeed in overtaking the classical opposition between empirical and non empirical rationality. [...]

[...] Is it the purpose of an anthropological study to give a judgment on the rationality of a belief or a mode of thought? If yes which criteria can be used to make the study in a scientific way? We have to question the anthropological approach of one of the main anthropological object: do primitive's people have alternative standards of rationality? To answer we are going to study Robin Horton theory on African traditional thought and western science. According to him, we can find the same mode of thought in traditional societies and in western science. [...]

[...] Steven Luke tries to nuance these 5 characteristic positions by giving his own theory. His idea is to separate the criteria of rationality that can be used by anthropologists. Some beliefs have to described with universal criteria (rational I criteria) whereas other beliefs have to be studied with context dependent criteria (rational II criteria). The rational I criteria allow anthropologists to understand other cultures: it's for example the distinction between truth and falsity or the fact that languages have operable logical rules. [...]