8/17/2019 Frankel -- GeneralTheoretical Anthropology-
Rationality and Relativism
1/2
GENERAL/
HEORETIC L
NTHROPOLOGY 769
more influenced by
G.
H. Mead perhaps
or
C.
H. Cooley
or K
Burke, have also put forth the
drama of the pronouns as central to the hu-
man situation. But Singer adds new under-
standing to that emphasis both as to the rela-
tion of the pronouns, which are indexicals, to
iconic and symbolic signs
as
well as to
our
un-
derstanding of the evolutionary dynamic, the
culture change, in pronoun use. This indexical
theory centers anthropology where it should
be centered-in the colloquy that the self car-
ries on inwardly with itself and outwardly
with the other persons singular and plural.
Perhaps the emblem that serves us best is not
semiotic,
or
semiologic,
or
semantic anthro-
pology but jus t plain colloquial anthropology.
Measuring Culture: aradigm for
th
Analysis
of
Social
Organization
onathan L.
ross
and
Steve
Raper
New York: Columbia
University Press, 1985.
176
pp.
32.50
(cloth).
BRIAN .FOSTER
rizona tate
niversity
This
book
can be divided into three concep-
tual parts: discussion of Mary Douglas’s no-
tion of gridfgroup analysis; an attempt to for-
malize its basic concepts and propositions; an
analysis of a fictitious community conflict.
What is good about the book is the authors’
belief that sociocultural investigation can and
must be precise, and that a deep and compre-
hensive cultural understanding of the case un-
der study is a prerequisite for precision. Less
good is that the link between the book’s theo-
retical ideas and formal model is tenuous, and
that the data demands of the model range
from very difficult to unreasonable.
In the authors’ words, the purpose of grid/
group analysis is to “provide a framework
within which a cultural analyst may consis-
tently relate differences in organizational
structures to the strength
of
values that sus-
tain them” (p. 14). The authors argue that so-
cial units can usefully be placed in a two-di-
mensional space, one dimension being
strength of “groupness,” and the other being
strength of hierarchy/role differentiation. Th e
location of a unit in this space is held to cor-
respond with the unit’s important cultural
properties
p.
15).
The proposed method has little to do with
the more interesting cultural part
of
grid/
group analysis. The authors themselves say
that “it is not yet clear how actual patterns of
belief and behavior superimpose on the four-
quadrant grid/group diagram” (p. 114). The
book, then, turns out to be about a method for
describing social structure.
Gross
and Rayner
say that the “principal novelty”
of
their ap-
proach v i s -h i s network analysis is that they
“use the justification of polythetic classifica-
tion” (p. 67). I would question this claim to
novelty. Novel
or
not, the authors take little
advantage of recent conceptual advances in
network analysis.
For
instance, their notion of
“group boundary” is conceptually a clique-
like idea (p. 65), but the clique literature is not
discussed, and conceptual and computational
difficulties are simply glossed over. The same
might be said of network contributions to role
theory.
The authors’ measures ofgrid and group re-
semble early anthropological network analy-
sis-for example, Kapferer’s much riche r
analysis of conflict in a Zambian factory. The
strength ofthese measures is that they are sim-
ple mathematically and directly interpretable
sociologically (though, as already mentioned,
the links between the measures and the theory
in the
Gross
and Rayner book are tenuous).
Th e major weaknesses are that in the process
of aggregating the data a great deal of the
structure is lost, since there are many radically
different structures that would produce the
same scores. The problem is reduced by the
multiplicity of indices, but it is unexamined.
Chapter 4 is where the connection between
the method and the underlying theoretical
ideas becomes tenuous. Five “predicates” of
“group” (proximity, transitivity, frequency,
scope, and impermeability) and four of “grid”
(specialization, asymmetry, entitlement, and
accountability) are enumerated. The connec-
tion of these measures with the underlying
grid/group theory is not worked out in detail.
Chapter 5 gives a straightforward statement
on computing the various indices. Chapter 6
is an operational guide; the content is very di-
verse and contains few surprises. Much of the
discussion takes the form of a some times
rather cute description of how fieldwork was
done in the study of the fictitious conflict.
On the whole, I found the book disappoint-
ing. It will be of relatively little interest to
mathematically oriented anthropologists. 1do
not think the method is a fair or particularly
useful formalization of grid/group analysis.
And I doubt that the book will convince any
nonbelievers of the utility of mathematical
modeling.
Rationality
and
Relativism:InSearchof a
Philosophy
and
History of Anthropology
I C Jarvie. International Library of Sociology.
Boston: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1984. 171
pp.
30.00
(cloth).
BARBARARANKEL
high niversity
8/17/2019 Frankel -- GeneralTheoretical Anthropology-
Rationality and Relativism
2/2
770
A M E R I C A N ANTHROPOLOGIST
[88 986
In so brief a review, one cannot criticize this
book
with the seriousness it deserves or that
Jarvie’s Popperian faith would prescribe.
I
therefore recommend that those seriously in-
terested either in philosophical anthropology
(which asks “what is the human species?”)
or
the philosophy of anthropology (which asks “how
should we study the human species?”) will
want this book on their shelves, ifonly to quar-
rel with the author-who abandoned anthro-
pology for philosophy
25
years ago, and has
since made a useful career as anthropological
gadfly.
In this book the core argument opposes the
terms “rationality” and “relativism.” Profes-
sor Jarvie believes it is contradictory for an-
thropology to assert both the rational unity of
humankind and relativism as fundamental
principles. The rest is elaboration-much of it
highly rhetorical
or
thinly argued, but all of it
interesting, pungently written, and provoca-
tive.
The book begins with a prologue on “Meta-
physical Anthropology” which asserts that if
we assume the rational unity of the human
species, the notion o cultural relativism fails,
and vice versa; thus, in upholding both, an-
thropology becomes incoherent as a disci-
pline. This judgment seems based on Jarvie’s
confusing unity with uniformity-a category
mistake undermining his main argument,
since it does not follow from the doctrine of
species unity regarding rational capacity that
we should expect unifomi9 in i ts expression.
Part 1, “Rationality,” defines that term as
“the application of reason to tasks.” Ration-
ality comes in several strengths, depending on
whether actors employ sound standards in
evaluating information and ideas used for goal
attainment. The strongest form of rationality
is to learn via the “best” standard (i.e., the sci-
entific one Popper calls “conjectures and re-
futations”) and
is
thus purely instrumental.
Here the argument is difficult to summarize
fairly, being marred by inconsistencies and
peremptoriness. Jarvie’s view is ontologically
realist (there is an independent world that al-
lows
us
to learn by trial and error), culturally
intellectualist (ideas determine social behav-
ior, not the reverse), and markedly ethnocen-
tric (all cultures are less rational than
ours,
since it produced Modern Science).
Part 2, “Relativism,” is centered around an
odd conception of that term. Though ac-
knowledging relativism’s cognitive aspects,
here Jarvie weighs only anthropology’s ap-
proach to moral systems, and finds it wanting.
His premise that even well-meaning relativ-
ism entails accepting all moral systems as hav-
ing equal value, no matter how depraved (or
itself intolerant) a given system may be-leads
to his conclusion that “it is immoral and irre-
sponsible to preach
(or) .
practice relativ-
ism” (p. 91).
Clearly, Jarvie tilts at windmills. As he re-
alizes (p. 79), in practice anthropologists nei-
ther can nor do give automatic toleration and
approval to all moral systems. But it is part of
the work of anthropology to describe such sys-
tems and to learn how they articulate with
other aspects of the societies to which they be-
long. T o the extent that this end is served by
near-term reservation ofjudgment, we doSD
but this becoming modesty is hardly endorse-
ment of evil. Indeed, Jarvie’s bizarre defini-
tion of relativism leads not only to moral but
methodological absurdity, for it would require
that we deculturate ourselves (becoming amo-
ral in the process) in order to study the cul-
tures of others. Indeed, Jarvie indicates a t one
point that he sees this (p. 79), which makes his
view still more peculiar.
“Weak absolutism,” Jarvie’s alternative to
moral relativism, is explicated in “Rationality
and Relativism,” part 3. It is designed not
only to save
us
from permitting all things, but
to resolve the contradictions between Jarvie’s
two key terms. I cannot summarize the argu-
ment here, but suggest that use of the more ac-
curate term “relativity” rather than “relativ-
ism” to describe the anthropological attitude
might calm Jarvie’s fear that anthropology
will engender the international moral chaos he
so righteously fulminates against in this out-
rageously flawed but oddly engaging essay.
