The Unconscious in the Anthropology of Claude Lévi-StraussAuthor(s): Ino RossiReviewed work(s):Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Feb., 1973), pp. 20-48Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/672338 .Accessed: 06/08/2012 23:03

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The Unconscious in the Anthropology of Claude Levi-Strauss

INO ROSSI St. John's University

Levi-Strauss claims that the unconscious activity of mind is more important than the conscious one for understanding social phenomena and that the unconscious consists of an aggregate of forms, which are imposed on psychological and physical content. The real inspiration of Levi-Strauss' notion is the Kantian notion of mental constraints and the postulate of isomorphism of mental and physical laws The methodological usefulness of the unconscious as a principle of intelligibility is placed in evidence.

IN THE LAST TWO DECADES L vi- Strauss' structuralism has been the focal point of controversy among philosophers, linguists, anthropologists, and other social scientists. Some recent developments of the controversy give the impression that what was an open dialogue is turning into an attitude of mutual rejection. Phenomenol- ogists seem to conclude that their position is irreconcilable with structuralism (Ricoeur 1967:11, 30). Some linguists assert that Levi-Strauss has had a unilateral contact with linguistics and misinterprets the specific contributions of structural linguistics (Mounin 1970:200-205). Some empirical an- thropologists seem intended to put an end to a long debate by concluding that structural- ism is not a science but a bricolage whose structural arrangements are to be taken as an expression of "personal whim" (Maybury- Lewis 1969:118-119), or an intellectual game for self-amusement (in Levi-Strauss 1971b:11). Earlier admirers of Levi-Strauss have come to a disagreement with the master on many issues (for example, Leach 1970) or have been charged by Levi-Strauss with having misunderstood his work (as happened to Needham) (Levi-Strauss 1969a:xix). Levi- Strauss finds that many of his critics raise objections so worthless that they do not deserve to be mentioned by name (Levi- Strauss 1971a:564). Authoritative phe- nomenologists, such as Ricoeur, are told that

they cannot be taken seriously when they accuse him of abolishing the notion of mean- ing (Ibid.:571). Sartre is serious enough to be given consideration, but the compromise he offers is defined by Levi-Strauss as unac- ceptable dialectics--a fact which leaves him astonished (reveur) (Ibid.:616). Levi-Strauss submits the most tenacious of his ad- versaries, the existentialists, to a caustic scru- tiny and finds them involved in a self- admiration which leads them into an ecstasy of self-contemplation; the atmosphere of their dialectic smoking room impedes their seeing beyond their local interests (Ibid.: 572).

On the other side, when Levi-Strauss is reminded that his English and American critics complain about the unverifiability of his theories, he makes the gesture "of brush- ing away a fly" (1971c:40). They still do not understand that the criterion of proving something true or false, characteristic of the natural sciences, is not applicable in human sciences. Social scientists deal with repre- sentations and, therefore, their task cannot be one of proving their truth or falsehood but only of understanding them better and better, although never definitively (1971b:12). To this remark one can reply that the question of truth or falsity concerns the understanding of social phenomena and not the phenomena themselves, and the question of the validity of Levi-Strauss'

20

Rossi] LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 21

understanding of cultural phenomena has still to be faced and given an answer. I will return to this question at the end of this article.

Is this polemic stage of the controversy going to lead to an impasse and perhaps to a breaking point? A careful reexamination of the origin of the thinking of L vi-Strauss and a clear understanding of his intentions might prevent this possible outcome and help to foster an enriching dialogue among struc- turalists and social scientists of different epistemological and methodological persua- sions.

The purpose of this article is to clarify the historical and theoretical dimensions of the fundamental hypothesis of anthropologi- cal structuralism, that is, the notion that unconscious structures underlie cultural phe- nomena. I will also present a brief overview of some of the basic controversies surround- ing this hypothesis and will conclude with some considerations on its scientific merits.

Levi-Strauss' remarks on the criterion of verifiability takes us directly to the heart of the debate. On the one side, he is accused by empirical anthropologists of not being a scientist and by phenomenologists and existentialists of excluding the conscious activity of man from his anthropological analysis with the consequence that the struc- tures he discovers amount to the syntactic arrangement of "a discourse which tells nothing" (Ricoeur, in Levi-Strauss [1963b:653]; in L'Homme Nu [1971a:571] Levi-Strauss quotes Ricoeur without men- tioning him by name). On the other side, Le6vi-Strauss accuses empirical anthro- pologists of using a scientific method still embedded with mechanism and empiricism (Ibid.:615) and scolds phenomenologists and existentialists for giving exclusive attention to man, the unbearable and spoiled child who has until now impeded any serious work (Ibid.:614-615). In the past, Levi- Strauss has suggested that phenomenology might be useful as a means of verification but not of discovery (1963c:31, 1966a: 253) and that empirical analysis is a sub- sidiary instrument or precondition for struc-

tural analysis (1966b:116). He has also made clear that while structural anthropology merely prepares for the advent of a truly scientific anthropology, it already possesses the characteristics of a true science (1971a: 133) and enables the social scientist to reach a level of intelligibility inaccessible through an empirical description of facts (Ibid.:614).

Of course, phenomenologists and empir- ical anthropologists cannot limit themselves to a subsidiary role and challenge Levi- Strauss' scientific pretenses. Empirical an- thropologists insist on the notion that science must be free from any ideological commitment and philosophical assumptions, while Levi-Strauss describes his anthro- pology as a quasi-Kantian enterprise (1969b:10); for many social scientists, science must be based on scientific experi- mentation, while Levi-Strauss claims to dis- cover unconscious infrastructures, which by their nature seem to elude any experimental verification. The problem is that many empirical social scientists, who define them- selves as "pure" scientists, in actuality know only one notion of science, the one codified by Francis Bacon and introduced by Comte into the social sciences. Even some inter- preters of structuralism follow the posi- tivistic method in the neopositivistic version of Nagel, Hempel, and Reichenbach (see Nutini 1970, 1971). Neither empirical an- thropologists nor neopositivistic interpreters of structuralism appear to realize that cer- tain positivistic and behavioristic premises jeopardize their contention that the method they advocate is the only and universally valid scientific method. Perhaps anthro- pologists ought to be more cautious and realize that they cannot decide about the appropriateness of a scientific method in terms of a prioristic criteria but only in terms of a careful definition of the phe- nomena under investigation. Unfortunately, too many empirical and behavioral social scientists have skirted the problem of the scientific definition of cultural phenomena; rather they take for granted that social phenomena are endowed with external and objective characteristics which are con-

22 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

sidered to be a solid basis for scientific investigation (see, for example, Jarvie 1971 contested by Fabian 1971 and Rossi 1972a).

L6vi-Strauss deserves credit for having justified the choice of his method by a systematic discussion about the symbolic nature of social phenomena. Even though not all of his conceptualizations are thor- oughly clarified or unexceptionably estab- lished, a sound analysis and evaluation of L6vi-Strauss' works is impossible without a clear understanding of these conceptualiza- tions. L6vi-Strauss' formulations have raised the discussion on the scientific method to a sophisticated epistemological level from which the inadequacies of the positivistic method can be clearly seen; even though some writers find structuralism to be a more subtle form of positivism (Aubenque 1971:353ff.), still it must be considered a partial step away from it.

Consistent with Levi-Strauss' own termi- nology (1971a:614), I use the word epis- temology to refer to the assumptions con- cerning the level of reality we know, the cognitive apparatus by which we know it, and the theoretical premises which justify the scientific procedures used. I refer to the operational techniques used in conducting the investigation.

Since his early works, L vi-Strauss ex- plicitly asserts that the epistemological premises of his anthropology are based on the rejection of the immediate and sponta- neous evidence as a criterion of truth. As a consequence, he has questioned the ad- equacy of the empiricist method insofar as it claims to reach reality only through sensory perceptions, and rejects the phenomenologi- cal and existentialist methods insofar as they maintain that reality can be reached through our conscious experience without offering any guarantee against the illusions of subjec- tivity (1965a:61-62).2

Levi-Strauss compares his own approach to the geological method and claims that his major sources of inspiration are Freud, Marx, and Saussure. These masters have shown him that true reality rather than being obvious, evades our efforts of detec-

tion (Idem). Consequently, the operation of understanding consists of reducing apparent reality to its hidden dimension through a process of decoding (1966d:33). What is, then, the relation between rational and sensory knowledge? Marx and Rousseau have shown that knowledge in physics and social sciences is not based on sense percep- tion, but on the construction of a model (1965a:61) through which we can interpret empirical reality and discover its uncon- scious infrastructure.

L vi-Strauss' notion of unconscious can- not be reduced to an arbitrary epistemologi- cal idiosyncrasy, since he claims that this notion is present in a specific socio-anthro- pological tradition which is opposed to the empiricist mode of analysis. There has been a good deal of literature on the issue of the intellectual antecedents of Levi-Strauss, but there is not always agreement on the relative importance of the influence of particular thinkers on his works. Some of these intel- lectual influences have been denied by Levi- Strauss in various private correspondences, while others have been admitted by him with some qualifications (1969b: 11).

Levi-Strauss does not belong to one specific anthropological tradition nor to a homogeneous group of traditions. Rather, he borrows some elements, and not necessarily the most important ones, from certain recent theoretical perspectives which are pre- sent in psychology (Gestalt, Freud), soci- ology and anthropology (Rousseau, Durk- heim, Mauss, Marx), linguistics (Saussure, Troubetzkoy, Jakobson), philosophy (Kant, Rousseau), cybernetics (Wiener, Von Neu- mann, Shannon), etc. The elements which Levi-Strauss borrows from these thinkers do not make up a heterogeneous eclecticism but are organized in a consistent and some- what flexible epistemological and method- ological perspective. However, the highly personal way by which Levi-Strauss has selected, systematized, and applied these ele- ments has made it difficult for many social scientists to understand and even label his approach to socio-cultural phenomena. Per- haps one can assert without simplification

Rossi] LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 23

that the most fundamental notions of Levi- Strauss' structuralism are, at the epis- temological theoretical level, the postulate of the unconscious meaning of cultural reality3 and, at the epistemological method- ological level, the notion of structure with the related notions of model and transforma- tion. In this paper I am limiting my atten- tion to those intellectual antecedents of L vi-Strauss that are important for clarifying these fundamental notions of structuralism.

As early as 1955, Levi-Strauss explicitly mentioned as his sources of inspiration, Saussure, Marx, Rousseau, Freud, and, with some reservations Durkheim (1965a:59-63). In explaining the reason for not choosing the individual and its consciousness as the central perspective of his approach, Levi- Strauss has very recently mentioned the same masters once again. What structuralism wants to accomplish after Rousseau, Marx, Durkheim, Saussure, and Freud is to unveil to consciousness an "object other" and more important than consciousness itself (1971a: 563), that is, its unconscious infrastructure or the mechanisms and conditions of its functioning. Since I am discussing the in- fluence of the intellectual antecedents of Levi-Strauss from the point of view of his most fundamental epistemological notion, I follow a systematic rather than a historical method of exposition.

I THE NOTION OF UNCONSCIOUS

The symbolic meaning of socio-cultural phenomena is made possible by their uncon- scious infrastructure.

Levi-Strauss has repeatedly refused to consider structuralism as a philosophy and has denied having or even being interested in one. However, he participated comfortably in philosophical roundtable discussions (see Levi-Strauss 1963b) and does not dislike interviews with professional philosophers. It is especially in these circumstances that L vi- Strauss' philosophical training emerges as an important theoretical component of his an- thropological method. In one such interview,

Levi-Strauss states: "Philosophically I find myself more and more Kantian, not so much because of the particular content of Kant's doctrine (for the good peace of mind of some Levi-Straussian interpreters!), but rather for the specific way of posing the problem of knowledge. First of all, because anthropology appears to me as a philosophy of knowledge, a philosophy of concept; I think that anthropology can make progress only if it is situated at the level of the concept" (1963c:38). Elsewhere, Levi- Strauss quotes Mauss' assertion that "the mental and the social component of social reality are undistinguishable" (1966c:22) and explains that the raw material of social phenomena consists in the common aspects of mental structures and institutional schemata (1969a:95).

Levi-Strauss' position is characterized by the peculiar conception of the symbolic component of culture. Levi-Strauss, trained in philosophy at the Sorbonne, finds con- genial the task of purifying and continuing some elements of Durkheimian thought, which philosophically was under the pre- dominant influence of Kant (1945:518). In Levi-Strauss' view both Durkheim and Mauss insisted on the psychic nature of social phenomena, and Durkheim did not limit himself to stress "the mental side of social processes" but went so far as to conclude that they belong to the realm of ideals (Ibid.:508-509).

Among the various deficiencies or con- tradictions of Durkheim's thinking Levi- Strauss mentions his conceptualization of social phenomena. In L vi-Strauss' opinion, Durkheim was at his best when he stated that intellectual activity, far from being the reflection of social organization, is pre- supposed by the latter, and therefore was at his worst when he proposed the opposite view of the primacy of the social over the intellectual component of culture. Levi- Strauss praises Bergson for having clearly perceived that the concepts of class and opposition are immediate data of the under- standing, which are used in the formation of social order; in Livi-Strauss' view this con-

24 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

ception constitutes "the foundations of a genuine sociological logic" (1967a:96-97).

In The Savage Mind, Levi-Strauss has somewhat elaborated his idea of "socio- logic" as the basis of sociology (1966a:76). He asserts that "the universe is an object of thought" (Ibid.: 3), and against the Naturalist school he maintains that natural conditions, rather than being passively accepted, are defined, given meaning, and developed in specific directions. Man reduces natural reality to concepts which are organized into an unpredetermined system, and this is the reason why facts are "not of a natural but a logical order" (1966a:95). Levi-Strauss clarifies the Durkheimian thesis of the social origin of logical thought by stating that between social structures and the conceptual system there is a dialectical relationship rather than a causal relationship. The rela- tionship between man and universe is the common substratum of the social and intel- lectual system, a substratum from which each one of these systems translates specific historical and spacial modalities (Ibid.:214). One can see here elements of a dialectical view capable of avoiding the shortcomings of a causal and/or idealistic conception of culture.

In a famous passage to which we shall return later, Levi-Strauss explains that the human mind mediates between infrastruc- ture or praxis (man's activity) and super- structure or practices (cultural institutions) by elaborating a conceptual system which is a synthesizing operator between ideas and facts; through this mediation, facts are turned into signs (1966a:131).4 It follows that since "men communicate by means of symbols and signs," all cultural domains are "pregnant with meaning," and the anthro- pologist must work with meaning (1966b: 115).

Because social phenomena are made possible by the fundamental mediation of the conceptual schemata and are pregnant with meaning, their only suitable explana- tion must be dialectical. In an early theoreti- cal essay, LAvi-Strauss peculiarly defines dialectic explanation in opposition to

mechanic explanation, that is, as an explana- tion which consists in "rethinking (social phenomena) in their logical order." Durk- heim advocates this type of sociological explanation since social phenomena are "objectivated systems of ideas." At the same time, Durkheim also advocates the "method- ical experiment" to study social facts as if they were "things." How can we apply both the dialectical and experimental method? Levi-Strauss solves this Durkheimian an- tinomy by saying that the objectified system of ideas are unconscious "or that un- conscious psychical structures underlie them and make them possible"; "the unconscious teleology of mind" explains "how social phenomena may present the character of meaningful wholes and of structuralized ensembles" because of this basic fact, social phenomena present the character of "things," and at the same time can be treated as ideas to be rethought in their logical order (1945:518, 528, 534). Since it is a question of unconscious logical order, the anthropologist must aim at discovering the mechanisms of an objectified (un- conscious) thought on an ethnographic basis (1963b:640, 1969b:10-11), that is, at find- ing out how the human mind works in the most different societies or "incarnated mental activities" (1963c:31).

One question immediately arises: where should we search for the meaning that L vi- Strauss defines as being the proper concern of social anthropology? Does the notion of unconscious structures and objectified thought imply that the meaning of which social actors are aware has to be totally rejected as a spurious or deceptive meaning?

II

Conscious and unconscious meaning are both integral parts of social phenomena; evidence for the existence of unconscious meaning.

Levi-Strauss recognizes that social facts "are lived by man, and that subjective con- sciousness is as much a form of their reality as their objective characteristics"

Rossi ] LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 25

(1966b:113). In his view, however, the con- scious level of social processes is the proper object of history, while anthropology should be concerned with its "unconscious founda- tions" (1963a:18).

How does Levi-Strauss support the notion of an unconscious level of cultural phe- nomena and unconscious teleology of mind? Postponing the discussion on Levi-Strauss' contention that these notions are based on "the main results of modern psychology and linguistics" (1945:518), let us first focus our attention on some of the anthropological evidence he utilizes. Boas had already shown that the structure of language remains un- known to the speaker until a scientific grammar is introduced (1963a:19); Levi- Strauss adds that even the linguistic knowl- edge of the scholar "always remains dis- associated from his experience as a speaking agent" (Ibid.:57). Boas made clear that not only the forms of the phonetic systems but also single sounds are outside the conscious- ness of the speaker; for instance, a terminal s does not convey the idea of plurality as a separate entity, but rather as a part of a sound complex. The speaker becomes con- scious of single phonetic units only through purposeful analysis (Boas 1968:19-20). The use of language in general is so automatic that its basic notions rarely emerge into consciousness, while religious practices al- most universally become a subject of reflec- tion (Ibid.:64).

Levi-Strauss also comments that Tylor's definition of culture includes, among the other components, habits and unconscious reasons for practicing customs (1963a:18). Kroeber had demonstrated that fashion ap- parently seems to follow an arbitrary evolu- tion, but in reality it follows definite laws. Since we rarely notice why the style of fashion changes, the change must "depend on the unconscious activity of the mind"; as a matter of fact, its laws cannot be dis- covered by merely empirical observation or intuition, but only by measuring funda- mental relationships between the elements of custom (Ibid.:59). We shall see that Haudricourt would, on the contrary, argue

that a structure which is statistically demon- strated does not necessarily mean that it is unconscious.

In support of the notion of the uncon- scious dimension of culture, Levi-Strauss could also have referred to Edward Sapir whom he mentions when he discusses the relationship between language and culture (Ibid.:85, 96). Sapir clearly stated that our individual behavior is influenced by an un- conscious patterning of social behavior which we cannot consciously describe; how- ever, while asserting that the individuals are not aware of the significance of their behav- ior, Sapir excluded the existence of a myste- rious social mind which would find expres- sion in individual minds (E. Sapir 1927:121-123).

Levi-Strauss does not limit himself to appeal to anthropological authorities; he also uses ethnological arguments to show that the conscious or surface dimension of a cultural institution can be adequately accounted for only in terms of its unconscious infrastruc- ture. L vi-Strauss' discussion of the Murngin system offers a classic example of this view. Levi-Strauss argues that the Murngin marriage system originally consisted of four patrilineal groups which later, intersected by matrilineal moieties, became an asymmetrical system of eight sections. This implied that an original system of generalized exchange had to reproduce twin structures to give the appearance of a system of restricted ex- change. Since the generalized system estab- lished reciprocal relationships between any number of partners, and the restrictive sys- tem between two partners or between a number of partners in multiples of two, these systems can be represented respec- tively by a three dimensional and a two dimensional geometric structure. How, then, can a three dimensional geometrical struc- ture take the appearance of a two dimen- sional structure? Cartographers solve this problem by representing twice the geo- graphical areas at the edges of the map. The Murngin people in order to conceptualize a system both as a restricted and generalized exchange, unconsciously made analogous

26 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

duplications in their kinship system (1969a: 189-192).

Levi-Strauss argues that the dualistic organizations found in the Americas, Melanesia and Indonesia are superficial dis- tortions of more complex structures (1963a: 161). The explanations offered by the natives are not merely a part or reflection of their social organization, but may show a lack of awareness of certain characteristics and contradict them; moreover, the explana- tions offered by members of different social strata are shown to contradict each other. Consequently, "the actual functioning of these societies is quite different from its superficial appearance" (Ibid.:130-131, 133).s

Does this difference imply that the un- conscious functioning is more genuine than the conscious functioning?

III

The unconscious meaning is more impor- tant than the conscious one.

Levi-Strauss refers to Boas when he asserts that "all types of social phenomena (language, beliefs, techniques, and customs) have this in common, that their elaboration in the mind is at the level of unconscious thought" (1969a:108). Boas made the point that the classificatory concepts of primitives never rise into consciousness and, therefore, must originate in unconscious mental pro- cesses (Boas 1968:63). Linguistic and other cultural facts are grouped together under certain ideas and categories which are uncon- scious. Our experience gives evidence of the unconscious origin of certain clusters of activities, such as table manners, habits, and automatic repetition of actions. For example, the danger of cutting the lips is easily given as the reason for not bringing the table knife to the mouth; however, this explanation is only a "secondary rationalis- tic" explanation, since we know that the fork came into being later than the knife, and that in certain areas people use sharply pointed forks no less dangerous than the knife, while in other areas people use dull

knives. The conclusion is that we do not know the origin of this particular custom which may have been caused by entirely different reasons than those we give (Ibid.: 64-65). In Levi-Strauss' perspective, one could say that the unconscious reason or origin of cultural phenomena is more genu- ine and important than the conscious ex- planation.

Freud and Marx are the other two masters who have convinced Levi-Strauss of the fundamental importance of the uncon- scious. From Freud he has learned that "what is not conscious is more important than what is conscious" (L vi-Strauss 1963b:648), and that "the true meaning is not the one we are aware of, but the one hidden behind it" (1963c:41). This belief has been reinforced by the Marxian creed that "men are always victims of their own as well as other people's frauds" (Ibid.:41).

Levi-Strauss' thinking can be clarified further if we consider its relationship with French socio-anthropological tradition. Ac- cording to Levi-Strauss, Mauss constantly appealed to the unconscious as the common and specific character of social facts; "In magic, as in religion, as in linguistics, the unconscious ideas are the ones which act" (1966c:30). The "unconscious categories" for Mauss are not just one component of cultural phenomena, but rather their "deter- minants" (1966b:113). Levi-Strauss com- ments on Mauss' effort in connection with the work of the linguistic school of Prague. At the same time that Mauss wrote "The Gift," Troubetzkoy and Jakobson with the help of a new operational technique were able to distinguish mere phenomenological data, which evades scientific analysis, from their simpler infrastructure to which they owe all of their reality. It was unfortunate that Mauss did not apply his new discovery in the anthropological analysis of the eth- nographical material (1966c:35). Durkheim and Mauss in surveying the native categories of thought, substituted the conscious repre- sentations of the natives for those of the anthropologist, but in L vi-Strauss' opinion this important step was still inadequate,

Rossi ] LEVI-STRA USS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 27

since conscious representations may be quite remote from unconscious reality (1963a: 282).

Echoing Boas' formulation, Levi-Strauss asserts that the conscious representations of the natives are "rationalized interpretations" of the unconscious categories (1966b:113) or, "a sort of 'dialectical average' among a multiplicity of unconscious system" (Ibid.: 117). Consequently, anthropological analysis can be scientific only if moved to the level of the simpler unconscious infrastructure.6 A scientific definition of this infrastructure becomes a precondition for a sound scien- tific analysis.

IV

The unconscious activity of mind imposes structures upon physical and psychic con- text. The aggregate of these structures con- stitutes the unconscious (Livi-Strauss 1963a:202-203).

The term "unconscious" needs clarifica- tion, since it has been used to refer to social behavior which is "unresponsive, indis- criminating, conditional, subliminal, un- attending, unsightless, unremembering, un- learned, unrecognizing, ignored and unavail- able to awareness" (Machotka, in Bowman 1965:320). Besides, the philosopher Von Hartmann saw in the unconscious the primordial foundation of reality, that is, "a mysterious and hidden power (which) guides to a definite end and goal, all the phe- nomena of the objective real world (nature), as well as that of the subjective-ideal (mind)" (Darnoi 1967:50). The notion that unconscious behavior influences our con- scious behavior is even found with poets, physicians, essayists, mystics, and in the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Schelling (Whyte 1962).

Levi-Strauss' notion of the unconscious is a product of his interpretation of certain elements he claims to borrow from struc- tural linguistics, Freud, Kant and cyber- netics. One may wonder what kind of sys- tematic notion can emerge from such differ- ent sources.

The Unconscious and Structural Linguistics

Levi-Strauss gives credit to Jakobson and Troubetzkoy for having proved the existence of unconscious linguistic structures (1963a: 33, 1966c:35), a contention that, as we shall see, has been questioned by more recent critics. The linguistic facts that Levi-Strauss mentions are mainly related to the phono- logical level of language. Modern linguistics has discovered the reality of phonemes and distinctive features, and has shown that the same pairs of oppositions exist in different languages (1963a: 20). Levi-Strauss explicitly states that these distinctive features have an objective existence from a psychological as well as physical point of view; in other words, they are not merely theoretical and methodological devices, as mathematical tools of analysis, but rather they provide a "picture of reality," as do the Mendelian genetic characteristics (1969a:109). In the last volume of Mythologiques, Levi-Strauss contradicts Sartre by asserting that the oppositions described by linguists are also present in biological and physical reality; an objective dialectics is inherent within the physical world (1971a:616).

In Levi-Strauss' view, language is struc- tured not only at the phonological level, but also at the grammatical and lexical level, and even the structure of discourse "is not al- together random" (1963a:85, also 1960:33).

Let us examine the argument that he develops from what he accepts as established linguistic facts.

(1) Following the linguistic views of the Prague school, he conceptualizes phonologi- cal structures as systems of relations, and the phoneme as "a bundle of distinctive fea- tures" (1963a:57). For this reason, language can be analyzed into constituent elements, which can be organized according to "certain structures of opposition and cor- relation" (1963a:86).

(2) These relations are constitutive and determinants of language, since language owes all of its reality to its simple infrastruc- ture, and the infrastructure consists of small

28 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

and constant relations (1966c:35). For the first time, modern phonemics has made pos- sible a social science capable of formulating "necessary relations" (1963a:33), and an- thropology should emulate its vestiges by trying to establish, like the natural sciences, "certain abstract and measurable relations, which constitute the basic nature of the phenomena under study" (1963a:59).

(3) Then, Levi-Strauss, links this pre- sumed linguistic evidence to the dynamism of human mind: "Language... is human reason, which has its reasons, and of which man knows nothing" (1966a:252). The laws of language "rigorously determine man's way of communicating and therefore, his way of thinking" (1963c:43). Linguistics reveals that the basic phenomena, which determine the most general forms of mental life, are to be found at the unconscious level (1966c:31). It appears that Levi-Strauss makes two crucial assumptions in reaching such conclusions on the basis of the highly selective linguistic evidence he uses.

The first postulate is that the funda- mental and objective phonemic realities, which consist of systems of relations, are "the product of unconscious thought pro- cesses" (1963a:58). Obviously, Levi-Strauss does not mean simply that we learn, more or less consciously, collective habits of behavior or linguistic patterns, as it is implied by Geza de Rohan-Csermack's interpretation of col- lective unconscious (Rohan-Csermack 1967:145). Instead, Levi-Strauss says that linguistic phenomena, as well as all other social phenomena, are "the projection, on the level of conscious and socialized thought, of universal laws which regulate the unconscious activities of the mind" (Levi- Strauss 1963a:59). " 'Collective conscious- ness' would in the final analysis, be no more than the expression, on the level of individ- ual thought and behavior, of certain time and space modalities of the universal laws which make up the unconscious activity of the mind" (Ibid.:65).

The second basic assumption for Levi- Strauss' reasoning is that the" 'natural basis' of the phonemic system" is "the structure of

the brain" (Ibid.:92); since the brain is the basic mediator and constraining influence on human thought (1963c:33), it is easy to conclude that the unconscious laws of lan- guage rigorously determine man's mode of thinking.

Were we to accept these two assumptions as self-evident, from the character of lin- guistic structures we could conclude that human mind has built-in internal constraints by which it structures psychic and physical content; since we are unaware of this set of constraints or structures, they can properly be called the unconscious infrastructure of our psychic activity.

Levi-Strauss draws on psychology and philosophy further to strengthen and clarify this notion.

Levi-Strauss and Freud's Notion of the Unconscious

There is no doubt that in his early works Levi-Strauss considers the notion of the un- conscious as a scientific discovery, since he accepts it as one of the "main results of modern psychology and linguistics" (1945:518) and as one of those "method- ological instruments" offered by Gestalt and phonemics, which alone enables sociology to lay its own path (Ibid.:520). Freud's concep- tion of the human psyche is described as an example of "experimental study of the facts" which "joins the philosopher's pre- sentments" in attesting to what things happened and how they happened (1969a: 490); "Freud has shown me all the possi- bilities which are open to a scientific in- vestigation of human phenomena" (1963c:42).

Certain partial similarities and funda- mental differences between Levi-Strauss' and Freud's notions of the unconscious can be pointed out easily without claiming special expertise in psychoanalysis. We already know from the previous paragraph that Levi- Strauss shares with Freud the conviction that a genuine meaning lies behind the ap- parent one. At times, Levi-Strauss has per- haps somewhat forced this notion by assert-

Rossi] LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 29

ing that "no meaning has to be accepted at its face value," that "the true meaning ... is not that of which men are aware" (Ibid.:41), and that "conscious data are always er- roneous or illusory" (1972a:76). In fact, an authoritative interpreter of Freud explicitly says, "Nor is it true that everything uncon- scious is the 'real motor' of the mind, and everything conscious merely a relatively un- important side issue" (Fenichel 1945:15).

One soon realizes that the differences between Freud's and L vi-Strauss' notions of the unconscious are greater than their similarities. Freud presented his theory of personality in the two major versions of conscious, preconscious, unconscious, and id, ego, and superego. Commentators seem to agree in characterizing the id as uncon- scious, and ego and superego as partly con- scious and partly unconscious, with some disagreement in relation to the superego. For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that Freud conceived the unconscious as a freely floating energy or set of impulses under pressure and striving for discharge. The material (content in Levi-Strauss' words) of the unconscious includes sensations, emo- tions, feelings, and also ideas and concep- tions connected with the goal of averted impulses (Fenichel 1945:15, 17). Con- sequently, the unconscious is basically a "steam boiler of basic energies" of an in- stinctual nature (Allport 1967:145), its con- ceptual component being only a derivative one.

Levi-Strauss has a different conception of the unconscious. To him, the unconscious does not refer to emotional content, energy, or principle of activity, but only to a form (or aggregate of forms) empty of any con- tent. Its function is to impose structural laws upon psychic content, which by itself is inarticulate and originates elsewhere. The psychic content constitutes the preconscious or the individual lexicon of impulses, emo- tions, representations, and memories ac- cumulated in one's personal life; the psy- chological lexicon becomes significant when it is transformed into language, that is, when it is structured by the unconscious (1963a:

203). The conception of the unconscious as a structuring activity and the related emphasis on form over content bring into focus the root of the fundamental difference between the structuralist and psychoanalytic perspectives.' Psychoanalysts are interested in the question of the individual or collective origin of myth and in the historical sequence of events; on the contrary, L vi-Strauss con- siders these questions of marginal impor- tance, since they deal with the stock of representations or material of myth, which is of secondary interest in relation to the basic fact that its structural laws or symbolic function remain the same (Ibid.:204). Levi- Strauss insists on this point once again in the last volume of Mythologiques, when he states that psychoanalysts claim to connect the structure of a collective or individual work to what they falsely call its origin. This approach amounts to reducing certain orders of reality to their content, which is of a different nature and, therefore, cannot act from the outside on their form without implying a contradiction. On the contrary, authentic structuralism aims at seizing, first of all, the intrinsic properties of certain orders which do not express anything ex- ternal to them (1971a:561). For Freud, historical reconstruction was a precondition for the restructuring of the psychological personality, while for Levi-Strauss the con- sideration of structure is the first and self- intelligible question which offers a logical tool to make history intelligible.

On the other hand, in his theory of anxiety Freud himself had suggested that "certain basic phenomena find their explana- tion in the permanent structure of the human mind, rather than its history." Then, in Totem and Taboo, Freud showed a his- torical concern with a wavering attitude between historical sociology and a more modern and scientifically solid attitude, which finds knowledge of its past and future from the analysis of the present (1969a: 491-492). The basic concern of structuralism with structure and form over content solves many objections and misunderstandings about Lbvi-Strauss' presumed neglect for his-

30 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

tory. Rather than neglect, we should speak of a structuralist conception of history or of bistory in terms of its underlying and con- stant structures.

To sum up the analysis, the priority of form over content implies (1) priority of the structural (synchronic) over the diachronic perspective, (2) a priority of collective and universal invariant structures over individual constants, and (3) a consequent disinterest with the therapeutic aspect of psycho- analysis in favor of a concern for a theory of mind (1963b:648).

Concerning this last point, I must emphasize a difference between Freud and Levi-Strauss which is already implicit in what I have said. Freud was primarily in- terested in the unconscious as an instinctual energy and in the conceptual component of psychic life only as its derivative, while Levi-Strauss is interested in the permanent and logical structures of mind (1969a:143, 151). Since Levi-Strauss believes that anthro- pology can make progress only if it becomes concerned with "concept" and "understand- ing," he considers affectivity as the most obscure and incomprehensible side of man and, therefore, totally inadequate as an ex- planatory factor in social sciences. Emotions are always a result and consequence of the power of the body and of the impotence of the mind. Intellect is the only way left for anthropology and psychology (1967a: 69-71). We can, therefore, conclude that Levi-Strauss' insistence in considering Freud as one of his inspirers, is justified only insofar as he accepts the Freudian postulate that what is unconscious is more important than what is conscious. In fact, the notion of the unconscious refers to affective motiva- tion in the case of Freud and to logical structures in the case of Levi-Strauss. After all, Boas had already denied certain psycho- analytic interpretations of the unconscious (Boas 1920:320).

Some commentators have listed various similarities between Levi-Strauss' and Freud's approach, such as the dynamic aspects of the unconscious, the process from the known to the unknown and from what is variable to its invariants, a combination of a

theoretical approach with a detailed observa- tion of the concrete, as well as the impor- tance given to the symbolic component of culture (Santerre 1966:140). However, one wonders whether these generic characteriza- tions adequately express the specificity of the Freudian approach; besides, it is pre- cisely the question of the origin and func- tion of symbolism which characterizes Levi- Strauss' position and makes it different from the affective basis of Freudian symbolism.

If, then, Levi-Strauss conceives the un- conscious not as psychic content, but as a conceptual structure, we must turn our attention to what the term of conceptual structure implies. Certain elements borrowed by Levi-Strauss from Kantian philosophy and cybernetics help to clarify this notion.

Kant and the Unconscious as a Set of Mental Constraints or Categories

The insistence of Levi-Strauss on struc- tures and on the primacy of the intellect immediately reveals the affinity of his think- ing with certain elements of the Kantian way of approaching the problem of knowledge (1963c:37). In a 1963 roundtable discussion with P. Ricoeur and others, Levi-Strauss admitted such affinity and defined his an- thropology as a transposition of the Kantian inquiry into the ethnological field; in fact, he wants to discover those "categories" or fundamental properties which according to Kant always constrain the human mind (1963b:630-631, 1963c:29, 38). As late as 1972, L vi-Strauss has reiterated such affinity: "I have often claimed kinship with him (Kant)" (1972a:74). There is, however, the great difference that Kant proceeds by internal introspection and by studying the scientific thought of his own specific soci- ety, while Levi-Strauss wants to use an empirical approach and use material from the most contrasting societies in order to find a kind of common denominator of any thinking activity (1969b: 10-11).

While Levi-Strauss agrees with P. Ricoeur that his Kantian notion of the unconscious refers to a mental activity which combines and categorizes, he also underlies Ricoeur's

Rossi ] LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 31

statement that his notion of the unconscious does not have any connection with a "think- ing subject"; the categories refer to the "given" laws and constraints of mind, that is, to the unconscious system of the basic mechanisms of any mental activity. We, therefore, understand why Levi-Strauss is interested in those conditions by which systems of truth are mutually convertible and simultaneously acceptable to different subjects; since they are universally common and unconscious, these conditions have "the character of an autonomous object, in- dependent of any subject" (Ibid.:11).

This L vi-Straussian statement can be un- derstood only within the context of his semiotic perspective. For Saussure and other structural linguists, the system has priority over its components, whose meaning derive from the position within the system. The subject himself is one of the elements of the system and, therefore, he gets meaning from the system instead of giving meaning to it. This is, of course, the fundamental point of disagreement between Levi-Strauss and phe- nomenologists, which has taken Levi-Strauss to task in the long "Finale" of L 'Homme Nu (Levi-Strauss 1971a).

Those anthropologists who might find Levi-Strauss' semi-Kantian and semiotic per- spectives difficult to understand would prob- ably find it helpful to recall those passages where Durkheim expresses an interest in "relating the variable to the permanent" and in dealing with collective representations or categories which are "permanent molds for the mental life" (Durkheim 1961:487, 488, 492). These assertions bear a striking similar- ity to Levi-Strauss' notion of constraints, the basic difference being that for Durkheim the categories are external molders of mind because of their collective nature, while for Levi-Strauss they are more Kantian-like internal constraints built within the mind itself. This difference explains why Levi- Strauss rejects the primacy of the social over the mental life which is propounded in certain passages of Durkheim.

Some commentators have been de- emphasizing the Kantian aspect of Livi- Strauss' thinking to underline the semiotic

and cybernetic component. No matter how correct this deemphasis might be, the fact still remains that in the last volume of Mythologiques, L'Homme Nu, Levi-Strauss once again expressed his perspective in semi- Kantian terms. In fact, he asserts that within the understanding is built an apparatus of oppositions which act on the occasion of empirical experiences; the conceptual ap- paratus extracts meaning from the concrete situation, which becomes an object of thought because it is bent to the imperatives of the formal organization of mind (1971a: 539). This formulation closely echoes the words of Kant: "I maintain that the cate- gories are nothing but the conditions of thought in a possible experience... They are fundamental concepts by which we think objects in general for appearances, and have therefore a priori objective validity . . To obtain any knowledge whatsoever.., .we must resort to experience; but is the a priori laws that alone can instruct us in regard to experience in general, and as to what it is that can be known as an object of experi- ence" (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, in Jones 1969:39). The following commentary of a popular college textbook might be more understandable to the anthropological audi- ence: "Both in perceiving through the senses and in knowing through concepts, mind imparts to experience certain necessary con- ditions which mind then finds as the uni- versal structural framework which prevails throughout experience. Experience is the joint product of material elements which come to mind and formal elements which mind contributes" (Lamprecht 1955:364).

As soon as we think we have pinpointed Levi-Strauss' thinking, his eclectic perspec- tive evades us again with the introduction of new elements. He reinforces the oppositional component of the categorical apparatus with a biological and cybernetic notion of binar- ism.

The unconscious, cybernetic, and the biological perspective

P. Ricoeur states that Lbvi-Strauss' un- conscious does not refer to a thinking sub-

32 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

ject and it is "homologous with nature; it may perhaps be nature" (1969b:11). To reconcile this interpretation with the some- what Kantian perspective of Levi-Strauss, one must remember that Levi-Strauss con- siders conceptual structures as an epiphe- nomenon of brain structures (1967a:90) and mental processes subjected to social and biological constraints. According to him, a main difference between phenomenology and structuralism is that the latter studies phenomena not in "human minds," but in "societies, or 'incarnated mental activities' which are made concrete by their appearing in a certain space and time." Man is sub- jected to an ever growing biological and demographic determinism and, more funda- mentally, man's relationships to the world are mediated by the instrument he uses to conceptualize them. In this sense, the "struc- ture of the brain" is the first constraint imposed on human mental functioning (1963c:31-33). According to Leach, our brain does not perceive all things as they actually are, but rather it reproduces trans- formations of structures which occur in nature and then responds to them; the brain must follow its genetically inherited program in the fashion of a computer (1969:547-548).

Leach's references to the computer are not merely incidental. In The Savage Mind and Totemism, Levi-Strauss adopted a perspective borrowed from Information Theory (1966a:19, 154, 268-269), pre- announced as early as 1953 (Tax et al. 1953:323). Society is a machine for the exchange of communication; social phe- nomena are messages; the structure of lan- guage is a code used to convert messages. As the Morse code is based on the binary use of short and long dashes, so does the brain use a binary code. The contribution of structural linguistics seems to confirm this binary per- spective. Troubetzkoy conceptualized the phoneme in terms of the contrastive func- tion of sound, that is, in terms of sound contrasts which entail different meaning, and defined it as a bundle of distinctive features; the contrast between two pertinent

features or between distinctive or pertinent features is called opposition (Waterman 1963:69). Jakobson stressed the notion that distinctive features are in strict binary opposition to one another (Leroy 1967:74).

In L'Homme Nu, Levi-Strauss reinforces his binary perspective by observing that the genetic code proceeds like language, that is by distinctive combination and opposition of a small number of elements. The dis- covery of the genetic code gives an objective reality to the principle of discontinuity, which is at work within the products of nature as well as in the mind, in order to restrict the unlimited range of possibilities (1971a:605). Levi-Strauss seemed to exhibit an ingenious capacity for discovering the convergency of Kantian, linguistic, cyber- netic, and genetic evidence in support of his notion of mental binary constraints. But, how can he infer the existence of mental constraints or binary working of mind from a presumed binary functioning of the brain?

Along with Jakobson and many others, L6vi-Strauss wholeheartedly accepted the principle that the most parsimonious explan- ation is the one closest to the truth. He realizes that this principle rests "upon the identity postulated between the laws of the universe and those of the human mind," and raises a metaphysical problem. Levi-Strauss advises Benveniste to put aside the meta- physical problem, and emphasizes the scien- tific power of this principle which enables the social scientist to avoid pragmatism, formalism, and neo-positivism (1963a:89, 90). Precisely to avoid the empiricism of some contemporary sociologists as well as an outmoded idealism, since 1949 Levi-Strauss had endorsed the basic premise that "the laws of thought 'primitive or civilized' are the same as those which are expressed in physical reality and in social reality, which is itself only one of its aspects" (1969a:451).

Is L6vi-Strauss advocating a physical re- ductionism or just an isomorphism of mental, social, and physical laws (L6vi- Strauss 1971a:561, 616, 619)? If the latter, is the isomorphic hypothesis a philosophical or a scientific hypothesis?

Rossi ] LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 33

V EVALUATION

Since Levi-Strauss invokes linguistic, psychological, and biological disciplines to support his notion of unconscious, only a review of contemporary research in these disciplines can reveal whether his notion has the credibility of a scientific truth or at least of a scientific hypothesis.

I do not pretend to review all the basic literature and much less to resolve issues which are at the core of the most funda- mental controversies in these various dis- ciplines. I merely point out the main con- troversial aspects of Levi-Strauss' hypothesis and ascertain its scientific potential on the basis of its usefulness as a working hypo- thesis in contemporary scientific research.

Psychological Issues

As far as the Freudian aspect of L vi- Strauss' notion of the unconscious is con- cerned, one might raise questions about Levi-Strauss' modification of the Freudian notion and about its explanatory usefulness.

In answering the first question, one must consider whether Levi-Strauss' intellectual- ization of the Freudian unconscious can be justified in terms of psychological evidence. This is hardly the case, if such a theoretical position claims that the intellectual or cogni- tive component is the independent and ex- plaining variable of psychic life in its totality. Binet already noted that "thought and emotions (conscious and unconscious) are pervasively tied together, and even sys- tematic introspection cannot dissolve them" (Wolf 1969:233). Contemporary psycho- logists assert that to reduce conscious phe- nomena to logical and cognitive components is a serious mistake (Collier 1964). One could reply that L vi-Strauss is not in- terested in the totality of psychic dynamism, but mainly in its process of categorization. Yet, certain psychological studies reveal that motivational elements do influence even this process (Bruner, in Jahoda 1970:44). Jahoda suggests that Livi-Strauss might simply

intend to use categorical elements as a heuristic device. Levi-Strauss' procedure would be acceptable in this sense, but one wonders whether this interpretation is com- patible with Levi-Strauss' assertion that the structures formulated by anthropologists in psychological terms are a tentative approxi- mation of organic and physical realities (1971a:616).

Moreover, not everyone would agree on a structuralist interpretation of Freud which would exclude his historical perspective. Green, for instance, clearly stated that there is both a historical and a structuralist com- ponent in psychoanalytic thought; Levi- Strauss is correct in asserting that historical knowledge is reducible to structure in the sense that any knowledge is subjected to the laws of thought, but still there exists a knowledge which is not knowledge of con- science and, therefore, history is present independently of structure (Green 1963:661). Once again, L vi-Strauss' posi- tion can be interpreted simply to assert a methodological priority of structure over event, as a starting point of analysis and as a tool of intelligibility. In fact, when L vi- Strauss agrees with Piaget that structures have an origin, he immediately adds that the state previous to a structure must itself be a structure. History, then, is produced by a transformation of structures by other struc- tures, so that the structure remains the first datum (1971a:560-561). In this sense, the question is one of a methodological attitude and not of a logical reductionism; history is not excluded but rather made intelligible through the notion of structure.

However, Levi-Strauss' epistemological perspective would seem to be incompatible with the conception of history as a set of contingencies (Diamond 1964:44), since it maintains that historical phenomena are adequately accounted for only when we discover laws which give reason for their necessary connection (1969a:22-23); the necessary connection is given, of course, by their infrastructure, that is, the underlying universal and unconscious mental structures. In actuality, the two perspectives can be

34 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

considered complementary to each other in the sense that a thorough examination of historical contingencies can lead to the dis- covery of structural continuities, unless one maintains a programmatic exclusion or meaninglessness of structural continuities. The difference between these two epis- temological positions has a certain parallel in the difference between Sapir's contention that the structure of culture is a product of mind, and Boas' contention that the form is not a product of the mental dyna- mism of the individual but "the result of idiosyncratic historical factors" (Modjeska 1968:345). One might argue that Sapir differed from Levi-Strauss when he temporarily held that the structure of cul- ture is a product of consciousness (Idem). In fact, this seems to leave room for free decisions and historical contingencies, con- trary to Levi-Strauss' contention that history is the product of the unconscious working of the mind. In the "Finale" of L'Homme Nu, Levi-Strauss has clarified his thought in that he does not exclude the role of freedom in the historical and cultural development, but instead moves his analysis to the funda- mental level of the basic structural mechan- isms which simultaneously permit and at the same time limit the actualizations of man's active choices (1971a:612-614).

If we consider now the question of the scientific merit of the primacy given by Freud and Levi-Strauss to the unconscious rather than to the conscious level of func- tioning, we immediately face one of the most controversial issues in contemporary social sciences. The negative reaction against the primacy, or even the existence, of un- conscious psychic forces has been expressed in various forms and degrees of intensity. In the opinion of some authors, psychoanalytic premises have assumed the status of dogma, since psychoanalytically oriented psy- chologists refuse to examine the large body of discrepant data and, therefore, impede any scientific progress (Millar 1970). Some experimental psychologists maintain that there is no convincing empirical support for the existence of unconscious motivation

(Eysenck 1964:265) and even argue that valid empirical support hardly seems possible because of the difficulty in operationalizing Freudian concepts. Others find that the Freudian postulate is not a parsimonious principle, since it implies too many assump- tions which are not at all needed if one would adopt the perspective of social learn- ing theory (Bandura 1969:592), a perspec- tive which would avoid apparent contradic- tions inherent in psychoanalytic explana- tions (Bandura and Walters 1965:210). It is argued also that a more parsimonious and meaningful explanation would come from the use of conscious and intentional factors instead of unconscious processes (Papa- georgis 1965); others assert that intentional processes are not only more parsimonious scientific principles, but must be considered as the ultimate laws of human behavior (Knowles 1966). In light of this position we are not surprised to find Sartre rejecting the Freudian unconscious (Conkling 1968).

In a sense, the objection of the un- parsimonious character of the unconscious might seem more serious than that of its untestability, since it can be argued that it is arbitrary to demand experimental testability for any psychological or sociological con- struct. However, psychologists of different theoretical orientations are ready to defend the notion of unconscious in terms of empir- ical evidence and of its scientific usefulness. Binet already asserted that "there are very great portions of our psychic life that are by their very nature inaccessible to conscious- ness" (Binet 1911). More psychoanalytically oriented psychologists are ready to cite clinical and experimental evidence to sup- port the theory of unconscious motivation (Kisker 1964:117ff.). Herron, for instance, offers a systematic review of the literature on the unconscious and shows that while some of the meanings attached to the notion of unconscious are ambiguous, the "behavior which is undiscriminating, subliminal, un- remembered, insightless, uncommunicable, or repressed, seems to provide valid evidence for inferring the existence of a dynamic psychological unconscious" (Herron 1962).

Rossi] LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 35

The contemporary psychologist Irving Sarnoff, among others, has offered guide- lines for theoretically and methodologically sound experimental tests of Freud's hypo- thesis and has expressed the conviction that "Freud's theory is surely as worthy as other psychological theories for evaluation by methods that most completely satisfy the logical requirements of scientifically ad- equate evidence" (Sarnoff 1971:vii). G. W. Allport, a psychologist of eclectic orienta- tion, asserts: "Like other writers I have been critical of Freud's depreciation of the role of consciousness, but there is a residual truth in his formulation-especially in accounting for neurotic trends in personality that are often due to unconscious motives and unconscious conflicts" (Allport 1967:150). This qualified support of a "residual truth" of Freudian theory is outdone by a seemingly more generous backing of J. Piaget, author of the "excellent small book" on structuralism (to quote Levi-Strauss 1971a:560), who asserts that psychogenetic studies have shown that "the mechanisms on which the individual subject acts of intelligence depend, are not in any way contained by his consciousness, yet they cannot be explained except in terms of structures" (Piaget 1970:138). A stronger view is held by Fromm, who con- siders Freud's theory of unconscious as the continuation of the work of Copernicus, Darwin, and Marx, all of whom attacked man's illusion about his own place in the cosmos, in nature, and in society; Freud destroys the myth of conscience as the ultimate and unique datum of human experi- ence (Arnaud 1971:256).

As we can see, both critics and supporters differ in the degree of criticism or support of the Freudian postulate. One conclusion appears to be warranted. The opposition of many psychologists to the preeminence or even to the existence of the unconscious prevents its acceptance as a scientific truth. On the other side, the central role that this hypothesis plays in the works of many psychologists seems to warrant its status as a scientific hypothesis. Moreover, the pre- sumed intelligibility that Lbvi-Strauss'

metaempirical analysis has brought upon previously scarcely understood cultural phenomena would further support this con- clusion.

Linguistic Issues

A thorough examination of L vi-Strauss' use of linguistics is beyond the scope of this essay. For the convenience of the reader, I mention a few points directly connected with the question of the linguistic structures, their binary and unconscious character.

Levi-Strauss is not the first to explain linguistic facts in terms of mental processes. We have seen that Boas, for instance, argues that the presence of certain grammatical concepts and classifications of concepts in all languages is the product of the unity of fundamental psychological processes; since they are unconscious they must originate in unconscious or "instinctive" processes of the mind (Boas 1968:63, 67). Later on, Boas attributed the unconscious form of language not to the unconscious psychoanalytically understood, but to historical factors (1920, see in Modjeska 1968:345). Sapir shifted his attention from the conscious and accidental historical factors to the unconscious pattern- ings of human mind and experience, and to an "innate striving for formal elaboration and expression" (Sapir, in Modjeska 1968:345-347; for additional material on Boas and Sapir, see Hymes 1964 and Boas 1964).8

Levi-Strauss accepts this notion, and un- der the influence of Jakobson he emphasizes that phonological structures present a binary and unconscious character. Chomsky main- tains that Levi-Strauss erroneously puts emphasis on the formal aspect of phonologi- cal structures rather than on the fact that few absolute features seem to provide the basis for organizing all phonological systems; the structural pattern of phonemes is an epiphenomenon, while the important phe- nomenon to reckon with is the system of rules of these patterns (Chomsky 1968:65-66). Given LQvi-Strauss' insistence that culture does not consist only of forms

36 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

of communication but also of rules of com- munication (1963a:296), one might wonder whether Chomsky's criticism is ultimately a question of semantics or of different emphasis.

There is no question that a great deal of Levi-Strauss' use of linguistic method con- sists in the application of the oppositional method (1963a, Ch. 12). N. Chomsky and M. Halle have defended their own adaptation of the Jakobsonian notion of distinctive fea- tures, since, among other things, it enables one to build a universal phonetic theory (Chomsky and Halle 1965:120). Sebeok ex- presses the opinion that the Jakobsonian notion of sound structures, based on the theory of universal features, is much ahead of any other kind of previous attempts (Sebeok 1968:4), and Bondarko categorical- ly asserts that "without any doubt the most economic and systematic description of phonemes is in terms of distinctive features. At the present time no one will attempt to deny the reality and significance of distinc- tive features" (Bondarko 1969:1).

On the contrary, others doubt whether all phonemic systems can be described ad- equately in terms of Jakobsonian distinctive features (see Scheffler 1966:73), while others, in denying that auditory Jakobsonian features can provide a universal framework at the articulatory level and at the sys- tematic phonemic level, make the suggestion that phonologists had "better burn their phonetic books and turn to a genuine ab- stract framework" (Fudge 1967:23-26).

In the words of N. Chomsky and M. Halle, "each feature corresponds to a pair of opposed categories" (1965:121). All lin- guists agree in using phonological opposi- tions in linguistic analysis even when they do not use the concept of opposition, but they are far from accepting the idea that the oppositions are always binary (Mounin 1972). The rigorous binarism of Jakobson and of the early Levi-Strauss has attracted a widespread criticism since a three valued dimensionality may be a more satisfactory alternative (Scheffler 1966:73); Jakobson himself has introduced in the binary scheme

a neutral and a mixed term (Barthes 1962:121). More recently, some linguists have argued that the binary principle is in conflict with the criterion of simplicity pro- posed by Halle and that multivalued features may better fit the data without introducing complications (Coubreras 1969:1).

While Levi-Strauss' binarism continues to find wider and wider application (for a Russian example, see Meletinsky and Segal 1971:99, 114), anthropological literature abounds with criticisms against the assump- tion of the binary dimensionality not only of phonological structures and of the brain, but also of cultural phenomena (see Leach 1970:88ff., among others). In the words of a contemporary linguist from Budapest, the hypothesis of binary semantic oppositions is untenable since semantic oppositions give threefold, fourfold oppositions, etc. (Tar- noczi 1970:82).

Has Levi-Strauss softened his position after so many criticisms? In Mythologique Four, he still uses the notion of binary operator (1971a:499, 500, 501, 518) and binarism (Ibid.:498, 621). Moreover, Levi- Strauss supports his basic binarism with recent empirical research on the oppositional and binary character of visual perception (Ibid.:619). Linguists assert that feature analysis has been demonstrated for visual perception, even though little research has been done on aural perception (Lehman 1971:273). Levi-Strauss finds support for the Jakobson and Troubetzkoy's views even from the molecular structure of the genetic code, which is ultimately composed of a finite set of discrete units (1971a:612).

At the same time, Levi-Strauss seems to adopt a less rigid attitude when, for instance, he suggests a possible alternative interpreta- tion to binarism in terms of triadic opposi- tions (Ibid.:501) or recognizes the impor- tance of the neutral term in his explanation of "mana" (1966c:50). For a long time, Levi-Strauss' notion of "opposition" has been criticized because it encompasses the much larger categories of "difference"; how- ever, in asserting that the apprehension of the "other" as an opposition is an absolute

Rossi] LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 37

truth, L6vi-Strauss has recently explained that the world is essentially a "disparity" and that myth dissects the world by means of distinctions, contrasts, and oppositions (Ibid.:607). We can conclude that L6vi- Strauss adopts a flexible binarism integrated with a tridimensionality (Ibid.:617). In the ultimate analysis, binarism is used as a parsi- monious hypothesis to be used insofar as it works without excluding a multidimensional approach when the latter fits the data better.

It is usually agreed that L6vi-Strauss' basic methodological perspective is derived from the linguistic school of Prague. Yet, Mounin has recently offered a drastic criti- cism of the linguistic foundations claimed by L6vi-Strauss. Of the four basic operations attributed by Levi-Strauss to Troubetzkoy's structural method (insistence on relation- ship, the notion of system, the notion of general laws and the shift to the study of the unconscious infrastructure: 1963a:33), Mounin asserts that the second and third notions originally came from Saussure and not from Troubetzkoy,9 and the first and second notions are not two but one notion; moreover, since linguists have always studied habitual and not conscious processes,' the fourth notion and the connection between Freud and Troubetzkoy is a product of L6vi-Strauss' misreading; the remaining two notions of structure and opposition which L6vi-Strauss would have borrowed from structural phonology are not at all specifical- ly linguistic notions, as Troubetzkoy and Saussure themselves had already seen (Mou- nin 1970:201-203). Mounin's radical criti- que, which is directed to many other pre- sumed misperceptions of L6vi-Strauss, might puzzle those anthropologists who have been trained to take L6vi-Strauss' linguistic cre- dentials seriously.

The reader has to realize that a great part of Mounin's critique comes from his opposi- tion to Jakobsonian linguistics. For instance, he disagrees with Jakobson's belief that there exists a kind of Mendeleieff's univer- sal table of phonological traits, a belief which, according to Mounin, is shared by few linguists. In Mounin's view, another fun-

damental failure of Jakobson consists in not having connected the notion of opposition to that of function. For instance, in Sanskrit the simple p and aspirated p are two phonemes because they have the function of distin- guishing two different meanings, while in English they do not have this function and, therefore, their opposition is not distinctive. Since Levi-Strauss followed Jakobson, L6vi- Strauss has made the same mistake of not looking for the function of his oppositions in the cultural domain; consequently, he lacks a criterion to assert that his differ- ences are relevant. L6vi-Strauss might be anthropologically right, but he certainly uses mistaken linguistic figures (Mounin 1972). Some of the linguists I have consulted agree with Mounin's criticisms, while others argue that Mounin follows the linguistics school of Martinet and is unfair to Jakobson; more- over, his understanding of Saussure would reflect the interpretation of the French academic circles (Rey 1972); still others disagree with Mounin and assert that L6vi- Strauss has worked in an appropriate, phonological framework and has shown the function of his oppositions (Durbin 1972).

As far as Levi-Strauss is concerned, he does not seem to take the credentials of some of his critics too seriously and leaves the solution of linguistic disputes and inter- pretations to linguistsI 1 The ethnographic evidence and ethnological conclusions reached in his long career would seem to excuse him from supporting his basic hypo- thesis in terms of linguistic and, we shall see, of psychological arguments. In a sense, Levi-Strauss' contacts with linguistics or psychology can be interpreted more as fortuitous circumstances which stimulated the formulation of his perspective than as influences to be taken in the literal sense of the word. The question of whether the notions of structure, opposi- tion, and unconscious infrastructure are derived from structural linguistics or some other linguistic school would seem to be a marginal historical question for the purpose of interpreting Levi-Strauss' work. The con- tention that these notions do not have any

38 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

linguistic support, combined with the thin similarity with psychoanalytic notions, seems to make of L6vi-Strauss' notion of unconscious a somewhat Kantian and a basically cybernetic notion. Haudricourt asserts that linguistic phonological infra- structures have statistical value but that their unconscious character has different degrees and, at certain times and places, they are clearly conscious both for internal and ex- ternal reasons (Haudricourt 1970:606-608). If it is true that linguistics is interested in arriving "at the structure which lies behind the behavior of language-users" and not in mere "game-playing" (Fry 1971:6), it also seems true that this structure can be ad- equately conceived in statistical terms.

Since L6vi-Strauss asserts that he has derived his linguistic inspiration mainly from the phonetic school of Prague (or Jakobson, as the case might be), I will bypass the discussion on L6vi-Strauss' assertion of the structural character of language at the gram- matical level; the structural study of the grammatical, and especially semantic level of language, is less advanced, and the opinions of linguists are even more sharply divided than they are in relation to the structural quality of the phonological level. As an example, we can turn our attention once more to the linguist from Budapest, who asserts that "the structure is the product of a theory imposed a priori to the analyzed object" and that the attempts to unveil the semantic structure of language will never give more than conceptual structure rather than formal structure, which is the specific goal of linguistics; to suppose that under a heterogeneous linguistic system there exists a hidden coherent substructure is to invoke a third level of abstraction and cultivate a pure illusion (Tarnoczi 1970:81, 82).

In this linguistic context, one more aspect of L6vi-Strauss' position would seem to deserve consideration. Given L6vi-Strauss' assertion that logical structures are a projec- tion of mind, one might wonder whether the contemporary debate on the supposed in- natism of linguistic structures might be rele- vant here. Strictly speaking it is not.

Chomsky asserts that "it is perfectly possible that a particular grammar is acquired by differentiation of a mixed innate scheme, rather than by slow growth of new items, patterns or associations" (1966:19). Piaget, however, rightly states that L vi-Strauss' un- conscious activity is not the "innate reason" of Chomsky, but a system of schemata intercalated between infrastructures and su- perstructures (1970:111). In other words, there are no innate rules but a mind which, through a dissecting and combining activity, imposes structures to empirical facts. Every- thing is governed by the mind through general operations without a need of special- ized and innate mechanisms (Sperber 1968:234-237).

Levi-Strauss is likely to puzzle his ad- mirers with his recent shift away from (or perhaps clarification of) the notion of im- mutable and universal structures (1969a: 491) to the notion of absolute structures as "generative matrices by successive deforma- tions" (1971a:33). Levi-Strauss has made this recent statement under the pressure of Piaget, who considers psychological reality as a permanent construction rather than as an accumulation of already made structures. Levi-Strauss comments that he has never conceived human nature as a set of totally set up and immutable structures, but rather as matrices generating structures which, even though they derive from the same complex, do change during the life of individuals and throughout societies (Ibid.:561). While this clarification of the notion of structure might puzzle some structuralists, it seems to differ- entiate Levi-Strauss' position from the in- natist position. I may dispense, therefore, with the task of discussing the enormous literature on the innatist controversy spear- headed by Chomsky and Lenneberg, to name just two prominent authors (for a recent review, see Wardlaugh 1971), and on the question of innate mapping mechanism and Language Acquisition Device (see Von Raffler Engel 1970).12

Neurophysiological research and the unconscious.

Rossi ] LEVI-STRA USS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 39

Levi-Strauss' reference to the structure of the brain as the natural basis of the phonemic system (1963a:92, 94) is in harmony with the marked interest of recent phonetics in the neurophysiological pro- cesses. Earlier, Jakobson had emphasized the acoustic aspect of distinctive features, but lately he has turned his attention to their articulatory aspect; since what is happening in the language has a neurophysiological counterpart in the brain, the language generator, the attention is directed to the brain with the hope of discovering the un- derlying mechanisms of speech production (Kim 1971:35). Unfortunately, phonologists must rely on neurologists who do not know much about linguistics and who have not yet turned out much material in this area in general and, to Jakobson's own admission, on the problems of aphasia in particular (Tikofsky 1970:23). It is held that the lin- guistic system is a patterning imposed by the brain on sensory and motor activity; the brain uses the store of information about the system to encode speech to be sent out and to decode speech which comes in. However, we do not have a direct access to the patterns of the brain's neural activity and, therefore, we have to rely on the study of the correlation between the patterns of phonetic and linguistic behavior on the one side, and the patterns visible in physiological, acoustic, and perceptual data on the other side (Fry 1971:8-9). Some scholars are con- fident that we will eventually know what in the brain gives man his capacity for lan- guage, even though now it is too early to tell (Lenneberg 1971:20). As of now, it seems clear that the features do not correspond one to one to particular muscles, and the question of the physiological basis of phono- logical features is a matter of speculation (Lieberman 1970:320). We, therefore, can conclude that Levi-Strauss' reference to the brain for the purpose of explaining phono- logical structure has some scientific verisi- mility among some contemporary phono- logists, even though the specific operational- ization of the hypothesis demands a great deal more research.

In connection with Levi-Strauss' in- sistence on the brain, we must clarify the question of L vi-Strauss' supposed biological reductionism. It seems that already in The Savage Mind Levi-Strauss avoided the re- ductionist shortcoming when he asserted that the unconscious teleology rests on the interplay of psychological mechanisms with the biological mechanisms of the brain, lesions, and internal secretions (1966a: 252). In Mythologiques Four, Levi-Strauss ex- plicitly intends to avoid a reductionist posi- tion, since he declares that structuralism is interested in structures conceived as intrinsic properties of certain orders and not as ex- pressions of anything external to them. If one absolutely wants to relate structures to something external, we must resort to cerebral organization conceived as a network of which ideological systems translate only some properties in terms of a particular structure (1971a:561). Structuralist ideas are psychological formulations, which might be nothing else but tentative approximations of organic and physical truths (Ibid.:616) brought to the surface of the conscious (Ibid.:619). In the context of this same passage of The Savage Mind, these assertions do not imply a direct and exclusive deriva- tion of mental from biological structures, but rather a difference between brain and ideological structures, organic and psychic truths, mind and body; all that is affirmed is their parallel or isomorphic structure, and the basic unity of mind and body in opposi- tion to the old dualism (Levi-Strauss 1972b). As Green observes, chemical combinations are unlimited in number (1963:651), and mental structures realize only a few of these combinations, as a product, we should add, of the interaction of the unconscious tele- ology of mind (itself an interplay of psycho- logical and biological processes) with physical reality.

While discussing neurophysiological re- search, I briefly mention whether it has brought any evidence to bear on the ques- tion of the conscious versus the unconscious level of mental functioning. Recent research has shown that consciousness is a measurable

40 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

state of the neural system and that it is the most important factor in giving informa- tional value to sensory and motor messages (Bergstr6m 1967:442). The biologist R. W. Sperry, who has tackled this problem in a series of studies, notices that most con- temporary behavioral scientists do not have any place for conscious experience in brain processes and resist the idea that the electro-physico-chemical events of the brain are influenced by conscious forces; accord- ing to them, a complete explanation of brain functions is possible without referring to conscious mental states; at most, conscious- ness is considered an inner aspect of the brain process, an epiphenomenon, an impotent by-product, or an artifact of semantics, and, finally, a pseudoproblem. Yet, Sperry is convinced on the basis of his own research that experienced conscious phenomena have a causal influence on cerebral excitation and are an essential part of brain processes. The influence is recipro- cal in the sense that subjective mental states govern the flow of the nerve impulse traffic and, at the same time, the conscious prop- erties of cerebral patterns directly depend on the action of the neural component; it is, however, clear that conscious phenomena are in a position of higher command. Sperry's interpretation of his own neurologi- cal research has also something to say on the question of biological reductionism. He ex- cludes a mere materialistic position, since he admits the existence of powerful mental forms, which transcend material forces in the functioning of the brain; he excludes also a merely mentalistic position, since mental forces cannot exist apart from the brain processes of which they are a direct property (Sperry 1969:532-534). This posi- tion seems to offer an appropriate interpre- tative framework to Levi-Strauss' perspec- tive, which, if it is examined in its totality would seem to make room for both mental and biological processes, notwithstanding the seemingly reductionist flavor of certain of his formulations (see 1967a:90).1 3

VII

Let us now consider the unconscious as a theory of mind and as a methodological hypothesis.

A Moderate Position

The previous discussion shows that if Levi-Strauss' notion of binary and uncon- scious working of mind is not a mere a prioristic and arbitrary speculation, its scientific and parsimonious value is far from having universal scientific support. It is per- haps because of this that, when directly asked, Levi-Strauss presents a moderate ver- sion of his notion of unconscious. Recently, to the question of whether he considers the unconscious as a postulate, a reality, or a principle of intelligibility, Levi-Strauss re- plied that it is up to the psychologists to decide on this matter. He declares himself satisfied with the fact that there are things going on in the brain's processes without the awareness of the self.14 Apparently the statement can be interpreted to mean that even if current linguistic, psychological, and neurophysiological research would seriously question, and possibly disprove, the preemi- nence of the unconscious level of mental functioning over the conscious one, his own enterprise would still be warranted by the existence of at least some unconscious processes somehow connected with the func- tioning of the brain (see also his even more radical departure from previous positions in L6vi-Strauss 1971d; see note 6). After all, he objects only to giving exclusive attention to the person and to conscious intentionality (1971a:615), and perhaps his overall empha- sis on the unconscious processes must be interpreted more as a methodological re- action than as an ontological position.

One realizes, however, the importance of the ontological perspective in L6vi-Strauss' works. He wants to make of anthropology a scientific discipline since he wants to dis- cover "a number of rigorous relations as

Rossi] LEVI-STRAUSS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 41

those which regulate natural sciences." How- ever, to succeed in this, Levi-Strauss must formulate philosophical hypotheses and postulates; "I formulate them, and I am aware of it: may be the difference which separates me from my colleague ethnologists is my greater awareness of how much I have to sacrifice to philosophy" (1963c:36). Ultimately, much of the criticism of "empir- ical" anthropology to structuralism is a question of choosing between structuralist and positivistic or behaviorist assumptions.

The Unconscious as Theory of Mind and of Culture

As a psychological theory, Levi-Strauss' notion of unconscious has been attacked for its ontological or ideological character. The question is whether we must conceive struc- tures and models as ontological realities or just as methodological heuristic tools. Levi- Strauss has expressively argued for the second interpretation (1965c:18), but all his epistemological and theoretical discourse also clearly implies their ontological con- ception. This has been explicitly stated in the Finale of L'Homme Nu (1971a).

Some authors easily conclude to a dichot- omy or contradiction between the ontologi- cal ideology and epistemological ideology of Levi-Strauss (for an example of such pre- sumed contradiction, see Nutini 1971), while the point can easily be made that Levi-Strauss' ontological premises might turn out to show the plausibility of his epis- temological and methodological views, as some recent developments in physics might lead one to believe (Rossi 1972b). However, not the discovery of binary neurological pro- cesses correlated with phonetic or perceptual processes, nor the discovery of ultimate structural components of physical reality, seem sufficient to prove by themselves the existence of universal mental structures without falling into a neurological or physi- ological reductionism. Moreover, even as- suming that we could prove definitely the

existence of linguistic and mental structures, how could we consider them as the only adequate explanation of universal cultural structures without falling into a psychologi- cal reductionism?

How far Levi-Strauss is from such a form of reductionism is shown by the care with which he avoids a merely mentalistic or materialistic explanation. He rejects the accu- sation of idealism (1969b:9, 1972b) as well as the notion that cultural institutions originate directly from their infrastructure, by elabo- rating a theory of superstructure which is missing in Marx; between man's activity and cultural institutions there exists the media- tion of a conceptual scheme, or the dialectic of superstructure, which sets up facts in con- trasting pairs and turns them into signs; in this way, it is elaborated a system which is "a synthesizing operator between ideas and facts" (1966a:130-131). This does not imply that ideology gives rise to social relations (Ibid.: 117) or that social categories are a re- sult of social structure, as Durkheim states; rather, social structure and ideology in a pro- cess of mutual adjustment translate certain historical and local modalities of the relation between man and world, which are their common substratum (Ibid.:214). This view can be considered a satisfactory beginning of a theory of culture, which accounts for the specificity of the symbolic element and integrates the individual (biological and psychological), cultural, and historical varia- bles in a unified framework. Once again, a global interpretation of Levi-Strauss' posi- tion is the only appropriate context for a right interpretation of apparently reduc- tionist passages of his notion of culture (see, for instance, 1969a:xxx).

The Unconscious as Methodological Hypothesis

Were we to dismiss the notion of uncon- scious as an ontological position, as some structuralists are seemingly inclined to do, the unconscious would still retain great

42 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

importance and relevance as a methodologi- cal hypothesis and principle of intelligibility. "If, as we believe to be the case, the uncon- scious activity of the mind consists in imposing form upon content, and if these forms are fundamentally the same for all minds.., .it is necessary and sufficient to grasp the unconscious structure underlying each institution and each custom, in order to obtain a principle of interpretation valid for other institutions and other customs" (1963a:21).

In this sense, the unconscious becomes a methodological device which enables one to give a unifying intelligibility to apparently heterogeneous and incoherent social phe- nomena; however, its scientific value can be perceived only if we divest ourselves of the positivistic perspective and we understand it in terms of (1) the structuralist epistemologi- cal premises, (2) the scientific definition of the symbolic character of cultural phe- nomena, (3) the methodological advantages of this hypothesis. Since I have already illustrated the first two points, let us briefly discuss the last one.

Levi-Strauss does not avoid the problem of how to validate the analysis made by the ethnographer. As Mauss did before him, Levi-Strauss conceives anthropological interpretation as an intersection of two sub- jectivities (1969b:13); as suggested by Rous- seau (Levi-Strauss 1967a:101), through a process of identification we relive the experi- ence of the protagonists and, in so doing, we bring to light an object which is objectively very remote and subjectively very concrete. Levi-Strauss accepts such understanding and empathy as a supplementary form of proof, or as a guarantee rather than a proof. How- ever, we can never really identify with the "other" or we will never know whether the "other" makes of his social experience the same synthesis as the observer. At the end of fieldwork, the anthropologist will not meet himself or the "other," but by superposing himself on the "other" he will reveal the more universal and more real facts of general functioning, at the condition that he has carried the analysis up to the unconscious

categories (1966b:113-114). Once we have discovered the unconscious we have reached the basic mechanisms which are common to "us" and to "others," and therefore we have established a real communication and media- tion between us and them (1966c:31). Of course, this would bring a solution not only to the problem of communication between people of the same culture, but also between the anthropologist and the natives of a dif- ferent culture. One might be tempted to characterize this thinking as a sheer and gratuitous speculation, but if we conceive anthropological analysis as an understanding of mental representations by the use of our own mental activity, we can see that our understanding is validated only when we discover the universal mental categories or, in Levi-Strauss' terms, the logical structures underlying both observable cultural phe- nomena and our own psychic activity; this is the reason why the structuralist is interested not in the particular modalities of culture and in the content of mental activities, but in their underlying, binary and constraining categories.

Perhaps we can push our analysis a little further. Levi-Strauss asserts that structural- ism has the ambition of launching a bridge between sensory and intelligible knowledge rather than sacrificing one at the expense of the other (1971a:618). The unconscious can be considered a bridge between sensory and rational knowledge in the sense that the unconscious mechanisms of mind are the real foundation and condition of both ex- periential and rational conscious processes (see Levi-Strauss' remarks on the role of the unconscious linguistic code as a precondition for the enunciation of conscious discourse Ibid.:612-613).

Does Livi-Strauss'Notion of Unconscious Exclude Conscious Intentionality and the Relevance of Phenomenological Analysis?

There is one last puzzling issue which appears to be a serious obstacle in the way of accepting structuralism as a sound

Rossi ] LEVI-STRA USS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 43

methodological approach. What is the rela- tionship between the unconscious infrastruc- ture and the conscious superstructure? The quarrel of the existentialists, phenomenol- ogists, and dialecticians is with Levi-Strauss' explicit bypassing, if not rejection, of the conscious level of meaning in order to dis- cover its unconscious foundation. It would be simplistic to assert that Levi-Strauss does not recognize any value to conscious inten- tionality, as one often gets the impression from certain interpreters. Besides recogniz- ing the genuineness of the conscious com- ponent of reality (see Rossi 1973), Levi- Strauss has repeatedly recognized also its methodological relevance as a supplementary form of proof or verification (1963c:31, 1966a:253, 1966b:110-113). Levi-Strauss has clearly asserted that meaning is not only intentional, since the receiver of the message has to perceive it and understand it, and in doing so he casts it in his own mold (1965b:126). The preoccupation with the unconscious is a preoccupation with dis- covering the basic structures, which are com- mon to the mental mold of the sender and of the receiver of the message, and which enable a genuine intersection of two in- tentionalities. In this sense, the unconscious is the only guarantee of objectivity of phe- nomenological analysis itself and the in- trinsic link which would make of phe- nomenology an essential complement of structural analysis rather than its mere ex- ternal verification (see Rossi 1972a).

Obviously, Levi-Strauss is not interested in elaborating such theoretical methodologi- cal integration. The epistemological thrust of his latest effort is aimed at reinstating and partially clarifying his position, and in re- buffing existentialist (1971a:614) and phe- nomenological critiques (Ibid.:571). Levi- Strauss states that what we call progress of conscience is a process of interiorization of a rationality which preexists in two forms, one immanent in the universe and enabling thought to reach reality, and the other pre- sent in the objective thought, which func- tions rationally and autonomously before subjugating and making subjective this

encompassing rationality. The great merit of structuralism consists in finding the unity and coherence existing behind social phe- nomena not only by focusing on the rela- tionship between facts rather than on facts themselves, but also by reintegrating man into nature (Ibid.:614).

One can understand the reason for stress- ing the intrinsic intelligibility of reality and the essential link of man with nature, but would also like to see made an attempt to relate the conscious level of human function- ing to its unconscious structures. In all fair- ness, Levi-Strauss' latest emphasis on the proportionality between mind and the real- ity which becomes known, and on the isomorphism of mental and cerebral ap- paratuses, still leaves room for phenomenol- ogical analysis as a preliminary and verifying phase of structural analysis. In fact, he is against relegating the object of sciences "entirely" to the level where the subject perceives it (Ibid.:570) and against making of man an object of "exclusive attention" (Ibid.:615). Levi-Strauss himself seems to use phenomenology as a kind of verification of his own structural analysis when he asserts that structuralism brings to the sur- face of conscience deep and organic truth, and "only those who practice it know by intimate experience the impression of full- ness given by its practice, a practice by which mind experiences a true communica- tion with the body" (Ibid.:619).

VII CONCLUSION

Perhaps three conclusive remarks are in order. Empirically minded social scientists should start reflecting on their own epis- temological premises and realize after the advent of psychoanalysis and ethnosemantic school of anthropology that we might gain further insight into the symbolic level of culture by moving the analysis to its uncon- scious infrastructure. The fact that they might be unprepared for this type of analysis does not abolish the possibility that intuitive analysis might still have an important role in

44 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973

social sciences. As far as their preoccupation with verification is concerned, they should take notice of Levi-Strauss' remarks that the criteria of verifiability of physical sciences are not applicable in the human sciences (1971b:12), and that structuralism, even though recognizes its "pre-scientific" stage, has its own internal (1971c:40) and external criteria of validity (1965b:126). Second, those structuralists who believe in the scien- tific potential of L6vi-Strauss' notions (see Nutini 1971) should start working on their methodological implementation. Finally, structuralists and phenomenologists should begin to look more seriously at possible points of complementarities between their respective perspectives with the goal of formulating a more adequate theoretical and methodological perspective. They have the legitimate right of choosing for their analysis either the conscious or the unconscious level of meaning, but the very point of their differences might well be changed from what seems an apparent mutual rejection into a connecting link between two levels of reality and two relative methodological perspec- tives. This, after all, does not seem to be alien from the programmatic integration of essence and form, method and reality advocated by Levi-Strauss himself (1967a: 91).

NOTES

1An earlier and shorter version of this paper was presented at the symposium on "The Unconscious in Levi-Strauss' Anthro- pology," organized and chaired by the author, at the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Diego, California, on November 20, 1970. I acknowledge the helpful suggestions and comments that I have received on the short- er version of this paper from Pierre Maranda, Bob Scholte, Yvan Simonis, Stephen A. Tyler, and on the longer version of the paper from Georges Mounin and David Sapir.

21 fully discuss the epistemological and methodological foundations of the struc- turalist method in the Introduction to Struc- turalism in Perspective, which I have edited (Rossi 1973).

3 For the fundamental importance of the notion of unconscious in Levi-Strauss' struc- turalism see Y. Simonis (1968: Ch. 3 and 1973).

4Levi-Strauss has characterized his in- terest in the basic mental structures as a "psycho-logic" (Levi-Strauss 1972a:74); however, since they mediate between infra- structure and superstructure they lay the foundation of sociology or "socio-logic" (Levi-Strauss 1966a:76). Barthes clearly explained why Levi-Strauss' socio-logic has to be understood as a semiology or sociology of signs rather than as the traditional soci- ology of symbols (Barthes 1962:119-120). On the cybernetic conceptualization of social phenomena as messages, see among other passages Levi-Strauss (1966a: 267-268, Wilden 1972). On the structuralist notion of meaning as opposed to the phe- no menological notion, see Levi-Strauss (1963b, 1971a:570ff.).

5s David Sapir (1972) has made the com- ment that Levi-Strauss readily uses native ideas in explaining myths, while he ignores them when they are not suited for his purposes. It is D. Sapir's contention that a "fine-grained" analysis necessitates such con- scious "meta-information."

6However, Simonis has called my atten- tion to a recent text where Levi-Strauss states: "After all, if customs of neighboring people reveal relations of symmetry, one does not have to look for a cause in a somewhat mysterious law of nature or mind. This geometric perfection presently sums up more or less conscious but innumerable efforts accumulated by history and all aimed at the same end ..." (1971d:177). Simonis rightly remarks that this passage "seems to indicate a certain prudence (or a certain evolution!) of the author (Levi-Strauss) in his thesis on the unconscious and the human mind" (Simonis 1972). See also Levi-Strauss 1965c.

7The precedence given to form over content (1963a:202) has to be interpreted not as a formalistic opposition of form against content, which Levi-Strauss rightly rejects in his critique of Propp (Levi-Strauss 1960). David Sapir rightly observes that at least in the Mythologiques, "the structure of content as expressed in a dialectic defines the overall form" (D. Sapir 1972). Levi- Strauss has very recently reiterated the basic difference between structuralism and psychoanalysis by asserting that "for psychoanalysts the final explanation is found in content, not in 'form' " (1972a: 76).

Rossi ] LEVI-STRA USS: THE UNCONSCIOUS 45

8G. Mounin asserts that the notion of unconscious is important in Jakobson but that, contrary to what Levi-Strauss asserts, is strongly rejected by Troubetzkoy (Mounin 1970:202).

91In Mounin's opinion, in 1945 Levi- Strauss was unaware that Troubetzkoy owed the notion of unconscious to Saussure be- cause he had n'ot read Saussure and knew linguistics only through Jakobson who early differentiated himself from Saussure and Troubetzkoy (Mounin 1972).

10 One can perhaps object that this is not the case, for instance, with Boas and E. Sapir.

1 This is the impression I received in a conversation on these issues with Levi- Strauss on the occasion of his recent visit in the United States (March 28, 1972).

12 After all, the technical controversies among contemporary linguists do not direct- ly affect Levi-Strauss' level of analysis. Very recently, when Levi-Strauss was asked whether the development of linguistics after Jakobson has influenced his works, he replied that from his point of view these changes are not so important since he took from linguistics "only few basic ideas and used them in a much looser way than lin- guists do." In this sense, the difference brought about by the recent developments in linguistics in general, and by Chomsky in particular, are not important for his type of analysis. As a matter of fact, if he were to give a new title to The Elementary Struc- tures of Kinship he might retitle it "Intro- duction to Generative Anthropology" since this work has discovered a set of rules which generate many types of social exchanges (remarks made in a discussion with the students of Barnard College, March 30, 1972).

13In a recent public lecture, Levi-Strauss replied to the objection of mentalism or Hegelianism often addressed to him, especially in this country. He asserted that the structures he discovered in the eth- nographic material are not only the result of mental constraints, but also of the external determinism of techno-economic, ecological, and concrete social conditions. We do not know the basic mental constraints a priori, but rather we can discover them only a posteriori, through a careful study of the concrete data.

As far as the issue of reductionism is concerned, one gets the impression that for Levi-Strauss it is a pseudoproblem which stems from a mistaken dualistic conception. L~vi-Strauss asserted that to set mind and

body as two separate entities is a question- able metaphysical position and a form of Cartesianism. In nature, as in the brain and in the mind, there is the same structural code, so that structural analysis is possible since the same operation goes on at all three levels of reality. In Levi-Strauss' words, this conception would bring back the unity of mind and body (see Levi-Strauss 1972b).

Similarly, the question of whether mind is the same as brain or its epiphenomenon would seem to be an incorrect question, from Levi-Strauss' point of view. It would seem that for him their homologous struc- tural functioning is sufficient to establish their unity.

14Personal communication from Levi- Strauss on the occasion of the symposium on "The Unconscious in Lvi-Strauss' An- thropology" (see note 1).

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