CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS

and
the MAKING of
STRUCTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY

Marcel Henaff
Translated by Mary Baker

University of Minnesota Press

Minneapolis
London
 Contents

Acknowledgments vii

List of Abbreviations ix

Introduction: Levi-Strauss and Structuralism 1

Rethinking the Heritage — Structural Analysis — The Levi-Strauss
Case

1. The Anthropologist, the West, and the Others 21

The West Seen from Outside — A Technique of Depaysement — To
Become an Ethnologist — False Differences, True Identity—The Epis-
temology of Otherness — Portrait of the Ethnologist as Astronomer —
The Nature of the West — Homeostasis and Entropy

2. The Movement of Reciprocity 36

A Question of Principle — Mauss and the "Total Social Fact" — Reci-
procity as Such — The Incest Prohibition and Exogamous Alliance —
Marriage as Exchange of Women — Marriage of Cross-Cousins —
Dual Organizations — Remark on the Caste System and Reciprocity—
Against the Economic Illusion: The Cases of Marriage by Exchange
and Marriage by Purchase

3. Structures of Kinship 68
Problems and Controversies — Kinship and Language — Structures:
Elementary and Complex — Restricted and Generalized Exchange —
Filiation and Lineal Asymmetry — Appellation and Attitude — The
Giving Third Party: Alliance and the Atom of Kinship — The Family
from the Anthropological Perspective

4. Unconscious Categories and Universality of the Mind 94

Unconscious Categories—The Function of Illusion—The Level of the
Implicit — The Unconscious, Objectivity, Science — An Objective In-
tersubjectivity — Form and Content: Unconscious and Preconscious —
Logical Anteriority and the Repertory of Possibilities — The Human
Mind — The Universality of the Mind — Myths and the Structure of
the Mind
5. Symbolic Thought 120
The First Problem: The Inductive Property of Symbolism and the Pas-
sage from the Individual to the Collective — The Second Problem:
Symbolism as Culture — The Third Problem: Symbolism as a Sys-
tem, toward Socio-logics — The Fourth Problem: Symbolism, Natural
Codes, and Science — General Review of the Issue
6. The Logic of Sensible Qualities 141
The Neolithic Paradox and the Appearance of Modern Science — "In-
tellectual Bricolage" — Infrastructures — Magic and Determinism —
Thought Itself or Disinterested Knowledge — Beyond Totemism —
Unity and Multiplicity: Species as a Logical Operator
7. The Analysis of Myths 159
The First Period: The Linguistic Model — The Function of Myth and
the Mind in Liberty — Analogical Reasoning — The Second Period:
The Musical Model—Transformation Groups and the Canonical For-
mula — Myth and Rite — Limits to Interpretation — Myths, Novels,
History
8. The Lesson of the Work of Art 190
The Work of Art: Structure of the Object and Knowledge — Signify-
ing and Representing — Art and Society — Impressionism's Dead End
and the False Promise of Cubism — Modernity and Excess of Cul-
ture — Representation beyond Itself: The Model, the Materials, the
User—Musical Knowledge: Excess of Nature or Lack of Nature — Of
Aesthetic Emotion
9. Time in Societies and the Question of History 214
History and Anthropology — Limits to Historical Explanation — His-
tory and System — Structure and Event — Societies That "Refuse
History" — The Beginnings of History in Societies "without His-
tory" — The Elements of a Structural History
Concluding Remarks: The Moral Issue 237
Prolegomena to an Ethic of the Living — The Content of Freedoms Is
Always Local — The Quarrel regarding Humanism — The Lesson of
the Savages
Chronology 245
Notes 261
Bibliography 265
Index 285