Levi-Strauss and Marx On History

Wesleyan University
Levi-Strauss and Marx on History

Author(s): Jerzy Topolski
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1973), pp. 192-207
Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University
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LEVI-STRAUSS AND MARX ON HISTORY
JERZY TOPOLSKI
The great influence of Claude Levi-Strauss' structuralism on contemporary

humanistic thought and the fact that Levi-Strauss frequently cites Marx and
emphasizes his relation to Marx's theory of history make it appropriate to
compare the opinions of Levi-Strauss and Marx on history.
Much remains to be clarified by such a comparison, mainly because an
attempt has not been made to make a comprehensive juxtaposition of the
views of both authors, but, secondly, because quite frequently the partial
analyses which have been made, including Levi-Strauss', operate under an
inadequate interpretation of Marx's thought.
In my subsequent remarks I shall attempt to make a comparative analysis
concerning history, but with reference to the general theories of both authors.
I shall treat history as both everything that has occurred in the past and as
the study of the past, or historiography. These two meanings of the word
history cannot be separated in our analysis, because, if anything links Levi-
Strauss and Marx, it is primarily the close connection of ontological and
methodological views in their systems. For this reason I shall first concern
myself with Levi-Strauss' and Marx's theories of the historical process and
only then with their views on more strictly methodological problems. With
reference to methodological problems, I shall be interested primarily in model-
building and explanation procedure. It is clear at this point that I propose to
transcend the border of methodology of history strictly understood and en-
croach on the broader field of the methodology of the social sciences.
II
The connection between Levi-Strauss' structuralism and Marx's thought is often

explicated from the following passage from the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as
they please."' According to Levi-Strauss, this statement constitutes, as it wer
the fundamental premise common to himself and the author of Das Kapital.
1. K. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte [1869] (New York, 1969),
15.
LEVI-STRAUSS AND MARX ON HISTORY 193
What does it mean that people do not make their history just as they please?
Levi-Strauss is not the only one who has raised this question in contemporary
social theory, but he is one of those who consider that they remain in the orbit
of Marx's theory or who state that they are developing it.
In order to facilitate our further analysis, I shall cite one of Levi-Strauss'
basic theoretical statements. Stressing that men do not act freely because they
are directed by the unconscious universal structure of the human mind, he
shows the place of historical research in the social study of man:
Anthropology cannot remain indifferent to historical processes and to the most

highly conscious expressions of social phenomena. But if the anthropologist brings
to them the same scrupulous attention as the historian, it is in order to eliminate,
by a kind of backward course, all that they owe to the historical process and to
conscious thought. His goal is to grasp, beyond the conscious and always shifting
images which men hold, the complete range of unconscious possibilities. These
are not unlimited, and the relationships of compatibility or incompatibility which
each maintains with all the others provide a logical framework for historical
developments, which, while perhaps unpredictable, are never arbitrary. In this
sense, the famous statement by Marx, "Men make their own history, but they
do not know that they are making it," justifies, first, history and, second,
anthropology.2
Levi-Strauss' statement clearly shows his views on historical process and

historical study:
(1) Reality presents people with a given (but finite) set of actions possible
to accomplish; however, which of these actions will be undertaken is
determined by the universal, unconscious structures of the human mind
which are identical for all men.
(2) The task of the structural method is to "reach" these deep, unconscious
structures, thus explaining the shape ("architecture") of the social
reality.
(3) The task of history - of the historical method - is to provide descrip-
tive material for the structural procedure in order to "cleanse" it of
everything added by the historical process and consciously acting man.
It is easy to note here the closely associated ontological and methodological

presuppositions of L6vi-Strauss' theory previously mentioned. This, however,
is a connection at whose base we observe a petition principii.
The source of this error is the acceptance by Levi-Strauss of a hypothesis
about hidden structures of the human mind, a hypothesis which does not
2. C. Lvi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology [1958] (New York and London, 1963),

23-24.
194 JERZY TOPOLSKI
permit verification by any empirical evidence. In addition, it is not associated

with any method that would permit such verification. Levi-Strauss accepts the
existence of the hidden attributes of the human mind which make themselves
known through a given shape of reality; however, at the same time, such a
reality is for him a representation (a "sign") of the unconscious structure of
the human mind. Hence a hypothesis which ought to be the subject of verifi-
cation is accepted out of hand. This vicious circle will accompany us in the
course of the entire analysis of Levi-Strauss' views.
We do not find such an error in Marx's theory. Marx does not share with
Levi-Strauss a belief in the existence of a Universal Mind making man an
abstract, nonhistorical entity. Marx's main premise concerning man can be
subjected to empirical verification. Marx regards man as a rational being and
the historical process as a result of purposeful human activity. LUvi-Strauss'
assumption about the deep structures of the human mind which can be read
in the shape of human culture is based, at least in view of the current state of
studies of the functioning of the brain, on a subjective conviction; while Marx's
assumptions about the reality of human purposes can be studied with all the
methods of the empirical sciences.
IV
Freud's and Fromm's method to "reach" the deep structures of the human
mind is psychology, while for Levi-Strauss it is the structural linguistics of
F. Saussure, R. Jakobson, L. Hjelmslev, and other researchers. For structural
linguistics the distinction between language (langue) and speech (parole) is
one of the most characteristic features. Speech is a subjective use of language
for verbal communication. Language is a set of certain structures of which the
phonological structure is the basic one. Superimposed on it are morphological
and phraseological structures. Phonemes (elements of the phonological struc-
ture or phonemic system) are elementary particles of language (langue)
which serve the function of differentiating words. Therefore the phonemes
always appear in opposed pairs based on their distinctive features (such as
sonority and soundlessness, vocality and consonantality, and so forth). In sum,
the phonological as well as the morphological structures are defined codes
governing the use of phonemes of which people unconsciously take advantage
when speaking. Fascinated by the new linguistic theory, Levi-Strauss recog-
mzes:
Linguistics occupies a special place among the social sciences, to whose ranks
it unquestionably belongs. It is not merely a social science like the others, but,
rather, the one in which by far the greatest progress has been made. It is prob-
ably the only one which can truly claim to be a science and which has achieved
both the formulation of an empirical method and an understanding of the nature
of the data submitted to its analysis.3
Levi-Strauss recognizes that like a language, which is a code, and a speech,

which is a message transmitted by the language, other kinds of human behavior
can also be regarded as codes referring to nonverbal forms of communication.
Such a code is represented in different systems of dressing, feeding, kinship,
and so on. Human culture can be regarded as a sum of all such codes. As with
the use of language, so other types of human behavior are also ruled by definite
laws (the basic structures of the human mind), independent of consciousness
and the will of man. Therefore, when making a verbal utterance man is refer-
ring to the verbal signs, and he uses other codes to transmit the nonverbal
signs. Thus the whole human culture is for Levi-Strauss a "significant set."4 So
with language as in social (and at the same time historical) reality, we have
the following pattern which constitutes the object of structural analysis.
Manifestation of
tures of the Codes of human universal struc-
univrds struc> behavior tures in human
human mind behavior
Without such an a
Only through the procedure of "structuralism" (i.e., through discovery of the
universal structures of the human mind) does the world become intelligible.
Because of these universal structures all human codes (languages) are homolo-
gous and can be easily submitted to the structural analysis by means of
suitable transformations.
As can be seen in the above figure, man's activity is understood in it as a
steady reproduction of those same behaviors constrained by the hidden forces.
There is no place for history understood as a result of conscious and purposeful
human activity. The introduction of purposefully and consciously acting man
fully utilizing his practical experience (i.e., his historical experience) into the
figure destroys it. In this context Levi-Strauss' attitude to history is consistent.
History only causes problems for him, muddying his concept of integration
(through linguistics) of social sciences with the natural sciences. The price
of such an integration would be the elimination of consciously and purpose-
fully acting man from the model of the social sciences.
3. Ibid., 31.
4. Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind [1962] (Chicago, 1967), 8.
196 JERZY TOPOLSKI
How does man conceived by the author of Tristes Tropiques differ from the
world of nature? Who says man says language and who says language says
society, Levi-Strauss argues many times. Hence the distinguishing factor of the
society is language. Social use of language (understood as a code) in turn
involves the fact that man is able to make a distinction between a sign (verbal
or nonverbal) and the reality communicated by a sign; but in making this
distinction he is unaware of the nature of this reality. Hence the researcher's
task is to discover this reality. For Levi-Strauss this reality is shaped by the
already mentioned universal and formal laws (structures), for Marx this reality
is a creation of purposefully acting man.
All behavior, according to Levi-Strauss - writes Susan Sontag - is a
language, a vocabulary and grammar of order; anthropology proves nothing
about human nature except the need for order itself. There is no universal
truth about the relation between, say, religion and social structure. There are
only models showing the variability of one in relation to others. To the general
reader, perhaps the most striking example of Levi-Strauss' theoretical agnos-
ticism is his view of myth. He treats myth as a purely formal mental operation,
without any psychological content or any necessary connection with rite.6
Levi-Strauss claims that among the universal laws of the human mind the
basic one is the capability of grasping reality in binary oppositions. Under con-
ditions of societal existence the distinctive pairs have cultural significance. The
most important for social life is the process of communication which takes place
through the medium of a broadly understood "exchange" of words, persons,
and things governed by the same formal rules. L6vi-Strauss states that, "in any
society, communication operates on three different levels: communication of
women, communication of goods and services, communication of messages."
Communication takes place through different "totalities" of signs. The non-
verbal signs are used either as the parts of "paradigmatic" (metaphoric) series
of "syntagmatic" (metonymic) chains. E. Leach compares this method of
"structuralization" of reality to an orchestral score with reference to which a
perpendicular reading has a metaphoric character, and a horizontal reading
a metonymic character.7
Recognizing the shaping of different sets of codes in different societies and
in the different ways they manifest themselves in human activity, Levi-Strauss,
consistent with his theory, emphasizes many times that man's decision-making
5. Susan Sontag, "The Anthropologist as Hero" in Claude Levi-Strauss: The Anthro-

pologist as Hero, ed. Nelson Hayes and Tanya Hayes (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 194.
6. Structural Anthropology, 296.
7. E. Leach, Claude Levi-Strauss (New York, 1970), 52.
can be compared with a game whose results at the moment are not known but
whose rules are a priori imposed.
First, man is like a player who, as he takes his place at the table, picks up
cards which he has not invented, for the cardgame is a datum of history and
civilization. Second, each deal is the result of a contingent distribution of the
cards unknown to the players at the time. One must accept the cards, which one
is given, but each society, like each player, makes its interpretations in terms of
several systems. These may be common to them all or individual: rules of the
game or rules of tactics. And we are well aware that different players will not
play the same game with the same hand even though the rules set limits on the
games that can be played with any given one.8
In such a concept of man playing cards with reality according to previously

set rules, a game in which not only rules are handed down but in which the
distribution of cards is a matter of chance, there is no possibility of any other
explanation of historical process than the recurrence to a contingency too.
In a conversation with G. Charbonnier, Levi-Strauss explains in the follow-
ing way a fact that intrigues historians, namely, why a dynamically developing
civilization flourished during a given period to a greater degree in one part of
the world and to a lesser degree in another:
Suppose an inveterate roulette player sets out not only to pick the lucky num-
ber, but to work out a very complex combination dependent on, say, ten or a
hundred previous spins of the wheel, and determined by certain rules regarding
the alternation of red and black, or even and odd numbers. This complex com-
bination might be achieved right away, or at the thousandth or millionth attempt
or never at all. Yet it would never occur to us to say that, had he accomplished
his combination only at the seven hundred and twenty-fifth attempt, all the pre-
vious attempts were indispensable to his success.9
Hence, all historically developed civilization (i.e., the breaking with primi-
tive existence) is an accidental event unconnected with the historical continuity
of human actions and their effects. History is not "a continuous flow of events
but a discontinuous choice by men of those incidents and processes which are
fitted into a logical order by a human mind."10 History thus is an unrelated
collection of different events, the knowledge of which does not help us at all
in making the world intelligible.
VI
This kind of interpretation of the historical process is fully opposed to Marx's

concept of man and history. Marx understood the statement that people do not
8. The Savage Mind, 95.

9. G. Charbonnier, Conversations with Claude Levi-Strauss (London, 1969), 25.
10. L. Rosen, "Language, History, and the Logic of Inquiry in Levi-Strauss and
Sartre," History and Theory 10 (1971), 285.
198 JERZY TOPOLSKI
make their history just as they please entirely differently than Levi-Strauss.
We have to do here with two opposite models of understanding the historical
process, or, in other words, two contrasting models of man. One of them could
be called fatalistic and the other activistic. In the former, the factors on which
human activity is based are independent of man's purposeful decision-making.
In the latter, man acts in a conscious, purposeful manner not directed by
factors which are not connected with his activity.
The fatalistic model manifests itself in the form of three basic submodels.
In the first of these submodels, the factors on which man's actions are depen-
dent are "external" in relation to man, are located beyond him. Among
different kinds of these submodels we can classify theories of historical
process joining human actions with such factors as God, the geographical
environment, deterministic laws (present among others in the fatalistic inter-
pretation of Marx's thought), and self-realizing progress (characteristic, among
others, for the rationalistic views on historical process of the Enlightenment).
In the second of these submodels, the factors determining human actions exist
"inside" man. To this submodel belongs all psychoanalytical interpretations
of history which use the tool of Freud's theory. In the third submodel, on the
other hand, the factors on which human actions are dependent pertain equally
to the forces "external" in relation to man and to mechanisms hidden in him.
Such an interaction of two sets of factors is characteristic of Fromm's con-
ception of history.
The activistic model demonstrates itself through at least two submodels:
the free-will model and the dialectical model. The first of these submodels
recognizes human activity as a manifestation of the unconstrained free will of
man. Sometimes it is associated with restrictions of a fatalistic type, such as,
for example, God's will - mixing the activistic interpretation (model) with
the fatalistic one. The second submodel takes into consideration the inter-
relation between man's decision-making and the conditions in which this
decision-making takes place. This interrelation between two mentioned fac-
tors is not direct, but through the factor of human knowledge of the condi-
tion of action. This knowledge can be more or less adequate and different
for different individuals and social groups.
It is easy to see that Levi-Strauss' vision of man and history fulfills the con-
ditions of the first model in its second submodel's form. The activistic model
in its dialectical form is characteristic of Marx. It appears in different works
of Marx in more abstract or more realistic forms. In the theoretical parts
of Das Kapital where, among others, the concept of a rational capitalist, having
full awareness of the conditions of his decision-making, appears, we have the
more abstract approach. In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte there
are real men and social classes who act; in this case also they act with an
awareness of the circumstances in which they make decisions. Marx shows that
this awareness can be sometimes deformed. This was the case of the French
peasants in Eighteenth Brumaire whose historical consciousness was deformed
by the Napoleonic legend. We read: "Historical tradition has nourished among
the French peasantry the superstition that a man named Napoleon would return
in the fullness of time bringing them all that their heart could desire."'
For Marx, who accepts the model of a rational man, man is acting con-
sciously and purposefully on the basis of his knowledge of the conditions of
action. His activity - that is, his practice - is more or less effective depend-
ing on how adequate is such knowledge about the conditions of action which
he takes into consideration during his activity. Certain permanent attitudes
arise in man's mind, and certain types of knowledge accumulate as a result
of long-term practice. As the result of practice, at a certain stage of historical
development, the human mind attained a "satiation" with those tried methods
of thinking (for example, rules of logic) heretofore characteristic of man.
That is why Marx said that the human mind, such as it is, always remains the
same while man's awareness - that is knowledge about the world - changes.
At a given time, in certain places, man began to think historically, and this
introduced moments of dynamics in his structure of thinking, a conviction
about the variability and creative role of man, eliminating attitudes which
tended to maintain the world unchanged and to reproduce, as primitive com-
munities do, the same states of things.'2 When effective activity is of concern
to him, acting man takes into consideration the condition in which he acts.
Sometimes different psychical processes cause disturbances in the action, but
man, who wants to attain his goal, tends to eliminate this deforming influence.
Does he act "freely"? No. He is limited by the conditions in which he acts and
by his knowledge about these conditions. Here we observe a dialectical junc-
tion of objective and subjective factors. To Marx, man is not waiting solely
for this or that combination of fate; he does not play a game with the reality
but is, as Marx says in his famous Theses on Feuerbach (1845), changing the
conditions of his actions. M. Godelier, who himself tends to a "dynamic
structuralism," points to the necessity of making a difference between formal
structures of thinking and the transformations of thought due to historical
progress in learning about the world.'3
The previously cited statement of Marx from the Eighteenth Brunaire
included still another part which Levi-Strauss did not take into consideration.
In it Marx explains what he means by the opinion that people do not make
11. The Eighteenth Brumaire, 23.

12. Cf. J. Topolski, Swiat bez historic [World without History] (Warsaw, 1972).
13. M. Godelier, "Mythe et Histoire: "Reflexions sur les fondements de la pensee
sauvage," Annales (mai-aouft, 1971), 553.
200 JERZY TOPOLSKI
their history as they please: "They do not make it [history] under circum-
stances chosen by themselves but under circumstances directly encountered,
given and transmitted from the past."'4
This statement by no means justifies structural anthropology's questioning
the role of historical experience in human practice.
VII
The question arises as to how close Levi-Strauss' structural analysis is to

Marx's model method (called by Marx the abstraction method). In other
words, we can ask if Levi-Strauss' methodological rules are similar to Marx's
methodology of social inquiry and at the same time to his methodology of
history. There are, as we shall see, fundamental and irreconcilable differences
which are strictly connected with the divergences in the ontological views of
both authors. For Marx there is historical research which makes world and
man intelligible, for Levi-Strauss this aim can be achieved only through struc-
tural analysis. Only structural analysis can transcend the "observational level"
of the research and "reach" deeper levels of reality: "On the observational
level, the main - one could almost say the only - rule is that all the facts
should be carefully observed and described, without allowing any theoretical
preconception to decide whether some are more important than others."15
Such a positivistic approach to the research is, as Levi-Strauss repeats very
often, the historian's or the ethnographer's task. This task consists in "gather-
ing data," while anthropology and sociology "deal with models constructed
from these data.""'
Here we come to the heart of the structuralist method. It consists in model-
building from the empirical data. In order to reconstruct this method we
should first ask what model in Levi-Strauss' methodology means.
Structures are models, the formal properties of which can be compared inde-
pendently of their elements. The structuralist's task is thus to recognize and isolate
levels of reality which have strategic value from his point of view, namely which
admit of representation as models, whatever their type. . The essential value
of these [structural] studies is to construct models the formal properties of which
can be compared with, and explained by, the same properties as in models
corresponding to other strategic levels.'7
In order to answer the question arising here, we must return to Levi-Strauss'

notion of structure in its methodological meaning. Its already characterized
ontological status is defined by certain permanent brain-function properties
14. The Eighteenth Brumaire, 15.

16. Ibid., 285.
17. Ibid., 284-285.
which are independent of human practice. Of course a structure understood in

this way can be characterized in a more or less general manner. Having in
mind the same formal characteristics linking all structures, Levi-Strauss fre-
quently uses the concept of "form" common for all structures or, on a some-
what lower level of generalization, for a group of structures. What kind of
common "form" do Levi-Strauss' structures possess? Generally speaking these
are certain systems of relation. Each such relation system is a set of ordered
pairs (known from the set theory) whose elements remain in opposition to
each other and which possess mutually exclusive qualities. In other words, for
Levi-Strauss structure is a classification where the relation of opposition is the
criterion of division. These classifications have a simple or frequently a den-
drite form: "The part played by motivation, however, diminishes, and that of
arbitrariness increases progressively as we turn our attention higher: the
terminal branches can no longer compromise the tree's stability nor alter its
characteristic shape."18
Hence it could be said that for structuralists of Levi-Strauss' type, the main
task of studying society consists of formulating statements about distinctive
elements of certain totalities which are defined as "structures." The statements
about these structures are models; however, a model can be called a struc-
ture only when the structure revealed by the model is truly a structure. When
does such a case occur? Levi-Strauss furnishes only some formal tests. In the
case of such a true structure: 1) A change of one element results in the change
of all the remaining elements. 2) Each structure is capable of being trans-
formed into some other structure. 3) Each element explains the existence of
others. 4) A structure reflects the observed facts.
The last condition seems to have non-formal character, but the reference to
the empirical data has in Levi-Strauss' work a special meaning. The model is
not subject to test by the empirical data; the only problem is whether these
data are more or less complete and well described.
From what we have said, it seems clear (and Levi-Strauss does not deny
this) that the models in the structural analysis are understood as research
tools; their methodological character is purely instrumentalist. They can be
discovered only by a sort of intuition, their correspondence to reality is solely
a question of the structuralist faith. For sober researchers who do not allow
themselves to be misled by the structuralist poetic associations, they can be
only pure fictions and trivialities of elementary logic. It is not an accident
that numerous anthropologists accuse Levi-Strauss of not taking facts into
consideration. Thus, for example, E. Leach speaks of Levi-Strauss' contempt
"of ethnographic evidence,"19 while T. 0. Beidelman writes: "Another feature
18. The Savage Mind, 159.

19. Leach, Claude Levi-Strauss, 104.
202 JERZY TOPOLSKI
of his field is its relative superficiality. The interrelated tendencies towards

superficiality and oversimplification are important since they allow L6vi-
Strauss to interpret with great freedom what he considers the basic forces
behind these [dying] cultures."20
This freedom, supporting itself with the concept of universal structures of
the human mind, gives him a directive of "approaching" these structures
through the "cleansing" of models from the elements which history (events)
introduced. This cleansing in connection with the comparisons of different
models presents "the level of experimentation" or model-level of the research.
As Levi-Strauss says, structures demonstrate substantial resistance in relation
"to diachrony" and flow permanently through time. Therefore, in order to
make structuralist analysis as simple as possible, Levi-Strauss first of all
analyzes primitive communities, that is, societies "with no history." In primiti
communities "structures" true for all mankind appear, as it were, in the most
"undisturbed" state, thereby providing the key to the understanding of man.
And here, again, we can observe that we have to do with a type of petition
principii. For an assumption is made that "structures" are resistant to history,
and then society is examined without history, that is, history is excluded in
seeking proof for that assumption.
Limited to societies without historical thinking, territorially mixed, and at
the same time freed of the requirements of historical method, information
about myths, food systems, structures of kinship, taboos, and so on can be
brought into the following scheme, which is characteristic for the phonemic
system :21
S =(U; R, A,. ..,A T1,. . ., Tm),
where U is a set of distinctive qualities correlated with itself by the relation

of opposition R&, with which these qualities create ordered pairs Al, . . . , An.
In the case of the phonemic system, these qualities are phonemes, in the case
of myths, mythemes or "gross constituent units,"22 in the case of food systems,
gusthemes, etc. T1, . . ., Tm are chains of phonemes, mythemes, gusthemes,
etc. creating certain syntagmatic totalities.
The model-level of the research is reserved only to the structuralism analysis.
Characteristic for history which "organizes its data in relation to conscious
expression of social life"23 is the "observational level" of the research or
"ultimately" the building of the so-called "statistic models"24 which have to
show the frequency of events.
20. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 1 (1971), 512.

21. J. Kmita, L. Nowak, Studia nad teoretycznymi podstawami humanistyki [Studies
on Theoretical Foundations of the Social Sciences] (Poznan, 1968), 201.
23. Ibid., 18.
24. Ibid., 285.
VIII
Marx does not exclude history from the model method. He also transcends
the "observational" level of the research and recommends going "deeper"
below the "surface phenomena" through the model method. But a funda-
mental difference separates the model method of Marx from that of Levi-
Strauss. Marx's models, as compared with Levi-Strauss' structure-models, do
not have an instrumentalistic character. They are not only research tools (like
Max Weber's ideal types); they have a realistic character. In other words,
Marx's models are realistically understood ideal types, that is, ideal types
which have their reference in objective reality. Such an ideal type (model)
is a real object in its simplified version. Thus Marx's model-building consists
in the formulation of statements about the objects which have been submitted
to special procedure of "simplification" or (in Marx's words) "abstraction."
During this abstraction procedure we suspend (do not take into consideration)
the influence of various secondary factors which deform the action of main
factors and the manifestation of basic relationships and regularities. In such a
manner we still have to do with a real object; it is only observed in an
idealized condition. Thus the formulation of models statements pertaining to
realistically understood ideal types enables us to "grasp" the complex reality,
to make it more intelligible.
The model in Marx's sense can be characterized in the following manner:
(x) [Ti (x) - a, .. . , an (X)]
which means: for each x, if x is T then x is a,, . . . , an, where T! signifies

Marx's ideal type (abstraction) among a set of possible types of a given kind,
while a,, ... a., the varied behavior of that ideal type.25
The building of realistic models, which is the cornerstone of Marx's meth-
odological program, is strictly connected with an historical approach. It is
historical knowledge which enables us to set forth hypotheses concerning the
main and secondary factors. Very often, as Marx shows, we can find in the
past the more simple forms of different phenomena. Sometimes these unde-
formed, "classic" phenomena were characteristic only for certain regions.
Such "ready" models Marx uses very often in his study. This is the case of
capitalism analyzed in Das Kapital, where English capitalism plays the role
of an ideal type. The same can be said about the "natural" economy character-
istic of early stages of human history, but regarded as an ideal type in several
chapters of the first volume of Das Kapital. In history, the model method
enables one to "grasp" historical change and, at the same time, structural
relationships. Marx's typology of social and economic development in which
25. Cf. J. Topolski, "The Model Method in Economic History," The Journal of
European Economic History 2 (1972), 4.
204 JERZY TOPOLSKI
different socio-economic formations are distinguished is one of the most im-

portant results of Marx's model-building procedure. We have cited another
example from the Eighteenth Brumaire. Here Marx described the influence
on the political behavior of the French peasantry of its faith in the name
Napoleon.
The realistic models can be submitted to the concretization procedure.
Levi-Strauss' "experiments on models" do not present such a possibility.
Marx's concretization consists in more or less gradually eliminating the ideal-
izing assumptions. In this way the model is "getting closer" to the reality.
This concretization always depends on the needs of a given research or
analysis. Sometimes our historical study is more "concrete," sometimes more
"theoretical." In Marx's works we find easily examples of both approaches.
The best example is Das Kapital itself. The first volume of that work has
both historical and theoretical character. In its theoretical analyses Marx
treats capitalism and different economic categories in their "pure" form, while
the next volumes give a most complex and realistic image.26
Let us analyze the law of value, which is one of the fundamental notions in
Das Kapital. In the first volume this law was formulated in its simple form:
the price of the commodity corresponds to its value. This model formulation
was indispensable for Marx to start his analysis of the capitalistic system.
Then he could submit his model to the concretization procedure eliminating
different idealizing assumptions. The effect of this procedure we see in the
third volume. The law of value, after some twelve idealizing assumptions have
been eliminated, assumed more concrete form: "The assumption that the
commodities of the various spheres of production are sold at their values
implies of course only that their value is the center of gravity around which
prices fluctuate."27
Concretization is simultaneously a procedure of verification. Hence, this
verification does not here depend on multiplying empirical data, but on
observing the prognostical value of concretized statements. If, on the basis of
a suitable concretized statement, it is possible to make effective predictions
or explanations, the statement attains the status of a verified statement.
Nothing of the kind is possible with Levi-Strauss' structures. They remain
irreversible, not susceptible to confrontation with empirical material.
IX
Levi-Strauss' position with reference to the explanation procedure in the

social sciences is wholly compatible with structural methodology. For Levi-
26. Cf. L. Nowak, U podstaw marksowskiej metodologii nauk [Foundations of Marx's

Methodology] (Warsaw, 1971).
27. K. Marx, Capital, III (Chicago, 1909), 209-210.
Strauss the classic causal explanation lay far from the main task of scientific
study, while for Marx the researcher's attention should focus on the explana-
tion of the chronological changes. The same can be said about the explanation
of human actions. Here also the differences which separate Marx's and Levi-
Strauss' concepts of explanation in the social sciences are irreconcilable.
Above all, the author of The Savage Mind is an opponent of any explana-
tion accomplished on the "conscious" level. Explanation by discovering the
purpose of human action or the meaning of a cultural object (the answer to
the question why a given object has been created) does not interest him. He
regards it as scientifically barren, not advancing our knowledge about the
world. Also, explanation by the circumstances (causes) preceding the ex-
plained event does not appear in structural methodology. We have here a
situation similar to the one created by C. G. Jung's archetypes or by Sigmund
Freud's unconscious instincts. Like Levi-Strauss' theory, these are theories
which cannot have any use for interpreting conscious and purposeful activities.
Hence, what explanation model is characteristic for LUvi-Strauss' struc-
turalism? In each case it is not an explanation which takes into consideration
as an explanans human conscious and purposeful actions. Neither is it an
explanation which takes into consideration as components of the explanans
general laws reflecting relationships between different elements of reality.
Thus Levi-Strauss' explanation procedure does not fit either causal laws on a
Hempelian model or the interpretation of human actions on a "conscious"
level. The latter is called by J. Kmita the humanistic interpretation.28
Levi-Strauss' main explanation constructs are his "structures" or "models"
which, as we know, reflect the non-empirical properties of the human mind.
Such a "structure" has a permanent character regardless of historical events
and time factors. In other words, this is a structure which does not confer
reality on a definite developmental direction, as is the case with the explana-
tion concept of J. Piaget. Thus, Levi-Strauss' structures have, ex definitione,
the properties of maintaining a system in a state of equilibrium. For Levi-
Strauss, explanation is simply the discovery of the necessity of the explained
element (behavior, object) in the structure. Confirmation of the fact that it
does fulfill a defined function in that structure essential for the maintenance
of that structure, Levi-Strauss says, demonstrates its structural value. "Nothing
can be conceived beyond the fundamental requirements of its structure," he
argues.29 As we see, it is a kind of functional explanation. We can find this
explanation by reference to a structural "value" on many pages of Levi-
Strauss' works. For example, explaining what determines the existence of an
avunculate: "we must treat it as one relationship within a system, while the
28. Cf. J. Kmita, Z metodologicznych problem6w interpretacji humanistycznej [Meth-

odological Problems of Humanistic Interpretation] (Warsaw, 1971).
206 JERZY TOPOLSKI
system itself must be considered as a whole in order to grasp its structure."30

In another place, pondering over tribal structure, Levi-Strauss states that:
various types of grouping found in these societies - specifically, three forms of

dual organisation, clans, sub-clans, age grades, associations, etc. - do not repre-
sent, as they do in Australia, so many functional groups. They are, rather, a
series of expressions, each partial and incomplete, of the same underlying struc-
ture, which they reproduce in several copies without ever completely exhausting
its reality.31
Let us now ask what kind of value functional explanation referring to the
supra-empirical structure has. From the methodological point of view it is an
explanation of very low value. It is a kind of ad hoc explanation based on a
vicious circle. Explanans, in this explanation, is based on the same evidence
as explanandum, which is the object of its explanation. "Hence the situation,"
J. Kmita writes, "is such that theory arises at the base of empirical material
which at the same time is to constitute its explanandum; this theory does not
take into consideration any new material, no new, possible empirical evidence
for itself."32
For Marx, the central figure, whose actions are submitted to the explanation
procedure, is man acting consciously and purposefully. The motivation
structure of human actions which we observe in Marx's analyses can be
summarized in the following manner:
MS - (U; G, K, V)
where MS signifies the motivation structure; G, goals; K, knowledge of con-

dition of action; V, system of values (preferences) of acting man (or social
group).
Thus in order to explain human decision-making and human actions it is
indispensable to try to reconstruct such elements as acting man's goal (or
goals), knowledge of conditions of action and the system of values of acting
man (or of an acting social group). All Marx's explanations of human actions
fulfill the rules of this model. On the other hand, all Marx's explanations of
historical processes or historical facts which are not expressed in terms of
human actions (as, for example, the rise of capitalism) fulfill the rules of a
deductive model of explanation which is regarded as the main explanation
model in the social sciences.
In view of the inadequacy of LUvi-Strauss' methodology, what determines
his popularity? We explain it by a certain impasse in which the social sciences,
dominated by positivistic views, found themselves, and by the subject matter
30. Ibid., 46.

31. Ibid., 130.
32. J. Kmita, "C. LUvi-Straussa propozycje metodolodiczne" [LUvi-Strauss' Method-
ological Propositions], Studia Filozoficzne 3 (1971), 134.
which Levi-Strauss deals with, finding willing readers in the world of modern
civilization as in J. J. Rousseau's time. L6vi-Strauss' reply on the needs of
change is poetically beautiful, but from a methodological point of view it is
but an ornament on the building of social sciences. However, its rather sub-
stantial scientific role is indirect. Structuralism motivates thinking, it intro-
duces a refreshing ferment into many disciplines (including history), and-
important in each field of research - the inspiration for unstereotyped
associations.
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Wesleyan University

Levi-Strauss and Marx on History

The great influence of Claude Levi-Strauss' structuralism on contemporary

The connection between Levi-Strauss' structuralism and Marx's thought is often

Anthropology cannot remain indifferent to historical processes and to the most

Levi-Strauss' statement clearly shows his views on historical process and

It is easy to note here the closely associated ontological and methodological

2. C. Lvi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology [1958] (New York and London, 1963),

permit verification by any empirical evidence. In addition, it is not associated

Levi-Strauss recognizes that like a language, which is a code, and a speech,

5. Susan Sontag, "The Anthropologist as Hero" in Claude Levi-Strauss: The Anthro-

In such a concept of man playing cards with reality according to previously

This kind of interpretation of the historical process is fully opposed to Marx's

8. The Savage Mind, 95.

11. The Eighteenth Brumaire, 23.

The question arises as to how close Levi-Strauss' structural analysis is to

In order to answer the question arising here, we must return to Levi-Strauss'

14. The Eighteenth Brumaire, 15.

which are independent of human practice. Of course a structure understood in

18. The Savage Mind, 159.

of his field is its relative superficiality. The interrelated tendencies towards

where U is a set of distinctive qualities correlated with itself by the relation

20. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 1 (1971), 512.

(x) [Ti (x) - a, .. . , an (X)]

which means: for each x, if x is T then x is a,, . . . , an, where T! signifies

different socio-economic formations are distinguished is one of the most im-

Levi-Strauss' position with reference to the explanation procedure in the

26. Cf. L. Nowak, U podstaw marksowskiej metodologii nauk [Foundations of Marx's

28. Cf. J. Kmita, Z metodologicznych problem6w interpretacji humanistycznej [Meth-

system itself must be considered as a whole in order to grasp its structure."30

various types of grouping found in these societies - specifically, three forms of

where MS signifies the motivation structure; G, goals; K, knowledge of con-

30. Ibid., 46.

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