LECTURE 2

Wednesday, 13 September 2023 14:56

Audio 1

Audio recording started: 14:56 Wednesday, 13 September 2023

RECAP
Anthropology as a social science, ie as a discipline recognized by the educational
system and the state, is smth new (19th century Europe). Anthropology started to
talk from inside universities, as a deep interest in "the other". What is the other? It's
smth completely relative. Relativism is also smth common in anthropological
research as everything is relative to the culture in which the phenomena you are
studying belongs to/in which manifests itself. Anthropology started when Europe
was the centre of the world, which lasted until WWII when the centre moved to the
US. Here, "the other" took peculiar forms since in the Us it could be found inside
and not outside the country, ie Native Americans. They played a double function:
- They were a sort of legitimation of an authentic, pure, local culture
- They were what had to be eliminated.
=> This new anthropology started to work on "the other" inside complex society.
This made a big change in pov: studying the primitive mainly inside a complex
society and not only other, external societies. Anthropology started thinking about
the complexity of all societies.
Today the centre of the world are multiple as well as the headquarters of economy,
politics and science, which are moving once again.

Anthropology changed not only because society and culture changed, but the
quality of intercultural relations has changed as the world becomes more and more
a little village. The object of anthropology is thus changing, which in turn
determines the change in the theory about the object. Changing the world =
changing anthropology. Also scientific theories have changed: they gave us a world
extremely complex, made of complex and obscure objects that constantly changed.
science is working from a pov in which the subjectivity of the scientist determines
the quality and result of the experiment as well as the language of the research.
=> reality is not given, it's made: everything we think is a product of our language. If
you change the language, the reality changes. This is an idealistic position. So, it's by
changing the theory that the object/reality is changed, a new world is produced.
If you don't have the language to name the objects, you don't know them. Its not a
question of seeing them, but not knowing what they are. You simply don't see
them. You might have a perception, but knowledge is smth else.

THE ETHNOGRAPHIC METHOD as a way to discuss what anthropology is and what

you can do with it

Epistemology -> theory -> method and only then we will add object.

Epistemology (episteme = knowledge, logos = rationality) : part of philosophy that

studies science (what is and isn't). When and how a proposition is scientific and
when it isn't, whether it works or not. It is a theory about knowledge, about the way
and what we know.
When we talk about science, we think only of 1 thing: a method or set of rules that
define what can be considered science. We think science has to do with truth and
objectivity. This is modern science. From a Marxist pov, history follows the same
method as biology, so the course of history is smth scientific.
With "Objectivity" we intend no subjectivity, ie no personal involvement and
opinions. This applies not only to the scientist, but also to the object that is being
studied. For example, when we talk about "the French", they do not exist but it's an
abstraction and it is objective precisely bc it doesn't exist. In the same way, the
opinions of the scientist are objective because they don't belong to the scientist.
=>The modern method was built on the erasure/killing of the subject, ie
subjectivity.
Change is smth that is by definition against truth (which by definition does not
change) and science lives in a world of change, rather than of "being", "it is". [God
cannot change by definition as it cannot be more or less God.] so if you apply this
paradigm, in understanding anthropology, the result is:
- If you take the modern conception of science, in terms of anthropology and
understanding the other we are presented with theories of evolutionism and
functionalism.
- If you take the contemporary conception of knowledge, then you have
another way of considering method and object, culture…
This is how we are going to organise our discussion: we take the modern concept of
science and we see what it produces in terms of understanding the other and of
method and object. So, What is culture (for the modern science)? It's smth out In- duction = to conduct/bring inside => from the particular to a general
there and the problem is how you represent it. Culture is smth given. The theory, the concept of classification, what is the relation between the
epistemological problem is how you interpret the other. Descartes invented the particular and class? In class there is no particular
philosophical understanding of what modern science is: the world is out there (res De-duction = from the general you bring down the particular
extensa) and the problem of knowledge is how u represent this extended thing.
Did the atom exist before its discovery?
The truth is given by God and we have to discover it. So science is a cumulative
effort to get little by little closer to the real reality that we don't know but we know
exists, in the same way we are sure God exists.
=> this is Decartes: knowledge is representation.
The other "tribe"/pov is the one of Constructivism, ie reality is the product of
language and therefore no theory/language, no reality. Thought is language. Time
as well as space are a product of our pov.
These 2 epistemologies produced 2 ways of working and thinking about what is
culture:
- Culture is given and you have to discover it > Objectivity, modern science
- Culture is a matter of perspective > Subjectivity, philosophy of science
What is the context? Smth given or the product of your pov? We will use modern
science and post-modern science to talk about what to do in the field, what culture
is, etc…

MODERN CONCEPT OF SCIENCE

- Ethnography
- Fieldwork - anthropologists go there and stay there.
Originated in Europe in the 17th century, when it thought itself as being the centre
of the world. It represented a form of rationality very self-assured and certain that
men had reached the top of the possibility of knowledge. Europe was at the top of
the world, was the end of evolutionism (with Europe we mainly refer to England).
The only true religion was Christianity.
Francis Bacon [1561-1626] was the father of modern science, of statistics. He
started looking at the world by considering how and when a phenomenon
manifests itself, what are the concomitant elements that makes it appear it or not.
=> observation, empiricism and inductive reasoning (=to conduct inside, to bring
inside, ie from the particular to a general theory, concept of classification).
Galileo Galilei [1564-1642] was the first to use mathematics to understand nature.
What is special about this is that mathematics is the perfect language, ie there's no
subjectivity. Mathematics is nature and nature is mathematical. Mathematics is not
a meta-language, ie a language talking about languages, beyond language. So
mathematics is not Galilei using it to understand nature, but maths is nature. Galilei
also made a lot of experiments (experimentalism).
Isaac Newton [1642-1727] made the "perfect world" in which all works and
everything can be explained, everything is the effect of a cause and is all a matter of
wills intertwined. He is the prime example of the 18th century European man that
thought he had achieved the max possibility of knowing the truth.
- Classical mechanic
- Law of causality
- Mass, force and motion - 3 words that could explain everything
=> the idea that modern science produces a great instrument and a picture of
reality in which everything is perfectly understood and fixed.

René Descartes [1596-1650] started the first epistemological problem: how can i be
sure that what i know is real? how can i be sure that the world i is also the world
you see? How can i be sure whether my ideas are true?
According to Descartes, you analyse the words you are using. Since we're talking
about ideas, an analytical philosopher (Descartes) decides to analyse ideas and
where they come from. Most ideas come from sense perception. Then, can we trust
it? No, it deceives us sometimes. There are also ideas that don't come from
experience (ex: unicorn). So, We don't trust them because they are made of
material we get from sense perception mixed in a strange way.
The idea of God is an innate idea. However, we shouldn't trust it either bc someone
evil may have put it in my mind. There is only one thing that is always true: i think,
therefore i am [cogito ergo sum]. I can doubt reality because it is the object of
sense perception, which doesn't guarantee the truth. However, i cannot contradict
the idea that i think, and for this reason i am. The problem is the "sum": What am I?
I am not a body because it is the object of sense perception. So, I am a thinking
thing [res cogitans = the mind]. Descartes invented the mind.
=> the absolute truth is that there is a mind, a thinking thing, but not the body.
From his philosophy derive a lot of solipsistic positions, ie that we cannot be sure of
the existence of the world. From a philosophical pov, we are a mind. Decartes also
invents the idea that knowledge is to put the res extensa in your mind (so to knwo a
person is to know their mind). The mind is the place of thought, it's private and it
belongs to the individual. Then there's the world which is social.
All sciences come from this: Knowledge is representation, to know is to represent
the world (res extensa). This representation can change over time and it gets more
and more accurate. The epistemological problem is how to check that your
proposition is true. The world is given, objective and the philosophical and
epistemological problem is how do i represent the world. The culture is there, the
atom is there, the problem is how i represent them. The mind is the place of
thinking.

Audio 2

Audio recording started: 16:38 Wednesday, 13 September 2023

What should we do with this concept of science when we want to understand a

socio-economic-cultural context, a religion, people,…?
From Descartes, The modern concept of science:
i. The myth of a univocal and fixed scientific method
ii. The rigid separation between theory & "data" and theory & observation -
there is nothing natural about it bc the other pov thinks that observation is
determined by theory, ie you see what you know, what you can name. This
is what anthropology is about: you go around to look at another way of
looking at things to understand your own way.
so this separation, standing by itself, looks like it's natural, but it's not. And if
you find a place in which things are different, then a problem arises. We
travel to look for different things. this is what anthropology is about: going
around to put your idea in question and understand it better. Then you can
confirm your idea or you can change it.
=> the world is there and i need to represent it
iii. A perfect formal language, purified by subjective references - you put
yourself in the position to look at the position or at the spirit of an object,
not both
iv. The mystical idea of truth - Europe as the centre of the world, Christianity as
the centre of religion, science as the centre of all possible ways to
understand the world. Both science and religion have the same mystical
approach and objective truth, but also the political power was legitimised by
truth, which was determined by biology.
=> science has to do with truth
[Heidegger] Modern science is based on the idea that the "Object" is real and
external to the "subject" and is determined by the law of physical casualty.
Whereas, the subject is not an individual but an ideal pole of a set of rational
functions, an abstract and impersonal "I". The scientist with no subjectivity, no
history, no gender,…
=> The idea of neutrality of science and of the scientist. The question in anthro is:
how do you become and understand a native? Is it possible to become a neutral
being? In the modern idea of science, this is the scientist and the idea of objectivity
is based on this. Truth is an abstract and timeless thought that is removed from the
conditions of its production, ie its social and cultural roots.
From this pov, anthropology becomes one of the expressions of this timeless
thought. Anthropology was anthropology of the "other", not of us. Anthropology is
one part of this modernity, looking at the other cultures. Being the eye that cannot
see itself, science is the way to look at the other and, like the eye, it doesn't
question its way of working. So, Anthropology subtracts itself from analysis, it
questions the rest, not itself.
The relation between the particular and the general is solved in a generalization,
homogenisation and destruction of particularity. How do you go from the particular
to the general? Modern science is a mechanism to erase the particular in
favour/inside of the general (ex: all men/women/workers/Italians are identical).
The aim of research is to discover the reality inside a particular situation and
transcribe it because science is a written product. Many sciences have the problem
to transform the oral into the written. Translation (from oral to written) is often a
problem in science. Is writing a neutral representation of the world a problem?
Mathematics solved this problem apparently by guaranteeing that the
translation/transcription is neutral, not subjective, non-problematic. If there's one
thing that has disappeared from science is observation.
Social facts = real objects found in the world, through direct observation transcribed
in the denotative and referential language of science. Fact (from latin "smth made")
has at its root an activity, but in modern science we use the word as smth that is
given. We don't look at the etymology. [… useless, did not answer the question]
there is not one science based on natural observation (eyes). In anthro, observation
has always been one of the most important elements and it has been raised as
more important than interviews since the interlocutors may deceive you.
We work with a formalized language, ie mathematics, which avoids any relation
between object and subject. If you work with human beings, then it becomes a
problem: how can you go around avoiding the relation with the other person you
are talking to? And then I try to transform one of the most subjective experiences
into an instrument of objective demonstration. Since i am a scientist, i control the
instrument to represent you as if i were you (Descartes) Vs the qualitative thickness
of the relationship between the researcher and his/her objects. (VS subjectivity).
=> neutrality of the researcher
This avoidance of subjectivity does not belong only to the scientist, but also to
interlocutors/objects, which also are a class of individuals, an abstract entity.
Objects (often subjects) belong to a formal class of individuals equivalent and
homogeneous (band, tribe, nations, society, culture). Modern science is based on
this notion of identity (national identity, social, cultural identity,…). Modern science
is based on the act of erasing subjectivity. […ppt] Modern ethnography erased the
subjective gradient/relations of the field encounter. In fact, anthro started using
statistics. The first anthropologists were doing statistics (statistical correlations,
method of statistic documentation by concrete evidence). It produces a timeless,
abstract, almost mystical idea (the average Italian).
Malinowski: “to grasp the native’s point of view” , ie in stereotyped manners of
thinking and feeling VS “what A or B may feel qua individuals, in the accidental
course of their own personal experiences”. He's not interested in the latter, but in
the first.
Radcliffe-Brown interested "only with the general, with kinds, with events which
recur… what we need for scientific purposes is an account of the form of the
structure."

PARADIGMATIC CHANGE (20th-21st century)

This produced a way of working in the field based on the idea that the
anthropologist (bc he is treated as a scientist) is able to erase/to put into brackets
his own subjectivity, of doing epoke (transcendental reduction) and because of this
he is able to understand the other. This "other", however, is the statistical idea of
the other, not a particular individual. They work with the latter, but take from these
what they have in common. This idea of truth as the minimum denominator that
the particulars have in common.

Since the pre-Socratic philosophers, the reduction of the single particularities to one
universal principle (archè) is at the base of our sciences. Archè means principal. This
is our form of rationality, the European, modern one. For example, the law of cause
and effect can be applied to everything and reduce everything to it. Truth lies in the
general, the archè. We apply this method also in explaining language. We have the
idea that the meaning of words belongs to the world since a language is a
representation of the world (first the world, then a linguistic representation).
In the contemporary conception:
- F De Saussurre: the meaning of the word is its use, ie the word mean
because they belong to a language and a proposition. So the words do not
belong to a common ground, but to the very moment in which they are
used. The meaning of the word comes from the relation with the other
words in that specific use, and eventually they relate to reality.
- Wittgenstein: the limit of my language are the limits of my world.
All science is a translation and this act of translation is not natural bc it's 2 different
cultures facing each other. There are many words that cannot be translated. The
translations are an interpretation through our own categories. This is what
anthropology is about. Ex: the concept of tribe and religion are our concepts.
Is radical translation possible or is it always an interpretation and because of this it's
always partial, imperfect, a perspective, limited and contingent? Everything we do,
we do it through language also in anthropology with interviews between different
languages. Then, they do another translation, ie the one from oral to written. The
meaning of the oral, however, is not given only by the words, but also by all the
actions, tone of voice, etc… which are very difficult to transcribe. It's difficult, but
not impossible granted that you provide the explanation as being a partial pov.

According to this paradigm (modern concept of science), the ethnographic activity

was never considered a problem. All the work of anthropologists never really
reported the method they used to gather data, which were abstract (no subjectivity
involved) written in present tense (the tense of truth) and in a monographic form
(ie description of one culture). All the languages of modern science use the present
tense, the third person passive. This is an approach based on neutrality which
comes from Descartes because he put the mind, in his place, together with the
truth since the res extensa (the body) changes. To understand another person is to
understand their mind. To do so we have to become the other person. So as an
anthropology i get rid of my history, language, subjectivity (res extensa) and
become simply a mind knowing another mind, a relation on an abstract level. The
idea of staying in a place for a long time, then my presence will stop be considered
as smth new, but as smth that is part of reality. With this approach of total
integration, I can get rid of my subjectivity, ie epoché. I go to the field as a mind, not
as a body.
Underneath all particularities, we all have smth in common. What we have in
common is the mind. So in the field i dont care about my body and subjectivity, but
I am pure mind. In this sense I can relate to other people that likewise don't have
bodies, age, gender, social and cultural positions, but are pure minds as well. Only
in this way I can start an empathic relation with the other that is a mind just like me.
The idea that our mind is a social product, shaped by language, does not belong to
this paradigm. For freud for example the Oedipus complex is valid all around the
world. The method is one, the mechanism is the same. The same goes for social
evolutionism by Darwin. This is greatest contribution of method, ie gives places
where to put things and to put them in order. This a powerful instrument to
understand the other. Before 19th/20th century, the other was not even
considered a human being. The use of the concept of culture in anthropology was
to grant culture to everyone and all societies even if in the evolutionist approach
the other was like me when i was a little kid.
The idea of the anthropologist becoming the other is a powerful tool and approach,
which helped also to debunk racism.
=> the paradigmatic change (20-21st century) from knowledge as representation to
knowledge as construction.

I am what the doctor says, what my partner says, what children say,… and there are
contradictions inside.
How to make a generalisation that does not erase differences, but one based on
them??