LESSON 3

Wednesday, 20 September 2023 14:51

Audio 1

Audio recording started: 14:51 Wednesday, 20 September 2023

WE ARE LOOKING at a discipline based on cross-cultural comparison and travelling. So it has inside the element of relativism, ie a
non-ethnocentric outlook, an outlook that does not believe your way of thinking is universal, but is relative to your own culture. We
chose 2 ain element to define the anthropological perspective: the method and a specific object, ie the scientific concept of object.
We started talking about the method. Independently of all the possible methods u can use, smth that defines anthropology is
fieldwork, ie to go in a place and stay for a long time. From this position u can use ≠ methods such as statistics, interviews,
participant observation,… or a method based on interpretation.
The duality of modern concept of science and post-modern concept of science in the real methodological approach in anthropology
produced ≠ methods. So you have epistemology, theory of knowledge, modern concept of science, theory and method. If you don't
have a theory, you don't know how to organize and explain the material you have. You cannot use all the material you found in the
field. The mature searcher knows how and what to select quickly.
Theory is the way we think at the world and we learn it. In the last analysis, theory is language: you need to have the words to give a
shape to the world. In any case science is not based on naive empirical knowledge. Any science, even those based on objectivity,
doesn't think that objectivity is at the disposal of everyone, but only of the scientist because he has a theory and a method. Even if
you think that science is a perfect, true, objective description of the world, This description of the world in not simply naive
empiricism, ie whaùt sense perception tells me. The modern concept of science, ie that knowledge is representation (= i go
through differences that are at the disposal of anybody which is not the reality of the scientist, which is instead somewhere deeper,
the archè). Modern concept of science is based on going beyond the particular to the one, the basic principle (archè) even in
language; smth that is common to every single element. So the particular subjectivity is exactly what has been cancelled/erased by
the method. The scientific method is founded on the elimination of the subject both of the scientist and the interlocutor. This is not
wrong, it's just a software that shapes the world in a certain way: looking for general things. You are looking for similarities and not
differences and go beyond them: you look not only for they have in common but the rel nature of the event/thing, what Kant called
noumenon. This is why statistics are used with mathematic being perfect. You can use participant observation. Pretending to be one
of them, I can go beyond the subject to reach neutrality, the neutrality of the scientist: i am not a body, i am pure rationality and
work with other subjects that are pure rationality, neutral. There is a double process:
- to take out culture, which at the time was the culture of the high classes, of the literates. They used the the word custom
instead of culture, which gives the idea of smth you put on. Therefore, you take out customs from your interlocutor to get to
know their real, deep self.
- But to do so you have to get rid also of your customs so as to be neutral and be able to be one of them.
=> MODERN SCIENCE = knowledge as representation, language[??]

A PARADIGMATIC CHANGE
Paradigm: the model of science. In socio-economic-politic terms but also in scientific-epistemological terms, the world changed in
the XX century.
After WWII, Europe stopped being the centre of the world and the headquarters of economics and politcs as well as knowledge
moved to USA. A general rethinking of the colonial relations, neocolonialism, imperialism and a general rethinking of what
anthropology is took place. Decolonization played an important role in changing the connotation of anthropology: from the
knowledge of the primitive to the knowledge of the third world.
The colonial world should be interpreted as the developing world since colonialism thought of itself as a great civilization force that
brought the true religion, politics, economics family, democracy,… its the only possible way. The process of decolonization started in Colonialism is a political word: colonies were politically
the 70s. Colonialism is the product of liberal Europe and democracies and decolonization started questioning the dominion of dominated.
Europe all over the world. Decolonization started questioning what is anthropology, which had been working for colonialism helping Neocolonialism is an economic colonization.
to avoid the collateral effect of colonization project, helping to rule and implement the sedentarisation process, to give names to
tribes,… The idea of one culture, one language, one religion is romantic which emerged only in the 19th century and we
implemented such idea to Africa. The anthropologist thought they were doing the best they could to develop (or better "civilise"
was used at the time) people.
=> decolonization questioned anthropology: if anthro is the discipline studying primitive societies, since there are no longer any
primitive societies, anthropology is no longer needed. Does anthropology have a future if primitive societies are disappearing?
Anthropology colluded, is involved in very violent civilisation processes, imperialist movements and projects, as well as wars.
Collusions of the discipline with the colonial governments and with Western expansionism. Anthropology was defined as child of
imperialism or applied colonialism. It was not very liked by people also because it was a sign of your primitiveness and presence of
you past, unlike sociology which is better-viewed as a sign of industrialized society.

Clifford Geertz put together the change in the global economic, political and social systems with the change in epistemology and the
concept of science. His anthropology is famous for having introduced the "interpretive turn". Interpretation is by itself already a
radical change: to say "i interpret smth as" means already a new thing.
Hermeneutics = science of interpretation. The father of hermeneutics is Nietzsche. Anything is always form including us. We are
always "for (someone)", phenomena. But the real me, in itself, who knows it? In Kantian terms, we can only know phenomena (our
different forms we present to ≠ people) and not the noumenon (the real self). [For Freud, he knew what was the real me: Oedipus
complex, the relation between libidinal and aggressive impulses.]
=> interpretation underlines this Kantian view. For example, whether you believe or not to God, he does not talk to us.
What does it mean to do research not with representation, but with interpretation? Which kind of object you produce with the
software of representation and what world do you produce through interpretation?
Clifford Geertz is rethinking the foundation of anthro and the social sciences with 2 main conceptual tools: contemporary science
and hermeneutics. You change the theory/software/language, you change the product. Interrelation between political and
theoretical aspects of anthropology VS modern concept of science, ie mimetic appropriation of the empirical and rational principles
17th-century astronomy and physics
To do research you need to create problems.
Think about the world that is given back to us by contemporary science: a complex world (unlike Newton's world in which
everything made sense and could be explained). An uncertain and complex image of a world of non-absolute and non-localized
objects.
[…]
The complexity and infinity of our galaxies (Elementary particles that collide, transform into one another and decompose. quasars,
pulsars, the explosion or the splitting of the galaxies, stars collapsing into blacks holes that eat up everything that falls into their
trap) Vs simple Euclidean extended bodies, well circumscribed by a metric space clearly defined in speed and location. In a europe
of absolute monarchy in which everything was clear (where the power was and how it was attributed, ie through god intervention
or biology), the science produced by those absolute monarchies was an absolute world: Newtonian simple facts, paradigm
causation (there's one cause for one effect), self-evident categories of mechanics (mass, force, motion - the combination of these
explains everything).
- Causation
- Cause and effect
- Mass, force and motion
This is all is needed to explain everything according to newtonian science. Contemporary science doesn't have neutrality of method,
of observation and representation, immediate objects. Every object of subatomic physics is produced by a relation, ie an
interpretation of reality. An object of physics is built in contingent relations with the measuring instrument, of a relation and
relativity. When you make an interview, the other is the product of the relation with you. Without anthropologists there wouldn't
be primitive people.
The micro-objects of subatomic physics (protons, neutrons, electrons,…) are artificial products that result from formal procedures of
framing and modelising.

Objects of all sciences are nomological objects, ie objects given by the nómos (the law). It is the law that defines which behaviours
are to be considered criminal, which might change from country to country. So, what is there of universal in the concept of
criminality?
The other, the person u are working with, is given by you and your language.
=> contemporary sciences (change, instability, relativism) vs classical sciences (permanence, fixity, truth)

Audio 2

Audio recording started: 16:35 Wednesday, 20 September 2023

RECAP?
Research method is a thinking activity. It depends on your position. If you use the modern concept of science as software then you
produce a certain methodology with which we produce specific objects (the objects of science such as neutrons, …). You develop a
theory to organize concepts. Language is an organizer of your thoughts and your objects. Contemporary science is another
software.
- Knowledge as representation: there is a reality out there that is given and the epistemological problem is how do i represent
reality in objective terms. So, i use a perfect language, ie mathematics, no subjectivity. the method is statistics.
Don't put yourself in the historicist position, ie thinking that what came after is better. Not true. Statistics is not wrong if
done well, it gives you an outlook on the world that produces general ideas. But if your aim is to know a specific object then
the general gives you an idea but then you need to go deeper. The average "italian" is powerful simply because it does not
exist, ie it's an abstraction and a creation of science that makes sense.
- Knowledge as construction (contemporary science): the world is not given, but you make it. The world you live in is given by
your language, your culture (which are things given to you by society, you didn't invent them). You always have in mind the
problem of verification.
=> The limits of my language are the limits of my world
The world of contemporary sciences has nothing to do with eucledes, newton. It's not the world of common sense. The language of
the doctor is not one of common sense. If you talk to an architect, the language of the architect is not the common one, but one
that contains new words that do not exist in the language of the doctor, for example.
Scientific objects are observable only in the interaction with a radiation that creates the possibilities of being observed. The atoms
are the product of a technique. Science is a phenomenon technique, ie a technique for the production fo phenomena. So when you
talk to the interlocutor, you create them, ie you create your image/conception of him which is different to what other people might
think of him (your bf for you vs. your bf for his mom). The world is always the one from my pov. What the world is for itself is
unknown, the world is always "for".
Heisenberg, principle of indeterminism: the object is given by interactions with the measuring instrument. What the microscope
produces is reality "for the microscope" or true reality? That is the question that distinguishes the 2 outlooks:
- Modern science says yes - knowledge is smth that also through technique goes deeper and deeper to get the truth.
- Post modern science says knowledge is an outlook that changes, is contingent and what is valid today will change in the
future.
We produce a direct relation with the way you work in the field. You don't use statistics because we are interested in the particular.
It is not possible to measure simultaneously the position and speed of a particle. Or to conduct experiments regardless of the
specific conditions of the experimental observability. What is reality independently of my language? Of the conditions of my
experiment? For us, when you work, the object (which is also the subject) that you face depends on you position.
=> the objects you interact with are a product of your view. As a scientist you have to control the instruments you use and know
when to use which one. Heisenberg: "what we observe is not nature itself (because it doesn't exist), but nature exposed to our
methods of investigation". For the moment, what we know is what our language allows us to know.
Modern Science as cumulative progress: you will get better and better until you reach truth. Nowadays instead we got rid of the
truth and have only povs. We are only a speck of dust in the infinite galaxies which we don't know anything about. Anthropology is
about making sense of a world that doesn't.
contemporary science is no longer neutral.
By asking, for example, "what is the italian family?" you are forcing the interlocutor to generalise. Bad question. Modern concept of
science erases subjectivity both of the interlocutor and the scientist because whether the interviewer or the interviewed are men or
women for example would affect their pov. This is, instead, what is criticised about Post-modern science since it's all about
subjectivity and everything is relative. its about having ≠ theories and povs which open new worlds of knowledge (to each their
own). The more theories you have, the more worlds you have and the more worlds open up. So, it's not about using only one
method, but as many as you can. Relativity of an observer placed not only in the physical world but also in the social and cultural
world. The scientist thus is not a neutral being and he's not only in the physical world, but also int he social and cultural world, he
has also emotions, which create ≠ possibilities of ways of seeing the world as they change our capacity to think.

Theory assumes the function of the Kantian schema: a model that presents/constructs the data (vorstellung in kantian and
wittgenstein words: put in front). Complex questions cannot be said in simple terms. In simple terms you say simple thing otherwise
you loose the complexity. VS Theory as imaginative or figurative representation of the object (Darstellung). The function of the
theoretical model is poietic (ancient Greek poieîn - to make), ie we don't copy reality, it displays possible configurations of events.
Theory is the instrument to create reality as the word produces the content and the form is not the stupid (≈irrational) custom of
the content.
We are used to think that reality is given. Ding means given, substantial data, immediately found "out there" and endowed with
properties independently of the knowing subject. Our language manifests a way of thinking of the world because the "sub" in
"substantive" (noun) refers to "substance", which is what is underneath reality and is independent from it (Spinoza). For Locke,
there are primary and secondary qualities, there is a reality universal, objective and there are substance (primary qualities) and
accidents (attributes). "Substantive" refers to that which is common to everything, the real reality. We have this "original sin": to
think that there is smth "sub", underneath.
the level of the constitution of the cultural phenomenon is the level of meaning and value, the forms of cultural life of man are
symbolic forms that constitute worlds.
Semantic horizon: The language creates different objects and this difference can be seen with different languages. “Our verbal
experience of the world is prior to everything that is recognized and addressed as existing”, i.e. the world coincides with the totality
of all possible meanings
Cognitive activity is a formative process that shapes phenomena. Anthropological works are constructions, inventions. (VS objective
analysis of social phenomena independently of the theoretical perspectives of the subject.) Anthropologists ask questions about
things that people usually don't think about. Only if an alternative is presented, then you think about your opinion/pov. Ex: people
don't think about what a family is unless it is put into question and an alternative is presented (anthro's job). Anthros ask strange
questions bc people are usually not interested in the things they are and therefore people don't see the answer. They don't know.
Ex: "what is your identity?" people don't know how to answer or don't want to. In some situations of conflict, to say what is the
identity can be dangerous.
«anthropological writings [...] are, thus, fictions» i.e. «they are ‘something made’, ‘something fashioned’ – the original meaning of
fictio – not that they are false, unfactual”. At the end when u write an anthropology book, you find what the author wrote out of his
selection about what the people wanted to tell them according to what they wanted to tell and what they know. So, it's an
interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation… But all of this is conducted from the anthropologist's pov because the way
you ask questions produces different answers.
To see is an experience full of theory: you don't see what you don't know, what you don't have the language to name. If you don't
have a name, you don't have a word, you don't see it.
- Eskimos have 7 words for snow >> you learn to see 7 types of snow.
- “the Hopi see the natural world as composed of events rather than objects [...]
- the Eskimo experience time as cycles rather than serial [...]
- the Azande conceive the causal chains in mechanical terms, but explain their intersection in moral ones”

Morality as an explanation for sickness is common: HIV, Azande pov,…

=> if science results from an interaction between subject and object that produces the conditions of the systema and constantly
modifies them (Heisenberg), then fieldwork is fundamentally relational. The type of relation you establish in the field produces the
[??].
The identity is for the most part given, each person gives one to the others. This identity produced a type of language and
established a relation that did not allow certain types of questions and allowed only others. The authority you attribute to the other
person determines how you relate to them. To attribute identity to people is one of the greatest manifestations of power. Power, at
≠ levels, has efficiency in producing shared identities. I have an identity and it allows me to say certain things and not to say others,
certain types of questions. An institutional role (ex professor) gives you an identity that allows you to ask and say certain things, but
such identity can change and be lost. Identity is a construction, a word. We deconstruct the idea that identity produces identical
beings, but for some people this is extremely real. So identity is given and you can react to it. Authority authorizes the type of
discourses you can make in the field, the type of reality you create. Usually the work of the anthropologist is to deconstruct the
constructions of other people.

(Anthropology is all about making sense of a world that doesn't have one.)