Michal Buchowski

The Rationality of Magic

This paper will concern itself with the following question: ’Is magic rational?’. But before attempting to answer this particular question a very brief review of the anthropological literature on this subject is in order. In this review we will cover some of the already established ideas and theories concerning the question at hand and further a greater understanding of the propositions presented in this paper.’ I

Review Essays : Multiple Orderings of Tambiah's Thought

Commentaire sur « Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality » (1990) de S.J.Tambiah

Review Essays : Enchanted Scholar or Sober Man?: On Ernest Gellner's Rationalism

Ernest Gellner does not need a long introduction. Philosopher, anthropologist, sociologist, one of the most renowned savants of our time, he is a kind of contemporary Renaissance man For several decades he has both inspired and stirred academic circles with his unconventional ideas. Recently, Gellner wrote two books addressing some of the topics from among his wide-ranging interests: Reason and Culture: The Historic Role of Rationality and Rationalism (hereafter RC), and Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (hereafter PRR). Each in a different way, the books are concerned with the debate between rationalism and relativism, the story of rationalism in modern European society, and the transformation from religious to scientific modes of thought and world views. All these issues are old hat in Gellner’s studies, but the question of postmodernism is novel. On the one hand, Gellner comments on the trend of postmodernism as it relates to the social sciences and humanities, particularly in anthropology. On the other hand, however, he treats it merely as a contemporary mutation of relativism. For all who are acquainted with Gellner’s writings it can look as if there is nihili novi sub sole in both books discussed. In a sense, this is a correct impression. This kind of d6jh vu is caused partly by recurring themes in Gellner’s lifelong work. But the main reason for this impression lies, I think, in the fact that Gellner has been extremely consistent in his philosophical stand throughout his academic career. His opponents will

Bourdieu for Anthropologists

Adam Kuper, writing on the history of British social anthropology, says that “its theories traditionally came from France” (1983:168). Durkheim inspired British structural-functionalists, while Lévi-Strauss gave impetus to the British symbolic anthropology of Turner, Leach, and Douglas. This image of France as a rich source of ideas for the social sciences can at least to some degree be extended to other disciplines. In philosophy, Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard are among the writers most frequently cited, and it is hard to find a theory in the social sciences and humanities today which does not refer to such French savants as Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, and Pierre Bourdieu. All this activity has produced a multitude of ideas, and it is not easy to follow and comprehend them thoroughly. At the same time, understanding them is essential for fruitful communication in the international community of scholars. Swartz’s Culture and Power aims to familiarize us with the complicated and sometimes contradictory thought of one of the most influential of these writers, Pierre Bourdieu. Culture and Power is an ambitious attempt to systematize and synthesize the various strands of Bourdieu’s thought. The task is challenging and the result convincing. Swartz cites 85 items published by Bourdieu himself and 25 co-authored by him with other scholars. In addition, he competently uses various comments on and critiques of Bourdieu’s work (e.g., those offered by Craig Calhoun, Alain Caille, Paul DiMaggio) in English and French. The range of issues addressed is necessarily broad, but Swartz concentrates on several focal points, taking the relation between culture and power as the main thread of the encounter. This relation can be traced in the various aspects of social life covered by Bourdieu’s concepts of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capitals and their “economy,” habitus and the theory of action, and fields. It may be expressed in the constitution of social classes struggling for power, in education that reproduces inequality, and even in the field of intellec-