No, I agree, when we look at primitive societies we are projecting our own forms of understanding upon theirs. Where we find "structures" we are, in a way, smothering their own discouses under ours. However, I think that our way of studying their beliefs is far more advanced than taking their beliefs at face value - as some post-structuralists do.
As to the deployment of metaphors - as I pointed out, you can't lift a metaphor from one structure to another without losing its meaning.
^^^^^ CB: Well, in Levi-Strauss's sense, structures _are_ metaphors. Levi-Strauss's signification is " a is to be as c is to d". or a:b::c:d.
So, in a mythical island society, male:female::seaside:islandside would be a structue of analogies that can be traced through lots of aspects of the whole culture.
>
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: Here you mean natural science, no ? Social science operates
> qualitatively ,as in linguistics or cultural anthropology.
>
> The thing about a jurisprudential law _is_ that it's rigid. That's the
> metaphor
>
Yes, I do mean natural science - and I maintain that although some similarities exist between it and law, they are completely different modes of discourse; completely different methods of reasoning.
^^^^^ CB: I definitely disagree with you here.. No, law's process is materialist or scientific in deciding cases. Evidence or facts and legal theories are fundamental in deciding truths about a social situtation. I'm pretty sure historically that the law had these scientific fundamentals first ,and Western science used them analogously, applied to nature, rather than human society.
^^^^
Incidentally, I don't think that jurisprudential law is actually as rigid as it would like to think that it is - its a discipline which is, unlike, for example, mathematics, handed down through writings and teachings. While these appear fixed, insofar as they are written on a piece of paper, their interpretation depends on the time-period in which they are read - a sentence which appears to mean one thing today may have meant something rather different in Aquinas' time...
^^^^^^^ CB: I'm not talking about being fixed since Aquinas' time. I'm talking about rigidity within a given case. The judge or juries decision is , to coin a phrase, law (smile). Over time,. there _is_ some evolution of the law and out right changes in say US Constitutional Amendments (for example, slavery is not illegal in the US ; used to be legal) . The law is an enormous collection of rules, and they are treated as quite definite, although there is definitely debate on what the rule(s) are in a given situation and how they apply to the specfic facts.
As I said before:
^^^^
> CB: True , but when the ruling or verdict comes, the argument is over
> and the wiggle room is decided one way or the other. The judge or
> jury's decision is _law_, almost as hard and fast as the second _law_
> of thermodynamics. Of course, natural science has disagreements and
> "paradigm shifts" that even revolutionize or qualitatively change some
> sciences fundamentally. Einstein fundamentally changes Newtonian
> physics.
>
> Lets put it this way. When I went from anthropology to law , I noticed
> that the law postures as if it has more definite answers to most of
> its questions than anthropology does. Law presents itself as "harder"
> than soft social sciences.
>
> ^^^^
>
>
I don't think the law "postures" at all.
^^^^^ CB: How about "perform" ? (smile) Believe me, the law postures a lot. Lawyers, judges , law professors talk (discourse) as if there are very definite meanings and rules. But as you point out, there is more flexibility than as "advertised".
^^^^^^^
The nature of the Law is that it gets the final say. This is not the nature of science. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "rigid" at all. Here, I'll give a better definition now:
^^^^^^^ CB: When a natural is considered valid , such as the second law of thermodynamics, the natural scientists treat it as impossible to deviate from it. That's real rigid and very much the "final say". Natural scientists posture as if
"Science puts forward theories which it then proves through experiments. The Law does not - it proves itself tautologically, as it were.
^^^^^^^ CB: This is wrong. In a legal case, the theory is proved materially with evidence. The proofs are not at all tautological. There are definitions of crimes or civil causes of action, yes. That doesn't make the proof tautological.
The law works through, ta ta, "trial and error". So, does science. Science clearly gets its "trial and error" , or experimentation ethic from the law. Clearly, "trial" is a legal category.
^^^^^^^
This is why I called it more "primitive" than science. Science seeks truth, the Law IS truth. Again, this is not "posturing" - without Law there would be no truth. It is only with Law that truth appears".
^^^^^ CB: You are talking about a different aspect of the law. The laws are treated as not so much "true" as rules that must be followed. The truth and false determination comes in in trials. Surely, that's clear, no ? There is a determination as to the truth or falsity of the guilt or culpability of the defendant. There is also a determination as to whether witnesses are telling the truth.
^^^^^^^^
> ^^^^^^^
> CB:
> Of course, in _Les Pensees Sauvage_ , it is Levi-Strauss who is famous
> for claiming that pre-literate societies have science or at least
> pre-scientific thinking in. He shows their botany and zoology.
> Science is "primitive" , too, savage, even, according to Levi-Strauss.
> Primitive societies have to be materialist or scientific and
> understand many objective truths in order to survive.
>
> What you refer to as "law" I call "custom" or "tradition" or
> "culture". I define law as state enforced custom. The pre-state
> societies didn't have law because they didn't have states.
>
>
I think you'll find that the Law is prior to the State.
^^^^^^ CB: Well, this is me, the anthropologist lawyer, looking at how anthro and law treat the law, and _defining_ law as state enforced custom. I'm a creative theorist in this field of study , myself. I developed this definition in 1982 when I was taking a class in anthropology of law. (smile).
^^^^^^^
It is also not enforced by the State - the State rests upon the foundation of the Law. The State is governed by the Law, not vice versa (barring exceptional circumstances).
^^^^^ CB: I'd say law is rules enforced by the state. All the laws on the books are not self-enforcing. Violations are punished by the courts and police, i.e. the state repressive apparatus.
^^^^^^^^
As I said, there is no truth without Law. Just as there is no State without Law. In fact you could push this quite far: there is no human communication proper without Law; Law mediates social relstionships, without Law these would simply dissolve.
>
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: How is Marx's value theory an unconscious deployment of physics
> metaphors ? Wouldn't it be physics that took the "metaphor" of "work"
> from human society and used it in the society of physical bodies.
>
You're quite right, the labour theory of value came before energetics. However, it was in trying to mimic physical, quantitative theory that Marx put forward his theory of value. The problem, as everyone knows is that it doesn't work. It aspired to measure value through labour-inputs and it failed. Of course this is naturally going to be the case because that's not how value forms.
^^^^^^^ CB: Actually, it does work (smile)
But how do you think value forms?
^^^^^^^
Its succesor (marginal theory) doesn't seem to work properly either. The mistake that every economist made in this regard was to assume a measurable quantity where no measureably quantity exists.
^^^^^^ CB: Do you have a theory with a concept of value that is not measurable ?
^^^^^
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: I don't see quantification of value based on hours of labor in
> making a commodity as farcical or physics.
>
>
Above - but I would say: read More Heat than Light, it goes into far
more detail than I do here.
^^^^ CB: Give me a brief outline of the main arguments.
^^^^
>
> ^^^^^^^^^
> CB: It's a can of worms we must open if we are to have a science of
> history. I would say that in this passage, Engels is saying human
> individuals have free will at one level unlike physical bodies.. or on
> this one the famous quote from Marx is "Men make their own history ,
> but not just as they please " or some such.
>
> ^^^^^^^
>
Ahhh... the famous quote that flattens the rest of Marx's epistemology. If men are so free then how do you suppose that you can measure this "will" - be it desire or labour. If this "will" was in fact measurable, it would quite simply cease to be free...
^^^^^ CB: Isn't all epistemology flat ? (smile) Who wants to measure "will" ?
^^^^^
>
>
> ^^^^^^^
> CB; I guess I'm not familiar with Mirowski, and you are not familiar
> with Engels (smile). He is definitely not a theist. He articulates
> more precisely than just about anybody what defines the atheist
> "impulse".
>
> I think you are miss reading this passage , too. He's not saying that
> natural scientists are not conscious agents. He is saying that the
> physical bodies that are the subject of natural science are not
> conscious agents.
>
> Also, of course, the laws of physics and biology , etc. , do operate
> independently of man , i.e. objectively. They existed before the human
> species originated. The Solar System followed the laws of gravity etc.
> before humans existed. Marxists, especially Engels, agree with you
> that the laws are not divine
>
> Marx claims that the basis of all irreligious criticism is that man
> makes religion ; religion doesn't make man. For example, the Ten
> Commandments came from humans and were projected onto "God".
>
>
Saying one thing and doing another - like a good bourgeois! Marx and
Engels, along with their peers, still believed that somewhere there
existed "absolute laws" or "absolute knowledge", independent of human
consciousness. This may not be theism as such, but it has all the
characteristics of it.
^^^^^ CB: Well, Engels discusses a dialectic between absolute and relative truth. In that he denies the existence of _absolute_ laws of nature. He pretty definitely does not think there is "absolute knowledge" independent of human consciousness or in human consciousness; definitely doesn't believe there is an omnipotent God. Marx and Engels stuff pretty much has none of the characteristics of theism. What are you reading in Marx and Engels ?
^^^^^^^
Your reasoning has this characteristic too. The laws of physics did not exist before man (he wrote them)
^^^^^ CB: The laws of physics are based on the idea that the laws exist independently of human beings; and that they existed before the human species
^^^^^^^
and they do not exist independent from him - the theory of relativity shows that all theory must take place within finite space and time i.e. subjectively.
^^^^^^^ CB: Would you elaborate ?